Читать книгу Black Fundamentalists - Daniel R. Bare - Страница 9

The Journal and Guide’s editorial declaring the race to be “for the most part” fundamentalists was by no means alone in presenting fundamentalism as either widespread within or characteristic of the black community, though the scope of its claim to encompass nearly the whole of “the Afro-American people” was undeniably ambitious, if not somewhat hyperbolic. Still, the pages of black weeklies testify to a sense that fundamentalism was, if perhaps not the predominant view, then at least a noteworthy religious influence among African American Christian bodies. Even as these newspapers published editorial perspectives about fundamentalism that spanned from wholehearted support to vehement vituperation, both sides implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) affirmed that this religious perspective was one that had to be reckoned with inside the black community.

Among those sympathetic toward the movement, some asserted a widespread devotion to Christian fundamentalism within their own particular denominational bodies. For instance, more than a year before the Scopes trial captivated the nation, a 1924 column in Wichita’s Negro Star exhorted that “all loyal members of evangelical churches and especially the Missionary Baptist Church watch close the insinuating forward movement of modernism in its attacks on many of the fundamentals of Christianity and combat such movement whenever detected by a more close adherence to The Church.” In the eyes of this columnist, theological modernism was no mere distant threat, nor was it a problem circumscribed to white churches, but rather it represented an “insinuating” adversary to all loyal gospel-loving churches—a looming, steadily advancing peril whose assaults on the Christian fundamentals not only required Christians to maintain a watchful eye and a vigilant mind, but also demanded an active and combative rebuke. Missionary Baptist Churches were singled out as particularly concerned with “the fundamentals of Christianity” and “the Old Time methods of repentance, regeneration, and absolute compliance to the every command of The Christ.”9 It is worth noting that the fundamentalism in view here, identified by the editorialist as the proper remedy to modernist encroachments, consisted of both theological propositions and personal conduct; the method given to combat modernism was a close personal adherence to the church and its traditional “Old Time” teachings—a category that would presumably include such doctrines as divine creation, the divinity of Christ, and biblical inspiration, which often came under fire from modernist theologians. Even the language that the editorialist employed—warning of the “insinuating forward movement” of the modernist perspective in Christian circles—offered not only an approving nod toward fundamentalism as representing traditional Christian fidelity, but also a recognition of this fundamentalist-modernist conflict as a profoundly significant issue on which black churches and denominations had to take a stand.

In similar fashion, several years later the Atlanta Daily World reported on Bishop Noah W. Williams’s identification of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination as fundamentalist in its outlook and traditions.10 Williams was serving in South Carolina as the presiding bishop of the AME’s Seventh Episcopal District, and in this capacity he displayed a concern for black educational institutions both through his involvement with Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, and, as reported in the Atlanta Daily World, through his desire to establish a new AME divinity school in this region.11 As he lobbied for the creation of a new school, Williams argued that rigorous denominationally specific theological education was necessary because the AME’s “principles, traditions, organization and fundamentalism” placed it squarely in the position “to do as much for the cause of the Master as any Christian organization in America, whether that organization be composed of white or colored people.”12 So for Williams, who himself wrote publicly in the national press about his affirmations of biblical inspiration and the literal return of Christ, the fundamentalism that he perceived to characterize the AME denomination was foundational in its positioning as a highly influential exponent of the cause of Christianity.13 While the AME Church never explicitly identified itself as fundamentalist, and while there was certainly a wide variety of ministerial perspectives within the denomination, we can see in the doctrinal statements of various AME publications such as the A.M.E. Shield and The Doctrines and Disciplines why Williams might make such an identification on strictly theological grounds. These publications expressly affirmed numerous essential doctrinal elements of the fundamentalist worldview that constituted central battleground issues in the fundamentalist-modernist conflict, including divine creationism, biblical inspiration, the deity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, and propitiation.14 Interestingly, in Williams’s statement the typical brand of cultural militancy so often identified with fundamentalism seems to have been absent, as the denominational approach in view was directed toward internal educational improvements and a “more uniform” ministerial teaching.

Claims about widespread fundamentalist proclivities within the black community emerged in the pages of black weeklies not only from sympathetic voices, but also from vehement opponents of the movement. Among the most notable and interesting in this regard was popular labor organizer and cultural commentator Ernest Rice McKinney. Though he was the grandson of a West Virginia Baptist minister—his grandfather, Lewis Rice, reportedly even baptized Booker T. Washington—McKinney nonetheless retained a sense of skepticism toward religion in general, and a particularly overt hostility toward the brand of theologically conservative fundamentalist Christianity that he observed in the black community.15 In a scathing 1925 article that cast Christian fundamentalism as “an obstacle to civilization to climb over and batter down,” McKinney lamented that “the Negro race is filled to overflowing with these ‘Fundamentalist’ gentlemen. They are everywhere and in everything. They keep us poor, ignorant, and weak.”16 Revisiting the subject in his newspaper column just months later, McKinney excoriated fundamentalists as backward-gazing “imbeciles” for their rigid commitment to biblical inerrancy and their “persecution of . . . Dr. Fosdick and Prof. Scopes.” His rhetorical bite went so far as to imply that the numerous blacks who embraced the fundamentalist perspective were not really fully or authentically part of the race at all; they were “white southerners with Negro mothers [and] Negroes with white fathers.”17 Aside from the startling depiction of black fundamentalists as enemies of “the Negro race”—a topic that will warrant further discussion later—McKinney’s characterization of the race as “filled to overflowing” with fundamentalists is a striking image in its own right. Such a characterization seems to echo, albeit from a polar opposite viewpoint, the Norfolk editorialist’s grandiose claim that “Our Group Are Fundamentalists in Religion.”

Such a sense of extensive theological fundamentalism within the black community, even if perhaps exaggerated at times for dramatic effect, was nevertheless borne out by the presence of individual black churches and individual black leaders, both clerical and otherwise, who were identified in the black press by the express use of the term “fundamentalist” or “fundamentalism.” Walker’s Tabernacle Baptist Church in Atlanta publicly embraced such an identity. The public announcement of their cornerstone-laying celebration in late 1932 unabashedly publicized that the principal address at this defining ceremony “will emphasize the importance of Fundamentalism in the church.”18 Significantly, the ceremony celebrating the laying of this church building’s literal foundation included exposition highlighting the similarly foundational role of fundamentalist convictions in the church at large, thereby indicating the gravity and import of the topic for the clergy and laymen of Walker’s Tabernacle Baptist. It is difficult not to see here a symbolic association of fundamentalism with the very bedrock of the church’s foundation; just as the brick-and-mortar church building could not stand apart from its architectural foundation, so the church as a spiritual entity could not stand apart from the affirmation of the essential truths of fundamentalism.

Major leaders in the wider African American community likewise identified themselves in this manner. In one of the more intriguing self-identifications in this vein, AME pastor William David Miller termed himself a “progressive Fundamentalist” in an interview reported by the Topeka Plaindealer, though unfortunately he offered no further explication of that tantalizing phrase aside from his conviction of the centrality of evangelism for the church.19 But regardless of what Miller might have intended the qualifying adjective “progressive” to signify, his forthright use of “fundamentalist” bespoke an apparent willingness to identify with the theologically conservative tradition widely connoted by that terminology during this era of turbulent religious conflict. Miller’s career through the 1930s, pieced together through various publications, suggests that this particular fundamentalist, at least, possessed a high degree of charisma and influence. Arriving in 1908 at Wesley Chapel AME Church in Houston, Miller helped the church take on “new strength and growth,” swelling membership to more than 800 during his six-year tenure.20 In each of four assignments after Wesley Chapel, Miller was able to either oversee the completion of church buildings or substantially pay down the church’s debt while also increasing congregational giving, apparently through increased attendance. His arrival at Oklahoma City’s Avery Chapel AME Church in 1929 presaged rapid growth: in his eleven years at the church, Miller was able to rebuild and expand the church building, establish an old folks’ home, and increase membership from 364 to 1,545—all in the midst of the Great Depression. He also held the distinction of being the only black clergyman in the state whose sermons were broadcast over the radio.21 Clearly Miller must have exhibited significant personal charisma and magnetism in order to achieve such success in so many venues, but his avowed position as a “progressive Fundamentalist” also indicates that a great many people in the black communities in Houston, Waco, Los Angeles, and Oklahoma City were ready and willing to lend their ears (and their money) to a man overtly claiming to preach some brand of fundamentalist Christianity.

Some members of the black press found their thoughts turning to the topic of fundamentalism even apart from the exclusively ecclesiastical realm. A correspondent for the Pittsburgh Courier found this to be the case as he covered a graduation event at Howard University in June of 1928. He reported that the school’s president, Dr. Mordecai Johnson, proudly “proclaimed his beliefs in fundamentalism” to Howard’s graduating class, warning them that “religion . . . is the only thing that can give morale” and, in the reporter’s words, commending “‘the old-time religion’ as a cure for broken morale and a panacea for present day evils.”22 The interpretive spin injected by the reporter is in this instance perhaps more revealing than the speech itself. It is unclear whether Dr. Johnson himself used the term “fundamentalism” to describe his beliefs or whether this constituted an editorial addition from the reporter; considering Johnson’s educational pedigree, his connection to social gospel theologian Walter Rauschenbusch, and Harlem minister Adam Clayton Powell’s characterization of Johnson as a “modern . . . and emphatically not fundamentalist” minister, in addition to the lack of explicitly quoted material in this portion of the article, the much more likely explanation is that this was an editorial insertion.23 What is clear, however, is that while Johnson in all likelihood failed to use the term himself, the Courier’s reporter found the idea of “fundamentalism” sufficiently pressing on his own mind that he apparently erroneously associated Dr. Johnson’s appeals to religion’s utility and immediate moral significance with the fundamentalism that Ernest Rice McKinney had previously decried as “everywhere and in everything.” The influence of this religious perspective, it seems, was felt beyond the pews and the pulpit.

Among the ranks of self-proclaimed black fundamentalists, few were more widely recognized and regularly heard in their day than the Henry Brothers, a nationally renowned traveling revivalist troupe. The ensemble was prominent in the early to mid-1930s, headed by the family patriarch, J. I. Henry, who was accompanied by his sons, J. L. Henry, O. D. Henry, N. G. Henry, and W. W. Henry.24 Best known in the print media for employing a showman’s flair to “put over their fundamentalism,” the Henrys attracted both enormous crowds and nearly constant controversy wherever they spoke.25 Capacity crowds of around 1,600 people turned out for their revival services in Norfolk in September 1933, and even when numbers were not precisely reported, phrases such as “packing them in” and “filled to capacity” often peppered the newspaper accounts of the Henry Brothers’ revival stops. Even in death the Henrys drew massive crowds, as thousands reportedly came to pay their respects at the sudden and unexpected passing of O. D. Henry from “acute indigestion” in July 1935 following a series of revival services in Roanoke, Virginia. Such was the brothers’ fame that in 1933 a Baptist pastor resolved to draw a crowd to his church on Sunday by falsely advertising that one of the Henrys would be speaking.26 On another occasion, the brothers’ notoriety put them in physical danger, as they needed a police escort in Washington, DC, after being repeatedly threatened by a group of armed men who were unhappy that “You g–d–preachers think you run this town”; the same men tried to assault the brothers outside their revival meeting the following night, sparking a near riot in which the church members chased away the would-be assailants.27 The Henry Brothers’ popularity and renown also elicited criticism from certain ministers and members of the black press. They were painted by detractors as “religious exploiters” and “racketeers” due to their revival style, which was characterized by a great deal of ecstasy and emotion, the regular utilization of music to periodically build and ebb emotional fervor throughout the services, the collection of a “sacrificial dime” offering, regular congregational shouting, and occasional fainting spells.28

Figure 1.1. A photograph of the Henry Brothers from a September 1933 edition of the Afro-American, reporting on the brothers’ revival services in Norfolk. Used with permission from the AFRO American Newspapers.

Beyond the particulars of their revival ministry, the family achieved a sort of celebrity status because controversial elements of their personal lives—occasionally ignominious and sometimes downright strange—regularly invaded the headlines of major black newspapers, earning them the moniker “the Headline Henrys.”29 The evangelists received a cold reception from the ministers in Boston, for instance. They were “treated as racketeers” because their lifestyle was perceived to entail “too much commercialism, unclean living, drinking, and immoral conduct.” This perception among the Boston ministers was undoubtedly reinforced by the fact that the brothers traveled about in their own “custom built Peerless limousine.” Owning such a luxury car served as a noteworthy status symbol among certain commercially successful black celebrity preachers of the 1920s and 1930s, a way of authenticating their celebrity ministry and reinforcing their social standing in the community; yet for their critics among the Boston clergy, the luxury vehicle represented a level of materialism unbefitting of the ministry.30 This particular controversy remained firmly ensconced on the mundane end of the spectrum for the Henrys, however. On one occasion, Nathaniel G. Henry fell mysteriously and violently ill, leading him to accuse a local female schoolteacher of feeding him a poisoned sandwich.31 At other times, W. W. Henry added his own series of personal indiscretions to the headlines: shortly after leaving the troupe in 1934 to accept the pastorate of Holy Trinity Baptist Church, he was arrested (and eventually found guilty) for drunkenness and destruction of property; a matter of months thereafter he was accused (and ultimately convicted) of impregnating a fifteen-year-old girl; the following year he was found to have fathered a child with an eighteen-year-old white girl—an incident that caused some of his congregants to padlock the church door in an attempt to prevent him from returning to preach, and subsequently prompted the formal revocation of his pastoral position at Holy Trinity.32 As a group of traveling fundamentalist preachers, this family evidently attained a high level of celebrity and notoriety, as they garnered both approbation and opprobrium from the media.

Interestingly enough, the content of the Henrys’ “fundamentalist” preaching was never laid out in the newspaper articles covering their revival meetings. Even as the brothers outright declared that “all of us are fundamentalists,” the theological particulars of their message were routinely ignored in favor of discussion about their style and methods of working a crowd.33 Yet it was widely understood that the Henry Brothers self-identified as fundamentalists, and they were repeatedly presented as such in the black weekly newspapers. The Afro-American, for instance, expressly labeled the Henrys as “Baptist Fundamentalists.”34 And as professed fundamentalists, these revival preachers received raucous welcomes and capacity crowds nearly everywhere they appeared. That type of reception for a group of itinerant revivalists demonstrates that, at the very least, large segments of the black population were open to hearing a purportedly fundamentalist message. This fact, combined with the black weeklies’ testimony to the substantial fundamentalist sympathies within many black churches and denominational structures, suggests that Ernest Rice McKinney may not have been too far off after all when he opined that the black community was “overflowing” with fundamentalists.