Topic: Early Versions
Before the Civil War, some whites in Sumter County, Alabama, exposed their slaves to Christianity. Two Methodists churches had balconies for slaves, [1] as did two Presbyterian buildings. [2]
Many of these churches were physically small, and the space for slaves must have been limited. One suspects their intent was not evangelization, but providing a place were the servants, who accompanied owners’ families, were placed in an isolated area. [3] Only the ones who tended horses would have been free to mingle with men from other plantations, and they too probably were observed.
Berry Smith recalled “de white preachers used to preach to de niggers sometimes in de white folks’ church, but I didn’ go much.” He told interviewers he “was a house boy an’ didn’ go to de fiel’ much.” His was born near Gainesville. [4]
However, one Presbyterian church in Sumterville did begin admitting slaves as members in 1840. [5] In 1865, it had 188 white members and 64 Blacks. [6] The church in Livingston had four black members in 1860. [7] Some of these may have been among the 25 freed people who lived in the county at the time. [8]
Baptists had more churches in the Sumter County, 16 as compared to 9 Methodists, 7 Presbyterians, and 2 Episcopalian congregations. [9] None had a balcony, although one in Sumterville allowed slaves to sit in back. [10] Instead of taking slaves to churches, some owners, like Jeremiah Brown, sponsored services on their plantations. [11]
Amy Chapman, a slave on Reuben Chapman’s plantation was baptized at Jones Creek [12] where Abner Scarborough was minister. [13] This liberty wasn’t permitted every slave. As mentioned in the post for 15 September 2019, she became the mistress of the overseer, Hewey Leman. [14] George Young, who also was owned by Chapman, said “they didn’t allow us to go to church.” [15]
A few plantation owners, like Isaac Horn, [16] let slaves hold religious meetings where “us got happy and shouted”. [17] On other plantations, like Chapman’s, Young said “sometimes us slip off and have a little prayer meetin by usselves.” [18]
Alabama churches expected nothing would change with Emancipation. [19] And, indeed, Scarborough continued to hold separate services for whites and Freedmen on his plantation until he died [20] in 1888. [21]
In other parts of the South, missionaries arrived from Northern churches to teach and convert newly freed children. However, most devoted their resources to states nearer the north, “such as Virginia and North Carolina, or to states where large areas were liberated early in the war, such as Louisiana and South Carolina.” [22] The only group the head of the Freedmen’s Bureau in Alabama could recruit was the American Missionary Society, and it focused on large cities and the school it founded in Talladega. [23]
Instead of continuity with white religious traditions, the clandestine became public. Walter Fleming said “all through the summer of 1865 the revival meetings went on” in Alabama “conducted by new self-‘called’ colored preachers.” [24] One new preacher, Frank Sledge, was mentioned in the post for 13 September 2020. [25]
Another was Richard Burke. Reuben Meredith recalled:
“He was a very peaceable negro, so far as I know. He was an old preacher. He had been preaching there a long time. When he was a slave of Judge Reavis’s he used to preach in the Baptist church, I have heard him preach there many a time.” [26]
Burke was born in Virginia. [27] He moved to Gainesville after the war, and was appointed to fill a vacancy in the state legislature in 1869. The Freedman was murdered by an unidentified masked mob the same year. [28]
During 1866, African-America groups began meeting in brush arbors including Black Bluff [29] and Friendship near Bellamy. [30] The construction of African-American church buildings was inhibited by the mob activities mentioned in the post for 13 September 2020, and the lack of currency. Share cropping was essentially a barter economy.
The first buildings were on land provided by former owners who also provided a measure of protection. James George Whitefield gave land to the Black Bluff church in 1869. [34] Most new groups still used brush arbors.
In the period when Republicans began registering Freemen to vote in the 1867, white denominations began disassociating themselves from their former Black protégées. Peter Kolchin said Baptists, who had no hierarchical structure, feared a majority of freed members might take control of their buildings. [35]
Southern Methodists had successfully kept the independent AME and AME Zion churches out of the state before the war. [36] The latter organized a few churches in Montgomery and Mobile after the war, [37] and a congregation appeared in Livingston in 1867. [38]
The denomination countered by sponsoring the formation of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in 1870. [39] Grants Chapel near York began as brush arbor. [40] Others eventually were organized in areas where there had been Methodist churches before the war.
The Presbyterians apparently did nothing, although they were affiliated with the Congregational churches [41] who sponsored the American Missionary Society. So, despite the openness of some churches to slaves before 1860, there’s no evidence any African-American Presbyterian group ever existed in the county.
Freedom of worship remained conditional for both Blacks and poor whites. The Southern Methodist church had proscribed the Holiness movement in 1894. [42] It entered the county surreptitiously through a revival held by Arthur Kiergan that provoked the formation of the Church of God Holiness Church in Cuba in 1886. [43]
The more radical Pentecostal movement was squelched. Robert Spratt recalled a skating rink
“became a ‘Holy Roller’ tabernacle for a while. The sect never obtained a real foothold here, and most of those who took part in the services were from other places. Some of the believers would roll on the floor and speak in unknown tongues. The people here attended the services and took much interest in these proceedings.” [44]
Blacks were equally monitored. As mentioned in the post for 23 January 2019, Ruby Pickens Tartt’s father would drive out on Sunday mornings to listen to services from outside. Even though Charles Harrison Mason organized the Church of God in Christ in Mississippi, there’s never been a COGIC church in the county that left a record. Instead, a few Church of Gods were organized. [45] This was one of the alternatives to Mason’s church [46] organized by men who did not accept speaking in tongues. [47]
Instead, local Baptist conventions expanded. In 1934, the Hope Hill Association in Demopolis held a singing convention that brought together participants from Sumter, Greene, Hale, and Marengo counties. [48] This most likely was the way “Come by Here” breached the walls of the county to enter the repertoire of someone Tartt knew later in the decade.
Graphic
African-American Churches in Sumter County by Period
Blue - Churches in existence by 1895 when Charles Octavius Boothe published his list of Baptist groups. [49] The map also included other churches mentioned in sources like Heritage, Jenkins, and Spratt.
Red - Churches that came into existence between 1895 and 1980 when James Pate did his survey. [50] The map included ones mentioned by Tartt. [51]
Green - Churches mentioned since Pate, taken from Home Locator and other contemporary websites.
Base map from G. A. Swenson, et alia. Soil Survey of Sumter County, Alabama. Washington: United States Department of Agriculture, May 1941. 3, “Sketch map showing topographic divisions of Sumter County.” Locations approximate.
End Notes
1. These were Livingston Methodist Episcopal [52] and the more radical Pleasant Grove Methodist Protestant in Panola. [53]
2. These were Gainesville [54] and Elizabeth in Gaston. [55]
3. I’m sure someone has done research on slave balconies, but I haven’t found it. If anyone knows of a paper or dissertation, please let me know. Most items are architectural comments that make rosy assumptions about the motives of the churches that not may not be based on contemporary observations.
4. Nelle Morris Jenkins. Pioneer Families of Sumter County, Alabama. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Willo Publishing Company, 1961. Reprinted by Bloutsville, Alabama: The Yarbrough National Genealogical and Historical Association, 14 June 2015. 20.
5. Berry Smith. “Ex-slave, Scott County.” WPA’s Slave Narratives collection from Mississippi. [56] Collected by W. B. Allison, rewritten by Pauline Loveless, reprinted by Alan Brown and David Taylor. 94–98 in Gabr’l Blow Sof’. Livingston, Alabama: Livingston Press, 1997. 94.
6. Jenkins. 43.
7. “Livingston Presbyterian Church.” 50–51 in The Heritage of Sumter County, Alabama. Edited by Charles Walker. Clayton, Alabama: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2005. 51. Based on Ralph M. Lyon. “A History of the Livingston Presbyterian Church, 1833 – 1958.” 1977. Alabama Church and Synagogue Records Collection, Alabama Department of Archives and History.
8. Classified Population of the States and Territories by Counties on the First Day of June, 1860. Section on Alabama posted on United States Census website. Table 1. “Population by Age and Sex.” 5.
9. These numbers primarily are based on reports in Heritage, Jenkins, and Robert D. Spratt. A History of the Town of Livingston, Alabama. Edited by Nathaniel Reed. Livingston: University of West Alabama, 1997.
10. Jud K. Arrington. “Sumterville Baptist Church.” Arrington collection. 52 in Heritage.
11. T. A. Deland and A. Davis Smith. “Jeremiah H. Brown.” From Northern Alabama, Historical and Biographical. Birmingham, Alabama: Smith and Deland, 1888. 219. “He gave them every Saturday the entire day for their own, and furnished them with good churches and white preachers on Sunday, and saw that they had a reasonable amount of instruction and religious training.” Brown is mentioned in the posts for 22 September 2019 and 22 November 2020.
12. Amy Chapman. “The Masters Good but Overseers Mean.” Transcribed by Ruby Pickens Tartt for the WPA’s Slave Narratives collection from Alabama. [57] 128–129 in Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981. 129. Owens modernized Tartt’s transcriptions to make them easier to read. [58]
13. Scarborough is discussed in the post for 22 November 2020.
14. Ruby Pickens Tartt. “Amy Chapman’s Funeral.” 79– 83 in Brown and Owens. 80.
15. George Young. “Peter Had No Keys ’ceptin His.” Transcribed by Tartt, WPA. 120–122 in Brown and Owens. 121. A fuller quotation appears in the post for 22 September 2019.
16. Horn is discussed in the posts for 22 September 2020 and 22 November 2020.
17. Ruby Pickens Tartt. “Alice.” Southwest Review 34:192–195:1949. Reprinted by Brown and Owens. 103. Her source from Josh Horn. A fuller quotation appears in the post for 22 September 2020.
18. Young. 121.
19. Peter Kolchin. First Freedom. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1972. 109.
20. Bettie Tolbert. “Lost to the Refugee Wagons.” Transcribed by Tartt. 127–139 in Brown and Owens. 137. “Marse Abner died right after he done finish a sermon to us (’cause he preach first to the white folks, then to the niggers).”
21. fdmal. “Rev Abner Rasberry Scarborough.” Find a Grave website. 12 August 2009.
22. Kolchin. 80.
23. Walter L. Fleming. Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1905. 459. The Bureau head was Wager Swayne.
24. Fleming. 272.
25. Sledge’s religious role was remembered by Blacks, but was not mentioned at the time by whites. They only recalled the name of his former owner.
26. Reuben A. Meridith. Testimony, Livingston, Alabama. 2 November 1871. United States Congress. Joint Select Committee. The Condition of Affairs in Late Insurrectionary States. Alabama. Volume III. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872. 1771. As mentioned in the post for 22 September 2019, this was at a time when state law required “five respectable slave-holders” be present whenever a Black preached.
27. Cherise Williams Newsome. “Her Quest to Fill Genealogical Gaps.” The [Norfolk] Virginian-Pilot. 29 January 2014. 18–19 in the advertising supplement.” Her subject was Thelma Young Carroll, whose father was a relative of Burke.
28. George W. Houston. Testimony, Montgomery, Alabama. 17 October 1671. Alabama. Volume II. 998. Houston is discussed in the post for 13 September 2020.
29. Ida Gayle. “Black Bluff Missionary Baptist Church.” Collected by Jud Arrinton. Tutwiler Library. 44 in Heritage.
30. “A Brief History of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, Bellamy, AL.” 47 in Heritage.
34. Gayle. Whitfield was too well connected to be harassed by the Klan. His father, [59] James Bryan Whitfield, [60] was the brother of Nathan Bryan Whitfield, a powerful man living in nearby Demopolis. Andrew Johnson personally pardoned Nathan’s son for his activities during the war. [61]
35. Kolchin. 111–112.
36. Kolchin. 108.
37. Kolchin. 110.
38. “Brief History of A.M.E. Zion Church — Livingston, Alabama.” 64–65 in Heritage.
39. “Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.” Encyclopædia Britannica website. 20 July 1998; last updated by Satyavrat Nirala on 11 August 2014. Discussions for the new denomination began in 1866. The name was changed from “Colored” to “Christian” in 1956.
40. Anne Gyps. “History of Zion Hill Baptist Church.” 65 in Heritage.
41. In 1801, Presbyterians and Congregationalists agreed to combine flocks on the Ohio frontier and use whichever clergymen were present. The Plan of Union was brokered by Jonathan Edwards. [62]
42. The reaction of Methodist hierarchies to Phoebe Palmer’s theory of Holiness is discussed in the post for 9 February 2020.
43. Elizabeth Geeslin. “The History of the Cuba Church of God (Holiness).” 44 in Heritage. Kiergan left the Southwestern Holiness Association to form the Church of God in 1883. [63] I suspect the revival was held in Mississippi where the new denomination had churches. [64] The Cuba church was organized before the economic independence discussed in the post for 20 September 2020.
44. Spratt. 108.
45. James Pate. “Survey of Black Churches in Sumter County Alabama 1980-1981.” University of Western Alabama website.
46. The Church of God in Christ is discussed in the post for 23 December 2017.
47. Wikipedia. “Original Church of God or Sanctified Church.”
48. Item. The Demopolis [Alabama] Times. 11 October 1934. 1. Posted by stamfordwalker. 4 July 2019. Tammy Jackson Montgomery and Gwendolyn Moore DeLaine reprinted a program from the 52nd meeting of the Mount Hermon District Singing Convention held in 1970. They indicated that group used shaped notes. [65]
49. Charles Octavius Boothe. The Cyclopedia of the Colored Baptists of Alabama. Birmingham: Alabama Publishing Company, 1895. 59.
50. Pate.
51. Brown and Owens provided a “map of Sumter County showing where Ruby Pickens Tartt found singers and storytellers” on page vi.
52. Spratt. 20. “There was a gallery for slaves—unless the preaching was for slaves especially and then the white people occupied the gallery.”
53. Jud K. Arrington. “Pleasant Grove (Shady Grove) Methodist Church.” Arrington collection, Julia Tutwiler Library, University of West Alabama. 57 in Heritage.
54. Caption for photograph of Gainesville Presbyterian Church. 19 in Heritage.
55. Jud K. Arrington. “Elizabeth Presbyterian Church (1838 — 1946).” Arrington collection. 47 in Heritage. The balcony continued to be used “(at least with former slaves) through the 1870s.”
56. For more information on the WPA Slave Narratives project, see the post for 23 January 2019.
57. For more information on Tartt’s involvement with the WPA, see the post for 23 January 2019.
58. Laurella Owens. “Introduction.” 59–60 in Brown and Owens. 60.
59. “James George Whitfield.” Ancestry website.
60. “Gen. James Bryan Whitfield.” Geni website. 23 April 2019.
61. Wikipedia. “Whitfield Family of the United States.”
62. Sydney E. Ahlstrom. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972. 456.
63. Wikipedia. “Church of God (Holiness).”
64. Charles Edwin Jones. “Churches of God.” 67–68 in The A to Z of the Holiness Movement. Edited by William Kostlevy. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2010.
65. Tammy Jackson Montgomery and Gwendolyn Moore DeLaine. Back Then. University of Western Alabama website. 54. Leola S. Moore provided the copy.
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