Climbing Up to Glory (29 page)

An especially daunting problem confronting black communities was the care of orphans. The decimation wrought by the institution of slavery on the black family further exacerbated this situation. Whole families were sometimes separated by sale, with some members so young that later in life they would not be able to recognize parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, or siblings. Moreover, the Civil War gave rise to a fluid situation in which many blacks were constantly on the move in their attempts to gain the freedom that had long eluded them. Many of them perished along the way, the victims of Northern white soldiers or vengeful Southern whites. Other freedmen saw military duty in the war, and nearly 40,000 gave their lives. As a consequence, it should come as no surprise to acknowledge the fact that black communities were besieged by orphans. Of course, black churches formed societies to assist orphans, especially since women, with their nurturing motherly instincts, dominated the mutual-aid societies in terms of activism. Thus, the welfare of orphans was of paramount importance to them. Their welfare also assumed great importance to black communities because children represented the future of the race.

In post-Civil War black America, orphanages often served as daycare centers in addition to their more standard function of housing children who were homeless because of broken households or of deceased parents. Scattered black orphanages did not escape the perceptive observation of whites. General O. O. Howard, the superintendent of the Freedmen's Bureau, for example, commented on the success of one started by blacks in New Orleans. It was so effective that “many of its early residents ended up in homes with parents and friends.” A black woman is given credit by John Eaton for starting the first Mississippi Valley wartime orphanage, on President's Island near Memphis. Similarly, not long after the war, freedmen either helped start or entirely supported orphanages in Beaufort and Charleston, South Carolina, and Mobile, Alabama. The orphanage in Beaufort was “properly officered by the colored citizens.” Mobile's blacks held a fair in the summer or fall of 1865 and raised a staggering $1,200 to build an orphanage. A group of black women from a local church in Charleston secured and outfitted an “orphan house” for the children of parents who found employment in the countryside. And when Northern relief officials started a second orphanage for freedmen in New Orleans, the city's “poor,” though destitute, contributed $1,500 to support it.
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Although the data delineating the socioeconomic backgrounds of most black females who were active members in benevolent societies are sparse, some illuminating documentation does exist for women's benevolent societies in Memphis. The data indicate that not only did the vast majority of members come from the working class, but so, too, did the leaders. For example, almost two-thirds (61.5 percent) of the leadership elite worked as laundresses, ironers, and domestics. Given the dire poverty of most blacks, in all likelihood the socioeconomic profile of the members of women's benevolent societies of Memphis is reflective of most throughout the South in the post-Civil War era. That these societies accomplished so much during the difficult economic times of the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s makes their achievement all the more impressive. The panic of 1873 and the subsequent depression, which dragged on until 1879, contributed to chaotic financial conditions in areas throughout the South. In addition, when the Freedmen's Savings Bank collapsed and subsequently closed its doors in July 1874, the economic situation further worsened. Many freedmen had their life savings in the bank, and now all was lost. Yet, despite these obstacles, black parishioners—mostly women—persisted in their efforts to help the needy in their communities. And regardless of the size of their congregations, most churches maintained some ongoing program of benevolence.
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Today, although its influence has decreased, the church is still a pivotal institution within black communities. Many black preachers continue to deliver moral messages from their pulpits. They emphasize the need to save money for the future, to acquire an education, and to work and support the family as well as raise the children to be respectful and industrious. Owing to its devastating impact on the family, adultery and divorce are regarded as twin evils, and some churches offer counseling services for couples. As noted earlier, such vices as drinking, gambling, prostitution, smoking, dancing, and stealing are frowned upon. Church parishioners continue to visit jails and prisons in efforts to persuade those who have gone astray to straighten out their lives.
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As expected, many black churches in the South were popular sites for organized political activity among freedmen and their Northern supporters. For example, in Louisville, Quinn Chapel AME Church hosted the states' black teachers' convention in 1870. Quinn Chapel was also the scene of meetings protesting the absence of impartiality for blacks in Kentucky courts, and prominent roles in the city's streetcar segregation demonstrations of 1870 were played by several of its members. Moreover, under the supervision of the Reverend J. C. Waters, Asbury Chapel, also located in Louisville, hosted numerous protest rallies.
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And throughout the early years of freedom, blacks held mass political meetings at Zion Presbyterian Church and Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, both of which could seat between 1,500 and 2,000 people. These gatherings were held to discuss the state and welfare of the country in general and the condition of newly freed slaves in particular. Committees were organized to devise strategies to deal with the changed conditions wrought by the war.
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Clergymen were among the most effective and able black politicians during the Reconstruction period. Black ministers from both the North and South, experienced in the politics of the church arena and used to exerting influence in the black community, successfully won election to legislative seats and took an active part in government at the Federal, state, and local levels. To fully understand the disproportionate representation of the clergy among the political leaders, one need only to look at South Carolina. Of the 255 blacks who served in the state legislature between 1868 and 1876, forty-three were ministers.
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Among some of the best-known minister-politicians of the Reconstruction era were Bishop Henry M. Turner, Bishop James W. Hood, Holland Thompson, R. H. Cain, and Mansfield Tyler. The careers of Turner and Hood are representative. Bishop Turner of the AME Church, plunging with tremendous energy into recruiting blacks into the Republican Party, became active in Georgia politics after the war. He was eventually elected to the state legislature but later lost his seat when racist Georgians resumed control. Bishop Hood of the AME Zion Church presided over what may have been the first convention called by blacks after they gained their freedom. He then served as a local magistrate, a deputy collector for the Internal Revenue, and assistant superintendent of public instruction of the state of North Carolina. Interestingly, only two of the twenty blacks elected to the U.S. House of Representatives were ministers, but one of the two blacks elected to the Senate, Hiram Revels of Mississippi, was a preacher.
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Furthermore, the vast majority of those ministers who were active in politics were Republicans and shared on the whole the conservative political philosophy of the party. In other words, they did not try to upset the existing order. While they did support political and civil rights for blacks, they refused to support the land reform proposals that would have made it easier for freedmen to acquire land and thus build a foundation for economic independence. Black minister-politicians also opposed unionization. If freedmen could not own or rent land, they had to work as sharecroppers or wage earners, and in those positions they wanted fair wages and decent working conditions. One way to accomplish these goals was through unionization, but on this issue most minister-politicians again followed the conservative party line.
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JAMES WALKER HOOD, AN INFLUENTIAL BISHOP IN THE AME ZION CHURCH WHO BECAME ACTIVE IN NORTH CAROLINA POLITICS DURING RECONSTRUCTION.

Courtesy of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History

Despite their shortcomings, however, minister-politicians as well as the preachers who did not enter politics made a significant contribution to the black community. They helped promote the ideas of racial solidarity and self-help. Under their guidance, the churches provided religious services and functioned as a social, economic, and political institution within the black community. That black ministers accomplished so much under such difficult circumstances is one of the most remarkable triumphs of the post-Civil War period.

One of the darkest chapters in black church history has been the discrimination against female members by males. Apparently, although the practices of injustice that they heaped upon women paralleled those that had led them to rebel against white churches, men could not see the error of their ways. How did this situation come about? In the process of institutionalizing clandestine religious practices formed during slavery and separating them from white congregations, freed people reserved church leadership positions for men. In fact, women were turned out of the sanctuary “before the men began to talk” about matters of church policy. Perceptive whites on the Sea Islands reported the public censure of freedwomen there who had showed a lack of proper respect for their husbands' authority. Since the reputation of husbands was tied to wives, it was thought that a woman should not engage in actions that would embarrass or humiliate her spouse. To do only as he desired was reinforced by biblical interpretation. In fact, the biblical injunction, “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands,” gave preachers the justification for church-based decisions that seemed arbitrary or unfair to the women involved.
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The fact that black women had such crucial roles in establishing and ensuring the success of the churches makes the subordinate status assigned to them by men all the more despicable.

Black men, of course, especially regarded the ministry as their domain, and throughout the postwar period they steadfastly resisted the efforts of women to become ordained. For example, as one scholar has noted, “rather than concede the full authority of ordination, the A.M.E. chose to accommodate its organizational arrangements to include positions specifically designed for women—namely, stewardess and deaconess—and under duress would approve the licensing of women as evangelists.” However, even before these minimal victories were won, the struggle of black women preachers desirous of becoming ordained by the AME Church would be long and arduous. And despite the structural inclusion of women and their intensive labors for the church, at the conclusion of the nineteenth century, their role had not markedly changed. They were barred from official leadership positions and kept subservient. At the 1844,1848, and 1864 AME General Conferences, petitions requesting that women be allowed to preach were presented and turned down. But by 1868 the AME Church decided to institute an alternative to ordination: women preachers could now become stewardesses. Perhaps the church made this concession out of concern for the steadily increasing number of women who were publicly preaching.
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After 1868 the preaching of AME women openly escalated, although it would be three decades later before the church would again open its hierarchy to women. While the church never turned down prospective female members, it certainly accepted their money and never declined the material support produced by women's benevolent societies. Yet, women were only supposed to be seen, not heard. However, some were being heard, and the response was positive. Amanda Berry Smith, for example, the best known of the AME preaching women, was as early as 1871 credited with having markedly increased the membership of the waning congregation of Mount Pisqah in Salem, New Jersey, during a three-week stay there. Commenting on her work in the
Christian Recorder,
Elder Frisby Cooper wrote that she is “a very useful helper in the vineyard of the Lord, God bless her ever.”
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Elder Cooper's assessment of Smith's ability to save souls was echoed even by some bishops at the 1872 General Conference of the AME Church. After hearing her sing at a session held at Fisk University, they were convinced that Smith was blessed with the spirit of God. As a result, she received several invitations to preach at churches but no appointment as pastor or the rite of ordination.

Given the response of some of the AME brethren to Smith's inquiry into the cost of going to Nashville to attend the General Conference of 1872, the remarks made by bishops concerning her being “of the spirit” appear hypocritical at best. One of the AME brethren wrote back to Smith, “I tell you, Sister, it will cost money to go down there; and if you aint got plenty of it, it's no use to go.” Another asked, “What does she want to go for?” “Woman preacher; they want to be ordained” was the reply. Another wrote, “I mean to fight that thing,” and yet another said, “Yes, indeed, so will 1.”
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These statements illustrate the staunch opposition faced by black women preachers in their efforts to become ordained ministers. Yet, they did not despair. They continued to fight on. In this struggle, Smith was joined by other prominent AME black women such as Margaret Wilson, Emily Calkins Stevens, Lena Doolin-Mason, and Charlotte S. Riley.
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Although these women sought ordination by the AME Church without success, women striving for ordination in other black denominations such as the AME Zion Church, CME Church, or Baptists did not fare any better. The black church as an institution was male dominated, and there was great resistance to change.
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