BLACK THEOLOGY OF THE 60s

            The 1960s were one of the greatest times of turmoil for the African-American (Black/Negro) community.  It was a time of Jim Crown Laws, segregation, and racial injustice.  It was a time of humiliation, dehumanization, and attempted elimination.  Black people were banned from certain stores, experienced verbal and physical abuse, had little legal protection, were being mauled by police dogs and knocked over with the powerful water of fire hoses.  Lynching, burnings, bombings, rapes, and murders were used to keep Blacks “in line.”  Unequal housing, employment, education, and social standing were prevalent.  And all of these horrors were perfectly legal.  The South had become so accustomed to degrading the Negro that many of them could not see the need for civil rights.  But, Blacks became tired of the mistreatment, degrading language, fearing for their men, women, and children, harassment, voting blocks, back door entrances, white and black signs, police threats, the Ku Klux Klan, and the everyday struggle of being a Negro in America.  Black people were weary of the injustice, dissatisfied with substandard living, disgusted with the system, tired of the threats, sick of the dirty looks and venomous tongues, flabbergasted by the irony of racist Christians, frustrated with the hypocrisy of America (the land of liberty and justice for all--as long as you are white).  Out of this frustration, the Civil Rights, the Black Power Movement, and Black Theology were born.

            “The Civil Rights Movement was at a peak from 1955-1965. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, guaranteeing basic civil rights for all Americans, regardless of race, after nearly a decade of nonviolent protests and marches, ranging from the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycotts to the student-led sit-ins of the 1960s to the huge March on Washington in 1963.”[1]  The figure head of the Civil Rights Movement was a young black pastor from Atlanta, GA by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Along with others, he led many protests, marches, and boycotts in order to bring racial injustice to the forefront of America and the world.  “The black civil rights movement of the 1960s in the USA raised profound and radical theological questions regarding the presence of Christ and the true nature of the Church...”[2] 

            Although Blacks suffered during the time of the Civil Rights Movement, there were those who did not participate in the efforts of the Movement because they were afraid to rock the boat.  They feared for their sub-cultural social status; they thought the time wasn't right; they felt that protesting would make things worse for them.  Some just felt that the Movement was simply unwise.  Clergymen who subscribed to these feelings became the inspiration for Martin Luther King's letters from a Birmingham jail.

            In the letter shown on page 375 of Documents of the Christian Church, King confronts their statement calling the civil rights activates “unwise and untimely.”  He is bothered by their dislike of the protest and their lack of acknowledgement of the system that caused them.  King says, “...You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham.  But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations.  I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with the underlying causes.”[3]  King is baffled by their willingness to settle for false promises and seemingly small victories when they know in their hearts that nothing has really changed.  King thinks that the protest is undesirable but he also feels that the Negro had no other choice.  He says, “It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.”[4]  This statement says that black people had no choice but to demonstrate because the whites were unbending, unmerciful, and unrelentless in their efforts to build up white power and break down the black social structure.  Without demonstrating, the Negro would just continue to succumb to the everyday social, physical, and mental abuse heaped on by white America.

            King then breaks down the basic steps of nonviolent campaigns.  The first step is collecting facts so that injustice is proven in a certain situation.  Then, the campaign must try to negotiate with the people or systems that are responsible for the injustices.  The next step is self purification and the last step is taking direct action.

            King then tells about the ugliness of racist Birmingham.  He speaks of the bombings, and unjust courts.  He tells how the world knows how Birmingham is the most segregated place in the country.  And how the leaders of the city are unwilling to negotiate and when they do, they fall back on their promises and things’ go back to the way they were.  Therefore, blacks had no choice but to protest because, “As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us.  We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community…”[5]

            “The refusal of many white-dominated civil authorities to respond to the non-violent campaign of Martin Luther King, [Jr.] led to a more aggressive movement, that of ‘Black Power,’ led by such figures as ‘Malcolm X.”[6]  They did not want to condone violence or be opposed to nonviolence, but they could no longer tolerate the conditions of a racist society.  So a group of black church leaders came together and addressed American positions.

            The church leaders were defending the term ‘black power.’  They wanted to point out the deficiency in America that brought this movement into existence.  The term ‘black power’ was thought to have a threatening connotation to white America and the media tried to make ‘black power’ seem like the antithesis of the Civil Rights Movement.  The leaders said, “It is of critical importance that the leaders of this nation listen also to a voice which says that the principle source of the threat to our nation comes neither from riots erupting in our big cities, nor from the disagreements among the leaders of the civil rights movement, nor even from mere raising of the cry for ‘black power.’ The events, we believe, are but the expression of the judgment of God upon our nation for its failure to use its abundant resources to serve the real well-being of people, at home and abroad.”[7]  The leaders redirected accusations of ‘black power’ being threatening.  They pointed out that the movement was a result of the abuses of America upon black people.  It was a call for justice and freedom from social oppression.  It was acting out against the trials and tribulations of injustice.  The leaders asked that the power of the nation be used to manifest true civil rights not to manipulate it.

            The church leaders spoke out against violence and riots but they did not believe that violence and riots were the problem.  Violence and riots were a result of the problem.  The source of these violent eruptions must be eliminated.  The leaders said:

We deplore the overt violence of riots, but we believe it is more important to focus on the real sources of the eruptions.  These sources may be abetted inside the ghetto, but their basic causes lie in the silent and covert violence which middle-class America inflicts upon the victims of the inner city.  The hidden, smooth and often smiling decisions of American leaders which tie a white noose of suburbia around their necks, and which pin the backs of the masses of Negros against the steaming ghetto walls—without jobs in a booming economy; with dilapidated and segregated educational systems in the full view of unenforced laws against it; in short: the failure of American leaders to use American power to create equal opportunity in life as well as in law—this is the real problem and not the anguished cry for ‘black power’…”[8]

The leaders continued in saying that when America will keep its promises as being force for all people and do what is right and fair.  Then the call for ‘black power’ will not be needed.  But until a time come when the black experience is just as important as the white experience, the call for ‘black power’ will resound high.

“The Rev. James Cone is the founder of black liberation theology. In an interview with Terry Gross, Cone explains the movement, which has roots in 1960s civil-rights activism and draws inspiration from both the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, as ‘mainly a theology that sees God as concerned with the poor and the weak.’"[9]   Cone is one of the most prominent black theologians who drew upon the black power movement and tried to find Jesus in modern America.  He considered Christ as black and tried to repaint the image of the white blue eyed Jesus into a black one.

Cone felt “Any message that is not related to the liberation of the poor in a society is not Christ's message. Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology. Liberation theology became and remains a powerful philosophy and movement throughout the world.”[10]  And that black power is the spirit of Jesus the Christ.  Black Power within Jesus has the ability to free black from their self loathing and free whites from their racist superiority complex.  It will make blacks recognize their worth and force whites to see blacks as human beings equal to themselves.  He feels that there is no spirit in America greater than the spirit of Black Power.  Black Power is rooted in American economics, politics, and society.  “It means that the slave knows that he is a man, and thus resolves to make the enslaver recognize him.”[11]

Cone felt that the blackness of Jesus is a continuation of the incarnation and Christ must identify and suffer with the people.  In America the oppressed are black and so must Christ be.  Cone says, “Thinking of Christ as nonblack in the twentieth century is as theologically impossible as thinking of him as non-Jewish in the first century.”[12]

From King to Cone, black theology sought to bring justice into American society for black people.  It showed that blacks were as much as God’s children as any ethnic group and deserved the full human rights.  Through protests, ‘black power’ calls, and theology, the movement marched for freedom and continues to require that African American’s are true recipients of the American dream.

Works Cited

Bettenson, H., & Maunder, C. (1999). Documents of the Christian Chrurch. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bill Moyer's Journal. (2007, November 23 ). Retrieved December 10, 2010, from PBS.org: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11232007/profile.html

Black Liberation Theology, in its Founder's Words. (2008 , March 31 ). Retrieved December 10, 2010, from NPR.org: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89236116

Civil Rights Timeline. (2007). Retrieved December 10, 2010, from InfoPlease.com: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html

Jones, W. R. (2007, October 8 ). Toward an Interim Assessment of Black Theology. Retrieved December 10, 2010, from ChickenBones : http://www.nathanielturner.com/assessingblacktheology.htm

The Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965: Introduction. (1998, June 22). Retrieved December 10, 2010, from http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/

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[1]  (The Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965: Introduction, 1998)

[2]    Bettenson, p. 375

[3]    Ibid

[4]    Bettenson, p. 375-376

[5] Bettenson, p. 376

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] Bettenson, p. 376

[9]  (Black Liberation Theology, in its Founder's Words, 2008 )

[10]  (Bill Moyer's Journal, 2007)

[11]  Bettenson, p. 378

[12] Bettenson, p. 379