On this rock a dream was built

For African-Americans, the church is more than a place of worship. Its walls sheltered and its morality inspirited a culture that forged its own freedom.

By SHARON TUBBS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 16, 2002

In 1773, by the dark of night and the glow of oil lamps, slaves weary of cotton fields and hungry for a sanctuary formed their own church in Savannah, Ga.

Their legacy would include far more than Jesus-filled sermons and glory hallelujahs. From that gathering and others that followed, a powerful institution for social and political change evolved: the black church.

We Shall Not Be Moved, a documentary highlighting the role of religion in the civil rights movement, tells how churches aided African-Americans' journey from the Montgomery bus boycott to the historic march from Selma to Montgomery and the repeal of Jim Crow.

The film, narrated by actor Ossie Davis, airs at 8 p.m. Sunday on the Hallmark Channel. It ends with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but the institution that inspired the film lives on, despite increasing diversity in African-American worship practices.

Civil rights documentaries like this one are not hard to come by; as others have, it centers on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

What sets apart We Shall Not Be Moved is its premise that the movement was not only nonviolent, but first and foremost, spiritual.

As the Rev. James Webb, pastor of Ward Chapel A.M.E. in Selma, Ala., says in the film, it was "a movement of people who believed in God and who were convinced that God would help them overcome segregation. And because they understood and believed that there was something beyond this life, they were willing to lay their lives on the line to make it happen."

The program was produced by Faith & Values Media, in cooperation with the North American Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Faith & Values is a coalition of Jewish and Christian groups dedicated to media production and promotion.

Several high-profile African-Americans give accounts of their experiences and perspectives, including U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador Andrew Young and Wilson Fallin, historian for the National Baptist Convention.

In the segregated South, African-Americans had no conference rooms or fellowship halls in which to meet. That left their only stronghold: the church buildings in which they worshiped on Sundays.

From pulpits, they organized the Montgomery bus boycott after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. They congregated to pray and hear words of inspiration before staging marches and restaurant sit-ins. Speeches intended to rally the masses into action were more like sermons, laden with Scripture and spiritual zeal.

"The movement brought to the fore . . . the political power and activism and religious enthusiasm of the African-American church, which was the most powerful institution in the black community," Fallin said.

Even the method, nonviolent resistence, was religious at its core. King and other leaders pressed African-Americans not to fight their oppressors, in part to emphasize that segregation would not be overcome by their own fists, but by the Lord's power.

The Rev. Abraham Lincoln Woods, pastor of St. Joseph Baptist Church in Birmingham, remembers instructions leaders gave for handling white oppressors: "If they slap you, don't slap back. If they spit on you, take your handkerchief, smile, and wipe it off. If they put a cigarette, a lighted cigarette butt, down your back, just shake that thing until you shake it out. Regardless of what happens, don't fight back." This echoed Jesus' advice in the Gospel of Matthew: "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

An attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery across the Edmund Pettus Bridge marked a turning point in the movement. Civil rights leaders wanted to march to the governor's mansion to protest a state trooper's killing of a black man and to petition for voting rights. On what became known as Bloody Sunday, marchers had reached the bridge's apex when they saw authorities coming up the other side on horses, armed with billy clubs and tear gas.

Police ordered marchers to disperse. One marcher asked if the group could first be allowed to kneel and pray. But before they could, the troopers charged. They trampled and beat marchers all the way back to where they had started out that morning: Brown Chapel A.M.E., now a national landmark. The ordeal was broadcast on TV stations nationwide, garnering support from white Americans who had been apathetic on race issues. King later got a court order that allowed the march. And then-President Lyndon Johnson ordered law enforcement authorities to oversee marchers' safety.

The film follows the story only that far, but the church continues to be a center of African-American life. Many predominantly black churches continue to live out their roles as cultural and social apexes in their communities. Neighborhood forums are not uncommon at black churches, some of which invite political candidates into their sanctuaries before an election. Pride in the black heritage and the preservation of African-American history are highlighted in church programs and sermons about overcoming obstacles through God's might.

Denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal and the Church of God in Christ were founded during segregation. They, and many Baptist churches, are predominantly black and still highlight African-Americans' effort to overcome racism, said Mozella Mitchell, a minister at the Love of Christ A.M.E. Zion in Brandon and a religious studies professor at the University of South Florida.

"Their African-American traits are inculcated," Mitchell said of black churches. "Basic to their belief is freedom and liberation, and they found this in Christ."

But things are not as they were in the mid 1900s. Many African-Americans are branching out to integrated nondenominational and "mega-churches" that were not founded on cultural principles. Such churches have proliferated in the past 30 years, Mitchell said.

Without Walls International Church in Tampa, with 13,000 members, is among the most diverse mega-churches in the area. Its members are about a third each Hispanic, white and black.

Revealing Truth Ministries in Tampa is also fast-growing, with 5,500 members. About 55 percent of its members are black, 45 percent white or Hispanic. Pastor Gregory Powe is African-American, but says the focus of his church is economic prosperity. Powe said he has no "black agenda."

"Our community is so much more diverse than it was 40 years ago," Powe said. "If we keep repeating what Martin Luther King's dream was, but don't wake up from that dream, we'll still be quoting that dream 20 years from now."

A massive 2000 study coordinated by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research found that about half of congregations that have a majority of blacks continue to use their religious community as a resource for preserving ethnic heritage.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.