White Churches Research Articles

Recruiting Blacks to the Adventist Health Study: Do Follow-up Phone Calls Increase Response Rates?

To determine whether follow-up phone calls improve response rates to a long questionnaire among black and white subjects. Forty black and 39 white Seventh-day Adventist churches were randomized to experimental or control status in a 2:1 ratio favoring the intervention, which is a follow-up phone call to certain church members. Subjects selected from each church were those who had signed up for the Adventist Health Study-2 but not returned a questionnaire 3 months after promotion began. Further returns from a church over the next 3 months, and this increment as a proportion of baseline response, were assessed using t-tests and Poisson regression, respectively. Comparing black experimental and control churches, the mean difference was 5.5 returned questionnaires per church (p < 0.01). Among white churches the mean difference was 3.0 (ns). The baseline-adjusted increment, however, was greater by a factor of 3.37 (95% confidence interval, 1.92, 5.93) in the black experimental relative to control churches, but among white experimental churches was 13% (ns) lower than controls. This difference in response by ethnic group was statistically significant (p < 0.01). Follow-up phone calls improved response rates among black subjects only.

From bell tower to cell tower

White church steeples generally house nothing more exotic than church bells, but cellular service providers in many areas have been trying to subject these towers to multitasking by installing base stations within.

Black Anglicans in Focus: Qualitative Data on Black Marginality

This article is concerned with an analysis of three focus groups which were set up to explore the relationship between the African-Caribbean community in the UK and the Church of England. The focus groups were designed to find out how Black Anglicans think and feel about issues relevant to their mode of involvement in the Church of England, and to discover something about the frame of reference within which members of the focus groups interact with the institution of the Church. The focus for research participants was not their Christian faith but the racialized context in which that faith was expressed. The research participants were aware of their Blackness in a very White Church where they clearly had a minority status. The majority believed that the Church of England was reaching out to urban communities. It was also felt that the Church, particularly the hierarchy, were not doing enough to support Black people who were the victims of institutionalized racism.

The Invisibility and Fame of Harry T. Burleigh: Retrospect and Prospect

April 2, 2003, saw the opening of a three-day conference, The Heritage and Legacy of Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949), designed to address and celebrate the contributions of this singer, composer, vocal coach, pianist, teacher, editor, and producer. (1) The presenters explored issues ranging from who influenced Burleigh's career to whom he influenced; from his musical prowess to his work as a composer; from his arranging to his singing; from his songs to his choral works; from his spirituals to his popular and concert music. This occasion was the first to address comprehensively so many aspects of this individual's career and to provide interpretations that reach beneath the surface of previous writings to support his status as a key figure in the history of American music; for over the decades, discussions of his contributions to American music have been virtually absent in the tomes that document and extol that history. There are acceptable reasons for this silence, including the fact that until recently there have existed serious gaps in our knowledge about African-American music and musicians and a dearth of the kind of information that would reveal Burleigh as even semisignificant in the history of American music. In fact, in the large majority of cases, Burleigh's name does not appear unless Antonin Dvorak's does, not even in most black-oriented, black-authored, and black-produced publications. When his name is mentioned without Dvorak's, the context in which it appears carries the implication that Burleigh must have been a great singer since he was a featured soloist at a white church--St. George's Episcopal Church in New York--for fifty years, from 1894 to 1946. (2) Not even in my edited Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance (Floyd 1990) was Burleigh given more than a modicum of space, scattered throughout the volume. In order to place my observations in context, I will divert for a moment. The late musicologist Eileen Southern has told of colleagues at NYU questioning her decision to write a book about black music, one asking, What is there to learn about black music? There's nothing there--just jazz and spirituals. How could you possibly find enough material to make a course? (Wright 1992, 6). Well, she certainly proved his assumption to be wrong, producing a massive musicological tome about black music and black music making that ranges chronologically from pre-nineteenth-century American slave music to contemporary European-derived and American-based concert music, The Music of Black Americans. Since that landmark work first appeared, in 1971, an abundance of information has been revealed in scholarly journals, including her own trailblazing journal The Black Perspective in Music, Jon Michael Spencer's Journal of Black Sacred Music, and my own Black Music Research Journal, and in research tools and monographs on black music. A second edition of Southern's book was published in 1983, and a third in 1997. Each new edition contained much more information than in its previous incarnation and reflected an enlarged perspective, advanced by Southern's observation and study of developments that had taken place in the intervening years. Nevertheless, in the subsequent editions Burleigh remained underexposed, receiving only seven passing mentions in 1983 and seven in 1997; nor is he given much space in the second edition of Southern's edited Readings in Black American Music (1983), in which the authors of the book's essays gave him but five passing mentions. In The Power of Black Music (Floyd 1995), my treatment of him was not much better, for while I identified him there as a highly significant figure, my four passing mentions are now an embarrassment. A powerful exception to such omission is Reid Badger's biography of James Reese Europe, A Life in Ragtime (1995), which gives significant attention to Burleigh. All in all, however, while progress in the recognition of black music and musicians has been steadily consistent, Burleigh has been virtually disregarded. …

An Exemplary Citizen: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1906-1932

This book collects the letters written between 1906 and 1932 by novelist and civil rights activist Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932). Between 1885 and 1905, this pioneer in the African-American literary tradition published three novels, two books of short stories, a biography of Frederick Douglass, and many short stories and essays in prestigious periodicals-at the same time managing a stenography and court reporting firm in Cleveland, Ohio. His works, which featured the experiences of African-Americans in the ante- and post-bellum period, received favorable reviews. But they did not find a large and appreciative audience until many decades later when both the civil rights movement and increased interest in the African-American contribution to American cultural life resulted in the rediscovering of Chesnutt's large body of writings. Though he never saw the publication of another of his book-length manuscripts after 1905, Chesnutt continued to write fiction and essays, and to deliver speeches ranging from disenfranchisement to the life and works of Alexandre Dumas, and to act in behalf of the African-American cause through such organizations as the Committee of Twelve and the N.A. A.C.P. A dedicated integrationist opposed to race-pride movements of all kinds, Chesnutt in his post-1905 letters includes many references to the unfortunate consequences of racial segregation, addressed to both African-American and correspondents. These letters also reveal a multi-faceted personality with interests that transcended the issue of race and urged everyone to live life to the fullest. His correspondents included prominent members of the Harlem Renaissance as well as major American political figures Chesnutt sought to influence on behalf of his fellow African-Americans. As a successful businessman enjoying the amenities of upper middle class American life, a family man, and an Episcopalian who worshipped at a white church, Chesnutt in many respects embodied the realization of the American Dream. He was, as William Dean Howells termed Booker T. Washington, an exemplary citizen and a role model for all Americans.

Like a Thief in the Night

What would it take for whites (especially those males claiming to be Christian) to have formed within themselves the kind of “vital ferocity” necessary to struggle lifelong against the powers and privileges that whiteness constantly leverages in and around them? This essay seeks to answer this question by embracing black liberation theology as gift of bombast for the white church, bearing the blood-cry of a betrayed “American” Abel. The white church in our day continues to live largely in denial of a judgment already clogging its own veins. It has yet to listen and learn from the deepest groan of Spirit inside its own history.

To Raise Up the South: Sunday Schools in Block and White Churches, 1865-1915. By Sally G. McMillen (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. xviii plus 297 pp. $54.00/cloth $24.95/paper)

Journal Article To Raise Up the South: Sunday Schools in Block and White Churches, 1865–1915. By Sally G. McMillen (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. xviii plus 297 pp. $54.00/cloth $24.95/paper) Get access Lisa Lindquist Dorr Lisa Lindquist Dorr University of Alabama Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 37, Issue 2, Winter 2003, Pages 527–529, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2003.0175 Published: 01 December 2003

The Bible in Black and White

In Struggles over the Word: Race and Religion in O'Connor, Faulkner, Hurston, and Wright, Timothy P. Caron offers fresh insights on two of the oldest themes in the study of the literature of the American South—race and religion. Using the Bible as the common thread, Caron attempts to span the division that Thadious Davis has described in which "whites in the South become simply 'Southerners' without a racial designation, but blacks in the South become simply 'blacks' without a regional designation." After noting that many recent anthologies and critical studies have called for an end of this separation of region and race, Caron says, "It is time to move beyond simply calling for an integrated study of the South's literary culture and actually begin to sketch out what the new landscape will look like." The method he chooses to accomplish this end is to exam the Bible and "its attendant interpretive institutions and discourses as intertextual sources in selected white and black Southern writers." The various ways that southern writers use biblical texts "reveal the ways in which, despite the strident claims of Southern fundamentalists, the Bible is not a transparent text, but is one which is always interpreted and received in very specific historical circumstances." In particular, he examines how the shared conviction that the individual believer is free to interpret the Bible led black and white churches to very different biblical texts and interpretative practices and how these differences are encoded in literary works.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller (eds.), An Uncommon Time: The Civil War and the Northern Home FrontDavid Goldfield, Still Fighting the Civil War: The American South and Southern HistoryJames McPherson, Antietam: The Battle that Changed the Course of the Civil WarMark Meister and Phyllis M. Japp (eds.), Enviropop: Studies in Environmental Rhetoric and Popular CultureAvrom Fleishman, New Class Culture: How an Emergent Class Is Transforming America's CultureRichard E. Bales, The Great Chicago Fire and the Myth of Mrs. O’Leary's CowW. H. New (ed.), Encyclopedia of Literature In CanadaArchie Green, Tin MenDavid M. Wrobel, Promised Lands: Promotion, Memory, and the Creation of the American WestWilliam H. Young and Nancy K. Young, American Popular Culture Through History: The 1930sDonald E. Pease and Robyn Wiegman (eds.), The Futures of American StudiesW. J. Rorabaugh, Kennedy and The Promise of the SixtiesRobert Cohen (ed.), Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: The Letters From Children of the Great DepressionSally G. McMillen, To Raise Up the South: Sunday Schools in Black and White Churches, 1865‐1915James A. Von Schilling, The Magic Window: American Television, 1939‐1953Albert Borowitz, Blood &amp; Ink: An International Guide To Fact‐Based Crime LiteratureDeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War

Reviews of Books:To Raise up the South: Sunday Schools in Black and White Churches, 1865-1915 Sally G. McMillen

Reviews of Books:To Raise up the South: Sunday Schools in Black and White Churches, 1865-1915 Sally G. McMillen

To Raise Up the South: Sunday Schools in Black and White Churches, 1865-1915

To Raise Up the South: Sunday Schools in Black and White Churches, 1865-1915

To raise up the South: Sunday schools in black and white churches, 1865-1915

To raise up the South: Sunday schools in black and white churches, 1865-1915

Die wit kerk en swart nood: Is daar nog sout in die soutpot oor? Opmerkings oor die betrokkenheid van die wit kerk by die MIV/Vigs pandemie in Suid-Afrika

The white church and black needs: Is there still salt left in the salt cellar? Remarks on the involvement of the white church with the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa. There are reasons why the churches in the white community of South Africa are not really concerned or involved in the HIV/Aids pandemic, which is primarily ravaging the Black community. This may, however, be regarded as the "shibolet" for the credibility of the church. The article emphasises the need for the (White) church to listen in three directions: to understand its own identity, to listen (again) to the will of the Lord, and to listen to the needs of the Black community (especially in terms of HIV/Aids). Then the church should become involved. This involvement must be above else in the local communities, in the practical ways, which are indicated, in the area of short-term help, but also empowerment and liberation.

Blessed are the peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., eight white religious leaders, and the "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

S. JONATHAN BASS. Blessed Are Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and Letter from Birmingham Jail. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. Pp. xiv ± 322, illustrations, bibliography, index. $39.95. According to S. Jonathan Bass, the purpose of this book is to tell history of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 'Letter from Birmingham Jail.' To accomplish this task, Bass poses and answers five questions about letter and eight white clergymen who unwittingly inspired its writing when they petitioned Dr. King to wait until some other time to protest racist practices Birmingham, Alabama. The five questions are: Why and how it was written? How and where was it prepared and published? Who were eight white ministers addressed letter? What were their backgrounds? What do their careers tell us about white religious community during civil rights era? Although author does not acknowledge it, these five questions are not new. They are historic queries that a small army of scholars have repeatedly raised and answered varying ways and degrees since assassination of Dr. King 1968. Because of widespread attention these questions have received during past thirty-some years, we are compelled to ponder why Bass is raising them again. Is he simply doing what all good historians are trained to do and thus seeking to bring new light to our understanding of these historic questions? Or, does he have an agenda that is more subterranean than apparent? We do not have to speculate long here. In second paragraph of preface author says, in these pages I hope you will a and generally objective study of history of [Dr. King's] letter and of [eight] leading white church and synagogue leaders Alabama 1963. Although he leaves it unstated, Bass wants his readers to do a bit more than simply find his study balanced and objective. His subterranean goal seems to be to convince readers that eight clergy deserve a more elevated position than what scholars thus far have given them. Until now, most interpretations have portrayed clerics as either misinformed religionists who did not understand interrelationship between Gospel and social activism or covert defenders of Birmingham racism. Bass' hidden agenda is to remove raiment of ignorance or racism from these men and re-clothe them saintly robes of blessed peacemakers. To absolve eight clerics of charge of racism, Bass moves his study two directions. First, he brings forth heretofore largely unexamined papers and oral testimonies of eight clergy. He uses these sources to advance idea that men were innocent peacemaking moderates that have been unfairly judged by some historians. As he moves his plot along, he increasingly casts these clergy as wise proponents of a gradualist approach to resolution of racial problems 1963 Birmingham. He projects gradualist approach of clergy on race issues as reason they became trapped between two unyielding forces. These were status quo position of hardcore racists who were determined to maintain staid old Birmingham racism and impatience of Dr. King and his followers who were just as determined to immediately overthrow that anti-blackness. Throughout this study, author subtly and shrewdly lifts up gradualist position of eight clerics as being more realistic, if not honorable, than immediate position of Dr. …

Church‐Based Community Activism: A Comparison of Black and White Catholic Congregations

Scholars have recently examined the role of black churches in initiating civil rights and social justice activities, community development and rehabilitation projects, and family support and community health outreach programs. Practically all of this research has been on black Protestant churches. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature by investigating the extent to which African‐American Catholic congregations engage in social action and social service programs in their communities. Data drawn from a nationwide survey of U.S. Catholic parishes are used to show that black churches are significantly more likely than white churches to engage in social service and social action activities independent of a variety of demographic, organizational, and structural factors known—or suspected—to influence activism. This finding lends support to the argument that the extra religious functions of black churches—Protestant and Catholic—are more deeply ingrained in these religious institutions than is suggested by some analysts. Equally significant is the finding of positive and significant relationships between churches that have parish councils and leadership training programs and congregational activism. This finding lends support to previous findings that suggest that the organizational structure of religious institutions may influence churchgoers' opportunities for learning and practicing civic skills relevant to community activism.

Church‐based Community Activism: A Comparison of Black and White Catholic Congregations

Scholars have recently examined the role of black churches ein einitiatingcivil rights and social justice activities, community development and rehabilitation projects, and family support and community health outreach programs. Practically all of this research has been on black Protestant churches. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature byinvestigating the extent to which African‐American Catholic congregations engage in social action and social service programs in their communities. Data drawn from a nationwide survey of U.S. Catholic parishes are us d to show that black church s are significantly more likely than white churches to engage in social service and social action activities independent of a variety of demographic, organizational, and structural factors known—or suspected—to influence activism. This finding lends support to the argument that the extra‐religious functions of black churches—Protestant and Catholic—are more deeply ingrained in these religious institutions than is suggested by some analysts. Equally significant is the finding of positive and significant relationships between churches that have parish councils and leadershiptraining programs and congregational activism. This finding lends support to previous findings that suggest that the organizational structure of religious institutions may influence churchgoers opportunities for learning and practicing civic skills relevant to community activism.

“These Dark Woods Yet Again”: Rewriting Redemption in Lee Smith's Saving Grace

Lee Smith recently commented, “In a way my writing is a lifelong search for belief. I have always been particularly interested in expressions of religious ecstasy, and in those moments when we are most truly ‘out of ourselves’ and experience the Spirit directly” (“Notes,” Saving). In more than ten novels and short story collections, Smith has explored aspects of Southern life, history, and culture—its oral traditions, sacred and secular music, class divisions and race relations, mountain customs, Appalachian folklore, and the spiritual life and beliefs of white Southern fundamentalist churches.1 Some of her characters, like Ivy Rowe in Fair and Tender Ladies, resist the salvation offered by the church. Others, like country star Katy Cochran in The Devil's Dream, are “saved” and realize they have been “starving for God's love” all their lives (295).

Political Rivalry and Early Dutch Reformed Missions in Seventeenth-Century North-Sulawesi (Celebes)

The northernmost region of North Sulawesi, Minahasa, is one of the most Christian provinces of Eastern Indonesia. About ninety per cent of its total population of approximately one million is Protestant. The upland province capital of Tomohon and the city of Manado – the capital of North Sulawesi – are important centres for Christian education. On Sundays, the sound of bells of the white cathedral-style churches can be heard in almost every Minahasan town. Travellers who venture out to the beach villages on the Sangihe-Talaud islands north of Manado experience the same Protestant features of this part of the eastern archipelago.

Sulfur isotopic composition of hydrothermal precipitates from the Lau back-arc: implications for magmatic contributions to seafloor hydrothermal systems

The sulfur isotopic composition of sulfides and barite from hydrothermal deposits at the Valu Fa Ridge back-arc spreading center in the southern Lau Basin has been investigated. Sulfide samples from the White Church area at the northern Valu Fa Ridge have δ34S values averaging +3.8‰ (n= 10) for bulk sphalerite-chalcopyrite mineralization and +4.8‰ for pyrite (n= 10). Barite associated with the massive sulfides exhibits an average of +20.7‰ (n= 10). Massive sulfides from the active Vai Lili hydrothermal field at the central Valu Fa Ridge have much higher δ34S ratios averaging +8.0‰ for bulk sphalerite-chalcopyrite mineralization (n= 5), +9.3‰ for pyrite samples (n= 5), and +8.0‰ and +10.9‰ for a chalcopyrite and a sphalerite separate, respectively. The isotopic composition of barite from the Vai Lili field is similar to that of barite from the White Church area and averages +21.0‰ (n= 8). Sulfide and barite samples from the Hine Hina area at the southern Valu Fa Ridge have δ34S values that are considerably lighter than those observed for samples from the other areas and average −4.9‰ for pyrite (n= 9), −4.0 and −5.7‰ for two samples of sphalerite-chalcopyrite intergrowth, and −3.4‰ for a single chalcopyrite separate. The total spread in the isotopic composition of sulfides from Vai Lili and Hine Hina is more than 20‰ over a distance of less than 30 km. The δ34S values of sulfides at Hine Hina are the lowest values so far reported for volcanic-hosted polymetallic massive sulfides from the modern seafloor. Barite from the Hine Hina field also has unusually light sulfur with δ34S values of +16.1 to +16.7‰ (n= 5). Isotopic compositions of the sulfides at Hine Hina indicate a dramatic decrease in δ34S from ordinary magmatic values and, in the absence of biogenic sulfur and/or boiling, imply a unique 34S-depleted source of probable magmatic origin. Sulfide-barite mineralization in the Hine Hina area is associated with a distinctive alteration assemblage consisting of cristobalite, pyrophyllite, kaolinite, opal-CT, talc, pyrite, native sulfur, and alunite. Similar styles of alteration are typically known from high-sulfidation epithermal systems on land. Alunite-bearing, advanced argillic alteration in the Hine Hina field confirms the role of acidic, volatile-rich fluids, and a δ34S value of +10.4‰ for the sulfur in the alunite is consistent with established kinetic isotope effects which accompany the disproportionation of magmatic SO2 into H2S and H2SO4. The Hine Hina field occurs near the propagating tip of the Valu Fa back-arc spreading center (i.e., dominated by dike injections and seafloor eruptions) and therefore may have experienced the largest contribution of magmatic volatiles of the three fields. The sulfur isotopic ratios of the hydrothermal precipitates and the presence of a distinctive epithermal-like argillic alteration in the Hine Hina field suggest a direct contribution of magmatic vapor to the hydrothermal system and support the concept that magmatic volatiles may be an important component of some volcanogenic massive sulfide-forming hydrothermal systems.

Shadow Play: The Spiritual in Duke Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy"

On the Seventh Day, God created the spiritual. The Garden of Eden: a lawn outside an antebellum Southern white church, where a group of slaves has secretly gathered to hear a Sunday morning church service. Huddled there, they passed the Word of God around in whispers.... Noiselessly ... they'd inch a bit closer.... When the great white voice inside rang out in Triumph ... the blacks outside would grunt subdued approval. When the whites inside lifted voices in joyous song ... the blacks outside would hum along, adding their own touches ... weaving melodic, harmonic, rhythmic patterns. Thus the spiritual was born. Highly emotional worshipping of God in SONG. This creation story--spanning seven days from a mythic Monday to Sunday and featuring an Adam and Eve named Boola and Voola--comes from Duke Ellington's scenario for Brown and Beige, his tone to the history of the Negro in America: (Ellington n.d.).(1) As a divinely created song, the spiritual watches over that history. In Brown and Beige, Ellington's spiritual melody--the lucent Come Sunday--offers solace, chimes faith, and extols triumphs. This glorification of the spiritual and the tone parallel recounting of African-American history furthered the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement that aimed to uplift blacks in American society by celebrating their artistic and historical achievements. During the Renaissance, the spiritual was lauded as one of the crowning achievements of the race. In his influential essay Of the Sorrow Songs, W.E.B. Du Bois helped coronate the genre, presenting it as a noble voice of suffering, raised during slavery, that conveyed the sadness, hope, and faith expressed by its creators to following generations (1903, 250-264).(2) Du Bois's conception of the served as the Renaissance ideal of the genre and was musically realized in the performances of such singers as Paul Robeson and Roland Hayes and in the arrangements of J. Rosamond Johnson, among others. Notably, these versions largely eschewed folk practices, drawing instead on the vocal and compositional conventions of European concert idioms, an affiliation that enhanced the gravity and classicism that Du Bois ascribed to the genre (Radano 1995; Sundquist 1993, 525-539). Although incorporating jazz styles, Ellington's evocation of the spiritual still paid homage to the sorrow song ideal with its suggestions of musical and historical transcendence. Come Sunday, however, came late to the Renaissance veneration of the spiritual. Premiered in 1943, Black, Brown and Beige appeared almost a decade after that movement had died out, a lag resulting from the long gestation of the unprecedented work.(3) But Ellington had drawn upon spirituals before this, incorporating one into Black and Tan Fantasy during the late 1920s, the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance.(4) According to Bubber Miley, co-composer and a cornetist in Ellington's band, a spiritual inspired the main theme of the work (Dodge [1934] 1993, 108); however, as discussed below, that spiritual was not one of the treasured sorrow songs but rather a hybrid tune derived from a sacred song by a white composer. Whatever its origins, Miley's spiritual is part of a mix of sacred and secular elements in Black and Tan Fantasy, a variegated piece that blends the spiritual together with blues, contemporary urban jazz idioms, call-and-response patterns, and a Chopin quotation. This amalgam creates a variety of moods and sensations, including a broad satirizing of religious display. Behind the satire lies a less obvious irony, one that can be heard as targeting the sorrow songs. Black and Tan Fantasy presents an ironic reversal of those works and the musical and religious propriety that defined them. The jazz work does not treat its spiritual in such a pious manner; rather, it uses blues idioms to distort the melody. …