The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song (2021–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript

I Believe, I Believe
I will go back home. ♪

♪ Well, I Believe, I Believe
I will go back home. ♪

♪ I Believe, I Believe
I will go back home and be ♪

My mother's family
has worshiped in this

church for generations.

The lessons I learned here,
the power of faith,

the importance of community
have remained with me and

sustained me in the same way
the black church has sustained

the African American
people from the days of

slavery to this day.

The black
church was more than just



a spiritual home.

It was the epicenter
of black life.

Out of it came our
black businesses,

our black educational
institutions.

The church gave
people a sense of value and

of belonging and of worthiness.

I don't know how we
could have survived as a

people without it.

We had to have some
individual and institutional

armor in order to
preserve our sanity.

Culture says you're inferior!

The Christ says
you are an equal.

From hush harbors
to suburban mega churches,

it's been a sanctuary
in which black people could



reinterpret the bible
in their own image and

praise god in their own voices,

creating some of
the most sublime music

the world has ever heard.

Just as soon as I see Jesus ♪

Oh yeah

The man who made me free. ♪♪

The role of
music in the black church

is so important.

It sets the tone for
how you will feel when the

word comes forth.

It's such a
distinct flavor of music,

distinct from the
traditional western hymns.

It's its own thing.

It's a very black
American thing.

Like all human institutions,

the black church and its
leaders have their shortcomings.

We were very
quick to address racism,

but very slow to address
sexism and abuse.

Today we stand at a crossroads.

What will be the future
of the black church?

Where's the
African-American church in

Black Lives Matter?

Where's the
African-American church with

environmental justice movements?

I think that the church,

particularly when the focus
has been three-fold prophetic

social justice, holiness,

and spiritual
empowerment of worship,

when those three things
are held together the church

has been a powerful
force against sin.

The sin of racism.

The sin of oppression.

I've spent my
career exploring stories

about black life,

but there's one I've never told,

and it might be the most
important one of all.

It's the remarkable history
of the black church.

Jesus walk with me. ♪

Some brothers
came carrying a paralyzed man

on a mat and tried to
take him in the house to

lay him before Jesus,

and they couldn't get
in the house because all the

religious folk were
blocking the entrance.

So they decided to make
their own entrance,

and that is what
I love about this text.

This thing is so beautiful.

Look at this.
Everybody is in the house.

They want to hear Jesus,
but they don't necessarily

want to practice what
Jesus is teaching.

And here you have some brothers.

They try to get in the house,

but you had all these
people that had positions.

Never confuse
position with power.

Yes!

Pharaoh had a position,

but Moses had the power.

Herod had a position,
but John had the power!

The cross had a position,
but Jesus had the power!

Lincoln had a position,
but Douglass had the power!

Woodrow Wilson had a position,

but Ida B. Wells had the power!

George Wallace had a position,

but Rosa Parks had the power!

Lyndon Baines Johnson
had a position,

but Martin Luther King
had the power!

We have...

Power!

We have the power!

Don't you ever forget
how much power...

Never been
to Houston oh boy but. ♪

But I've been told.

Never been
to Houston oh boy but. ♪

But I'm told. ♪

The black church
has been the seminal force

in shaping the history of
the African American people.

It's the root, out of which,

so many of the most
celebrated aspects of

black culture would branch.

It's the first institution
that enslaved black people and

their freed descendants created,

and it would become
the longest lasting,

and without a doubt,
the most consequential.

- Oh, dat religion.
- So sweet. ♪

- Hey Lord.
- So sweet. ♪

- I shout dat religion.
- So sweet. ♪

- I sing dat religion.
- So sweet. ♪

- It makes me happy.
- So sweet. ♪

Early one morning. ♪

African Americans
adopted Christianity,

but I also think they
adapted Christianity.

They made it their own.

They created it so that
it could provide for them

something that was nurturing,

something that
provided catharsis,

something that provided hope.

- I sing dat religion.
- So sweet. ♪

- I shout dat religion.
- So sweet. ♪♪

Wherever African
peoples find themselves

in the diaspora,

they're bringing
with them ways of knowing,

frames of reference,

cognitive schemes
tomake sense of the world.

- It makes me happy.
- So sweet. ♪

- Early one morning.
- So sweet. ♪♪

It's a mistake tothink
that enslaved Africans

came toNorth America tabula rasa.

That is to say, thatthey came with nothing.

That is not the case.

That they came bearing a
rich cultural heritage,

and this cultural
world got filtered

through black churches.

So sweet. ♪

- I love dat religion.
- So sweet. ♪♪

We often think
of religious identity

as an either/or.

You're either a member
of this religious group,

or you're a member of that.

Religious practice in
West and West Central Africa

was much more open.

There was a wide and broad
network of rituals that people

could participate in, and
people would move in and out

of those religious zones.

The roots of the
black church run deep in

the African continent.

The human beings ensnared
in the nightmare of the

Trans-Atlantic slave
trade practiced a wide

variety of religions,

including traditional
ancestral worship,

Islam, and, in the
kingdom of Congo,

a form of Catholicism
that predated Columbus.

Braving the horrors
of the middle passage,

enslaved African's
brought these ways

of believing with them,

along with their beliefs
in the supernatural and

their own protective deities.

Over time, throughout the
Caribbean and Latin America,

Yoruba and Congo-based
religions mixed with

Roman Catholicism to
create new religions.

Vodou in Haiti, Santeria in
Cuba and Candomblé in Brazil.

Here in the United States,
religious practices,

such as Hoodoo, Obeah and
Conjuration reflected their

African religious roots.

While slave owners in the
British colonies were largely

resistant to converting these
African peoples in the first

century of the trade, for fear
it would cause them to press

for their freedom, the goal
of evangelical preachers

became converting as
many souls as possible,

even black souls.

Incredibly, 210,000 Africans
were brought here to the

Carolinas and Georgia,
nearly 50% of them arriving

through the port of Charleston.

Today, off the coast of Georgia,

we can find some of
thedeepest traces of Christianity,

in places like Sapelo island,

home to the
Gullah Geechee people.

But the Muslim
religion's strong roots

persisted as well.

Islam survived in ways that
creolized black Christianity.

During the '20s and '30s,

people descended on Sapelo,
researchers and writers who

were also looking
for the African origins

of black culture.

Right, the missing link, yeah.

The missing link, right.

So, the stories that they told
contributed to a wealth of

knowledge about the
existence of black Muslims

on Georgia's coast.

What happened to
the descendants of the Muslims

who were here?

Are you descendant
from a Muslim?

I am actually,
I mean but most people from

Sapelo are also descendants.

So, the practice of
Islam did not last very long

within the community.

Soon people were
converted to Christianity.

There was a time where
there were people who seem to

remember that there might be
specific traditions that might

be associated with Islam,
burial practices, you know,

where graves are facing...

There's a lot of east to
west orientation that I've seen.

Yeah, yeah.

One of the things that
I think that is the story of

black religion
in America is that, um,

what enslaved people did in
this new context was they

attempted to merge
and, you know,

fuse these different
worlds that they lived in.

Melissa is a
descendant of Bilal Muhammad,

who was brought to the
island in the early 1800s,

one of the many devout
Muslims captured and

enslaved in Senegambia.

A quarter of the ancestors
of African Americans

came from this region.

Bilal testified to his
beliefs in a book of letters,

written in his own hand.

He left a written
record of both his attempts to

reclaim and recall what
he was remembering of

his religious instruction.

Right, and in other words,

he was determined to
preserve his identity,

this aspect of his identity.

Exactly,
exactly so you know this

was Bilal's daughter.

And her sons would become very
instrumental in the creation

of the First African Baptist
Church on the island.

Hmm.

Dark and thorny is the desert ♪

♪ through which
pilgrims make their way. ♪♪

In 1930, Katie Brown,
a former slave and the great

granddaughter of Bilal Muhammad,

recalled her own religious
awakening as a young child.

When I heard
the old people singing,

it made me feel like I
ought to been a Christian.

And I prayed and I prayed

until I got my religion.

♪

I didn't become
born again until I was 15.

I was in church, but I hadn'tmade
the personal connection.

And I knew that the way that
I was living wasn't right.

I was smoking, drinking, and so,

it wasn't until
a friend of mine,

who was the good kid,
got shot and killed.

Something pulled my heart.

And so, I remember getting
on my knees and, uh,

and just having that
conversation about,

I know that my life isn't
the way it should be and

I want to know you
as my personal savior.

Music and dance would
function as a unifying force

of adulation and exaltation,

signifying inheritance
and belonging.

The body remembers.

The body remembers
how to worship.

The body remembers
how to do ritual.

The ring shout is an
African practice that comes

across the ocean and
is practiced by free and

enslaved African-Americans.

The ring shout really
becomes kind of the cornerstone

for understanding thenexus
between African religion

and emerging AfricanAmerican religion.

It's the foundation of
singing, worshipping, praising,

getting filled with the
holy spirit in this circle,

which is a way of
identifying the cycle of music,

the cycle of life.

In Britain's new world colonies,

such as South Carolina,
Anglican missionaries had

attempted to convert the
enslaved with the full message

of Christianity,
but they failed.

Masters were determined to
reinforce the docility and

otherworldliness in order to
perpetuate the slave regime.

There's a troubled
relationship between enslaved

Africans and the
Christian faith.

Slaveholder's weren't quite
certain what the involvement

of enslaved Africans in
Christianity would mean.

It had been a
longstanding tradition in

British common law that
Christians couldn't hold other

Christians in slavery.

At the same time, one of the
key justifications for slavery

was that it took Africans
out of the continent and

introduced them to the
light of Christianity.

- This was built in 1725.
- Right.

Who would have worshiped here?

White slave owners.

When did they start
letting their slaves' worship

with them, do we know?

It took a little
while for white slave owners

to feel comfortable allowing
enslaved and free blacks

into their churches.

Tell me about that debate.

And more specifically about
good old Morgan Godwin?

Morgan Godwin was an
Anglican minister and he came

to Virginia in the 1660s,

and he made a forceful
argument in a pamphlet called,

"The Negro and
Indian's Advocate".

He argued that
slaves were human because

they could read,
they could write,

and that they could laugh.

Yes.

And therefore,
they should be baptized.

But he didn't argue
that therefore they

should be freed?

He wants to convert them.

Yes.

But he doesn't want
conversion to equal freedom.

Yes.

That's exactly right, and
that's the position that most

Protestant missionaries take.

It allows Christianity and
slavery to be compatible.

Missionaries also convinced
slave owners that slave

conversion is not threatening.

They say race is actually
the reason that some people

can be enslaved
and other people cannot.

The concept of whiteness and
white supremacy becomes the

new way to justify enslavement.

The planter class,
they're only willing to accept

proselytizing enslaved people
if they can be assured that

the theology that's given
will be a theology of

submission and docility.

But they're keenly aware
that that same Christianity

could lead them
to resist and to rebel.

As passages of holy
scripture were whispered in

the slave quarters, enslaved
African's learned of a god who

was omnipotent and who would
liberate the oppressed.

Let my people go! ♪

It's this exodus
motif of God siding with

those who are enslaved,
a God who rises up, a Moses,

that with moral courage
and clarity declares,

"Let my people go."

Oppressed so
hard they could not stand. ♪♪

From the earliest
Africans who were converting to

Christianity, they're
gravitating to this message

because they see themselves.

This isn't just
spiritual reality.

This is life for those who
are living in shackles,

living as chattel property.

To let my people go. ♪♪

Missionaries were
determined to recruit new

followers into the
Christian fold,

even if it meant withholding
from the enslaved converts the

promise of earthly freedom.

So Moses went to Egypt land. ♪♪

Anti-literacy laws
ensured that enslaved people

couldn't legally
learn to read or write.

Some defenders of
slavery even withheld key

passages of the bible,

so the enslaved
wouldn't be infected

by their liberating message.

Exodus. Take it out.

This is about slaves
claiming their freedom.

Let my people go. ♪

Let my people go. ♪

The parts of the
New Testament challenging

imperial power and social
hierarchy were ignored.

Forgiveness, obedience and
piety informed the heart of

the master's message
to the enslaved.

Slave holders truly
believed that this would imbue

a spirit of complacency by
encouraging them to follow an

example of Jesus as a
very meek, mild servant.

But it was the
sacrificial suffering of the

carpenter from Nazareth that
would ultimately resonate most

with enslaved black people.

There's something
liberating about the message

of the cross, particularly
about persecution.

Those who are
unjustly persecuted,

those who are forced
to suffer at the hands of

an evil empire.

Those who are enforced to
deal with nails and the whips

of an old, rugged cross.

Just like our enslaved who
are feeling very acutely the

suffering of society can
identify with that Jesus.

They knew there was
something about this Jesus

that was different,

that he was oppressed and
put down like they were, and,

and he got up from the grave.

From the grave he arose. ♪

With a mighty triumph
for his foes. He arose. ♪♪

I love that, too.

Yeah. I mean, you can
feel it, like, he got up.

Yeah you could feel it.
Yeah, he got up.

He just delivered me. ♪♪

Did you join
the church, were you saved?

I, I joined the
church at the age of 7.

That's when I was baptized.

I remember it being
an Easter Sunday,

and I was watching
a little Christian films when

Jesus was crucified.

I started crying.

And my brother and my
sister looked at my mom and

was like what's wrong with her?

And she said don't worry
about it, she's happy baby.

She's happy.

And that's when I feel
like I really got it.

He just delivered me. ♪♪

The good news of
Jesus Christ began spreading

across the plantation.

At the same time, however,
there was resistance,

such as South Carolina's
Negro Act of 1740.

It made it illegal to
teach enslaved to write.

It severely limited their
ability to assemble,

and it even outlawed the
keeping or loud playing of

horns and drums in places
slaves could assemble.

Under very controlled
circumstances were whites

willing to allow blacks
to participate in the

life of the church.

In any gathering of blacks
there had to be a white person

present who could monitor
and see to it that there

are no things being told
ortaught or being instigated.

In some cases, black
people were expected to attend

the same churches that whites
were controlling and to listen

to sermons that were designed
to continue to deny the

humanity of black people
and certainly to argue

for the continued
enslavement of black people.

Despite the
suffocating confines of slavery,

African Americans found
surreptitious ways to create

sacred spaces in which to
worship god in their own

voices and in their own image.

The church
they created was known as

"the invisible institution."

It could be in the cabins of the

enslaved at night.

It could be in the
makeshift structures with

branches and brushes.

It could be down
by the riverside.

There is that song, gonna
lay down my sword and shield,

down by the riverside.

Black people are able
to be among themselves and

with themselves to invent
and create a spiritual world

that would be
sustaining to them,

though it needed
to be kept secret.

Black preachers
couldn't preach to us.

Ol' boss would tie em'
to a tree an whoop em'

if they caught us even praying.

We had a big black wash pot
and the way we prayed we'd go

out an put our mouths to
the ground and pray low and

the sound would go
up under the pot and ol'

boss couldn't hear us.

My Uncle Ben he could
read the bible and he always

tell us some day us be free
and Massa Harry laugh,

haw, haw, haw, and he say,
'hell, no, yous never be free,

yous ain't got
sense enough to make the

livin' if yous was free.'

Then he take the bible
away from uncle ben and say it

put the bad ideas in his head,
but uncle gets another bible

and hides it and Massa
never finds out.

The preacher I liked
the best was Mathew Ewing.

He was black as night.

And he sho' could
read out of his han'.

He never learned no real
readin' and writin' but he

sho' knowed his bible
and would hold his hand out

and make like he was readin'
and preach the purtiest

preachin' you ever heard.

That was the real church.

When they were
improvising on the liturgy

that they had heard in
the in, on Sunday morning,

for example.

Exactly. Yeah.

So, you had this
two-layered thing, I think,

and and even to this day,
in the, in the black church.

The black church is where,
even if they aren't singing

the old Negro spirituals,
where you hear the idiom of

those spirituals.

It's where when you begin
to speak in a certain way,

or better yet,

when somebody starts
singing in a certain way,

folk inside, they start
reacting and responding,

and eventually there may
be some shouts and there

may be silence,
but something is moving.

That's where the
black church is found,

it's in those heartbeats.

Sure.

But, but that heartbeat
comes straight from Africa?

It comes straight from Africa.

No question about it.

And it has been
integrated with the Christian

story and experience.

Ride on, King Jesus.

♪ No man can a-hinder me.

♪ Ride on, King Jesus.
Ride on... ♪

No man can a-hinder me. ♪

♪ No man can a-hinder me. ♪

♪ In that greatness
of the morning ♪

♪ Fair thee well,
fair thee well. ♪

♪ In that greatness
of the morning ♪

♪ Fair thee well,
fair thee well. ♪

♪ In that greatness
of the morning ♪

♪ Fair thee well,
fair thee well. ♪

♪ In that greatness
of the morning ♪

♪ Fair thee well,
fair thee well. ♪♪

Thank you Jesus!
That was smoking.

So, these were illiterate
people who were taking the

King James Bible and
interpreting it and

setting it to music.

Absolutely.

And I could
hear people harmonizing

on the plantations.

And these songs
literally carried them through

all the dangerous
toils and snares.

I, I love the lord!

The religious
earthquake that shook up

Britain's North American
colonies was a soul-saving

message exulting Jesus'
gospel of blessed redemption

and heavenly salvation
in a fallen world.

A forerunner of the
American revolution,

it introduced an ecstatic and
passionate style of worship to

protestant Christian churches.

Today, we refer to it as
the first great awakening.

The first great awakening,

a recognition that
everything has gone wrong,

that here you have
communitiesthat had forgotten proper

relationships with God and
asa result they are suffering,

They were really deeply
concerned with making certain

the soul is saved and
leaving the rest to God.

Ministers would preach
the teachings of the bible at

massive revival camp meetings.

Exuberant preaching styles,
active participation from

attendees, and call and
response sermonizing and

singing were all part of the
revival meeting experience.

It's a worship that
involves not only whites,

but enslaved and freed
Africans are participating.

Camp meetings like
most of American society at

that time were segregated.

African Americans, either
they'd would sit to the back

or they would sit outside.

Or they would have their own
camp meeting in tandem with

the larger camp meeting
that was going on by

the white worshipers.

One of the most
influential voices of the

first great awakening was
the evangelist from England,

George Whitefield.

Whitfield's theatrical
preaching style was

legendary and infectious.

Whitefield preaches in
ways that make black folks say,

"Okay, now that was
interesting. That was powerful.

That sounds likewhat we would do."

It provided a
context in which black

Christians could be themselves.

They could worship in
public in a way that

made sense to them.

There would be a
time in which there would be

a call to the altar.

Men and women
could come forward,

to give their testimony,
proclaim that they had

received salvation
and that was a

radically egalitarian space.

Sometimes they would be
allowed to raise the song or

sometimes offer a word
of testimony that was

sort of really a sermon.

This was a space in which
they felt a freedom that they

traditionally had not
felt within white churches.

It was during that
period that Africans started

converting to
Christianity en masse,

as well as the rise
of the African exhorter,

black preacher.

I declare victory
while I'm still leading slaves

to freedom with
bloodhounds on my trail.

Thanks be to God!

People chiming in,
letting him know that he's

hitting the mark.

The music comes in,
begins to frame the

worship experience, right?

As we all get
caught up in something

greater than ourselves.

It's not that people,
they've lo their minds, no.

Actually, people are in their
minds and they're connected

spiritually to one another.

Children go
where e I send thee. ♪♪

At the age of 10
in at a revival meeting

the minister said,

"I believe today I'm
baptizing a minister."

And it sort of frightened me.

That's too much
for a 10-year-old.

But at 17, I could not keep that

burning desire any longer.

Born, born,
born in Bethlehem. ♪♪

In revival meetings
you had musical formats in

which the leader
sings the first line,

and the congregation would
sing it, had no hymn books.

And so you had to do the
lining out of the hymns.

Blacks also had a tradition
from the African pastor with

call and response singing.

So this was not something
newly introduced to them but

appropriating that
into Christian hymnody,

creating their own
types of hymns,

a kind of modern day
reminiscence of that is...

♪ I heard the voice
of Jesus say ♪♪

and then the congregation comes,

♪ I, oh Lord,
I heard the voice. ♪

The spirituals really
come out of the folk songs of

African Americans.

It really begins in the 18th
Century and really it's the

collective expression of early
African-American Christians,

a mirror of early African
Americans thinking,

theologically, about a
saving God, a redemptive God,

a God who can even in the
fiery furnace can rescue you.

And so, we understand,
I think, something about what

was important to
those early Christians.

What's your favorite Spiritual?

Steal away, steal away ♪

♪ Steal away to Jesus.

♪ Steal away.

♪ Steal away home.

♪ I ain't got long
to stay here. ♪

As the machinery
of slavery churned on,

with no end in sight,
enslaved black people found

their first glimpse of heaven
on earth in the praise house.

In the Lowcountry
of South Carolina,

praise houses provided
African Americans with

a space for worship,

fellowship, and community.

In slavery,
you couldn't go down the road

and visit anyone.

So, by them gathering here,
they not only prayed,

but after the services
wereover they could talk to each

other about who mighthave
had a baby up the road,

who might have died,
who was sold.

And finally, it was a place
of transition from the praise

house into now a big church
that they were able to build.

Whoa, Jesus
is on the mainline. ♪

♪ Tell him what you want. ♪

As the free black
community slowly began to grow

in the years before the
declaration of independence,

the first institutions
that they created,

along with their enslaved
sisters and brothers,

were houses of worship.

One of the earliest was
in Savannah, Georgia.

Today, it's known as the
first African Baptist church.

Reverend, I feel like I'm in
the presence of black church

religious history.

Tell me the story
of this church.

It's a like a miracle.

Well, the church
actually had its beginnings

in 1773, when George Leile,

who was a slave was
granted permission to preach

up and down the Savannah River.

In August of 1777, he was
able to obtain his freedom.

He was able also to constitute
the church that same year.

You know what I
love about this church?

I always, whenever I
go into a black church,

I look to see what color God is.

What color are the angels,
what color is Jesus?

Your saints are your
predecessors who founded and

perpetuated the tradition.

I think that's brilliant.

This sanctuary
actually would not have been

built if it had not been
for Andrew Cox Marshal who

preached for 44 years
about how he wanted

to build a brick church,

not just a temporary
wooden building that

had been built.

When we think of those
who built the church,

they're definitely of
recent African descent.

This building has so many
symbols in it that are codes

for various things in
the windows, in the ceiling,

on the side of the pews.

After long days of labor,

the free and enslaved members
of first African Baptist

worked through the
night to create a home in

which to worship their god.

The people who built these
pews paid homage to Christ but

also left a surprising
trace of another

African religious past, Islam.

This is a
Arabic type of writing.

It's amazing that it survived.

Oh, yes.

I'm sure that if Christians knew

that it was Muslim,

they would have just
painted it over or something.

Maybe.

But those who also
wrote this they may be

Christian themselves, but for
them religion is a continuity.

Different ways of maybe
worship but it's the same God,

the same principle.

And it was written
to be a legacy for

the future generations.

First African Baptist
in Savannah, Georgia

was born on the heels
of an eruption of evangelical

Christianity in the 1700s.

The first great awakening.

African Americans would
reinterpret the scriptures,

finding new meanings that
resonated and spoke to their

urgent needs for survival.

In the early 1800s, the second
great awakening would bring an

even greater influx
of African Americans,

both to the Baptist and
the Methodist churches.

But it would be Methodism that
would profoundly change the

face of worship in
the black church.

The Methodist
Church declared itself

opposed to slavery.

So, Methodism began
asan anti-slavery movement

in the US,

and it was because
ofthat anti-slavery stance

that blacks were drawn to it.

In Charleston the
number of whites in the Church

in 1817 is around 350
and the number of

African Americans
is about 5,400.

So gigantic difference.

It's a black churchin its
membership over more

than ten to one.

In the North, the
freedom faith would convert

an enslaved young man
named Richard Allen at

a Methodist revival meeting.

Born a slave, Allen worked
hard to purchase his freedom.

In 1786, just 3 years after
America won its revolution,

Allen joined Saint George's
Methodist episcopal church and

began to advocate a message
of liberty and justice through

political petitions
outside of the church.

Richard Allen was inspired
by the very same ideals

that had sparked the
American revolution.

As the story goes,
people enjoyed his preaching.

And freed men, freed men
andwomen were active participants

in St. George's Church.

When Richard Allen
gets there in the 1780's he's

really operating under the
sense that hope will prevail.

That the black struggle for
freedom will combine with the

white struggle for freedom and
this will be the blueprint for

the new United States in both
secular and sacred terms.

It doesn't happen.

Around 1792, the
incident in St. George's

Episcopal Church, Absalom
Jones praying and being

forcibly removed, told to
go to the "nigger pews,"

to give you a sense
of how deeply segregated

American Christendom was.

Allen and Jones
led the black congregation

out of the building.

From that bold beginning an
independent black Christian

denomination would soon be born.

Imagine one comes
tounderstand one's relationship

to God, and youenter into quote-unquote

"His House,"

and you still have to
experience your subordination.

Come on, man.

Allen and his
congregants called their

sanctuary the Bethel African
Methodist Episcopal Church.

By 1816, it had grown into a
fledgling denomination with

Allen at its head.

For Richard Allen,

the black church
is a freedom church.

It's a vehicle for his
civil rights struggle.

It's a fellowship that is
hopefully going to make a

difference in the world.

So, in that sense it's more
than a denomination or a

community of worshipers.

It's a way of
looking at the world.

The African
Methodist Episcopal Church was

really not founded on
theological differences.

It was founded because
of racial differences.

People wanted to be able
to worship in dignity.

That freedom,
however, had limits,

even within the black church.

In the early 1800s,
in Philadelphia,

Jarena Lee asked Richard Allen
for the right to preach.

I went to see
the preacher in charge of

the African society,
Richard Allen,

to tell him that I felt it
my duty to preach the gospel.

He said that our discipline
knew nothing at all about it.

That it did not call
for women preachers.

There's a greatscene
in which she describes

listening to aman give a sermon.

He does a lousy job.

And she springs out of
her seat and holds forth.

During the exhortation,
god made manifest his power in

a manner sufficient to
show the world that I was

called to labor.

I now sat down, scarcely
knowing what I had done,

being frightened.

I imagine I should be
expelled from the church.

Remarkably in her case, Allen,

who was witness to this,

says to the gathering, actually,

this is all the evidence
we need, and we need to,

in essence, honor Sister
Jarena Lee's calling.

The church has two identities.

It has the identity of
being oppressive of women.

And it's interesting because
when you look at slavery,

the church of the slave master,

it's that same kind of message
that would go to the slave.

So, when women began
to demand empowerment,

they call out this
dual contradiction.

And I think for them to give
up to women was in many ways

in their head's emasculation.

And then they had the bible.

They had the bible to tell
them that they were supposed

to be on top.

It's just that the women
had the bible, too,

that could say to the men,
the bible's saying more

than that, dear.

Let me introduce
you to 5 uppity women.

These women with uncommon
courage emerged as valuable

contributors to community life.

Their story is told in
Numbers, the 27th chapter.

An importantreligion item today,

the African MethodistEpiscopal Church,

the AME with 2.5million members,

has a woman Bishopfor the first time.

Vashti
McKenzieis making history at the

top of American'soldest Black Church.

It took four years
of aggressive campaigning for

McKenzie to shatter
what she calls the AME's

stained glass ceiling

It ain't about me,
it's all about God!

Compare your
experience with Jarena Lee's.

Certainly, you've thought
about her and all that she had

to deal with?

Jarena Lee is
an extraordinary woman.

She walked thousands
of miles and preached,

I think it was like 147,
150 sermons in a year.

That's unimaginable.

I can't imagine preaching
that many sermons.

She just kept doing the work.

Do the work.

The bible says your gifts
will make room for you.

And they do.

Your gifts will
make room for you.

I like that.

The night when
I was elected a bishop in

the AME church.

I said I stand here for all
the women who were called and

never ordained.

The word was just in them.

It's like the prophet says,

"the fire's shut up in my bones,

it's shut up and
it can't get out."

And so, they preached wherever
they could preach,

however they could preach,
whenever they could preach.

Never recognized,

never ordained, never affirmed,

never supported.

But, yet, they preached anyhow.

And because they did, I am.

As northern
states followed the slow,

inevitable process
of emancipation,

free black Christians
took a leading role in the

abolition movement,
becoming the tip of the spear.

Meanwhile, the notion of
emancipation met with stiff

resistance in the south.

The liberating momentum
that came out of the

Revolutionary War was
no match for king cotton.

The cotton gin,
invented in 1793,

would dramatically transform
the economy of the south and

lead to a massive expansion
of the slave trade,

before it was banned in 1808.

The freedom faith,

preached by Richard Allen
and his colleagues,

increasingly threatened
the slave regime.

By January 1, 1808,

with the end of the
transatlantic slave trade

in the United States,

the reproduction of the
slave population shifts to

a domestic industry.

There was a
substantial anti-slavery

movement in
the South and there were

people freeing slaves.

Churches in particular
faced the question,

"Are we going to take a position
against slavery or not?"

So, in 1844, the
Methodist Church divides into

the Southern
Methodist Church and the

Northern Methodist Church
over the issue of slavery,

specifically as to whether
or not a bishop in the church

could be an owner of
the of enslaved persons.

It's one
of the tragic features of

the American experiment.

So let's be very clear.

To tell the story of American
religion is to tell a

political story.

So, all of the splits,
all of the divisions,

all of the contradictions that
define this grand experiment

of democracy are evidenced
in America's religious life.

The North is
about the radicalization.

Black people couldn't rebel
in the South in the same way,

they couldn't radicalize.

So, they have to go along.

Let me disguise my rebellion.

In the South things
were so bad that a lot of it

was just make sure your
soul is saved so you can

get to see Jesus.

Most of the sermons they're
just about holding onto hope.

Preachers just
helpedpeople live another day.

So, if things didn't
get better for them,

they got better
for their children

and their grandchildren.

Black people had an
existential and political

reality that says they were
a minority who could be wiped

out without legal redress
or moral compunction,

and their religion
helped them sustain

themselves long enough.

You've got to survive
long enough to rebel.

In 1791, a black
religion played a key role in

sparking the battle cry for
freedom in the French colony

of Saint Domingue.

During a now legendary
Vodun ceremony,

men and women made a pact
to end their enslavement,

no matter the cost.

The result would be
the most successful slave

uprising in the history
of the world and the birth,

on January 1st 1804,

of the first
independent black republic,

which they named Haiti.

It inspires African
American's to be more

proactive in the
protest initiatives.

But of course, the Haitian
rebellion also inspires a

great wave of fear
among white masters,

particularly in the South.

Denmark Vesey,
a Charleston, South Carolina

freedman,
who was one of the founders

of the second largest A-M-E
congregation in America,

would become the focus of
the planters' worst nightmare.

The Methodist
church in Charleston is known

among most white people
as a Negro church.

And the whites are
contravening assumptions about

what they should be
doing religiously.

In 1822, Charleston
authorities accused the

middle-aged carpenter of
planning an uprising to murder

and rape white citizens and
then flee to the independent

black nation of Haiti.

The white
account from that era was that

Denmark Vesey was this radical
black minister who's going to

lead this huge slave uprising
and then one of his followers

basically turned him in,
and that prevented the

uprising from happening.

Was there going to be
a rebellion at all?

That's the matter
of some controversy.

Vesey and some 35 other
black men were executed,

and their church demolished.

It would not be the last
attack on this congregation.

We typically think
about black Christianity

along two lines.

One that is concerned with
spiritual renewal and isn't

very concerned with what is
taking place in the world.

But then there's a this
worldly orientation that

understands the Christianfaith
as demanding social

transformation,
asdemanding political change.

And some of the more vibrant,

attention grabbing episodes of

this worldly Christianity
would involve

these slave rebellions.

And about this
time I had a vision.

I saw white spirits andblack
spirits engaged in battle,

and the sun was darkened.

The thunder rolled
in the heavens,

and blood flowed in the
streams and I heard a voice

saying, "Such is your luck,
such you are called to see,

and let it come rough or smooth,

you must surely bear it."

Nat Turner was
a charismatic preacher

in Southampton County, Virginia.

Though enslaved,

he was sometimes allowed
to preach at a local,

predominantly
white Methodist church.

Whites wanted blacks
to read scripture in a way

that reinforced slavery,
"Slaves be obedient."

But Nat Turner and others
understood themselves as being

linked to the children of
Israel in the Hebrew bible.

And God demanded the freeing
of the children of Israel.

And that freeing
required bloodshed.

On August 21st 1831,
Turner led approximately forty

other enslaved men from
plantation to plantation,

murdering as many as

60 white men,
women, and children.

55 alleged conspirators
were executed by the state.

200 more were
murdered by vigilantes.

All of a sudden the
dangers of independent black

religious thought was really
brought home to whites.

For many it pointed
to what they feared all along,

that Christianity would damage
a delicate social balance

in which whites were on
top, blacks on the bottom.

At a gathering of the
National Negro Convention in

Buffalo, New York in 1843,

male representatives of the

free black community
argued fiercely over the best

way to end slavery.

They were keenly aware that
their faiths were bound up

with those still in
bondage in the south.

The initial
approach of abolitionists was

that of moral suasion.

That because we are
a Christian nation,

founded on Christian principles,

we are all created equal.

So, the notion that the
people are fundamentally good,

and if they're doing wrong, uh,

the corrective of that is
to show them they're wrong.

Frederick Douglass
and Henry Highland Garnet,

both fugitive slaves
from Maryland,

led opposing camps on the
question of whether violent

slave uprisings
were necessary in advancing

the abolitionist cause.

Douglass takes
the position that you have

to fight it within the
American Constitutional system.

Garnet holds the view
that you must strike a blow.

Violence must be used.

Garnet, a Presbyterian minister,

delivered what was later known
as the "Call to Rebellion".

It is your solemn
and imperative duty to

use every means,
both moral, intellectual,

and physical that
promise success.

The pharaohs are on both
sides of the blood-red waters!

Brethren, arise, arise!

Strike for your
lives and liberties.

Rather die free men
than live to be slaves.

Henry Highland Garnett
challenges the use of the story,

'cause Exodus offers,
right, hope.

Pharaoh drowns in the Red Sea,

there's a wandering
in the wilderness but

one enters the Promised Land.

What Garnet says,

is "Pharaoh is on both sides
of the blood red waters."

And that's an
attempt to interrupt an

interpretation of
the story that is awaiting

God's intervention.

We can't wait to get on the
other side for freedom 'cause

there's no other side.

Douglass, with a mix
of conviction and political

pragmatism that would make
him the most influential black

leader of the century,
surmised that Garnet's

suggestions would antagonize
northern black allies,

ultimately bringing harm
to the abolition movement.

When the convention finally
voted on whether to publish

Garnet's address, Garnet lost,
but only by one vote.

Soon congress would appease
the south by passing the

fugitive slave act in 1850,
which strengthened the

provision in the constitution
that escaped slaves must be

returned to their owners.

The civil war loomed
on the horizon.

Douglass became reconciled
to the fact that slavery

must end violently.

Action!

Not criticism is the
plain duty of this hour.

I now, for the first
time during this war,

feel at liberty to call
and counsel you to arms.

On April 12th 1861,

defenders of slavery
in South Carolina cheered as

confederate guns opened fire

on federal troops
stationed at Fort Sumter.

The civil war had begun.

The African-American
experience had always been one

that they were looking
to prophecies for freedom.

And of course, the
Civil War was the fulfillment

of that prophecy.

There was no longer
a question of if but when

violence would erupt and bring
an end to black enslavement

after so many generations
of unrelenting suffering.

The apocalypse at hand,

black Christians
believed that the fall of

pharaoh and their exodus
from Egypt finally was at hand.

♪

Heavenly Father
we're here to gather

at another time to bow our head
and pray, to give you thanks,

for another
day we've never seen before.

Give you thanks when we
wake up this morning being

in the right mind,

we blessing your son
in Jesus name Amen.

Amen!

The black church came of
age in praise houses like this.

I wanted to learn how these
simple wooden structures

offered worshippers a measure
of freedom within the brutal

experience of slavery.

Well I want Jesus,
walk with me. ♪♪

I think we are
a testament to the goodness

and the grace of God.

That everything in the
world has tried to kill us and

we're still here.

The middle passage tried to
kill us, but yet we survived.

The plantation life
tried to kill us,

but we're still alive.

During slavery,

these praise houses
operated in the shadows,

becoming an incubator
of culture and sites of

resistance to white supremacy.

The church provides
a space where we're able to

imagine something different.

We are not what society
says that we are,

we belong to God.

And so that's a liberating
message for people who are

dealing with the logics
of racial apartheid.

But as the civil war
raged in the coastal waters

several miles away
from this praise house,

the African American people
and the institution that had

kept them in chains
for centuries were at

a crucial turning point.

Freedom, at last, could be
glimpsed on the horizon.

We've come this far by faith.

Leaning on the Lord,
trusting in God's holy name.

And God has never failed us yet.

When we've been true to God,
we've always been successful.

By the end of
the nineteenth century,

this small praise house
and the faith nurtured

here would be transformed
by emancipation,

by the explosion of black
church membership throughout

the former confederacy, by
the promise of reconstruction,

and by its violent overthrow.

These houses of
worship would shelter a

nation within a nation,

gradually becoming the
political and spiritual center

of the black community,

which we now
call the Black Church.

In my hands, in
my hands, in my heart. ♪

Ain't gonna let nobody ♪

Turn me around.
Turn me around. ♪

Under slavery,
the message and music of

black churches had centered
around dreams of freedom,

and by the summer of 1862,

the distant cannons of
the civil war signaled that

the freedom train mightfinally
be leaving the station.

There had always
been in black Christianity

the notion that God
is a delivering God.

So, it was out ofthat kind of biblical,

scriptural context that
blackclergy interpreted what was

happening in thiscataclysmic event,

which had erupted in the nation.

There is this narrative
of a person who upon hearing

the cannon fire
in the distance exclaims,

"He is coming,
my deliverer he is coming."

Finally, slavery
was starting to unravel

in the confederacy.

And in the north, black
and white abolitionists,

liberal congressman, and black
congregations kept pressure on

president Lincoln to
transform the civil war into

a fight for freedom.

But the man who would become
the great emancipator wasn't

initially convinced that
black people and white people

could live together
peacefully, as equals.

Lincoln is of the
view that slavery may end,

slavery will end,
but people of color,

people of African descent
will never be full citizens.

That instead the vision is one
that would have former slaves

removed or deported from
the United States in the

wake of their emancipation.

To persuade the black community

to go along with his plans,

president Lincoln
believed that he had to

convince their
spiritual leaders.

In August 1862, he invited a
delegation of five free black

clergymen to the White House
to discuss emancipation.

But black congregations
strenuously rejected

Lincoln's proposal.

America the land of their birth,

the country they had
done so much to build.

America was their home.

Their future was here.

Their agency
is turning Lincoln's

political sensibilities.

On New Year's Eve 1862,

northern black congregations
held watch night services,

desperately praying, singing,

anxiously awaiting
the hour of freedom.

I'm so tired, been so long, ♪

♪ struggling, hopelessly ♪

♪ Seven and forty days, hey. ♪

♪ Oh, I sacrifice every
breath I breathe ♪

♪ To make you believe,
I'd give my life away. ♪

With Lincoln's
signature on New Year's Day,

the Emancipation
Proclamation stated that

"All persons held as slaves
in the rebel states shall be

henceforward and forever free."

This is a confirmation that

their prayers have been
answered, that God has heard.

The story of the deliverance
of the Israelites is being

played out again.

"The magnificent trumpet
tones of Hebrew scripture,

transmuted and oddly changed,
became a strange new gospel.

All that was beauty.

All that was love.

All that was truth.

Free, free, free."

WEB Du Bois.

We are coming, we are coming ♪

♪ Our union to restore.

♪ We are coming... ♪♪

Lincoln's
proclamation also made it

possible for nearly 200,000
black men to join the military.

While the Union Army
was liberating bodies,

the Black Church was
eager to liberate souls.

Black ministers, will
organize to recruit young men

who will serve during the war.

Black women in their church
communities are going to do

the work of war relief.

Let me hear about it in the
building, say "Amen."

Amen!

I wonder would you say it again?

Amen!

Let me hear you put your
hands together.

I'm a soldier. ♪

Henry McNeal Turner,
an outspoken pastor in

Washington DC,
joined the Union Army.

He was one of more than
a dozen African American

chaplains who provided
spiritual guidance to black

soldiers fighting and
dying for their country.

There is quite
a religious element

in our regiment.

Last Sabbath we had
church three times,

and our membership is
rapidly increasing.

Some of my brave soldiers
wish baptism by immersion.

Their wish shall be granted.

Throughout the civil war,

hundreds of thousands of
soldiers from the north and

from the south converted to
Christ in mass river baptisms

and religious revivals.

Amazing Grace,
how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me.

Interestingly, both
sides saw it as a kind of

trial that God had giventhem
because of the death and

destruction ofthe Civil War.

And of course,
God'speople have to be tried.

Oh, death, have mercy ♪

♪ Ooh, death, have mercy

♪ Ooh, death,
just spare me... ♪♪

But as the
war became increasingly

deadly and prolonged,

the Christian religion
and its sacred music

provided a release
from fear and terror.

Around campfires in the sea
islands of South Carolina,

black soldiers found solace in
the sorrow songs of slavery.

Ooh, death, be easy.

♪ Ooh, death, just spare me... ♪

Colonel
Thomas Wentworth Higginson

was also sitting
around those campfires.

The commander of a black
regiment in South Carolina,

Higginson often scribbled
in his diary about

'Watching dusky figures move
in a rhythmic barbaric dance."

Higginson captured this
sublime music for posterity.

These quaint
religious songs were to the

men more than a
source of relaxation;

they were a stimulus to
courage and a tie to heaven.

He's talking about,
the experience that he has of

hearing black soldiers
sing spirituals.

And really what you see in the
Civil War is northern whites

awakening to the fact that
there's this deep religious

culture and they understand
that this has to do with the

freedom movement of
African Americans.

They were conjuring
out of nothing the manhood

that had been stripped away
from them for 400 years.

They used the spirituals
as that catalyst.

There's a great
quote by W.C. Handy.

He says, "The spirituals did
more to help free my people

than all the guns of the Union."

John Brown's body
lies a-moldering in the grave ♪♪

It's hard to
hate somebody if you can

hum their music,
and you can feel it.

Oh, Eve. ♪

Today, in
South Carolina's Sea Islands,

these songs are being preserved
by an older generation.

Adam in the
garden pinning up leaves. ♪

Went in the
valley one day to pray ♪

Adam in the
garden pinning up leaves. ♪

So darn
happy I stayed all day. ♪

Adam in the garden
pinning up leaves. ♪

Said, whoa Eve... ♪

Where's Adam? ♪

♪ Oh, Eve, oh.

♪ Adam in the garden
pinning up leaves. ♪

Oh, beautiful. Beautiful.

Bravo. This is great.

You know what Adam was doing.

Of all the things that
you'd think a subjected

people would create...

Right.

Um, would you have
predicted it would be these

amazingly beautiful,
sublime, sacred songs?

They were
born from frustration and

from tragedy and
from a, a terrible life.

Mmm-hmm.

I mean so all,

all these songs
speak of a better day.

A lot of people
might have a burden or

going through something.

And when they come, you know,

when they come to the
church and then you sing

that song, said,

"Glory, glory, hallelujah,"

said, "since I
laid my burden down.

I feel better, so much better,
since I lay my burden down."

Can you sing,
"Glory, Glory Hallelujah"

for me one more time?

Before I, before I
take the weary road?

Glory, glory, hallelujah. ♪

♪ Oh, since I lay
my burden down. ♪

♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah.

♪ Oh, since I lay
my burden down. ♪

Burden down, Lord. ♪

By the Fall of 1864,
the south was in shambles.

After conquering Atlanta,

Union General
William Tecumseh Sherman

began his famous
march to the sea,

trailed by thousands
of the formerly enslaved.

And, with the end of the
war quickly approaching,

General Sherman desperately
needed a plan for the tens of

thousands of black refugees
grappling with their

new found freedom.

So, on January 12, 1865,

on the second floor of this
house in Savannah, Georgia,

just as Lincoln had
done three years before,

General Sherman and
the US Secretary of War met

with another group of trusted
leaders of the black community,

twenty Baptist
and Methodist ministers.

General Sherman he said,

"Well, let's call the ministers.
They're the leaders."

Right.

Going back to the
leaders of the black community.

Yes.

Oh, watch that star

♪ watch that star ♪

More than half these
ministers had been born into

slavery and all were leaders
of prominent congregations.

Without hesitation,
they chose the mighty

Garrison Frazier to
be their spokesperson.

Garrison Frazier is
articulate, he's imposing,

and he said, wewant to own land.

Mmm-hmm.

Why do you think
land was so important?

Why was land the thing?

I think black people
were so deprived of rights,

and the land wasn't yours.

And having your own land
meant that you don't have

to be under the yoke of
the white oppressor.

Persuaded by
Frazier's eloquence,

General Sherman issued
Special Field Order Number 15,

declaring that all
abandoned rebel lands from

Charleston, South Carolina

to the saint
John's River in Florida,

some 400,000 acres in all,
would be distributed to the

formerly enslaved in
parcels of 40 acres.

So, it's not
too much to say that,

the black church gave birth
to 40 acres and a mule?

I would think so.

The preachers went
in and demanded it.

So this idea
of 40 acres and a mule,

it's understood by the freed
people as a promise that they

will have this land because
they had been the ones working

it all along, after all.

There's a
bright side somewhere. ♪

♪ There's a bright... ♪

In the chaos
that followed Lincoln's

assassination in April 1865,

president Andrew Johnson

pardoned thousands
of white planters and

reversed General
Sherman's Field Order.

And, just like that the
promised land was restored to

those who had declared
war against the

United States of America.

There's a bright... ♪

Although ownership of
land would prove elusive,

one part of
Garrison Frazier's request

would come to pass.

With their newfound
freedom, African Americans,

living in the south,
started to exert control over

the one thing within
their power, their faith.

One of the
first things that free

black people do,

in addition to being
able to marry and to go

in search of relatives,

is that they want to build,

and they do build, their own churches.

Before the war,
a number of black led churches

had been suppressed or
violently destroyed.

But by the late 1860s,
no longer forced to worship

underground or
under white control,

thousands abandoned
segregated slave pews.

Deacon, tell me the history of

Brick Baptist Church?

Brick Baptist Church
was built by the slaves

for their slave masters.

The masters that
were over here needed a

place to worship.

So, they took the slaves who
made the bricks and came and

built a church for them so
they could worship there.

So, what the slave master
would do is to bring the house

slaves here with him to
the church and put them up

in the balcony.

The church was finally turned
over to blacks, you know,

after the Civil War.

Whoa, Babylon falling down. ♪♪

One Sunday,
Brick Baptist was white.

The following Sunday,
Brick Baptist was black.

With the end of slavery,
11:00 on Sunday morning,

as Dr. King famously said,
would become the most

segregated hour in America.

Unfortunately, a reality
that remains true today.

One of the first blossoms
of reconstruction was the

flowering of independent black
churches all over the south,

where black congregants
answered to nobody but God.

They didn't
believe that we could do it.

When you think a
person is less than a man,

less human, three fifths

as it says in the constitution,

then the opinion is you
can't think, you can't talk,

you can't write,
you can't read, you can't do.

But yet the church grew,
and the people prospered.

♪

♪

I think the black
church was the thing we were

totally in charge of.

We didn't have anyexternal forces that had

to give us permission.

Whatever we wanted to do;
it was up to us.

It was ours.

In the first decade
after the civil war,

thousands of black churches
sprouted throughout the south,

to unify and uplift a
community that had been

divided and degraded in bondage.

Here are people who
need freedom, need education,

and they need the
tools of citizenship.

And the idea is to
Christianize and to civilize

people who had not been
given true Christianity.

Northern missionaries
flooded the south seeking to

save the souls of black folks.

Black denominations
such as the AME,

and AME Zion proudly took
the lead seeking converts and

building national organizations.

Across Georgia,
Henry McNeal Turner,

the veteran military chaplain
who had been born free,

was planting churches,
recruiting ministers and

leading revivals
with support from the

African Methodist
Episcopal Church.

No one had
entered the South with greater

optimism, greater energy
then Henry McNeal Turner.

Every man of us now
who has a speck of grace or a

bit of sympathy for the race
is called upon to extend a

hand of mercy to bone of our
bone and flesh of our flesh.

The Civil War gives
the black denominations an

opportunity to traverse
the Southern landscape and

radically increase numbers.

Why not worship with
people who look like you?

Why not be involved in
denominations that are run by

people who look like you?

But, before long,
differences of class and

culture threatened to
fracture the community.

the four million who emerged
from the shadows of slavery

carried their cultures
and customs into freedom.

The traditional slave religion
would sometimes encounter

stiff resistance from the
formal church brought down by

northern white and
black missionaries.

They want to bring
true Christianity and what

they meant by that was
not the Christianity that

the slaves actually had.

They meant a much more kind
of 19th century proper,

Victorian idea of respectable,
spiritual expression.

Oh, I want to go... ♪

Still, one black
pastor in Brooklyn was eager

to get into the action.

Richard Harvey Cain
was pastor of a prominent

African Methodist Church
in Brooklyn, New York.

He just doesn't want this
historical moment to pass

without him putting
his mark on it.

The first chance he gets
to go south in 1865 he

heads to Charleston.

In Charleston,
once the heart of the slave

trade to the United States,
racial tensions ran deep.

But Richard Harvey Cain
believed that Charleston was

fertile ground for the
growth of this independent

black denomination.

This is the place.

You don't go away from danger.

You don't go away from the
center of oppression to try to

turn the tables of oppression.

You go into the vortex, you
go into the center of things,

and the deep south was
the center of things.

In 1822, fearful
of a slave revolt,

white people executed
Denmark Vesey and destroyed

Charleston's main black church.

More than 40 years later,
reverend Cain started

rebuilding the church,
and it became the flagship of

the AME denomination in
South Carolina.

It was located on a street
named for John C. Calhoun,

a staunch defender of slavery.

It would be christened, Emanuel,

a Hebrew name that
means god is with us.

Richard Harvey Cain
hired the son of Denmark Vesey

as the architect
for that church,

symbolically making a statement.

He took great pride
in saying that every nail

hammered in Emmanuel was
driven in by a black hand.

And at a time when
money was very scarce,

people contributed to the
building of Emmanuel Church as

a symbol of their freedom.

On September 25th, 1865,

a crowd,
estimated at 3,000 people,

gathered to witness the
cornerstone being laid.

Reverend Cain became the
church's first pastor.

The new era has
dawned;the sun has lit up the horizon,

the time has come
for the black man to take his

place as a free man.

With nearly 95% of
freed people unable to read,

education became a critical
means of uplifting the black

community in the years
following the civil war.

Remember, during slavery,

it was illegal to teach
slaves to read and write.

And so that denial, the
illegality of it made it even

more desirous to want to
read and write because they

understood that
education was power.

Most of these
early schools found spaces

in black churches.

And the newly freed,

holding deeply felt
religious convictions,

were especially
eager to learn how to read

the word of god.

In the Reconstruction period,

acquiring a Bible was one of
the first things people would

do in a home because it showed
that you were being settled,

that you had a place to live,
you had a little bit of money,

and then also that you
could study that Bible.

You would know scriptures just
as well as your pastor did.

In rural areas of
the deep south where schools

were rare, northern
missionaries used the bible

to encourage literacy
among black church women.

Bible bands worked this way;

there would be a
reading for the day,

and if somebody didn't know
how to read you would teach

them the words that were in
that scripture for the day,

and you'd ask them
to also memorize it.

As bible bands expanded
across the deep south,

women like Virginia Broughton,

a Baptist missionary
educated at Fisk University,

became community
leaders by organizing

bible study groups.

Soon, bible bands
were organized throughout the

city of Memphis and
the women of our churches

took on new life.

Every Monday afternoon women
could be seen in all sections

of the city with
bibles in their hands,

going to their
bible band meetings.

And she is causing quite a stir.

So, her own husband is
saying, "You need to stay home."

And she tells her husband,
"I've had a talk with God.

God has told me
this is my calling.

I have to do this.

So, you and God work this out."

Over time, schools in
church basements would evolve

into historically black
colleges and universities

like Spellman and
Morehouse in Atlanta,

Fisk in Nashville and
Tuskegee in Alabama.

These schools sought
to educate leaders,

and that education often
started in the pulpit.

The vast majorities of HBCUs,

Historically Black
Colleges and Universities,

were founded to be seminaries
and divinity schools,

training grounds for
ministers and teachers.

These schools understood
themselves to be doing the

work of God.

But as the institutional
black church was maturing,

conflicting visions
emerged within different

denominations about
the nature and role of

an educated ministry.

So, the more
people that are getting

educated, they're losing some
of the old style of worship,

the old style of speaking.

They're losing
a lot of what was initially

African American culture.

In the years
since the civil war,

charismatic former slave
preachers, like John Jasper,

had created Baptist
churches across the south.

In his 50s, he starts a church.

He does this sermon titled,

"The Sun Do Move,
The Earth Am Squared."

I take my stan' by
de bible and res my case

on wat it says.

I take wat de Lord says
bout my sins, bout my savior,

bout life, bout death,
bout de wurl' ter come an'

I take wat de lord says
bout de sun an' moon an'

I cares little wat de haters
of mer Gord chooses ter say."

The Baptist church
has a lot of appeal because

Baptist churches
are congregational.

And you don't have to
have an educated minister.

If you want to form a Baptist
church and you have 10 people

you just decide to do it.

But the AME church made
a formal education a requirement

for becoming a minister.

If you are going
to be ministering effectively

you're going to have to
symbolize what the new black

man and woman is going to be.

And that means you have
to model discipline,

productivity, education,
a respect for learning,

all those sorts of things.

This isn't just a
cultural debate for them.

This is about the survival
and advance and progress

of the race.

Church involvement
would give African Americans

an opportunity
to prove their worth to a

larger white society.

And proving this worth
meant African Americans

reflecting the values
and the sensibilities of the

larger white world.

Church music
would become a major,

cultural battleground.

In 1871, that cultural
tension would come to a head

at Fisk University in Nashville.

At a time when minstrel
shows were dominating

the American stage,

the school's choral director
hit on the idea of a

concert tour featuring his
colored Christian singers,

performing slave songs and
spirituals that would appeal

to white audiences and
raise desperately needed funds.

Swing low, sweet chariot. ♪

♪ Coming forto carry me home. ♪

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot.

♪ Coming for to carry me home. ♪

Tell Dwight Andrews
I'm coming. ♪

That's it.

♪ Coming for to
carry me home. ♪♪

The spirituals
were really melodies,

without accompaniment
and then over generations

we adapted them,

adopted them, arranged them.

Those arrangements that
were occurring, you know,

in the 1870s.

Oh, from Fisk Jubilee Singers.

From the Fisk Jubilee
Singers, the Hampton groups.

But they were quite different
from the simple folk songs

that had a single melody
and repeated over and over.

Yeah, because they
had a white audience.

They were trying to clean up
the folk tradition, in a way,

dress it up in a suit
and tie, metaphorically.

The respectabilityof
politics was born,

in a good way, when
blackpeople were trying to adjust

to the new situationin
order for us to win and

curry favor, morally.

But the irony is we're
trying to convince white

people to see us as human,
who enslaved us.

They don't see you as human.

Dressing nicely can't do it.

Speaking the King's English
to the Queen's taste is

not going to flip a switch.

Frederick Douglass
once said that slavery would

not be abolished until the
black man has the ballot.

And beginning in 1865, legal
and constitutional protections

sought to secure the future
of the black community,

like the fifteenth amendment,

which gave black men
the right to vote.

But the problem with the
15th Amendment was that it

left out half of the
black population...

Women.

Once ratified in 1870, the
amendment opened the door for

black men to exercise their
political power nationwide.

But black churches became
the sites where black men and

black women not
only could worship,

but hold political meetings,

debate issues and
get out the vote.

In our experience as a people,

there is no separation
of church and state.

Our political strength,
our forward movement in this

nation has always been led
by people of deep spirituality.

Over the course
of reconstruction,

an estimated 2,000
black men held public office

on the federal,
state and local levels,

and many of them were ministers.

Be not dismayed. ♪

So you have ministers
who are moving into politics,

right, who are being sure
enough involved in the

political life of the nation.

You have churches thatare supporting this,

and you have a growth in
termsof Christian obligation having

social and political impact.

Richard Harvey Cain,

the AME minister
from Charleston,

used his power
base at Mother Emanuel to

become the first black
clergyman to serve in congress.

On the floor of the capitol,

Cain eloquently appealed
for civil rights.

All that we ask is
equal laws, equal legislation,

and equal rights
throughout the length and

breadth of this land.

I appeal to you in the
name of god and humanity to

give us our rights,
for we ask nothing more.

But, for some people,
it was too much, too soon.

Oh, Lord.

♪ I want you to help me.

Oh, Lord.
I want you to help me. ♪

Throughout American history,

black progress has
often been met with an

intense white backlash.

Southern black churches and
their preachers increasingly

became targets of racially
motivated violence.

Oh, Lord.
I want you to help me. ♪

Oh, Lord. ♪

One of the themes
running through this is the

ever-present danger and
reality of violence, of death.

Benjamin Randolph, a black
minister in South Carolina,

was standing on the platform
of the railroad station in

Orangeburg, and
some men ride up,

knowing who he is as
a Minster and politician,

and shoot him,

and ride off,
and nothing happens.

With the effective
overthrow of reconstruction in

1877, federal troops were
removed from state houses in

the former confederacy.

And in pursuit of what
they called redemption,

emboldened former confederates
immediately sought to

roll back all the gains
that black southerners had

achieved following the war.

Larger white society
is suspicious of what's

taking place within these
independent black churches.

And the key word there
is independent.

These churches were symbols of
rebellion, symbols of protest,

symbols of black
folks striking against

the status quo.

And white backlash took
a variety of forms.

Church burnings,
lynching's, etc.

What's the significance
of white supremacists targeting

these sacred symbolic spaces,

in the history of
the black community?

Well what these
white supremacists understand,

what they know,
without sophistication,

that's the height and depth
and breadth of our existence.

The church is our refuge,
it's our,

it's our sanctuary, literally.

The very nature of
the black church is what

makes it so powerful,

and yet so vulnerable
at the same time.

Richard Harvey Cain,
who had reached great heights

as the pastor at Mother
Emanuel and as a member of

congress, died in the midst
of a growing racial violence

seizing the country.

Cain died in 1887,

but he lived long
enough to see much of

what he worked
for become unraveled,

and that's the
tragedy of this story.

It accentuates just how
great and exhilarating the

moment was when all things
seemed possible,

but that also makes it even
worse when things fall apart.

Oh, Lord guide my way. ♪

♪ Oh, Lord guide my way.

♪ Got my footsteps,
Lord, everyday. ♪

♪ Oh, Lord guide my way. ♪

The church was the
center of my life growing up.

It was everything.

I lived with my grandmother
in rural Mississippi.

It was church on Sunday.

It was church on Wednesday
night for choir rehearsal.

It was church on,
um, Friday evenings,

getting ready for
church on Sunday.

The church gave me the faith
and the belief and the knowing

that no matter what,

everything's gonna be all right.

No matter how dark the night.

Preach, brother!

After reconstruction,
the black community,

state by southern state, was
stripped of it's voting rights

and abandoned by congress
and the supreme court.

They were expected to
make their own way in a

legally segregated world.

And, in their darkest hour,
they retreated to the safe

haven that had always
helped them survive oppression,

the church.

You have black churches
becoming responsible for so

many dimensions of black life,

that they are trying to
meet a range of needs.

Educational needs,
social needs, economic needs,

political needs.

The life of black folks in
some very significant ways is

being filtered through
these organizations.

The church has formed a

nation within a nation.

The church was,

then at least,
the single most important

institution in the
black community.

A key part of the black
community's survival during

Jim Crow was the church's
financial independence.

Black congregants
made sure that collection

plates were full.

It was the first
place of social cohesion

for people of African descent.

The first place of economics,
where we pooled our resources.

Poor people
would give virtually,

virtually everything they
had to their churches to

see those churches grow.

As Jim Crow took root
and public spaces became

increasingly segregated, a
burgeoning black consciousness

began percolating
within the church.

In Atlanta, in the fall of 1895,

bishop Henry McNeal Turner,

always at the radical
edge of the black church,

delivered a blistering
sermon at the first gathering

of the National
Baptist Convention.

Bishop Turner asked for those
in the room to see the face of

God in a radical new way.

It did not go over well.

I worship a Negro God.

I believe God is a Negro.

Negroes should worship
a God who is a Negro.

Henry McNeal Turner
comes along and he says,

"Everyone has a Godthat looks like them."

Everyone. But us.

But us. Right.

If we are
created in the image of God,

then God is black.

When, Henry McNeal Turner
talks about that,

that Jesus is a black man,
I'm sure everybody fell out.

Everybody absolutelyfell out, "What?"

In the 19th century to say that,

absolutely extraordinary.

He's creating
whatwe now call black theologies.

He's literally challengingseveral
generations now of a

complete kind of universality
of the idea of Jesus as this

white, blonde-haired guy.

He has aline where he says,

"Lord have mercyon any race of people

who do not believe
that they look like God."

And I think that sums up so
much of what the black church

has fought its way through
and has been fighting for.

And that is, to have its
people see themselves as

important to God,
as not less than.

And Henry McNeal Turner,
he got that.

Now let us all
go back to that old... ♪

Old landmark. ♪

But, the violent
end of interracial democracy

wasn't just radicalizing
ministers such as Bishop Turner.

Black church women,
who male leaders had long pushed

to the margins,

began pushing back on
the issues of ordination,

preaching licenses and
the power of the purse.

Why is the late 19th
century referred to in black

history as women's era?

Women are excited.

They have come into
gender consciousness.

Mmm-hmm.

And they are
making the argument,

according to the bible,
women have the right to preach.

Women have the right
to be in their own separate

missionary organizations.

Or, women have the right to
raise money for their churches

and be in control of the
money that they raise.

The membership of
the African-American church is

somewhere between
80 to 90% women.

But the leadership
is 80 to 90% male.

In 1894, Julia Foote,
at the ripe old age of 71,

became one of the first two
women to be ordained as a

deacon in the AME Zion church.

As black male influence in the
larger world began to shrink,

some men became even more
intent on holding on to their

power within the church.

Unfortunately, the
black church carries all the

anxieties and insecurities
born of the dominant society.

And so therefore, the
church becomes a space where

black man can be that conception
of manhood in American society,

which is about power.

Power over.

In the Baptist church,

an outspoken young
activist protested that the

"sisters were
hindered from helping."

Her name was
Nannie Helen Burroughs.

Nannie Helen Burroughs
is one of the people

who said that blackwoman within churches

were undervalued,

and overlooked and
investedall of her political and

spiritual powers in the
women's convention of the

National Baptist Convention.

She is inside the black
Baptist Church but is a

persistent critic of the
black Baptist Church.

For a number
of years there has been a

righteous discontent, a
burning zeal to go forward in

his name among the Baptist
women of our churches.

What did Nannie Burroughs mean

by "Righteous Discontent"?

She says,
for a number of years now,

we have been out here in the
fields doing missionary work,

trying to get our
women educated.

Trying to get our women jobs.

But, the key of the
righteous discontent is just

this sense that
it's our time now.

Mmm-hmm.

Church women, like Burroughs,

who had been the glue of
their denominations started

to seize opportunities
to expand their

activities beyond church walls.

For some churchwomen,
in these debates over power

and authority, they raise
the specter, even the threat,

that perhaps they will
leave the church communities

if men can't accommodate
their ambition.

Some women will leave.

By 1896,

the National Association
of Colored Women's Clubs

was formed in Washington DC.

Their motto,
"Lifting as we climb."

Woman.

Woman.

Woman, woman, woman, woman. ♪

Woman.

Lookie here woman. ♪

The lifting as we climb.

What we're trying to do is
uplift a group of people who

had experienced oppression for
so long that there had to be a

concerted effort that was
rooted and grounded in

spiritual practice.

Black women weren't
the only ones lamenting the

growing conservatism
of the black church.

At the turn of the century,
the great black scholar,

WEB Du Bois, explored the
issue in two of his books

"The Philadelphia Negro" and

"The Souls of Black Folk."

Du Bois detailed
the church's enduring

historical significance,

and he challenged it to address

its political limitations.

Du Bois is very
interested in the black church,

and part of his
interest comes from the fact

that he was not raised in it.

And he especially didn't have
experience with Southern black

religious expression or
Southern black churches.

- Oh, dat religion.
- So sweet. ♪

- Hey, Lord.
- So sweet. ♪♪

He saw a real genius
and a real gift in rural and

African American country folk,
what we might think of as kind

of the salt-of-the-Earth folk.

- I shout dat religion.
- So sweet. ♪

- I talk about religion.
- So sweet. ♪

- I sing about religion.
- So sweet. ♪

It make me happy. ♪

Many rural
black people felt that the

presence of God manifested
itself in the Holy Spirit.

WEB Du Bois called
this "The Frenzy."

The frenzy goes by many names.

In churches where I grew up,
it was called "getting happy"

or "getting touched."
It's a moment of deep,

expressive behavior that happens
in and out of the church,

in which one's body
becomes connected intimately

with the divine.

What do you think about Jesus? ♪

He's alright! ♪

Deep in the Mississippi
delta and in parts of the

southeast, religious fervor
was sweeping church revivals

and camp meetings.

And the Holy Ghost
didn't stop at the color line

both white people
and black people were

drawn to the supernatural

healing and the ecstatic
worship in holiness churches.

In the latter
part of the 19th century,

many African Americans in the
South and around the country

begin to get involved in
this Holiness Movement,

which would set the stage for
the entrance of what would

eventually become the
Pentecostal movement.

Is it fair to say
that you grew up steeped

in the church?

Oh, steeped
isprobably an understatement.

I joined the church.
I spoke in tongues.

You did?

It's just part of,
it's a rite of passage

in the Pentecostal church.

I was raised in that tradition.

And I wouldn't be an artist
today if I hadn't grown up in

that tradition, I think.

Traditional
denominations largely ignored

the new movement until
a Baptist minister from

Arkansas, named
Charles Harrison Mason,

started delivering
sermons on sanctification.

Mason was eventually banned
from the Baptist church.

So, in 1897, he founded
his own denomination,

the Church of God in Christ.

I'm, I'm so glad. ♪

The Church of God
in Christ is the largest

African American Pentecostal
denomination in this country.

I think that it has
such a resonance for people

who love the music
of the black experience,

who love bodily and
ecstatic worship,

who believe in the
gifts of the spirit,

including speaking in tongues.

Whoa, now, Lord ♪

Look at the Lord.
Look at the Lord ♪

Yeah, hey Lord, yeah Lord, ♪

♪ what shall I do?

What shall I do? ♪

Bishop, was ecstatic
worship controversial?

Was it something new
that we hadn't seen before

in church services?

The black church,
nomatter what its denomination,

whether it wasMethodist or Baptist,

they had shouting and,
andpraising the Lord audibly with

a loud voice.

Like tongues of fire.

Yes.

By 1906, all the
disparate threads of the

Pentecostal movement would
converge on Azusa Street in

Los Angeles where a gathering
of believers staged a frenetic

week-long street revival.

The revival attracted an
interracial congregation

comprised of blacks and whites
and Latinos and, notably,

Charles Harrison Mason.

Lord, been
preachin' for many a year ♪

♪ tried to
tell 'em truth but... ♪

Pentecostalism
grew from 100 members at

Azusa Street to 100 million
members within 100 years.

These denominations and
churches were not in fact an

offshoot of white churches.

Within the Pentecostal
denomination,

you have completely
independent denominations in

which there is black
leadership and also in which

black women are leaders
from the very beginning.

Oh, come and go. ♪

The new century would
see an explosion of a new

black denomination,
transcending race,

gender and geography
marking a new chapter in the

history of the black church.

Do you think that we're
right to talk about an entity

called the black church?

Yes. Absolutely. Surely. Surely.

Well, how is it
different than the white church?

Well, it's black.

And, uh, it was involved in the,

in the lives of its people
in a way that white churches

simply were not.

Fifty years since
the end of the civil war,

the black community had made
a great leap forward from the

dark days of slavery to the
dawn of a new century guided

by a freedom faith.

Would there be an
African-American people today

had there not been a
strong black church?

I don't know.

Because the church
is all we had.

There's got to be something
that gives you hope just to

make it, to persevere.

And what we had, the message
we had, was to keep the faith.

God's been so good to me, ♪

♪ he's been so good to me.

♪ More than this
world could ever be, ♪

♪ the Lord has been
so good to me. ♪

♪ He dried my tears away.

♪ He turned my
midnights into day. ♪

♪ So, I say, thank you, Lord. ♪

♪ I won't complain. ♪

Soon, a mass movement
of people would radically

change the form and function
of the black church.

But this exodus would
take place without a Moses

at the helm,
and in the years to come,

a young preacher from
Georgia would be propelled to

the forefront of a
spiritual movement that

would change the world,

but it would also spark
severe violence against

the black church.

People began to ask themselves,

"What is God's plan for us?"

Next time on,
"The Black Church".

You start to see
storefront churches dotting

the city's of Chicago, Detroit.

The church extends it's reach.

Healthcare, job employment.

Moving beyond the pulpit.

- What to we want?
- Justice!

You have to
include what is real.

I think we're disenchanted.

They abandoned the institution,

the didn't
necessarily abandon God.

Next time, on "The Black Church"

♪

♪

Watch the full film and

find additional information at

Join the conversation with

#BlackChurchPBS.

To order "The Black Church

This is Our Story,
This is Our Song" on DVD,

or the companion book visit

or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

This program is
also available on

Amazon Prime Video.

♪