African-American Adventism in Harlem (2018)
George F. Bailey, Seventh-day Rebels: The Story of Harlem’s Black Sabbath-Keepers. CreateSpace, 2018.
”Seventh-day Rebels: Harlem's Black Sabbath-keepers, recounts the challenges faced by African Americans and people of African descent who were members of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Conference during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Author, George F. Bailey chronicles their responses to those challenges, particularly the revolt of the Harlem Church which resulted in the largest SDA congregation in New York City seceding from the SDA. Earlier revolts against Jim Crow and SDA paternalism by African American SDA ministers Charles Kinney, Lewis Sheafe and John Manns highlight the constant struggle for self-determination that those pastors and many others were forced to undertake.The Harlem Sabbath-keepers’ long narrative of resistance, rebellion and survival parallels the history of Harlem in the twentieth century.
Contemporaneously, with Harlem’s transformation into a largely black community, continuing through the two Great Migrations, World War I, the Roaring Twenties and the Harlem Renaissance with its “New Negro,” James Kemuel Humphrey built Harlem Church of SDA, the third largest SDA congregation in America. His status in the SDA Conference, however, did not reflect his contributions. His members along with other African American Adventists suffered under the segregationist policies of the Conference and its educational and health care institutions while African American SDA pastors bristled under the condescending control of Conference administrators.The flowering of social consciousness in Harlem, fed by the Harlem Renaissance and the self-determinist movement of Marcus Garvey, along with the optimism of the “Roaring Twenties,” influenced the course of events that led to the revolt and secession of the Harlem Church and a small number of allied congregations around the country.
Unfortunately, that watershed event—the formation of the all-black United Sabbath-day Adventists (USDA) Conference—coincided with the beginning of the Great Depression and its devastating economic and social consequences. The USDA, under the leadership of J. K. Humphrey faced many challenges once they secured their independence. The Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement and post-war social and cultural developments presented challenges as formidable as Jim Crow. The scandal that rent the movement apart and which spun off the Seventh-Day Christian Conference was a shock whose reverberations are still felt within the remnant communities. The challenges of the future await.”
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