Good afternoon. Lets try this again, good afternoon. Good afternoon. I want to build on what we talked about last week. Mal. Males have c lets try thi again. Lets see if my little thing works. So there are a host of characters. I wont talk about all of them but there are some things i really want you to Pay Attention to. It is control by the people at the very lowest level. I dont mean that in terms of status but at the ground level. Therefore it can you see this other word. It creates its own organic leadership. It is a leadership that belongs to its own community. And well talk about that a little more than politics. Public personalities, all of those are going in there. One of the things youll note is that black clergy people, whether male or female have to build a support system, have to be affirmed by its own people. That organic leadership is crucial to black churches, black american politics and so on. In 1972 this is one of the few books that tries to examine black politics by charles b. Hamilton called the black preacher in america. It came out in 1972. He is best known for a book he coauthored with called black power, the politics of liberati liberation. You can see it is highlighted at the top there. So hamilton began to study there some ways clergy behaifr yor. He ended up writing. Very few supreme duh died. Like lincoln now. And he wanted to that i can this wise spee r sweep to look at it. Shop come in the context you already read tlch. There were a group of books coming out shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther king. There were a number of things coming out. If i can get this to work. You can see in the 1970s along with your book there were tons of books coming out about slavery revising the kind of estimation, slavery. All of them made reference to slave churches and the invisible institution. All of them made references to this or jean asked the question, why department they rebel more . Why department thidnt they reb would in haiti. What he comes up with is that theres a kind of pa when to revise how people understood what was going on at the time. I give you the backdrop of the books because its important to understand that this conversation is in an am demic con vir sags with other book. If you about that about it for a moment so this became a longgoing conversation through the late 1950s through the early through the 60s, through the 70s. Of course we keep getting renewed studies. I just wanted to put the context in here, for kblou consequences. Was it the role of this. So the same stuff you might have heard of billy graham or billy sunday from george whit field from the 1950s, Richard Allen are m they are evangelicals. Of course they showed me all religious ledders, if youre a rb people boept wp to be is in some baas theres all of this. There is post slavery building institutions to that people can live. So by politics i mean how black religious inveighs pertaining to. Here lies jim crow, a Funeral Service for jim crow. It took place on the zreestreet. Jim kroet, you know, voting, economic disparities chlts they are different but the slr very and its port foflt but for now the cher gee are that many plo wf trait spellman colleague a at that educated people. They would take a place and leadership. And of course we have now gone over and over again the constitutional per r constitutional p constitutional. Normally your educated people become leaders, spokespersons, whatever the case may be. Because we created indigenous institutions that learn, so it is first. Where does your politics begin . Inside the church organization, inside the rabbi and so forth. Tl theres a Training Ground. If you want to learn how to lead you need to have an argue dpliization to lead. All of those are places where people get training to have leadersh leadership. And they learn how to play politics. How do you kind of persuade the clergy that your program the valuable . Is is Church Politics was the first. My grandfather became deacon on sunday. It was a very important and very political role. You had to be elected deacon in your church. You didnt just become a deacon. You want toded to remain on the deacon if board. Everybody forgets it was an indigenous training. My grandmother born in 1906 understood the decisions. She had a 7th grade opportunity and i was like where did you learn all of that . I said we do this at our we flow what is going where and so father. If youre in a higher system, a bishop system you run for by sh bishop. There are also people that you have to have that conferred by the people and other clergy to vote you up the chain. That also requires organizing and politics. So theres nothing like going to a pat a church of any sort to watch them cooperate. It was a Training Ground far lot of people. I want to give you one champexa. These was joseph h. Jackson. He was head of National Baptist convention. The other one we are siegd on. They used it to be more agres ifr aggressive. He thought the church should pt be in politics. Ill see if i can switch here for a minute if it will work for me. Somebody spp its slow the baptist met and so this is from t the kings site. He was elected other and over again even if he had to do it kindover semi fraud leaptly. He a jack soften always. The use of disobedience was too conserve tifr. You have to persuade your people who should be in. So jackson was not an uneducated man. Born in give give. Then you came out here and went to the interesting. He was or daned a baptist minis. He resisted the civil rights by seegi se se seeging seeing that theture frp couldnt be there tolls. Could hi want it h in chic that you had to be aligned with the machine. The daley machine. So while he, on the one hand, was saying, no, i dont want the National Baptists on be involved in this civil rights too much, he, on the other hand, in chicago politics, tried to be kind of like a mini political boss. So, anyway, by 1960, there is a altright battle to take over the convention from jackson. And at the 1961 convention, you see this paragraph in kansas city, missouri, down a block are from us, jackson and taylor both claimed the presidency. There were two people who Gardner Taylor who was a famous black preacher from new york city, brooklyn, right, Concord Baptist Church and a scuffle broke out. And a man got pushed off the stage and died. Now, you know, baptist ministers, you know, all churches can get in a scuffle, but they got in a scuffle. Of course, what happened is that jackson would blame king for this and write scurulous opeds. But this is the internal politics of a community. However bad this might seem, this was a struggle and it led to the formation of another Baptist Convention got the for guesser baptist. Remember i told you one baptist cant really tell the other baptist what to do. These are the internal organizing politics of a community. And so but all of them knew the procedures, the ways of moving and there was always a power struggle. A power struggle for would will run the institutional levers of the community. During reconstruction, there were roughly 2,000 black elected officials nationally and there were all males given the 15th amendment and roughly a third or more were clergy. I pointed out to you Henry Mcneal Turner was in the georgia statehouse the other day. That he as an ame bishop. And they were a part of it because they were the reading populist. Now, the question was whether or not these clergy people were on the side of their own people or whether on the side of or were they too easy to compromise. This is the question that scholars ask all the time. Do they compromise, are they selling out the people . And theres a myth always that black clergy are selling out their people for their own selfinterests. Some are, some arent. But this is the kind of thing that black clergy had to be the spokesman because many of them, not all of them, had access to the kind of education that was feed needed to make legislation. One thing that you have to understand, black faith and religion grew up in oppression. So if you speak of protest politics, it had to always address the issue of inequity, not as a man of a local church issue, but as a national issue. Slavery was a facial, international in many ways, slavery went from argentina to all the way up to north america and through the caribbean. So clergy were always speaking. This one particular clergyman, henry highland garnett, you know, really wanted to say like he called for slave rebellion. And that he believed that slaves should rebel against their masters. One, he thought this because, first of all, he said it violated his own theological proposition. The sabbath. He said slavery violeates the sabbath. Scholars often miss this point of his. This is a violation of the sabbath and that means this is not a godgiven institutions as the slave holders have called. They are damaging people. They are working people. Even god took a day off on the seventh day and the sabbath ought to be honored. Slavery stretched its dark wings of death over the land. The church stood silently by the priest prophesied and the people loved to have it so. Now it reigns triumphantly. Nearly 3 million of your fellow citizens are prohibited by law and Public Opinion which in this country is stronger than law from reading the book of life. You couldnt even read the bible because slaves couldnt read. It was against the law. So hes a good protestant. Its the book. Its the baseball for him, the protestant version of the bible, right . He dies and is buried in monroe via, liberia. So like Henry Mcneal Turner, people began to think, oh, maybe i should return to the african continent. But you see this is a long tradition of people protesting the very public sphere. This is not a new thing in black life. Womens movements within black protestant churches are also a political ground. More women scholars study club women a great deal, but more women went to church. Than they did join black womens clubs. But pore women went to church. More ordinary women went to church and this is where they learned their politics. They first learned their politics sometimes in support of or against their clergy. Sometimes they learned politics in support of or against their clergy. If they didnt degragree with t clergy, they would hold funds. Two if they wanted their clergy out, they would whisper. Three, many of them were married to the deacons if they were baptists or other forms and they would say, get that person out. Also, black clergy are trying to make sure that women dont amass too much argue. So its a power struggle. Sometimes about who is going to control. Methodists, episcopal. Our reading is from women from the church of god in christ. If youre a student of black churches, you watch these people. If you havent seen them, you can go on youtube and see them. Reverend ike is one of the most fascinating americans. Most people associate black clergy with a reverend ike or the big teleevangelists. Hes kind of the father of tele evangelists and the prosperity gospel. Before reverend ike, in american history, it was forman vincent peel, right . You know, be happy, think and grow rich, all this other stuff, positive attitude, right . So having good faith, people think, confers values. Being positive, being selfel reliant. But there was nobody quite like ike in this regard. So this is from the new york times. This is his obit. And in the these were kind of lines that ike, you see in the third paragraph here says close your eyes and see green. Right . He would tell his 5,000 parishioners with the red carpet on stage at the former lowes palace on 175th street in washington heights, thats way up town past harlem in new york. Now, much of it is a dominican neighborhood. This headquarters of his United Church of science living institution. Institute. Money up to your armpits, a room full of money and had there you are just tossing it around, in it like a swimming pool, like the cartoon character little richie rich. Ikes philosophy was called prosperity now, positive image psychology or just plain thinkomomics. You have to think of it. Youll get it. And people associate all the black clergy with ike. But even the ikes had a social role. And well get to that. But then we have another black clergy outside of protestantism in the nation of islam. A debate stemming from they have alternative theology as a challenge to the state. Now, Eli Ya Muhammad is probably the most misunderstood and misinterpreted in many ways. His faith was nationalists. Im going to see if this will work for us. Theres a part of an interview i want to show you. We can see a devil most grafted thing, but actually when we say satan, we mean a man or people that their weakness is not same. It spreads. And it is affected by their weakenings. And that that we say is the devil. Why . Because of his weak physically coming into being from a foreign region man. The reason i show you part of this is Elijah Mohammed built an organization with a kind of interesting conglomeration of christian theology, of islam to try to pose for people an identity outside of the state sanctioned black identity. That is, in his era, you were born negro, you died negro, and you were impoverished and he is trying to come up with a cosmology that is different. And that he is trying to reshape the minds of people he considers that are poor, misguided, and he is trying to build an organization where they have some strength of identity. Now, his targets were his targets were people who were migrating from the south, like he did. His targets were people who had substance abuse, like he had once had in detroit. His targets were these people and he tried not to make himself money too much until a discovery of the nation of islam by television. In a documentary the hate that produces hate that they discovered there was a whole nation of islam. I know you all know about malcolm x. Nobody really knew about this community outside of the community. He had a major following of people in major cities, philadelphia, chicago, new york. And hes trying to give an alternative identity. My colleague at princeton, Judith Weisenfeld has written a wonderful book about these organizations called new world coming about great migration religion, about the transfer, and for someone like Elijah Mohammed, he sees the problem is is the old style Christian Churches are the real problem here because it pacifies, as he argues, it pacifies the people. And he wants something that will make them selfreliant. Hes not that much different with the practicality that the church of god in christ is doing. Modesty address. Head covering. Good work ethic. Family life. And theory. So but this group, along with marcus garvey, becomes a target of fbi investigations already. Because these are alternative. And Elijah Mohammed is a little controversial because he was rooting for the japanese because he said thats a colored people that might defeat these europeans. That might beat back european imperialism without questioning the imperialism of the japanese. So he has an alternative. Secondly, he goes to jail because he refuses to fight in world war ii. So he is seen as a thread to the state whereas the other people we are talking about had not been seen as a threat to the and its politics. One of the great characterers of all time and very interesting in the depression a era is father devine. Father divine uses his religious notions to offer an alternative. And the first thing you notice is his wife. Right . Now this is the 1930s. In 1967, right, in 1967, the Supreme Court rules against the state of virginia in loving versus virginia on interracial marriages. But he says his religion allows him to marry whoever he wants to. Lets take a little peek at this. All over the country, followers pour in by special divine buses to pay homage to his name. They receive the message from from loud speakers connected with his inner sanctum. These folks choose to follow god. So Father Divine is but different than reverend ike, Father Divine is feeding people during the depression. And he is providing some kind of that Peace Mission is supporting some kind of alternative identity for people. So religious identities are different. Hes not challenging the. Kind of structure in the same way that Elijah Mohammed is, but hes, in essence, doing the same thing. Creating businesses, trying to create jobs at the height of the depression and creating a sensation. Do you have a question . Youve got to go to the mike. So my question is, why is it is this on . Yes, its on. My question is why is it okay like why were they calling him god . Why is that okay in his eyes . Because usually, like, its blasphemy if people are calling other people gods, especially well, i know in the muslim region, thats really bad, but also in christianity, too. And judaism, as well. Yeah. Hes calling himself god for a number of reasons. One, that he is delivering the manner from heaven. And people buy into it or they go along with it, we cant tell. Some people actually believe. Some people actually, like, im getting things from this dude and while it lasts, it lasts. There were attempted investigations of Father Divines Peace Mission. I forget how the exactly all the details of the story, but one of the investigating people died. And he said, you know, i told you. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, because he was using, like, upper case g smed inste lower case g. Thats a good question. And were they praying to him . They were giving adore ragat. We dont know. This is the tricky part, right . We dont know if the people in this and, of course, this is shot to give him more publicity. Its shot in the positive. But it is a radical alternative than whats going on in the general society. Hes breaking rules. Yeah. And hes saying, religion can break the rules. And that feeds political struggle. Thanks. You have to go up to so he says that his religion allows him to marry whoever he pleases. Was his marriage legal in the eyes of the courts . Thats a good question. We dont know. I mean, there are several different biographies on him and several different really good books, about three of them i can think of off the top. Was she the money funder or all that. But they were in a relationship. But the difference is that clearly he has also a social mission involved. Hes engaging people at their very basic need, food, jobs, businesses. Both he and Elijah Mohammed are in that regard trying to create a broader infrastructure that provides people for their needs because the state the state blocks people from those kinds of things. And by breaking the rules, saying im allowed to marry outside my race, well, hes got to be a bad man because hes doing something that nobody else is doing. The other other person who could get away with that would be jack johnson, the boxer. Of course, he got jail time, but not Father Divine. The great churches that was established in the United States that still exists in 1808 is abisidian Baptist Church. Thats one of the names that you can look up and use for ethiopia, the kingdom of abisidian. And this very fare, fare man in the back is the pastor of the church. The reverend Adam Clayton Powell sr. And he will move the abisidiam Baptist Church from roughly its midtown location where central park is in the 50s up towards harlem and they will build a building in 1925. In fact, the building that all these children are standing in front of. He was a traditional pastor. Harlem had several large churches, all kinds of different churches. St. Philips episcopal, abisidian, and the list of churches could go on, a sizable Roman Catholic church, all black in this neighborhood. But abisidian had this storied history because it will become a storied history of his son. Adam Clayton Powell jr. Adam Clayton Powell jr. Will inherit the church. This is a very interesting thing. Churches and religion become in a number of religions become the family business. So if im the son or daughter of a rabbi, i might become a rabbi. If im the son or daughter of a baptist minister, i might become a baptist minister. And i will learn, even if i dont become that, i will learn politics at the foot of my father or grandfather or whoever it was. Adam Clayton Powell was this sort of social gospel. He had all kinds of like Father Divine, running roughly contemporary, he has all kinds of social operations coming out of abisidian church looking for people who are desperate for the good life. But people have to service their congregation in ways at all kinds of levels. The Church Functions as a social service unit. This is his son. Adam Clayton Powell jr. Playboy, baptist minister, married to jazz and the stage actresses and in 19 41, he was elected on the democratic ticket as new york citys first black city council member. After serving on the council for three years, in 1944, adopted a progressive civil rights platform. Considered to serve in the house of representatives representing harlems 22nd district. When powell took office in 1945, he became the first black congressman from new york state. Having chicago roots, hes johnny come lately. Chicago, we like black congressmen in the 20s. Im just saying, you know. Just but there was nobody more flamboyant than adam. What was his he look very white. Whoa. Yes, but black people can look white, right . So i was wondering, was his mom black . No, his mom was very fair skinned. We have this crazy rule in the United States, right . The racial drop of one drop of whatever black of subsaharan african, you are black. And powells proudly claim their blackness, even though adam was originally born with blond hair and blue eyes. You see his baby picture. But hes black and his father is black and they are the blackest of black, right . So give you a little clip of adam. Stood one day before the greatest ruler of this day. God said to moses, whats in your hand . Moses said, lord, ive got a stick, thats all. And god used that slave boy with a stick in his hand the to divide the red seas, marched lieu a wilderness, drained water out of rocks and people to freedom land. Whats in your hand . Whats in your hand . One with god. Always. Walk with him and talk with him and speak together and fight together and with gods hand in your hand, the victory will be come mrired here sooner than you dreamed, sooner than you hoped, sooner than you prayed for, sooner than you imagined. Good night and god bless you. So adam was cool, a slim liner, all those things and he led in the congress until he was unceremoniously put out of congress in the late 1960s. Adam, unfortunately or fortunately had a little trouble in an island called biminy. That island seems to be a sticky place for politicians. Both you and the president ial candidate gary hart both, you know, probably got caught on the monkey business, let me put it that way. And others. Again, the father son business and leadership and political, Martin Luther king jr. s opinion of Martin Luther king sr. And he was the grandson of rev rental better daniel williams, the second pastor of the ebenezer Baptist Church. His brother, ad, albert, named after his grandfather. Was also a baptist minister. So the kind of ways that ones learns leadership was in the context of the eclesial politics. Right . How to galvanize people, how to bring people together, how to win a majority. All toss things are useful when you go into the electoral politics, whether youre the mayor. And, of course, we dont live far from kansas city here. We have a sitting Congress Person representing kansas city, missouri, Emanuel Cleaver ii. He is an ordained methodist minister. So these kind of ways that the Training Ground for family is the politics. So politics becomes very, very important. Anytime youre running an organization, youre engaged in politics. Whether youre the School Principal or youre the superintendent. You still have to bring people together. And how are you going to do that . And when there are oppositions to your point of view, these are the kind of questions that these are kind of the Training Grounds where people learn, learn theyre in their politics. Is at the local level. So black people learn politics from their local organizations. One of the few women that i want to point out to you is a woman i met when i was a high school student, addi l. Wyatt. She worked as a meat packer between 1941 and 1954 combining that with looking at the children, organizing the facility with her husband and increased involvement with the labor union. In 1955, wyatt was ordained into the church of god where her husband was already a minister. Now, wyatt worked on the south side of chicago organizing labor. And they served together at the vernon Avenue Church of god in christ in chicago and she was quite the dynamic person. Once again. She is not at the national level. But she is an operator. She knows she understands both the internal politics of church because shes married to a minister and becomes one herself and shes a label organizer. Again, having the experience of bringing people together to work. Im going to show you a bit of an interview with her talking about her labor experience. Shes older then. I was impressed how could two young black men meet with two white bosses and achieve a success that we have achieved. I was told that it was because of the union. It was a violation of the Union Contract and she explained it to me. And i was moved to the extent that i wanted to do something to help this union. I didnt know what the union was, but i knew that i needed help and here was a place that i could get help. I found out that i could help by joining with them and making the union strong and powerful enough to bring about change. So walker, adi wyatt combines that with her own religious belief, that working people need protections. And that became a very, very important aspect of it. When i met her as a high school student, she was trying to convince us how why we should be thinking about what labor meant, not only as not onlies as a sort of way of keeping wages at a certain level, but what it did for peoples lives immediately. How do you protect peoples lives . So for her, she combined both of these things and became a very important local leader in the chicago area. Outside of chicago, not a lot of people know about her. But when my era, she was a very, very important local labor leader and religious voice because she could go into all of those many, many property assistant churches around chicago and talk about what Labor Protections meant for otherwise people, why it was important. And she saw this not in this interview, but she saw this as a religio religious duty, as well. You have a question . Yes. So in her in the union and when she became pars of the church, did they help africanamerican women or did they also help africanamerican men in the sense of the labor union was for everybody. Right was there kind ooh a specifically detailed way for african men and women to be helped by the union benefits, but also by the church, as well . Yeah. I mean, of course, all people who attended any black religious organization were working people and they were not always College Educated working people. They were people who worked in retail domestic service, steel centers, meat packing and other kinds of things, armor and all those other things. And if you read the jungle along the line in high school and its enough to make you a vegetarian, right . The jungle, but people worked in these conditions and so you wanted to make sure people had safe conditions, that they were properly paid. And so she views her had labor organizing with her religious activities. So, you know, they became one. And she often will come to work with Jesse Jackson later on. The other day, i mentioned florida memorial Baptist University down in miami, right, on powerpoint. His father was a baptist minister and his father was the president of florida memorial. So he was also a politician. He became the first in the house of representatives to become the House Majority whip from 1989 to 91. And he served on the chairman of the house budget committee. Those are all big deals. If you are the chairman of the house budget committee, you are a powerful chairman, right . He was a politician and served on powerful community to get legislation through and thats how you get legislation through. So powell, bill gray, all learned how to work the system and to navigate it. He is the first person, he died in 1913, too early. He became after leaving congress, he became the president of the United Negro College fund. And so hes at a very powerful time being the house in the House Committee on the budget because hes working really with george bush i. He has to help shepherd him raising taxes because the budget gets out of kilter and they have to raise taxes. But if you looked at his background, you can see that he has learned the art of politics, again, through those organizations that he is trained up in. And that is primarily in his case the Baptist Church. Jesse Lewis Jackson sr. , people still know who Jesse Jackson is, right . A famous chicagoan, somebody im trying to do research on, trying to think about a book project on. Particularly as jackson centers black people running for the presidency without Jesse Jackson, 1972 at the Democratic Convention and later on in 1984 and 88, there would be no barack obama. And so Jesse Jackson is in his own ways controversial. Lets see if my other video will come up. After kings assassination in april, jackson split from the leadership. He moved to chicago and in 1971, formed operation bush. To make sure that store owners in the black community did their part hiring black clerks. He did that and it was quite effective. Jesse jackson supported the palestinian cause. He started using the same phrases he used in the United States. I am splomebody. Say it with me. I am somebody. That group later merged with operation bush. That same year, jackson ran for president. In 1988, with he ran and lost again. When the returns came in when obama was on on the stage, there were shots of jackson with tears in his eyes. Jackson continues to fight for equality. His oldest son, Jesse Jackson jr. , served in the u. S. House of representatives. He is always there. When theres trouble, jesse is going to come. So that is a very favorable video of Jesse Jackson. When i was working in chicago, kids would call reverend zackson messy jesse. The point is, its not just a religious role. It has taken on other social significance for everyone. Any last questions . And im done. I would like to tell you to Pay Attention to William Barber who started memorial mondays in North Carolina and is attempting to start a Poor Peoples Movement in the United States. Again, the same tradition of that peoples spiritual needs are also political. Thank you. The cspan bus tour continues its 50 capitals tour in january with stops in raleigh, columbia, atlanta and montgomery. On each visit, well speak with state officials during our live washington journal program. Follow the tour and join us on january 16th at 9 30 a. M. Eastern for our stop if in raleigh, North Carolina. When our washington journal guest is North Carolina attorney general josh stein. Cspan is created as a Public Service by American Television companies. American history tv continues on cspan3. Next, a discussion on how world war i impacted after can americans. University of minn