The African American Denominational Tradition: The Rise of Black Denominations

From the formation of the first independent African American Protestant denomination in the 1810s and 1820s to the opening decades of the 21st century, independent African American denominations have stood at the center of black religious life in the United States. Their longevity and influence have made them central to the preservation of black beliefs, practices, and rituals; have provided venues to promote movements for black freedom; and have incubated African American leadership in both the church and civic spheres. They have intertwined with every aspect of American and African American life, whether cultural, political, or economic, and they engaged the international involvement of American society and the diasporic interests of black people. Parallel assemblies composed of black ministers pastoring black congregations that remained within white denominations also emerged within the traditional white denominations, including the white Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Congregational Protestant groups, plus the Catholic Church. Although they eschewed withdrawing from the white denominations, their extramural bodies functioned as a virtual black ecclesia, or institutional bodies, even though they remained smaller than the growing independent black denominations. Together, the black preachers and parishioners in independent black denominations and inside traditional white denominations maintained churches characterized by proud histories and long records of frontline involvements in black freedom pursuits.

Basketball, Books, and Brotherhood: Dewitt Clinton High School as Scholastic Model of Postwar Racial Progression and African American Leadership

In 1950, the City College of New York (CCNY) became the first racially-integrated team to win the national championship of college basketball. Three of the players on that team attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, New York. At the time Clinton high school was one of the most academically-rigorous public schools in the city and the United States. During this postwar period Clinton annually sent nearly a third of its graduates to college, this at a time when the national average of high school completion stood at twenty percent. The unofficial school motto etched in yearbooks and the student paper was “college or bust.” Needless to say, DeWitt Clinton strongly encouraged its student body to attend college and for those who did not, they were pushed to excel beyond the limits of their chosen professions. This intellectually competitive academic environment was integrated and more than twenty-percent black. Like their contemporaries, black students were encouraged to pursue opportunities that seemed unthinkable in an era of racial stratification. As a result, Clinton produced a number of black students armed with the skills to navigate the terrain of prejudice and circumvent a number of social barriers. DeWitt Clinton high school was a model for interracial brotherhood while also fostering black leadership. Like Jackie Robinson, whom integrated Major League Baseball in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, the three black athletes who competed on the CCNY team were prepared for the transition of competing on a racially integrated college team, can be partially attributed to their secondary schooling at DeWitt Clinton. This article examines the racial climate of DeWitt Clinton during the postwar years when the three young men were in attendance and how it fostered a culture of Basketball, Books, and Brotherhood.

Higher Laws

This chapter explores antebellum secret associations formed by black Americans. Even as European revolutionaries applied the standards of fraternalism to national purposes, similar organizations contributed directly to shaping black identity in America. In fact, black orders bore far greater resemblance to the European societies than most of those among white Americans. Context made black associations more overtly more political and made one fundamental labor reform unavoidable for an African American leadership described as bound in “the triple chord of Masonry, Church fellowship and Anti-Slavery association.” Most important, repressive conditions in America drove active resistance to slavery underground, making particularly relevant the accoutrements of fraternalism. As the explosive struggle over the extension of slavery into Kansas spurred radical activism among whites as well, the secret society tradition in America tapped ever more deeply into the experience of the African American—as well as European—associations.

Pilgrims in an Unholy Land: Satire and the Challenge of African American Leadership in The Boondocks and The White Boy Shuffle

This chapter provides a reading of Paul Beatty’s The White Boy Shuffle and Aaron McGruder’s animated television series The Boondocks in order to explore the satirizing of leadership in the African American community. This chapter posits that a lack of hero figures allows for the satirizing of Martin Luther King, Jr. These texts, and the lack of leadership they portray, highlight the gap between the desire for racial harmony and the complexity of the contemporary African American experience.