Theology Today - Vol 26, No. 3 - October 1969 - ARTICLE - The Black Experience and Black Religion

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The Black Experience and Black Religion
By Preston N. Williams

The black man is many, not one; he is man, not problem. Understanding him, therefore, is a difficult and elusive task. And yet understand him we must, for the safety and survival of our society is as much dependent upon our ability to understand and know him as it is upon our ability to find proximate answers to the questions raised by technology, population explosion, and nuclear devices.

One of the most difficult things to comprehend and understand at this juncture in time is the experience of the black man in America.

There are many reasons for this. The obvious reason is the non-monolithic character of the black man. Americans have at every point attempted to create one image, one picture, one mirror in which all black men might be seen. Often they have succeeded in selling this conception of the black man to a large number of American citizens, and the black man emerges not simply as Sambo but also as Nat Turner, not simply Aunt Jemima but Julia, not just Louis Armstrong but Dean Dixon and Leontyne Price, not simply Joe Louis but an E. Franklin Frazier. The black man is many not one, and any oversimplified approach to discovering who he is will be self-defeating.

The black man is hard to profile also because for most Americans he is defined as a problem. The black man is what gets in our way, blocks our effort at harmony among classes and religion, frustrates our efforts to implement our values of justice, equality, and freedom, unmasks our pretentions and exposes our pride. The very presence

Preston N. Williams is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Boston University School of Religion. He has received degrees from Johnson C. Smith, Pittsburgh Seminary, and Harvard Divinity School.
This article was one of a series of lectures given in April, 1969, at Princeton Seminary as part of the first annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Lectureship, sponsored by the Association of Black Seminarians of Princeton Seminary.

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of the black man is disruptive, given the status quo. He is by definition a trouble-maker, a disturber of America's conscience, a problem.

Consequently all attempts to understand the black man go astray. The beam in our eye renders us incapable of perceiving the moat, i.e., the black man. We define our own guilt, we invent schemes of self-justification, we erect elaborate devices to protect our self-interest and self-esteem. In the process the black man becomes invisible and we are left with only our shadows. The true theme of much of the attempt of America to research, encounter, dialogue, confront the black man is then "me and my shadow." The black man has been rendered invisible and unapproachable by the anxious concern of America with the problems of the black man rather than the black man himself.

The task of understanding can be made less complex if we can equip ourselves with a conceptual apparatus for grasping the salient and characteristic features of the black man's experience and if we can illustrate the usage of that schema by reference to some of the details of the black experience. I would like to offer for your reflection, therefore, three typologies for grasping and explaining the black man's experience, and I would like to illustrate them by reference to black religion or, if you prefer, that type of religion practiced within the black community.

My typologies I shall call victimization, assimilation-integration, and black awareness or black consciousness. I am borrowing the concept of victimization from the eminent sociologist St. Clair Drake who employs it to define the social ways in which the black man is exploited by social institutions and social forces. The "system of social relations," Drake affirms, "operates in such a way as to deprive them [black men] of a chance to share in the more desirable material and non-material products of a society which is dependent, in part, upon their labor and loyalty. . . . They [black persons] do

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not have the same degree of access which others have to the attributes needed for rising in the general class system-money, education, 'contacts,' and 'know-how.' " Putting it a bit differently, Drake asserts that "some people [black persons] are used as means to other people's ends-without their consent-and that the social system is so structured that it can be deliberately manipulated to the disadvantage of some [black] groups by the clever, the vicious, and the cynical as well as the powerful."

When these perceptive words of St. Clair Drake are properly understood, they provide a more adequate explanation of the black man in America than is disclosed by such rubrics as cruelty systems, colonialization, or even white racism. The ghettoization of black life in America simply refers to victimization. First the victim of slave traders and slave owners, then the victim of the great betrayal by the Civil War military victors, the black man has been ceaselessly and legally exploited; denied almost every opportunity to acquire the skills needed for success, and (when the possessor of the skills needed for success) denied the opportunity to employ them in a fitting and profitable manner.

The process of victimization has touched the life of every black person in America no matter how successful or fruitful that life has been. Yet we know that while all blacks suffer in this way, not all blacks suffer to the same degree. There were free blacks in the deep South even during the days of slavery. A few blacks were slave owners, a few more possessed some wealth, more still possessed a measure of equality. The attempted revolt of Denmark Vesey was made possible because such a class existed, and the underground railroad would have been unthinkable were there not Frederick Douglasses or Harriet Tubmans. In differing ways W. E. B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington represent these independent spirits and free men. Make no mistake about it, Dubois was victimized. Harvard University and many similar institutions were not willing to add Dubois to their faculties despite his intellect and impressive scholarly achievements. Nevertheless, one must conclude that Dubois was not fully victimized. He was a victim of an unjust social order, but in many ways-the product often of accident rather than design-Dubois was, due to the same system, able to become a member of the mainstream of American cultural and intellectual life-indeed one of its leaders. He was one of the few men, white

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or black, who could in 1897 possess a Harvard Ph.D. and shortly thereafter study in Europe. One cannot forget the great loss American intellectual life suffered when it made Dubois a victim of racist attitudes and behavior, but one must also remember that he did enter the free society and he was much more than a marginal participant. Many a university faculty member during the Dubois era has died forgotten and his learning has died with him. Throughout his life Dubois affected the social and intellectual currents of the day, and his legacy of writing and thought is becoming increasingly more significant. Dubois was more than a victim.

So also was Booker T. Washington. On the one hand, Booker T. Washington was a victim. In the opinion of some he was the most complete model of the Uncle Tom that the black man possesses. On the other hand, Mr. Washington was neither a victim nor an Uncle Tom. He had been assimilated almost completely into the life style of the successful New England business man of his day. He had learned the value of hard work and shrewd bargaining, and practiced deception in personal relations. He glorified in rigorous personal morality and philanthropy. He was a transplanted New England businessman, a model of his tutor and master, Colonel Armstrong. He was not black but White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

The two facedness of Booker T. Washington that has perplexed so many black and white interpreters is rooted in this fact-he was a victim at the same time that he was assimilated into the mores of one portion of America's ruling class. Like the poorest and most powerless black Alabamian, he too was victimized and dehumanized by the racist American society. Yet unlike the white crackers around him, he possessed a factory capable of making him the manager and owner of much of black America. His willingness to eschew personal dignity and power in the South made him the most powerful black man in America. Washington, like the wealthy industrialist who supplied capital for Tuskegee, built a factory for the black mind, and like his philanthrophic ladies planted the virtue of "noblesse oblige" in the mind of many a black youth. Beyond this Tuskegee has become a symbol for much of White America. It, together with Washington and George Washington Carver, personifies America's myth of the self-made man, of individualism and success. In addition, Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver, when they had made the desert blossom like a rose, acted continu-

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ously to fulfill another important American value: they gave of their wealth to the poor.

Here one needs to be careful and cautious, but one can assert that in general the black middle class can be understood within the framework of the model suggested by the lives of Dubois and Washington. I call this typology assimilation-integration.

Since both these terms are currently in disfavor among a number of significant black persons, a more careful definition is needed. We accept for our purposes the surface meaning of the terms, namely the incorporation of one body of materials into another, in this instance cultural traditions. We reject, however, the notion that either assimilation or integration requires the total destruction of one of the elements to be integrated. One may rightly argue about the proportion of the mixture but there must be a mix. Black and white cultural elements have to be present. In Dubois, for example, it is elitist-the best of Harvard, of Germany, and of Africa. In Washington it is made up of the cultural elements of the noveau riche-America's common culture overlayed with tinsel and gold.

From the beginning until now the black middle class has been similarly constituted. They are the blacks who have, in some important sense, often in a very real sense achieved honor in the integrated society. Even the black professor in the black school in the black belt has had a successful experience in the white world and carries with him traces of cultural understanding that are not all black. In most instances he will take pride in these achievements and even when extolling blackness will incorporate what he has learned from his encounter with the larger cultural tradition.

To some extent assimilation takes place at every point in the experience of cross-cultural contacts. There we use it to designate a preferred and conscious style of life in which the individual's desire is to learn from another cultural group and to use that knowledge to enhance and improve his own cultural tradition.

Perhaps the most comprehensive description of the process of assimilation has been provided by Professor Milton M. Gordon in his volume Assimilation in American Life. There he identifies seven stages or types of assimilation.

1. Cultural or behavioral assimilation-the change of cultural patterns to those of the host society.

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2.Structural assimilation-the large scale entrance into cliques, clubs, and institutions of the host society on a primary group level.

3.Marital assimilation-large scale intermarriage.

4.Identificational assimilation-the development of a sense of peoplehood based exclusively on the host society model.

5.Attitude receptional assimilation-the absence of prejudice.

6.Behavior receptional assimilation-the absence of discrimination.

7.Civic assimilation-the absence of value and power conflict.

Assimilation as we have used the term includes notions of change of cultural attitudes-cultural assimilation and the desire for the elimination of prejudice, discrimination, and value and power conflicts. Gordon calls these respectively attitude receptional, behavior receptional, and civic assimilation.

We have added the term integration to refer to what Gordon calls structural assimilation, that is, large scale entrance into cliques, clubs, and institutions of the host society on a primary group level. We do not, however, include either marital or identificational assimilation in our conception of assimilation-integration.

Let us summarize. We are here asserting that assimilation-integration is a suitable typology for understanding much of the black experience in America and that it is especially fitted to explain black middle class life. These persons sought cultural patterns similar to that of the host society; they sought also the elimination of prejudice, discrimination, and value and power conflicts. To a lesser extent this group desired large scale entrance into cliques, clubs, and institutions of this host society on a primary groups level. They did not possess any concern for large scale intermarriage, nor did they desire to completely pass over into the white world. A black people was to exist, but in complete harmony and rapport with others and as participants alongside of others in one set of social institutions.

III

My third typology for the description of the black experience is black awareness or black consciousness. The type is not simply contemporary. It is obvious to me that black awareness or black consciousness is an attitude, a disposition of mind and heart, of soul, if you will, possessed by the black man from the very beginning of

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his experience in America. His high visibility set him apart. It made possible his categorization as a slave rather than as a free man or an indentured servant. It lent validity to every effort to label him as different, inferior, or quasi-human. Whether we like it or not, black always implied some form of separation, a difference from all other Americans that could not be eradicated except by the most unacceptable of remedies-complete intermarriage or complete deportation.

Afro-American can imply integration-assimilation. It suggests Irish-American or German-American together with the process of assimilation used by those groups in accommodating themselves to American society. Black implied separateness, it pointed to the unassimilative nature of the black man in America. The only other physical or social characteristic that was similarly so unambiguous was hair.

Black awareness or black consciousness is not intended to imply full or complete separation, just as assimilation-integration does not imply complete amalgamation. Black consciousness or black awareness might cause one to seek to rid himself of his blackness. It might cause one to desire to remove the "color line" which separated the black man from the rest of society just as it might cause one to make the "color line" a wall. Moreover, we must remember that even the wall when erected will be a porous wall-something analogous to the wall of separation between church and state. What is unique about this type is not the response that one makes to one's blackness but rather knowledge of one's blackness as something peculiar and different and as something that demands a special act of acceptance or rejection.

The diversity of response to one's blackness can be seen when one looks into the writing of any so-called or real prophet of separation. Elijah Muhammad, for example, would like to build a separate black nation within America, but despite the separation the new nation would engage in some sort of regular communication with the non-black world.

Marcus Garvey wanted the black man to repossess Africa; yet one of the reasons for this policy of repossession was the desire to have the black man establish firmly the full equality of his person and his culture. Presumably when this was accomplished this fully equal black man would have relationships with others just like those exist-

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ing among white and yellow people or among Arabs and Indians. To be sure, these relationships should not be considered ideal but, on the other hand, separation does not properly describe the relationship.

Albert Cleage also suggests the necessity of a black nation, but his people will be scattered throughout white society and will have as their faith a religion whose ancestry and God is associated with universalism and neighborliness among mankind.

Those who are aware of their blackness do not then respond in only one way. Some tend toward acceptance of victimization. Some tend toward assimilation and integration in the host society. What is unique about this group is their recognition of what Milton M. Gordon calls structural pluralism, or the separation of ethnic groups in such a way as to make it possible or necessary for them to maintain their own communal identity and subculture. In addition, if Gordon is correct, primary group contacts will be held to a minimum even though secondary contacts or impersonal contacts may abound.¹ If this notion of expanding secondary, impersonal relationships among group and individuals while restricting primary relationships to one's own group and one's own kind of people seems strange or repellent, let me remind you that this, according to Mr. Milton Gordon, is the way American society operates. One might conclude, therefore, that the black separatist, so-called, is doing in a flamboyant way what the rest of society does quietly and without much thought. Black separatism, so-called, is as American as Coca-Cola.

It is apparent that in actual existence aspects of these three types of black experience will be found in the life of every black man. Accordingly we should seek no rigid conformity to a pattern. All black men are to some degree victims, are to some extent participants in a process of assimilation-integration, and to some measure are cognizant of the fact that they are black. Their perception of life will be determined, however, by one of these perspectives more than by the other two. Under the three, I think, we can comprehend every aspect of the black experience in America.

What I would like to do now is to relate black religion to these conceptions of the black experience. By black religion I shall mean

¹ Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.

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any religious teaching embraced by a significant number of black persons. The only uniqueness I shall predicate of black religion is that it is held and practiced by black persons. Black religion, I want to demonstrate, is peculiarly fitted to aid the black man to discover meaning in life and to cope with life's many problems and frustrations. Once again we must sketch lightly and we hope deftly with a quick stroke.

If religion is to help one who has been systematically victimized to find meaning in life, it must do three things at least. It must enable the person to establish a sense of personhood, to endure the sufferings of life and to make sense of them and, finally, to find a foundation upon which to place a belief in righteousness and justice.

It is my contention that black religion has met all three of these requirements. In many and sundry ways through religion the black slave and the black slave in the ghetto have come to know that they are not chattel, beings less than human, or the most inferior of human creatures. Religion has taught them that they are children of God and equal to all other men. One spiritual succinctly catches up all these concerns:

I got shoes
You got shoes
All God's children got shoes.
When we get to Heaven
We're going to put on our shoes
An' shout all over God's Heaven.
Heaven! Heaven!
But everybody talking 'bout Heaven
Ain't going there.

Here one sees the three motifs clearly stated. Slaves and masters are both God's children; amidst the suffering of slavery solace is provided by knowledge of one's possession of a few of life's amenities -shoes-and the future possession of a heaven where all men shall be free to shout and dance, to be equal-but also a heaven built, not upon inequality and slavery, but justice and righteousness.

. . . everybody talking 'bout Heaven
Ain't going there.

The master may not enjoy heaven; perhaps also some others, who like the master are responsible for evil and injustice, will not enjoy it either.

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If we look at the faith of the Black Muslim, we shall find a similar meaning provided to the victims of this world's evil. The personhood of the black man is affirmed by asserting that the black is the original man and that the white man is a creature grafted out from the black man but in such fashion as to graft out his humanity. The sufferings of life are explained by declaring that Allah has given the white devils six thousand years to rule; justice as the cornerstone of creation is confirmed by teaching that Allah will overturn this wicked rule and reestablish the control of the black man.

Let us permit one form of Christian interpretation and one form of non-Christian teaching to stand for the whole and draw quickly our conclusion: namely, that black religion has throughout its history sought to make the victimized black man capable of carrying his burden. At its best it faced life realistically, enabled men to seek to overcome their handicaps, and positively related men to ultimate truth, the true and living God. At its worst it was an opiate putting men to sleep and distorting and falsifying reality.

The black man's religion has also acted to undergird his desire to become a full member of American society. Mass religion, wherever it has been successful, has provided in part a solace to the victims of society's ills.

I'm a rolling, I'm a rolling, I'm a rolling thro'
an unfriendly world,
I'm a rolling, I'm a rolling, I'm a rolling thro'
an unfriendly world.
O brothers, won't you help me,
O brothers, won't you help me to pray?
O sisters, won't you help me,
O sisters, won't you help me to pray?
O preachers, won't you help me,
O preachers, won't you help me to fight?
O preachers, won't you
Won't you help me in the service of the Lord.

Brothers, sisters, preachers-all victimized not only by an unfriendly but also a racist world-found the balm in Gilead in the service of the Lord. The black denominations and black religionists in predominantly white churches have not only accomplished this, but they at their best have also aided significantly the process of assimilation-integration.

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We should not forget, despite the obscuring features of the myths, that Baptist and Methodist labels point to the ability of Christianity to transcend color. Negro spirituals may be representations of African culture despite the evident Christian content of many of their lyrics, but when one affirms that Baptist and Methodist is the genuine religion of the black man, then one is saying that the judaeo-Christian tradition is or can be the genuine religion of the black man. Assimilation and integration in some form has taken place, and one is very close to affirming that it is not only inevitable but also desirable.

We can go a bit further in suggesting that the Judaeo-Christian tradition can become or is already genuine black religion. We need but recall that when Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Church, his co-worker Absalom Jones founded an Episcopal church. Moreover, Bishop Payne of the African Methodist Church was educated at the Gettysburg Lutheran Theological Seminary and was a Presbyterian prior to becoming an African Methodist and the founder of the Wilberforce University and Payne Theological Seminary.

When we ask why these men left white churches and established black churches, the answer that seems to be given by all is the desire of the white church to keep the black man in his place. The new churches did not feel an imperative need to develop a black theology, a black ethic, a black religion. The new churches did not, therefore, produce completely new liturgies, or polities, or theologies. What was carried into the new churches was modified, of course, by time and circumstance, but what was provided immediately for the black man was the opportunity to determine one's own destiny, to occupy positions of leadership, to acquire the skills necessary to perform complex and difficult administrative tasks, and to allocate and use power.

The seriousness of the black man's approach to this task cannot be denied. Not only the management of congregations and the building of churches, but also the establishment of schools and colleges, of publishing houses and other auxiliary enterprises, underscores the black man's desire to demonstrate by performance in the real world his ability to master all the skills necessary for success.

Had the system of victimization been less rigorous, the black man's success would have been greater. Had the black man been less concerned with assimilation and integration, he might have attempted to

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undertake a more rigorous attack upon the evils of the system and to spend less time building a separate world in which he could both develop the dignity and pride of manhood and the middle class value and skills prevalent in the larger society.

It is not our desire or intent, however, to deal exhaustively with the past. What is important is our ability to see that religion, indeed what is considered authentic black religion, played an important role in the black man's desire for assimilation and integration.

Before one damns this whole contribution as misbegotten, let me remind you that America has always consisted of two societies; one free and one slave, one white and one black. During the pre-civil war days, to seek assimilation and integration was to pursue the most radical type of social change.

When during the post-civil war period Jim Crow was born, the black church was already many years old, and its pattern of development was already set. In addition, the evolving patterns of Jim Crow, lynch law, and blatant racism left the free black man no alternative other than assimilation-integration and few means except religion that could serve the cause of freedom and education.

That organized religion choose the path of assimilation-integration was almost a foregone conclusion, the result of a divine decree. Gibson Winter is correct then in affirming that the dynamic of the black community is similar to that of other ethnic communities and that the dynamic of black religion is similar to that of the black community. The black man, especially the middle class black man, has sought identification with his community on the one hand, and on the other hand he has sought to surrender this black identity in order to become fully American. This ambivalence of the black man has been mirrored in his religious life. Nonetheless, it is far from true to suggest, as did Gibson Winter, that "folk religiousness" was rejected by the black middle class church, or that the black middle class was insulated from the rest of the black community. As a consequence formality of worship, organizational style, and white color motifs were never entrenched in the churches of the "black bourgeoise," and many a middle class Negro rejected and rejects religious participation entirely because of its exclusive Negro identity.² Here one finds himself in agreement with Joseph Washington; had the

² Gibson Winter, The Suburban Captivity of the Churches. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1961.

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middle class black church become the model of formality of worship, organizational style, and white collar motifs, what Washington called "Black Religion" would have been non-existent and his call to complete amalgamation would be totally incomprehensible.

What we must realize is that the black middle class church has always been supportive of assimilation-integration but that it has also always sought to preserve what it considered to be the highest and best of black culture. This was due in part to the fact that middle class churches were seldom only middle class. They included janitors as well as doctors, maids as well as school teachers, rural as well as urban types. The worship and liturgy was designed therefore to speak to past, present, and future. Folk religious patterns remained strong because the common experience of the black man was rooted in the lessons taught by the dark past and not the hope that might be present in some distant future.

God of our weary years
God of our silent tears
Thou who hast brought us thus far on our way;
Thou who hast by Thy might
Let us into the light
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

The children of victimization could not forget their past even when the burdens were lightened and some measure of equality existed. Yet the cultural and religious patterns of black religion were being accommodated to the general cultural models, an end was being sought to prejudice, discrimination, and value and power conflicts. But only in a limited way was entrance sought in primary groups and intermarriage was seldom advocated. More importantly the church itself, as Joseph Washington observes, stood as a formidable barrier to identificational assimilation.

Let me try to illustrate my point by reference to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was in our time the foremost proponent of integration, and his philosophy is a blend of black and white tradition. All that he did reflects assimilation and integration. Yet it has been Martin Luther King and the men around him, James Lawson, Ralph Abernathy, Jessie Jackson, and James Bevel, who have done most, perhaps, to make us alive to the black church and its heritage of song, prayer meetings, preaching, and fellowship.

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Black consciousness or black awareness has also received support and legitimation from the black church. Indeed one can say that the original black church knew itself only as a black church practicing black religion. I refer now, of course, to the invisible church, the blacks who caught religion as it escaped from the doors and windows of the white church and who had to hide in the fields and practice their religion in fear of bodily harm from their white overseers and masters. Black consciousness or black awareness is as old as black religion itself, and it will disappear only when the color line itself disappears.

To tell the story of black consciousness is, in fact, simply to tell the story of the black man in America. Here, however, we have reference to those whose keen sense of their racial identity lead them to emphasize the need for separation. The members of the invisible church were forcibly separated from their white brethren; these persons separate themselves by desire.

I want here only to make reference to several religious figures in order to demonstrate the fact that black consciousness or awareness has existed within the main stream of black religion and among the black masses.

My first reference is to Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, 1834-1915, a bishop of the A.M.E. Church and an advocate of black nationalism. For Turner, Africa was the black man's true home and in 1877 he and a group of Charleston A.M.E. ministers formed the South Carolina Liberian Exodus. In the following year (1878), this group sent a group of black emigrants to Africa aboard the ship Azor. Since Turner was not elected bishop until 1880, it seems fair to conclude that despite opposition by many to his views, his election as bishop constituted at least a limited endorsement of his colonization views.

Turner, like the blacks today, had been originally a supporter of integration but in the face of white violence, lynching, convict labor systems, and Jim Crowism he was led to conclude that the black man had only the alternative of Africa or extermination. He demanded that the Negro "Respect Black!" and to stress the point he asserted, "God is a Negro: Even the heathen in Africa believe that they are created in God's image. But American Africans believe they resemble the devil, and hence the contempt they have for themselves and each other!"

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In 1891, 1893, and 1898 Turner visited Africa establishing Christian missions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. While I have not yet had the time to document the matter, I believe that it was the work of Turner, who did not die until 1915, which prepared the way for Marcus Garvey.

Garvey was, of course, the best known preacher of blackness. Here we only care to assert that while he affirmed that God was of no color, black men should see him as black just as white conceived of him as white and yellow persons saw him as yellow. To provide his movement with religious legitimization he founded an African Orthodox Church which was presided over by a former Episcopal priest who was consecrated bishop by a Greek Orthodox bishop.

What we need to note here is that both Turner and Garvey accepted the Christian religion as the religion of the black man. To be sure, they made modifications in their interpretations of the faith but neither felt that a new faith had to be invented or that only the religions of Africa could satisfy the religious longings and the aspirations of the black man. They denied then the assertion of the Black Muslims that Christianity was the white man's religion, although like Albert Cleage they sought to make the symbols of the faith reflect the peculiar concerns of the black man and provide a positive legitimization of his skin color.

We need not, I think, elaborate the views of the Black Jews or the Black Muslims. Suffice it to say that they provide the black man with an alternative to the Christian faith. In addition, they imply that religions that have their origin in places other than the fatherland, Africa, have been put forth by advocates of black consciousness as adequate vehicles for the spiritual expression of the black man's soul. Have we not here an admission that true religion must possess a universal dimension?

Black religion has been supportive of black awareness or black consciousness in yet another way. It has provided religious sanctions for secular expressions of black consciousness. In July of 1966, for example, the Committee of National Negro Churchmen issued their statement on Black Power and many of these churchmen together with Nathan Wright sponsored the First National Black Power Conference. These actions were but the beginning of a series of actions that continue until today and embrace among other activities

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the creation of Black Caucuses and the black seminarian student organizations.

Much more can be and needs to be said. Perhaps I have said enough to indicate that black religion has spoken a meaningful word to the black experience. Certainly the role it has played makes clear the fact that it is a necessary aspect of religious pluralism and an indispensable aid to the black man in his search for both salvation and freedom.