Philadelphia’s black community of the nineteenth century was not so segregated from the white community as the ghettos of the twentieth century would become. It was not a modern ghetto, defined by racial segregation, intense overcrowding, and minimal economic opportunities.¹ In 1912, according to Richard R. Wright, Jr., the distribution of the African American population was still “very regular.” Parts of the city, like the eastern part of the Eighth Ward, were often described as “Negro sections,” but black people were still in the minority in these areas (see Map 1). Even the Seventh Ward, which housed the largest number...

During the “Great Migration” all aspects of African American churches¹ were undergoing change, from their forms of worship to their commitment to charitable programs. Nevertheless, the churches endeayored to retain their position at the center of community life by increasing their evangelism and providing social services both to attract new members and to retain old ones.

Prior to 1890, the black community was located largely around the southern section of the city.² Within this community, churches were the center for social life and discourse, and they provided valuable services for their congregations. The churches answered both the spiritual and the...

From its foundation at the end of the eighteenth century, African Methodist theology had evidenced two apparently contradictory strands: conservative Methodist forms of worship and a liberal, sometimes radical, political philosophy. The former strand, which grew out of Richard AlIen’s commitment to Methodism in the face of Absalom Jones’s defection to the Protestant Episcopal denomination, was solidified after the Civil War in the writings and leadership of Bishop Daniel Payne, who in many respects followed the direction of white Methodist theologians.¹ The latter strand also developed early in the denomination’s history; it began with support for abolitionism and Radical Reconstruction,...

African Methodist minister–editors, men like Levi J. Coppin, Hightower T. Kealing, Reverdy C. Ransom, and Richard R. Wright, Jr., all adhered to the philosophy of “uplift” that was central to Social Gospel thought. Consequently, their efforts to reach out from their pulpits to the unconverted were not always as fruitful as they hoped. Their theological and sociological assumptions often led, unwittingly, toward exclusion rather than inclusion. Many southern migrants could believe that they were unwelcome in the African Methodist fold, even while the minister–editor was proselytizing them. The problem, of course, was partly that established congregants did not...

To serve and to gain prestige were the two dominant impulses in African Methodist congregations on the eve of the Great Migration. In theory they seem contradictory, representing two different visions of Christianity—the one ascetic, the other associated with individual achievement and racial advancement. In practice, however, the line between them was not always clear; serving the cause of racial “uplift”, for example, could result in increased prestige both inside and outside African American communities. Nevertheless, the distinction should be drawn because of its particular gender and class implications. One of the characteristics that embedded African Methodist churches firmly...

During the first two decades of the twentieth century the pastor’s position in the church began to change. In the 1890s, the pastor had been a successful mediator between opposing groups within the church, depending largely on the commitment of women in his congregation to service and allowing men to control financial and political affairs. His apolitical position within the congregation was maintained partly by itinerancy (the pastor was seldom at one church long enough to build up a political following), partly by the denomination’s emphasis on education, and partly also by the pastor’s wife, who (as discussed in the...

Commentators and historians have written that many of the newcomers to Philadelphia came in search of the Promised Land, and, indeed, the image of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt was continually invoked by black religious leaders and lay people alike. However, the Promised Land meant different things to different newcomers. For migrants with some urban experience in the South, the Promised Land was a land of opportunity where they believed they would receive higher wages and political rights, while their children would benefit from better schooling. Rural migrants also wanted these “perquisites of American society,” to use James...

On Wednesday evening, April 21, 1920, a thousand members of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation sat in their pews impatiently awaiting the arrival of their pastor. The Rev. Robert J. Williams was late on account of another meeting concerning repayment of a loan. As the church members waited, they began to discuss Williams’s shortcomings. Some claimed, according to aPhiladelphia Tribunereporter present, that they had lent him money and had not been repaid; several women, whom Williams had allegedly tried to remove from the church, spoke of his immorality; and a man asked how much the pastor...

The role of northern black churches in the migration of African Americans from the South has been painted in an unfavorable light. Historians have argued that established black churches were unprepared for the influx of newcomers and that migrants felt compelled to create their own congregations because church members did not show enough consideration toward them and in fact betrayed a good deal of hostility. They have also suggested that because religious organizations created by the migrants were small and unstable, they were not equipped to provide their members with the benefits that larger, more stable churches offered. The established...

The nomination in 1991 of Clarence Thomas for U.S. Supreme Court Justice was greeted with, among other things, surprise: surprise that President George Bush was able to find a black conservative to replace retiring (black) liberal Justice Thurgood Marshall; surprise that the nominee would receive support from many black Americans (among whom, African Methodist ministers were visible); and surprise that the African American community is not the monolithic bloc it is often perceived to be. Thomas’s views on social welfare and affirmative action policies upset the routine and glib equation of “black,” (and its ancillary associations of crime, drugs, welfare)...