Women's Role in the African American Church - Research Paper Example

Introduction The African American church grew out of the religious expression of Africans who had come to America during the countrys early history.These Africans came both as free people and as slaves. As slavery became firmly established in the American colonies the Africans continued to express their religion from their own countries, but they were forced to suppress it after their lives became controlled by the slave masters. However the Africans continued expressing their own religions and their own gods until slave and plantation life began to shut them off from their African origins. One can imagine there were religious gatherings of Africans at this time. There is evidence that when slaves were given Sundays off in New Orleans they would go to a place called Congo Square and with drums and dance, continue the religious celebrations they had in Africa. Black women held a status that was at the bottom of the wheel throughout American history. They were never given official recognition by the Church as preachers. Their lives were brutal were they continuously fell victim to rape and sexual exploitation from white males. Yet the early history of the African American church demonstrates how some black women received the ‘call’ to preach and how they showed an inner strength that persevered and accounted for the survival of many women and children. There were always free African Americans. Some of them had bought their freedom. These slaves learned to read and write. The free slaves were surrounded by different expressions of the white American culture. The whites were primarily Christians and they practiced their Christianity through various religions such as the Puritans, the Quakers, the Methodist, the Catholics, Episcopalians, and the Mennonites, among others. All these religions were based on one source, the bible. Slaves and free blacks begin to realize that by reading and learning the Bible, they could become Christians too and participate as Christians in the American economy. This is what some of them did. Some of the slaves read the Bible and argued that they had become converted to Christianity by getting baptized. White leaders begin to realize that if black people read the Bible, they would probably question white peoples conduct of slavery on moral grounds and begin to threaten the entire institution of slavery. The white people soon past laws that not only disallowed black slaves to become Christian converts, but to make sure that black people could not escape their status as slaves. But white slaveowners also used the Bible to preach to slaves that it was right that they show obedience to their masters. During the 1770s, the Great Awakening occurred among white Christians. This was an evangelist movement where the white preachers, some of them like George Whitefield becoming famous, preached to large groups of people, exciting them with flashy oratory and songs and moving great numbers of people to convert and become Christians. Among those black people who could read, they interpreted several important themes from the Bible. Freedom became a real concept to them and these blacks began comparing themselves to the Israelites whose God eventually led them from Egyptian captivity. The Bible also served as a reading instrument for some of the slaves who were determined to learn to read. African Americans were well aware of Christianity as a religion and as slaves many of them begin to fuse some of their own religious symbols in Christianity. Blacks begin to have their own spiritual meetings in secret on the plantations and these were actually seedlings of the first black churches. Christian religion allowed them to see contradictions between the way they were treated and the way Christians professed to be. Early Churches A few plantation owners built churches for the slaves and had white preachers preach to them about obeying and being meek before the master. Masters who trusted their slaves allowed them to read and study the bible. Georgle Lieles master allowed him to be baptized and then to become a preacher (Burton, 153). Liele became the first ordained black preacher in George. He preached to slaves in meetings at plantations, his words and sermons checked closely by the slaveowners to make sure the wrong messages did not come out. Liele ordained David George, a slave on George Galphins plantation, located near Savannah, Georgia. George established the first black Baptist church in America on Galpins Plantation, right before the Revolutionary War in 1774. It was called The Silver Bluff Church, officially established at Silver Bluff, South Carolina (Brooks, 190). Galphin left his plantation, but George continued with the congregation, first escaping to the protection of the British, then moving them to Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1782. The Silver Bluff Church continued for a few years after the Revolutionary War and later was absorbed by the First African Baptist Church, located in Savannah, Georgia. Churches Built on Personality Most African American history on churches recognized the efforts of Richard Allen and Absalom Jones as the primary examples of early African American churches. Allen and Jones knew each other and worked together. That would later create major churches in Philadelphia, home of the non-slavery Quakers. Both men worked individually hard to buy their own freedom while at the same time polishing their crafts as lay preachers to black congregations that were first part of white congregations. Allen preached to black congregations for the Methodist Church after the Revolutionary War. The Methodist Church was an outgrowth of the English Anglican church whos founder, John Wesley, preached equality for men and women. Both Allen and Jones wound up at St. Georges Methodist church, increasing its black congregation. Experiencing racism they later split the congregation to first form the Free African Society, a mutual aid society that was nondenominational. Allen later led his contingent to split from the Society. After both men showed heroic efforts in helping the city through the 1773 great yellow fever scourge, Jones would see his church, St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, recognized in 1794. In 1802 Jones was ordained as a priest by the Episcopal Diocese. Richard Allen founded the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794 and sought to keep it from the influence of whites. Allen’s church congregation experienced burgeoning growth and he was ordained a minister in 1799. His church received recognition as an independent congregation in 1816. That same year Allen presided over a convention recognizing the first independent black denomination in America, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Black delegates from Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania elected Allen as the congregations first bishop. The A.M.E. soon lorded over a recognized community of schools and service buildings for the African American community. Early African American Women Evangelists Thompson (1993) identifies three kinds of leadership among African Americans in the African Diaspora during the last half of the 19th century. He describes the physical force leader, the moral suasionist leader and the activist type (p. 47). During the early history of America, African American women had a challenging time trying to be either type. Early slave autobiographies showed how they were often victims of sexual exploitation, raped and whipped by white men at their whim. Yet there were some women who stood out because they somehow heard the word of their God and it made them strong. The lives of Jarena Cox Lee, Zilpha Elaw, Julia Foote, and (Isabella Baumfree) Sojourner Truth showed the powerful influence of the early African American church and black women. Jarena Lee was born free in New Jersey in 1783. Her parents, however, hired her out to work as servant when she was a girl. She became a member of Allens Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and was much influenced by Allens style. Lee wanted very much to preach but was not allowed to by Allen. The A.M.E. was heavily dominated by a patriarchal leadership and did not allow women to preach. This characteristic would stay with the African American church movement for most of its history. Lee married a minister and accepted John Wesleys doctrine of sanctification. John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist religion. His doctrine was based on sanctifying, or purifying, the soul of sin, then one could accept the inner voice of Christ. Lee experienced tragedy when most of her family died and she was left alone to raise two girls. She took up that responsibility and later returned to Philadelphia and asked Richard Allen if she could offer her house as a prayer meeting place. He agreed and Lee began her career of itinerant preaching, preaching throughout the northern states and Canada and attracting noticeable attention with her strong oratorical style. Lee became known for converting many people including slave owners. She had several copies of her book published in 1836, Religious Experience of Jarena Lee, A Coloured Lady. It was one of the first black women autobiographies in America. Zilpha Elaw was also born free in 1790 in the Philadelphia area. Her mother died in childbirth and Elaw was mainly raised by working for a pious Quaker family. She became attracted to the proselytizing Methodists and after experiencing visions of Jesus Christ, she became converted as a Methodist in 1808. Elaw was influenced by the revival meetings where believers expressed community while singing and working together. She married and moved to New Jersey giving birth to one child. Elaw had a trance-like experience at one of the camp meetings in 1817 and began publicly speaking for the Lord. Others were able to feel that she had been divinely ‘touched’. She attracted white and black people to her sermons. After her husband died Elaw placed her daughter with a family to learn dressmaking, and began a career as an itinerant evangelistic minister on her own calling. Elaw experienced much success preaching throughout the states and in 1840 she took a trip abroad to London. There she preached and also published her book in 1846, Memoirs of the Life, Religious Experience, Ministerial Travels and Labours of Mrs. Zilpha Elaw, An American female of Colour. The book showed a well traveled woman who had conquered many personal physical illnesses to continue a strong spiritual life of evangelical preaching. Jarena Lee and Zilpha Elaw demonstrate the strength and power of African American women, and women in general, to overcome society rules to find and express a positive spiritual that was however officially outside the church. Yet they attracted a following and perhaps had a larger influence than they would have had in the church. They themselves were influenced by experiences within the Methodist church. These women were, like many others, activist type of leaders who didnt need an organization behind them. All they needed was a faith to be in that enforced their own beliefs of moral rightness. Julia Foote lived a long life as an evangelist, 1823-1900, passing through the Civil War and the publishing of her book, A Brand Plucked from the Fire in 1879. Like Lee and Elaw, Foote was born free, in Schenectady, New York, but also went into an early life of service work, working for a white family in New York. Her mother had been a slave and her father had been free but had the experience of being kidnapped as a slave. Her father worked hard to purchase the freedom of his family. Foote was born in 1823 and New York state abolished slavery in 1827. As a young girl, Foote experienced an altercation with the white family she worked for. The woman accused her of stealing food and even though Foote denied it, the woman severely whipped her. Foote was able to experience what her mother had went through as a slave and was determined to preach against slavery. Foote was also attracted to the Methodist church and after receiving sanctification she felt the need to preach. Her husband was a sailor and he was against her preaching. But Foote was determined and became an influential evangelist during the period before the Civil War. She started by holding prayer meetings going house to house. The A.M.E. later excommunicated her, but she continued with her preaching and was able to gain attention in the northern states, along the eastern seaboard and Canada. During the War Foote experienced trouble with her throat but regained strength after the War was over. Foote was part of the religious Awakening movement that took over the Midwest immediately after the war. She had a huge crowd of 5,000 attending her sermon at a meeting in 1878 in Ohio. Foote was ordained a deacon in 1894, the first woman, in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree some time during the 1790s and became a national symbol of freedom of equality. Sojourners speeches and influence have today made her a reveled figure of the feminists. She was born a slave in New York to a large family of brothers and sisters some of whom she would meet up again later in life. She was sold several times as a slave. Remembering the different prices at which she was made for as chattel, she wrote that she would never forget the whipping she received from the Nealys of Ulster County, New York. She had five children as a slave. Emancipated by the New York legislature, she was able to get her son back through her dogged persistence in the courts. Isabella demonstrated a strong, determined, and unique character in life as she struck out in New York on her own, leaving two daughters with the last family she worked with to work out the wages that they owed. The city was booming with new black organizations and life. She joined Methodist church congregations until she found the one she that she was satisfied with. Later she joined the first of two Methodist communes that would play a part in her life. Isabella changed her name to Sojourner Truth after experiencing a call from God to do his work in 1843. She also published the Narrative of Sojourner Truth that same year. Supported by such famous abolitionists as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, and most of all with a steely will, she gained recognition by touring the country speaking against slavery and for the rights of women. She is known for a famous speech she delivered in 1851 at the Womens Convention in Akron, Ohio, called "Aint I a Woman?" This speech still rings today as the testimony of a black woman who had overcome many trials and tribulations and who expressed the need for equal rights and that women should demand them. She continued her life has a travelling preacher and during the Civil War engaged in a lot of effort to function the troops with supplies. Sojourner went to the White House in 1864 and met President Abraham Lincoln. These African American women were determined to do their religious work more or less without the formal recognition of the church. However, they managed to accomplish a lot and left a lot of influence with the tradition of the African American Church. African American Church During Reconstruction The black Baptist church grew into a protective island during the Reconstruction period that took away all the gains that African Americans had made. This period of disenfranchisement, during the 1880s and 1890s, was characterized by race violence and the rise of lynchings that terrorized black people throughout the country. Over 2,500 lynchings were recorded between 1884 and 1900 (Higginbotham, 4). This was the period when the black church became a nation within a nation" (Higginbotham, 5). The National Baptist Convention was created in 1895 and became a major platform for the African American population. It had over two million members in 1906 and ranked third after the Roman Catholic and Methodist Episcopal bodies as the largest religious body in the United States. There were close to three million members by 1916 (Higginbotham, 6 The organization was patriarchal giving most positions of power to the men. The women formed The Womans Convention part of it in 1900. This group held mainly women of the black elite, there were school administrators, businesswomen, journalists, activists and reformers. They promoted values of respectability and sought to influence temperance, thrift, industriousness, and good manners and behavior among the lower classes. One result was that they reflected the conservative nature of the church toward the culture of the lower classes. Conclusion The Bible is a complex book that has been interpreted in many ways over the centuries. A history of women in the Bible and in the African American church would in the words of one writer connect spirituality and religiosity probably in ways demonstrated by the women covered in this essay. These women took it upon themselves to view Christian spirituality as an extension of the cross of Christ; vertically through a recognition of Gods love, justice, and mystery and a surrender to Gods sovereignty; and horizontally, through an extension of Gods kingdom through compassion, sacrifice and service in the world (Musgrave, 2002). References Andrews, W.J. (Ed.). (1986). Sisters of the spirit: Three black womens autobiographies of the nineteenth century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Brooks, W.H. (1922). The priority of the Silver Bluff Church and its promoters. Journal of Negro History, 7(2), 172-196. Burton, O.V. (1985). In my fathers house are many mansions. Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press. Carpenter, D.C. (1990). Black women in religious institutions: A Historical summary from slavery to the 1960s. Journal of Religious Thought, 46(2), 7-27. Carpenter, D.C. (2001). A time for honor: A portrait of African American clergywomen. Chalice Press. Franklin, J.H., and Higginbotham, E.B. (2010). From slavery to freedom. New York: McGraw-Hill. Davidson, P. (1993). Jarena Lee (1783-18??). Legacy, 10(2), 135-141. Haskins, J. and Bensen, K. (2008). Black stars: African-American religious leaders. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Higginbotham, E.B. (1993). Righteous discontent: the womens movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Howard, J.A. (2006). Julia A. J. Foote (1823-1901). Legacy, 23(1), 86-91 Musgrave, C.F., Allen, C.E., Allen,G.J. (2002). Spirituality and health for women of color. American Journal of Public Health, 92(4), 557-560. Thompson, V.B. (1993). Leadership in the African Diaspora in the Americas prior to 1860. Journal of Black Studies, 24(10), 42-76. Read More