From Whence They Came: Origins of the Missionary Baptists in Southwest Georgia, 1865-1900
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For Blacks, a significant portion of their history especially the religious component, remains invisible and needs to be incorporated into the literature. The Black religious experience in the United States, especially its Protestant dimension, constitutes a creative and revolutionary endeavor of a people. It was creative because of integrated African cultural retentions and a theology that evolved in freedom and democracy; revolutionary because the synthesis became the core of a religious belief system that transformed and constructed a new spiritual cosmos. Religion has been the mobilizing influence for Blacks in America. Slavery, long the organizing principle for their lives is trumped only by the church and faith in God. The Black church for many years was the North Star of hope drawing them to the inevitable dawn of a brighter day. It was a determined and steadfast faith that ushered Blacks through slavery and consoled them during Jim Crow. For Blacks, religion has been the refuge of solace, the rock of ages in a weary land, and the Old Ship of Zion during the journey called the Black experience. The Black church cradled a people through the difficult times of Reconstruction and gave hope in the time beyond. Post Emancipation Proclamation and end of the Civil War were seminal times for Blacks in the South and Southwest Georgia. Individual futures and that of a people stood to be determined through singular and collective efforts. Religion figures prominently in Black community’s development and maturation. Reconstruction and late 19th century were the formative years of the Black church in the South. Like American religious history in general, Black religious history in Southwest Georgia needs to be preserved. In the early 1800s, Southwest Georgia experienced an influx of Blacks to support the cotton economy that flourished prior to the Civil War. Blacks, enslaved and free, created Missionary Baptist history, which spans more than 150 years. Their contributions to posterity are shadowed by time, inconspicuous, and therefore not fully appreciated Although the voices of early Black Baptist pioneers have fallen silent, their legacies of proselytizing the gospel, founding churches and associations is indelibly etched in time. This book reveals the origins of the Missionary Baptists in Southwest Georgia and seeks to preserve their legacies, which directly influences today’s Missionary Baptists.
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About the Book
The spiritual realm has been the resort of countless Blacks during their sojourn in America. Black Missionary Baptists’ history blossomed in Reconstruction and matured in Jim Crow Southern society. However, research on Black Baptists at the regional and local levels has been largely neglected. In obscurity are pioneers who blazed a trail of faith in God and set in motion what Carter G. Woodson and others have called the Negro Church. What began many years ago as their religious experience lives on today, but the stories of their time have not been told. Because religion has been a significant influence on Black people it is important to reconstruct and preserve local and regional religious history. Knowledge of the past is vital to understanding the present. William Montgomery, Under Their Own Vine And Fig Tree: The African American Church in the South, 1865-1900, asserted that this time frame deserved more scholarly attention. Southwest Georgia is fertile ground for Black religious history. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’ The Black Church, has there been a focus on Blacks and religion in the region. This book resurrects from invisibility’s custody Blacks embrace of Christianity in local and regional settings. Its contents explore denomination identity formation and religion as a means of uplift and advancement in the microcosm of Southwest Georgia. Through it all, Black Baptist ministers were pivotal actors in the religious drama. Although myths and stereotypes about Black ministers of the past abound, they, nevertheless, led the way down freedom road. This book tells of Black preachers of the past, their efforts to uplift and advance the race, and reveals the depth of their creativity, that was repeatedly demonstrated in the founding of local churches and associations that are vibrant today.
About the Author
Warren C. Hope is an ordained Missionary Baptist minister and pastor of the Silver Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Coolidge Georgia. A former middle school teacher and elementary school principal, he is a professor of Educational Leadership in the College of Education at Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, Florida. He has a passion for history, which led him to earn the Ph. D. in History from Florida State University in 2008. From Whence They Came: Origins of the Missionary Baptists in Southwest Georgia, 1865-1900, emerged from his passion for history and need to know more about the Missionary Baptist denomination, Black ministers, and the independent churches that were organized following the Civil War.