History: Ties that Bind (Samuel DeWitt Proctor)

the following program is a uwtv classic from the University of Washington in Seattle upon reflection hello and welcome to upon reflection I'm Marcia Alves our faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen that biblical passage inspired the title for a new book of memoirs by Samuel DeWitt Proctor pastor emeritus of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church and professor emeritus at Rutgers University during his long and distinguished career as a theologian educator and civil rights leader Proctor has headed to colleges taught countless students including Douglas Wilder and Jesse Jackson and was chosen by President Kennedy to head the first full Peace Corps unit sent overseas his book serves as a dual chronicle of family and country welcome to a plantation thank you I wanted to have you begin by telling me a bit about the history of the black church and the forces that shaped its beginnings in this country well our church that descendant Baptist Church was founded in the downtown area the Wall Street area of New York City in 1808 when Jefferson was the president and it may be a model for most of the older churches and that is a black congregation was present in the midst of a large and white congregation the black members experience at some point or another discrimination or some sign that that they would not welcome any longer and rather than tolerate that they went out and organized their own church now that was the case of our church it's called Abyssinian because there were Ethiopian sailors in town Abyssinian and Ethiopian - meaning the same thing these sailors met up with these black people who were starting a prayer meeting to begin a new church and the black people or the American black people decided to name the Church in honor of the Ethiopians who joined him with them and that's how it came to be called the Abyssinian Baptist Church the present building a very impressive Gothic structure there in Harlem was built in 1921 by the black congregation I emphasize that because so many of the large urban churches at that time were purchased from a white congregation that was moving on and with the transition but the African Methodist Episcopal Church which is the oldest organized body started in 1787 in Philadelphia at st. George's United Methodist Church then it was called Methodist Episcopal Church and the black people were praying at the communion rail and they were asked to move and another gesture fall of that and and they walked out of the church Richard Alan and Absalom Jones and another man named Dwight and they went off and organized a society for worship and prayer which later became the African Methodist Episcopal Church so we generally date the black church back to 1787 with the AME Church beginning were their roots of the church though earlier than that I was I was thinking as I was getting ready for this interview so many institutions which black Americans found difficult to get into and wondered because I have never read about it and have never read a description of it if there was that same kind of discouraging of a practice of faith even long before their word there were blacks in northern urban centers yes you would never be able to find the earliest group of blacks who came together to worship because during the slave institution they were gather in their cabins and make music together pray together and in the middle of the night they would listen to sermons when the preacher would come by surreptitiously because they were not allowed to preach without the presence of a white minister you see to all over see what is being said so the beginnings of it would be so fragmentary that it would be hard to date the actual starting of one now there's a silver bluff Church down in South Carolina that claims to be the earliest one and another one in Augusta Georgia that claims to be the earliest one but it would be very hard to know where the first congregation began because it would have been so informal aside the difference we're calling something a black church is based on exclusion skin color yes is there a difference in theology there was a difference to this extent black people never come together for worship without being mindful of their liberation of theme they're always aware of the imperfect status that they enjoy in this country and every time they come together there is some consciousness of this it would be a mistake however to think that all during the worship service that's what they had in mind because they do have a connection with a larger human community the larger Christian community and if you listen to the music and the prayers you will hear reflections of that I'm so proud that black people never never were locked into a kind of a narrow conservatism and narrow fundamentalism that excluded other people we never had that as a matter of fact we've been trained in different seminaries we've gone to different universities and there's quite a bit of difference in formal theological positions but the one thing that binds the black Christians together is their history they are so gern they're there they're experienced socially here in this country and that's that's the bond and they never come together to worship without that being recognized and without their faith being celebrated there's a wonderful passage in your book the substance of things hoped for that that really touches on what you were just talking about and I asked if if you would read that section of the book for us this has to do with my my boyhood and the environment of our our home and family everyday we lived with reminders of what our place was but not to say where it was safe to be and how to make life a little smoother to get a little raise in pay or a slight promotion we pretended to be inferior in a gesture that bespoke our desire for equality was saved for the black church speaking out elsewhere brought severe and final retribution some did of course and we were willing to pay the price Church and family were like a seamless garment talked about us hymn singing praying and Bible reading and quoting we're as close as breathing and nearer than hands and feet we never sat down to eat anything a bowl of oatmeal a piece of buttered spoon bread a chicken leg without bowing our heads and mumbling a fast prayer when I wonder about the substance of things hoped for I looked within and remember the source of our hope for the future the answer always was in Duke Ellington's words come Sunday shoes were signed music practiced and the golden text memorized the fish were frying in deep grease the dog was fed and watered the old Buick was wiped down and cleaned out the rolls when the oven and every radio was tuned to the wings over Jordan choir led by Glenn T settles and Cleveland singing shine on me shine on me let the light from the lighthouse shine on me it was Church time and faith would be rekindled our whole family was active in church life my aunts and uncles sang in choirs and played the organ in several churches four of my uncle's were pastors and two of the largest churches in Norfolk were those founded by my great grandfather Zachariah Hughes our father never sent us to Sunday school he took us with him all six of us shoes gleaming trousers ironed hair trimmed by him and the Sunday School lesson learned by heart most families in our neighborhood welcomed Sunday in the same way everyone was identified by the church he or she attended did you know that mr. Crocker died which mr. Crocker the one who goes to st. John's Church if you attended no church of all it was like having no identity at all Church was a social hour a time to compare clothes exchange news share a sad note celebrate a new job look for a partner in romance exchange recipes learn about bargains or picked up the name of a better doctor tailor or automobile mechanic in the sunday-school office from my daddy played the violin Vernon played the tuba and I played the clarinet our church is sang with the rhythm and bounce people often made up their own songs adding verses as the spirit led them and the new verses became a permanent part of the song like their songs their prayers were also memorized and repeated church was also preaching time I was generally bored by the worship service although I was intrigued by the pastor when I was a child preaches wore long frock coats high collars and striped trousers week after week they told the same familiar stories giving content to our faith and rhythm to our emotions people anticipating every word signaled the best points with verbal and sometimes bodily responses nowhere else could a group of people move from moaning and groaning to clapping and shouting for joy in so short a time it was the same wherever black migrants gathered together and built churches up north and out west these large urban churches surrounded by mortuaries cafes blacksmiths dry cleaners barber shops small stores and professional offices became the Citadel's of black American culture mmm passage from your book yes wonderful book Cornel West talks about in his writings the cultural armor of which the black church was a big part that existed and that he feels is lost in great part and it strikes many people as an irony when so many doors have opened since those days yes why that that wonderful sense of community that you just described seems in such grave danger you know I shared that with with Cornell and I hadn't really thought about it in connected with my book but this is an observation that almost any close observer could make and that really is what this book is all about the substance of things hoped for it's about restoring this tradition it's about pointing once again to our to our origins and to the kind of fate that made us strong and brought us thus far he called it a cultural armor that's a good phrase a cultural armor it's a strong strong tradition that emanated Lars lived from the black colleges that were founded during the reconstruction now there's a chapter that's missing in American history not many people are aware of it right after the Emancipation these schools began to be founded in 1865 66 67 the Methodists were involved the Baptist's were involved the Catholics were involved everybody got into the act Presbyterians the United Church of Christ then called the congregation us a hundred and fifteen cottages were built and they were all religious they were all rigid academically the missionaries from the north who came down to teach did not give us in his slack at all my father's use of the English language was far more impeccably correct than ours was at any time he had memorized more poetry you know he would never split a verb or get a pronoun out of line with an antecedent that I thought that was adultery to mispronounce over or to make a grammatical error those those pescetarians drilled that into him but other than that there was a faith that that God would reward goodness and hard effort but you never wasted anything when you put your best into it that was a part of our culture part of our upbringing now with urbanization people being moved away from Grandma and granddad II you know and with scientism invading the churches many people beginning to lose their sense of the authority of religion so many things have intervened to cause the authority to be lost but then family disintegration with modernity and the changes in sexual mores we lost it and we've got to get it back because we cannot afford to lose an entire generation in cynicism and despair one of the things that you you make mention of in this book there's a discussion that was taking place within the black community around the time of the segregation that there were deep concerns on the part of many people about not just what would be gained by this landmark decision to integrate school but what would be lost yes and they're on two different tracks on the one hand we had to fight for equality and justice and fairness in the society and that dictated that we had to pursue the dismantling of a segregated school system we felt that in the long long run that would us insulate us from the main culture the main society and render us great harm on the other hand we knew we had been nurtured by these black schools see the principal of my elementary school and my dad at played ball in the field together would you know that my elementary school teachers were also my Sunday school teachers I could sit here right now and name you my elementary teachers and Sunday school teachers who were banging on me in the name of Jesus and Paul on Sunday and then in the name of algebra and Shakespeare all week long on Sunday they wore heels a little higher and they smelled a little sweeter but otherwise the same people I knew their fathers I knew where they lived I knew what they look like when they were in casual clothes raking leaves and what-have-you and they knew us and they would punish us in the street if they saw us doing anything well not have been so it was a kind of a guardianship trustees ship over our total lives they care deeply about us and now we have young black people all across the country who do not have that kind of contact with people well known to them who are their teachers and with whom they have such a close relationship that's a loss now the question is weighing this out to discover who which is the greater benefit and I'm going to state my faith that in the long run is going to be better to dismantle that legally segregated society no matter how warm and it was and moved toward America's fulfillment as a as a genuine community in a free society you are in the middle of so many of the events and and movements that took place during the the late 50s and on through 60s and into the 70s I wanted you if you could to remember a couple of different kinds of moments for me perhaps a moment in that time where you felt most like the substance of things hoped for would come to fruition when you felt most optimistic when Johnson was elected president after the kennedy administration you know he in 1964 when he was elected by such a landslide I thought that was a testimony on the part of America that the country was ready to grant to us full rights equal benefits in the society I was working with the administration in the Peace Corps I was not a part a politician I had been recruited to run the Peace Corps in Nigeria and then I was brought to Washington to be the associate director and when my leave of absence expired from the college I return and then Kennedy was assassinated and then Bill Moyers and then in Johnson that President Johnson contacted me and said that they wanted me to come back to Washington and his administration was then he was at the end of the Kennedy days I stayed with them then and then I stayed with him throughout his administration I was really standing on tiptoe leaning into the future I thought that the kingdom was not far what about moments of pessimism those times when your own faith was most sorely tested well it was during the darkest days of retribution when things began to go into reverse President Nixon came in in 72 and it did not in 68 and it did not start at that very moment but by the time right after Watergate we began to feel the pressures that what had been done during the Johnson days would not last and the darkest day of all was when President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court you call that the bitterest I thought that was the worst moment that black people had experienced since the Civil War only because it was so late and such a respectable person made an announcement that that was the best qualified person and hardly anybody else thought that in the whole country black people and we knew what his views were and you know we don't hate anybody but we hate ideas that people embrace and we thought that that was so deliberately a kind of a put-down for black people we weren't ready for it and we just had Thurgood Marshall you see and we had won so many victories and then for this to happen that was the darkest moment the church is now in this country the source again of great political activism but it is different than the activism of the 50s and the 60s at least in in the message and in the tenor yes activism yes why has it there been such a great contrast and movement in the days of the civil rights movement when Martin Luther King was marching and so forth it was clearly graphic what our targets were you couldn't get a hot dog here you couldn't sleep in this hotel you couldn't go to that theater so you aimed at specific things you couldn't vote in sell me you couldn't register here so you could march against these things down at a antique cottage for students set in to eat and a Woolworths store clear target now those targets are removed generally you don't have specific things you cannot do it's more endemic it's more pervasive more and more you can't march against sin you can't March against hatred you know you you you have this nebulous sort of thing that's there so black churches therefore turn to things like economic development there turns of things like housing projects and like running schools to offer an alternate educational program to what they see as failure in the public schools and they try hard to grant some witness to homeless people people with AIDS these sorts of things they do they render very very different kinds of ministers because we're not looking anymore for Messiah we're paying more attention to the amelioration of the conditions that are there but I think though that if if the country continues to drift the way it is the black church will be far more militant politically than it was before because it will discern that this is a political battle in which we are engaged and very bold and deliberate strokes are being made against us now I hate to see this thing coming on because it looks like there will be polarization and and maybe with a great blessing from heaven we won't have to resort to that but I think people have courage black people amount of Fred and black people have integrity and we're not all marginalized you know we're not all in jail we're not all out there you know on welfare and what have you and then of us have good Anchorage in the society and and and we're going to make our witness felt and heard generally the public knows about black people who are celebrities at the top and those who are dysfunctional at at the bottom but the main floor of black people is at neither point they're people who work everyday who go to the University of Washington oh they they're people who who have pride who send their kids down to Morehouse College and the Harvard and Spelman and and into Harvard or wherever there's solid people and these people are not going to accept big reversals in our fortunes here without a loud loud howl and a strong nonviolent protest I know that one of the ideas that's near and dear to your heart that you've been working on as a as a way to move forward into the future or something called the National Youth Academy yes I'm glad you asked alighted it's a simple thing it's an acknowledgement that we may have as many as a million and a half youngsters in our country who are unparent 'add that's a hard word to utter but that's the broad term that best describes these young people if you spotted at age 13 right after elementary school you could easily identify these young people who would be headed for the drug culture headed for prison headed for crime and that sort of thing you don't want to see that happen you want to make citizens taxpayers good daddies and mothers out of them but if they're going the way they are none of that will result I think there's time this is a time for major intervention take these military bases that are now being deactivated hang up a new sign you know national youth academy and have 50 of them around the country for all children you know male and female you may want to have a male 1 year and a female 1 there some places you may want to try it co-educational you know it would be for young people in the southwest they may be largely Hispanic you know in the Northeast they may be largely black and in in Osaka errors and Appalachian errors it would be largely white wherever these are young people who did not have nurturing families now one-third academics strong academics reach way beyond their expectations next human development music music music basketball football you know mountain climbing in a horticultural all the things that enhance aesthetic life and development of of an imagination and expression everybody would learn to swim in the first 30 days we'd drop you in a tank for if he'd even come up stroking a bonbon bubbles because swimming is your best opportunity to learn to control your environment I can I can see what the enthusiasm you haven't yeah and work what what this is one of those it's a it's a big project a big idea and it comes at a time when other than the GI Bill there so there's such great skepticism about number one the role of government big projects there's a big hurt you know these people are all about the role of government like the role of government and operates for them you know and when the government is doing things out of which they make money you know and get commissions and things they love government then but they don't like government father people you know who ought to be poor and on the bottom and who have no representation you see my goodness if you count all the people who make big big money off the government you know in every part of the country the government has been very generous to a lot of people now we're talking about people who cannot make those big demands on their own we're talking about compassion we're also talking about common sense and everybody can figure out that if you if you educate these people and get them to earning well good citizenship built-in high sense of self esteem you got to get your money back and I you sure will be a much better place and on that note I know you could you can talk about this much longer and I'd love to hear you talk about it more but we're out of time I want to thank you so much thank you to see more uwtv classics visit uwtv org slash classics

Channel: UW Video

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Length: 28min 22sec (1702 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 06 2014