From Every Mountainside: Black Churches and the Broad Terrain of Civil Rights

Chapter 6: The Black Panther Party and the Black Church

6 The Black Panther Party and the Black Church Steve McCutcheon Judson L. Jeffries Omari L. Dyson The Black church was born over 350 years ago, engaged in a survival program. The Black Church was born out of an effort to deal with the concrete conditions and needs of Black people. It was born in an attempt to enable and empower Black people to survive the racist and exploitative system of slavery in America. Its mission and purpose today is the same as it was 350 years ago, although at a higher level. That mission and purpose is to see to its utmost that Black people and other oppressed people’s survive, with dignity and humanity, American racism and capitalism. —Father Earl Neil The Black Panther Black churches have always played an integral role in black people’s fight against racial injustice and oppression. Many a freedom fighter has emerged from the black church. Henry Highland Garnett, a dynamic Presbyterian pastor, is one such example. Garnett gave a spellbinding oration at the 1843 National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York, that came to be known as the “Call to Rebellion” speech. Garnett exclaimed: Neither god, nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore, it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical that promises success . . . Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties. Now is the day and the hour. 127 128 Steve McCutcheon, Judson L. Jeffries, and Omari L. Dyson Let every slave throughout the land do this, and the days of slavery are numbered. You cannot be more oppressed than you have been—you cannot suffer greater cruelties than you have already. Rather die freeman than live to be slaves. Remember that you are Four Millions! Garnett’s words were no less poignant 100 years later, as black churches were featured prominently during the modern Civil Rights Movement, arguably the most transformative period in twentieth-century America. In 1984, Aldon Morris wrote in The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement that, “the Black Church functioned as the institutional center of the Modern Civil Rights Movement.”1 Elaborating further, Morris maintains that in regard to the movement, the black church served as an organized mass base for the modern Civil Rights Movement; provided a cadre of clergymen largely economically independent of white patronage and adept at managing people and resources; institutionalized finances through which protests were financed; and provided meeting space for the masses to strategize for the hundreds of demonstrations, marches, and sit-ins that occurred during the 1950s and 1960s.2 Many black preachers and their congregations were active in the fight for civil rights; and as a result, some churches were bombed. Many black preachers were threatened, beaten, jailed, exiled, and murdered because of their civil rights activities. Hence, it is not hyperbole to submit that without the black church, there may not have been a modern Civil Rights Movement. An argument put forward in Black Power in the Belly of the Beast by Judson L. Jeffries is that the black church was not featured prominently in the Black Power Movement.3 This is not to say that the black church did not have its place. A cursory look at several of the major, and less prominent organizations that comprised the Black Power Movement reveals a relationship that varied across organization. An examination of Us, the Congress of African People, Republic of New Afrika, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the Defenders, the Black Liberators, and the Sons of Watts has uncovered little evidence that suggests these groups had strong ties with the black church. Some of these organizations may have held events and activities at a black church from time to time; and some of its members may have worshipped at black churches, including William Smith (the Defenders) and Rev. Charles Koen (the Black Liberators). But on the whole, the black church was not central to the Black Power Movement in ways comparable to its role within the midtwentieth -century Civil Rights Movement. Of the Black Power groups, the Deacons for Defense and Justice had perhaps one of the strongest relationships with the church. Found- 129 The Black Panther Party and the Black Church ed in 1964, the Deacons arose in response to Ku Klux Klan activity in Jonesboro, Louisiana. The group’s membership was comprised mostly of churchgoing...