Frazier's study of the black church and an essay by Lincoln arguing that the civil rights movement saw the splintering of the traditional black church and the creation of new roles for religion.

According to C. Eric Lincoln, the turbulent decade of the Sixties witnessed the death of the Negro Church. In its place, the offspring of the conflict between "conscienceless power" and "powerless conscience," is the Black Church. No longer the dependent bastion of Black prudence, Black institutional religion -- whether traditional, pentecostal, or Muslim -- has assumed a new role of leadership in its centuries-old quest for social and spiritual justice in America. C. Eric Lincoln is presently Chairman of the Department of Religious and Philosophical Studies at Fisk University and is the founding President of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters Book jacket.

A nongovernmental survey of urban and rural churches of black communities based on a ten year study.

Black Church Beginnings provides an intimate look at the struggles of African Americans to establish spiritual communities in the harsh world of slavery in the American colonies. Written by one of today's foremost experts on African American religion, this book traces the growth of the black church from its start in the mid-1700s to the end of the nineteenth century. As Henry Mitchell shows, the first African American churches didn't just organize; they labored hard, long, and sacrificially to form a meaningful, independent faith. Mitchell insightfully takes readers inside this process of development. He candidly examines the challenge of finding adequately trained pastors for new local congregations, confrontations resulting from internal class structure in big city churches, and obstacles posed by emerging denominationalism. Original in its subject matter and singular in its analysis, Mitchell's Black Church Beginnings makes a major contribution to the study of American church history.

Originally published: Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, [1957].