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Baptists
Protestant religious denomination with a large black membership and deep roots in the African American community.The origins of the black Baptist movement are rooted in the intellectual and moral incongruity of the late colonial period. The Enlightenment ideals of liberty, justice, freedom, and equality that fueled the colonial passion for independence in the 1770s stood in stark contrast to the commodification of African bodies. Only a few early Americans felt that reason demanded the emancipation of enslaved Africans; most were willing to compromise and settle for the liberation of African souls from the bondage of sin. It is during the 1770s that we find the earliest extant evidence of black inclusion in the Baptist fold.Black Baptists in the Eighteenth Century
The nature of the institution of slavery in New England did not require the intensive labor found in the Southern plantation economy. As a result, the number of blacks residing in New England communities remained relatively low throughout the eighteenth century. Since the minute African presence did not pose much of a psychological and social threat, the earliest black participants in the Baptist movement were members in mixed-race (albeit segregated) congregations. By 1772 the First Baptist churches of Boston, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island listed Africans among their members. Initially, the same held true in the South. The larger African presence in the South, however, challenged white slaveholders to either tacitly commit to the idea of racially mixed worship or support the development of a separate institutional structure for blacks. They chose the latter.
Vermont Avenue, Washington DC Following the Civil War, African American churches began to appear all across the country. The Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, seen in this image from 1899, was founded by freemen and women in 1866 and is still in existence today.
Library of Congress
Library of Congress
Black Baptists in the Nineteenth Century
Black Baptists continued to organize congregations and associations of their own throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. Like their white counterparts, African American Baptists basically grouped themselves into two types of organizations: single-purpose entities (societies) and multipurpose entities (conventions/denominations). Whether societal or conventional, most black Baptist organizations prior to the Civil War were regionally based. A primary aim for the development of single-purpose organizations was the evangelization of Africa. Like other African American Protestant movements, black Baptists felt a unique obligation to bring the “good news” to the African continent. In fact, some attempted to rationalize the enslavement of Africans as part of God's plan of redemption for the Dark Continent. Regardless of their motivation, black Baptists played a significant role in the African American story of African missions. Institutional efforts to missionize Africa began in 1815 with the organization of the African Baptist Missionary Society (ABMS). Located at Richmond, Virginia the ABMS formally supported Virginia native Lott Carey when he set sail for Liberia in 1821.The creation of multipurpose organizations beyond the local level began in 1840, when black Baptists in the Northeastern states organized the American Baptist Missionary Convention (ABMC) at Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York. Under the leadership of Abyssinian's pastor, Sampson White, the organization took a strong stand against slavery, refusing to join in fellowship with any Baptists who owned slaves. The group's membership was open to all antislavery Baptists, but it maintained a mostly regional base throughout its existence.About twenty years later, in 1864, another regional convention was organized by black Baptists. The Northwestern and Southern Baptist Convention (NWSBC) took place in St. Louis and was the reconstitution of the Western Colored Baptist Convention. The latter group convened regularly from 1853 to 1859, but the outbreak of the Civil War interrupted its work between 1859 and 1864. The NWSBC's membership comprised churches from Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee. It also shared the antislavery and missionary interests of the ABMC, electing former missionary William P. Newman as its president.Postwar Developments
After the Civil War, black Baptists entered the mission field at home with the same zeal that they had previously expressed for foreign missions. While both the ABMC and the NWSBC recognized the opportunities that the war provided, they also saw the need for a more united effort. NWSBC president William Newman envisioned an all-black organization that would transcend regional barriers. Unfortunately, his death just weeks before the union commission convened prevented him from witnessing the moment he had longed for. Nonetheless, the two groups met in Richmond in late August 1867 and formed the Consolidated American Baptist Missionary Convention (CABMC).The CABMC became the organization responsible for both home and foreign missions among freedpeople for the next decade and a half. Although it was realistically a loose conglomeration of regional entities, the group sought to represent black Baptist interests on a national level. After measures had been instituted to make the organizations more efficient and fiscally responsible, however, regional rifts began to resurface. No one seemed to want a strong denominational apparatus for fear that local control and interest would have to give way to the national will. By 1879 the CABMC's effort to become “a Church with the soul of a nation” had collapsed, and at its meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, the convention voted to disband.Most national Baptists date their organizational history from 1880, the year in which the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention (BFMC) was founded. Despite the word “convention” in its name, it was organized along the societal model, with foreign missions as its only institutional function. A full-fledged attempt at forming an organization on the convention model began in 1886 with the founding of the American National Baptist Convention (ANBC). The other major organization founded by black Baptists before the ANBC was the National Baptist Educational Convention (NBEC), established in 1892. This organization grew out of the education committee of the ANBC, and its charge was to establish a national Baptist university for the development of an educated black Baptist clergy.These three groups—the BFMC, ANBC, and NBEC—often held their annual meetings in the same city so that those who held membership in more than one organization could attend meetings without increasing the financial burden. In 1895 the three groups met in Atlanta, Georgia, and merged into the National Baptist Convention (NBC).Schisms Among Black Baptists
While the creation of the NBC may be seen as the first full-fledged denominational enterprise among black Baptists, it was by no means the last. In 1897 the convention experienced its first schism. Black Baptists from state conventions along the East Coast complained about three things: the relocation of the headquarters of the Foreign Mission Board (FMB) from Richmond to Louisville, Kentucky; the financial structure of the FMB; and the weak presentation of Sunday school material by the National Baptist Publishing Board (NBPB). These Baptists, particularly those in Virginia, had a rather high stake in foreign missions, and they did not want to see the seat of power moved so far away. They perceived this as an attempt to pull the work out of their hands, which they greatly resented. Moreover, they thought the relocation of the FMB to Southern soil, as well as the establishment of an independent publishing house, was a sign of ingratitude for all that Northern Baptists (white) had done for blacks. These “cooperationists,” as they were called, pulled away from the NBC and formed the single-purpose Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention.Another break in the organization occurred in 1915. A discussion of the possible incorporation of the NBC led to a fight among several black Baptist factions. Some opposed incorporating the NBC on theological grounds. They felt that incorporation of the national body was inconsistent with the New Testament understanding of church. Furthermore, they found it to be inconsistent with their understanding of Baptist polity. The national office, they argued, had no business to conduct between sessions; its business was carried out by the boards. On the other hand, advocates of incorporation argued that if the denomination was going to own property (a national university), then it needed to be able to legally represent the interests of black Baptists. Advocates of incorporation also wanted to exert greater control over the affiliated boards, which were acting more like independent entities than like instrumentalities of the convention.The NBPB was becoming a major problem for the convention. It had incorporated in 1898 under the laws of Tennessee as a private business venture, not as an NBC instrumentality. In 1902 the National Baptist Educational Board incorporated in Washington, D.C., and the Benefit Board followed suit in 1913. What was at stake was the war between a convention model and a societal model. Black Baptists were caught in between, with a convention structure (similar to that of the Southern Baptists) that functioned as a confederation of societies (similar in scope to the Northern Baptist societies). When R. H. Boyd became convinced that incorporation of the NBC was an attempt to claim his property (the NBPB), he led an exodus of black Baptists away from the convention in 1915, under the guise of opposition to incorporation. The result was the National Baptist Convention of America, Unincorporated, and the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Incorporated.Another major division in the black Baptist family took place in 1960, when a group of ministers challenged NBC president Joseph H. Jackson to use the organization as a vehicle for change in the Civil Rights Movement. Gardner C. Taylor, pastor of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York, ran against Jackson. He was supported by Martin Luther King, Jr., and other Baptist clergymen involved in King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Taylor and the Progressives, as they were called, were defeated and in September 1961 formed the Progressive National Baptist Convention.More recently, the NBC weathered a controversy over misuse of funds by Dr. Henry Lyons, who had been elected president of the NBC in 1994. In 1997, investigators found that Lyons and several other NBC employees used money donated to the NBC Builder Fund to purchase luxury automobiles, club memberships, and even a deposit on a $925,000 estate in Charlotte, North Carolina. In February 1999 Lyons was sentenced to prison for fraud and racketeering. Despite the conviction, some influential NBC members supported Lyons and urged him to remain as president. Others, however, condemned his actions and called for his resignation. In the face of this split in the membership, Lyons resigned the NBC presidency the following month. In September 1999 Reverend William Shaw of Philadelphia was elected to replace Lyons as president.See also Christianity: Missionaries in Africa.Sign up to recieve email alerts from African American Studies Center
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