The Historical Functions of the Black Church in the U.S.

The macabre church, particularly in its Protestant manifestation, was the most visible institution driving affectionate and semipolitical, as well as religious, leadership during the civil rights effort of the fifties and sixties. Such mainstream political leaders in the front line as Dr. King, Jesse Jackson, and John Lewis (now a U.S. Representative) had the credentials of ordained ministers, not political scientists, when they assumed their leadership roles. And while it might be argued that much(prenominal)(prenominal) organizations as the Nation of Islam (NOI) are more complaisant, economic, and political than religious in character, at least in the American experience, it is nevertheless the case that they had a religious frame of reference. Indeed, the step-up of membership in the NOI since the 1960s speaks to the influence of the organization as a social and cultural vehicle of the African American community in ship canal strikingly similar to that of the coloured Christian churches throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

To answer the issues regarding the purposes and ways in which the fateful church has exercised influence on the black American culture is to point to the significance and need for this study. No less significant is the degree to which and manner in which such influence has changed in recent years. Accordingly, it is in an elaboration and soul of the established and shifting functions of the black church that one whitethorn discern patterns of sociological significance. Once such patterns

Walls, C.T. (1992, Summer). The role of church and family support in the lives of old(a) African Americans. Generations, 16, pp. 3336.

The distinction between entitlement and fairness appears to be played out in part in the black churches. Particularly in regard to the difference between views such as Steele's and those of Farrakhan, who promotes the idea of reparations and black power, can be seen the potentiality dilemma confronting a black church that claims legitimacy for its social critique as its raison d'etre, a point to which we shall return. Today's black leaders, whether unconsecrated or religious, differ with those of Dr.

King's era, not in the overarching strategy of actualize social and economic equality with the mainstream, but in the play employed to achieve ends, and in slightly measure in the philosophy driving those goals. For example, whereas Jesse Jackson marched with Dr. King in the streets during the 1960s with a view toward achieving social change, in the 1980s he ran for president with the same object in view. In the 1950s and 1960s, blacks had recourse to the federal courts to redress grievances but hardly to the general assembly or to executive offices, which they could not help elect. Today, black federal judges are a fact of life, and many blacks have got elective office at federal, state, and local government levels. To throw away it another way, the agenda of the social critique led by the black church in earlier decades has in some measure been enacted.

Louis Farrakhan first came to national prominence in the middle-1980s, as spokesman on a wide range of issues for NOI. atomic number 53 feature of his message was that of economic empowerment for black Americans (Monroe, 1987). He received praise from prominent black leaders, including black clergymen, in the first place in regard to his advocacy of black economic power.

For example, he shared with Malcolm the fierce desire that the black American take back his racial pride, his joy in himself and his race . . . He
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