Religion and Renaissance: African American Churches and Ministers in Harlem During the Jazz Age and Depression

This study delves into the churches and the ministers that helped make Harlem the cultural capital of black America. The first chapter begins with the remarkable convergence of ministers from the South and the Caribbean, who brought with them management skills from the various denominations in which they served, skills which are here examined with particular attention to St. Philip's Episcopal Church.;Congregations were on to something quite special when Harlem opened up as a place where they could thrive. How they understood that specialness is the subject of the rest of this study. Churches moved from traditional institutional forms to the most creative alternative forms. The most established denominations laid the groundwork for something larger than themselves. Ministers trusted that God would always make a way out of no way and that no obstacle could get in the way of the work of God's people. The churches practiced their own version of the Church Triumphant.;The second chapter finds God's expectations for joy and liveliness on the part of the church in the records of Abyssinian Baptist and the sermons of Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. Chapter Three describes the emergence of a modern urban halfway covenant when one prominent Presbyterian minister, William Lloyd Imes, asserted that God wanted to invite those not involved with churches to join in on their increasingly large social mission. In the fourth chapter, the openness of Harlem to creative syntheses of church and politics, and the many directions taken by those who believed in God as a provider of creative outlets even at the street level, is shown through the storefront Unitarian socialism of Ethelred Brown.;The churches had produced so much socially based theology that the creative expression of faith could not be stopped once the Jazz Age came to a close. Chapter five of this work describes how during the Depression ministers helped come up with a practical rhetoric that made a difference in the Harlemites' efforts to gain redress of their grievances and, eventually, electoral representation. This success gave the Harlem Renaissance the longevity it required.