2025-06-28
42 分钟The Economist If I ask you to imagine a black church in America,
you might think of some hallmarks.
Some a little outdated, some still accurate.
Brightly colored robes on pastors delivering fire and brimstone oratory.
Or a choir belting out gospel music that I reckon should make white churches step it up a notch.
But the real hallmark of America's black church is its connection to the civil rights movement.
When I say black church, I mean black churches,
the traditional Baptist and Methodist and old-school Pentecostal denominations,
but today really any church with a majority black congregation and a black leader.
In the dark days of slavery,
they were instrumental in the Underground Railroad that spirited slaves to the abolitionist North.
In the 20th century, they again provided a locus of support and organization.
I'm gonna be honest with you.
The civil rights movement doesn't happen without the church.
Period.
And now, in the 21st,
we've seen how a Black church can draw the small-minded, regressive forces of division.
In 2020, after Donald Trump lost the election to Joe Biden,
a group of Proud Boys went on a rampage and vandalized the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal in Washington.
The church and its pastor chose to fight back.