“Most churches didn’t split because of ideological or theological reasons; they split because of racial reasons.” The history of religion and its relationship with race is examined. Michael Harriot explains that nine out of America’s ten largest Protestant denominations split because of conflicting views regarding slavery.
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Michael Harriot [00:00:05] Hello. If you ever wondered why Second Baptist Church in a lot cities is the Black church has ever wondered why? First Presbyterian Church is almost always the white church. Well, there’s a reason for that. That’s why I want to welcome you to theGrio Daily, the only podcast that’ll tell you why the first church is always the white one. In many towns and cities across America, especially in the South, but not exclusively in the South and not exclusively in big cities, it’s more of a small town or a mid-sized town thing. The church that is the second church, like Second Baptist, Second Methodist, it’s usually the Black church, right? I remember when I was in college and, you know, a lot of my friends were trying to find what church we were going to attend during our freshman year. We just looked in the phone book for second so-and-so church, and that’s because the second church is usually the Black church, and there’s a reason for that. So when churches first formed in this country, and especially in most cities, they were just called blah blah church, you know. Union City Baptists, Washington City Methodist Church, or just the Methodist Church. And those churches in some places were mixed. In other places, they were, you know, white congregations because enslaved people weren’t allowed literally in Georgia, South Carolina and many other states weren’t allowed to worship God.
Michael Harriot [00:01:46] So in those mixed congregations, as Christianity became really a thing before the American Revolution, we call it the Great Awakening. But, you know, don’t say that out loud, because they might think you telling them to stay woke or like there was something woke about the founding of America. I don’t see that. I’m allowed to say it. I got an exemption. I forgot to bring my pass. But after the Great Awakening, one of the premises of the Great Awakening was to spread the gospel to the enslaved people. By doing that, they were saving them. It kind of made slavery tenable. And so you saw a lot of congregations that worship together, Black and white, right? So, you know, the concept we like to think of segregation as something that was always here and then we eliminated it. No, but segregation was a thing that started happening across the country after the Civil War.
Michael Harriot [00:02:45] A lot of places, you know, used to worship together. There were churches that worshiped together, even in the South. They would bring their enslaved people to church. Some of them had a special seating for Black people, some of them didn’t. In the mid 1800s, there started to be this clamor or this worry that there were places that were going to end slavery, especially in the South. So many of these congregations split over whether they should do two things; support slavery or keep allowing Black people to be members of their church. And so a lot of congregations split. That’s like literally the reason there is a congregation, the biggest congregation in America, the Southern Baptist Convention, is Southern Baptist, because they split with regular Baptists over slavery. And of the ten largest denominations in this country, Protestant denominations, nine of them split over issues of race. Right? So the United Methodist Church split over race. Same thing with all of the large denominations. Some of them were not specifically about slavery. For instance, the Church of God in Christ was, you know, founded by Black people. And then when white people joined, they left and formed the Assemblies of God. So it was all a race, but not specifically slavery. They just didn’t want Black people over them.
Michael Harriot [00:04:18] The same was true with some of the other denominations. The only one that really never split because of issues of race is the Lutheran Church because that’s pretty much a German congregation. It has German origins. So they never really fought over racial issues. But the other nine, they did. And so when these churches split, they did two things right. So some of them became whole new congregations, and the original congregation, the pro-slavery, the pro-segregationists, went back and changed their names to first so-and-so. Baptist first so-and-so. Methodist. To signal people, Oh, this is the one that is pro-slavery. This is the original slave people. We believe in the traditional values of our denomination. We’re not with that woke, anti-slavery, abolitionist, anti-segregationist stuff. We are the original, we are First Baptist, we are first Methodist. And some, what they would do, is allow slaves to worship in a separate congregation. So they ordained pastors to preach and teach their Black congregation. And so those Black congregations still were affiliated with the original, they became the Second Methodist Church or the Second Presbyterian in so-and-so city. When you see second. Those were usually churches that were Black that sprung out of the churches. And those first churches to signal that they weren’t the Black one, they went back and named themselves first. And what happened was some of those Black churches that was started and boarded over by white people, they split from the white pastors and the white congregations and formed their own congregations.
Michael Harriot [00:06:31] So if you see a white second where there is a white first, that was probably originally the Black church, and then when the Black people left, it became majority white. It might have been abolitionist, it might have been people who were just not pro-slavery. But those first churches always the white churches. So during slavery, Black people knew this. This was like a commonly known fact. Like, as a matter of fact, escaped slaves or fugitive slaves knew that they could go to a second church to get refuge on the Underground Railroad. Like Second Baptist in Detroit was a stop on the Underground Railroad. There was second churches all throughout the South and the North that were stops on the Underground Railroad. Right. And Black people generally knew that second met safe, second met Black. So during Reconstruction, after the Civil War, because those second churches knew their name for equivalent with Black, they would be terrorized by white supremacists terrorists. Right. During reconstruction, there was a lot of violence, mob violence, terrorism. Some of those Black churches advocated for their parishioners to vote, which was untenable to those domestic terrorists during reconstruction. So they would attack second churches.
Michael Harriot [00:07:59] So some of those second churches, to protect their congregations changed their names to greater so-and-so church. Some of them changed their names to so-and-so missionary church because of terrorism. But if you look through the history of a lot of old Black churches, you see in their history that they were originally a second church. It’ll say something like formerly Second Baptist Church, formerly Second Methodist Church. If you look at formerly second churches, almost always when you find out where they changed a name, you could almost determine that there was a slave revolt or an incident of racial or mob violence the year before. That’s almost always how it happened. And so throughout America, there are all of these formerly second churches, and still there are some, like in my hometown, Second Baptist Church in my hometown was founded in 1868, still called Second Baptist. Right. But if it was a formerly Second Baptist, it was probably founded somewhere between 1870 and the early 1900s. 1868 is kind of the delineating line right in South Carolina. 1868 was when Black people wrote the Constitution of South Carolina until white people got back in charge through violence and mob threats.
Michael Harriot [00:09:25] So why is this important to know? Because a lot of people will attend a church that is all white and not know the history of that church. Some of them will wonder why Black people never come to their church. If you go to a first church, the reason why it is almost always all white is because we be knowing, right? We know that first, even more than second means white. Just think about this first. Why would a church name itself first something, right? Why would someone who doesn’t have children and is not named after someone else name themselves. Like I’m not Michael Harriot Senior. I wouldn’t become Michael Harriot Senior until there was a michael area junior. You wouldn’t become my first church unless there was a second. And you’d need to delineate between the two. But why would there be two? Again, most churches didn’t split because of ideological or theological reasons. They split because of racial reasons. That’s good to know. So if you’re new to a city, you probably want to check out the second church before you check out the first church. If you’re new to a city, you can’t understand why there was a first church across the street from the second church of the same denomination, that was probably the Black offshoot of the first church.
Michael Harriot [00:10:52] And if you’re wondering why all of this matters, it’s because the landscape of America, every institution, every organization, there is nothing that is free from racial implications and the racial history of this country. Not even the places that worship God. But the only way you can find out is if you do your research. If you learn. And if you. Okay. If you tune in to theGrio Daily, maybe you subscribe. Or tell your friends about it. Or maybe you just download that Grio app. But of course, we leave you with a Black saying. And today’s Black saying is, “The first shall be the last, and the second shall be the Blackest.” We’ll see you next time on theGrio Daily. If you like what you heard, please give us a five star review. Download theGrio app. Subscribe to the show and to share it with everyone you know. Please email all questions, suggestions and compliments to podcast at theGrio dot com.
[00:11:55] You are now listening to theGrio’s Black Podcast Network. Black Culture Amplified.
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