Coming up on American Black Journal, the very special kickoff of our year-long series of reports on the Black church in Detroit.

Today, we're gonna preview the PBS documentary on the importance of the Black church over the past 400 years.

And we've assembled a round table of Detroit ministers to examine the role of the church in the fight for racial and social justice.

You don't wanna miss today's show.

Stay where you are.

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♪♪ Welcome to American Black Journal.

I'm Stephen Henderson.

Today we are really excited to launch our year-long series on the Black church in Detroit.

Detroit Public Television is partnering with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History to take a closer look at the church's importance to the Black community.

Start of our monthly series coincides with a really powerful new PBS documentary from Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., titled The Black Church: This is Our Story This is Our Song.

The documentary airs on Detroit Public Television on February 16th and 17th at 9:00 p.m. both nights.

It traces the 400 year history and culture of the Black church in America.

I think the Black church was the thing we were totally in charge of.

We didn't have any external forces that had to give us permission.

Whatever we wanted to do, it was up to us, it was ours.

NARRATOR: In the first decade after the Civil War, thousands of Black churches sprouted throughout the South to unify and uplift a community that had been divided and degraded in bondage.

One of the most influential pastors to take advantage of the medium was the Reverend Clarence LaVaughn Franklin, Aretha Franklin's father, the man with the million dollar voice [Reverend Franklin] The Eagle is a personification of God.

NARRATOR: Known by his initials, CL, Franklin recorded his enormously popular sermon, The Eagle Stirrith Her Nest, in 1953 at new Bethel Baptist Church, his pastoral home.

Franklin was really a Southern minister in this huge congregation in Detroit.

So when people hear him on the radio nationwide or when they buy his record, what they're hearing is generations of Black religious tradition that's reflected in the Southern style of sermonizing, sing-song style.

Again, you can see that PBS documentary right here on Detroit Public Television February 16th and 17th at 9:00 p.m.

Here on American Black Journal we are dedicating an episode each month to the Black church in Detroit.

Today, we're gonna take a look at the church's historic role in the fight for racial and social justice.

From the Jim Crow era and Civil Rights movement to the Black Lives Matter movement, The church has been a center for activism and change.

Here's my conversation with Reverend Dr. Constance Simon of Fellowship Chapel, Pastor Barry Randolph from Church of the Messiah, and Reverend Charles Williams II of historic King Solomon Baptist Church.

Reverend Williams, I'm gonna start with you.

Activism is, I think for you, hand-in-hand with the pastorship of your church and so much of what you do, so many of the reasons that people know you, not just here in Detroit but around the country are about activism.

So I'm gonna start with you talking about that marriage between the church, the Black church in particular, and activism that's focused on social and racial justice.

Yeah, you know, look, the Black church birthed Black Lives Matter, birthed activism.

It has been the mantra that we have held since we organized the African Methodist Episcopal Church, further since we organized our resources at the First Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia, oldest institutions that Blacks have ever owned, not only in the sense that we were protesting or picketing, but at that time we were providing.

At that time we were opening up our churches for the underground railroad.

This is what the fabric of what we've been for Black people since the inception of the Black church, the historic Black church, and it's what we plan to continue to be.

Yeah, yeah.

Pastor Barry, I know from your church that that activism takes on a very, very specific role in your community and takes on a very specific role with young people in your community.

Talk about what that looks like.

Well, one of the reasons why the church has been so successful is because we combine your purpose and your activism with your spirituality.

One of the things that have been quite successful is the fact that we let everybody know that on so many different levels, Jesus Christ and his disciples in a lot of people in the Bible were actually activists.

They were standing up for what was right, they were standing up against the status quo, there was standing up in the face of evil and they were letting people know that with God all things are possible.

And we, as the people of God, we have a role to play in manifesting that in this world.

So we have a particular role.

So our young people in particular, they look for their purpose in life, and part of that is to stand up for the right thing.

We give them the opportunity to be able to do that.

Yeah.

Reverend Simon, what does this look like at Fellowship?

You know, when I thought about activism, I had to take it from an academic standpoint, of course.

I am at Fellowship Chapel, which is a very active church.

ETS is ecumenical, but social justice-oriented.

So when I looked at activism and when I teach it in my African American religious, Black religious studies course, I talk about it from a historical perspective.

We came from Africa, and I don't mean-- (voice distortS) We were enslaved.

We come to America and even within that transition we have held on to what has been activism.

I see activism holistically in that all of our things that we do in terms of the Black church is not just the religion.

It's not just understanding the Bible.

It's dealing with every phase of every Black person's need.

So even when the slaves would leave the masters' church and go to the hush harbor, and remember they did not take that Black-- There's a Black Bible, I don't know if you've ever heard about it, the slave Bible, they didn't take that.

They sat down and they talked about how they were going to be active in terms of helping everybody that was part of that slave group.

Through songs, 'cause they sang in the field to let people know they were going to be actively leaving for freedom, they preached, they talked about the things that people need.

And historically that has been the activism in Black church.

Black church still is the hub, the place where every-- Even if you don't go to church, when something happens you go back to Black church to find out, well, how do we feel about this and what things are happening with that?

And the other thing is it's a personal level where they'll look at who needs what.

That's activism.

Who's hungry, who needs water, who is not being fed, what kids are not being educated?

And until about when people began to move out of Black communities, activism in the Black church was a neighborhood thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Reverend Williams, I feel like we're in a moment that is unlike most other moments that those of us who are alive have ever really experienced.

Obviously the pandemic has something to do with that.

But also the conversation about racism, the role it plays, about the opportunity to move forward again maybe another few steps toward equality.

I would love for you to talk about, for you, the role that the church is playing in that moment right now and how it may look a little different from what the church has been asked to do before.

Post the American Revolution, there were Blacks who were actually engaged in that.

In the Northeast, those Blacks organized what's called African Benevolent Societies.

At the time, they did not have the ability to lean on the social safety net of the government or what either the veterans organizations.

And so Blacks organized these African Benevolent Societies, moving from the African Benevolent Societies to organizing actual Black churches.

Two gentlemen organized to the African Methodist Church as we know it today through African Benevolent Societies these societies were social service agencies which is why you probably see today that in the midst of a pandemic, churches like Messiah and Pastor Barry's church and Reverend Anthony's church are serving as COVID-19 testing sites, promoting the vaccine or dealing with food insecurity, serving over 750,000 meals to a city that's ridden in poverty.

I mean social service and social engagement being in tune with the community and being prepared to serve is what we have done from the very beginning of the Black church's inception.

And so this is something that we continue to do and it's something that we have done in this pandemic.

I know that there are white denominations that shut down their churches and say, hey, you can't come in our buildings, we will not be doing anything.

But the Black church has remained, the doors have remained open.

Although we may not be meeting, we've remained open to continue to serve our community in this time.

And so that is what's most important, I think, when you describe and when you define what a Black church looks like right now.

In the midst of a pandemic the doors are open and services are being offered to a community that's certainly ridden with so many social ills.

What about the intertwining of the Black Lives Matter moment in the Black church?

Absolutely.

I mean, I can't tell you the amount of individuals who I've had in our congregations or that's in our congregation that continue to get involved in the protests and the demonstrations.

When we look at the strength and the power of the Black church, it's not always in Black Lives Matter's protests.

I think it's in our ability to make sure that we are engaged in getting folks out to vote.

Look, there were folks who are in our con our congregation who may not have protested but certainly identify with Black Lives Matter.

But instead of protesting, they were at home calling folks and reminding them to make sure that they get out to vote.

Why?

Because Black lives matter.

These key democratic issues, and I don't mean democratic party, I'm talking about them democracy in our engagement in this institution called the United States, are part of continuing on that thread of Black Lives Matter.

Yeah.

Pastor Barry, so much of the work that you guys do in your community is about sustaining the people who live there.

Talk about what that work has looked like during COVID, and how ravaged to your community really has been by the whole thing.

Yeah, the community, COVID kinda brought a lot things to light that were kinda undercover.

There were things that we found out as a community, as a city, that we absolutely, truly, really were able to do.

One of the things that kinda surprised me was the fact that we could get everybody's water turned back on.

That we could run the buses for free.

We found out that children were getting one of their major meals in school.

So it brought a lot of things to light.

Senior citizens, honestly, truly, could be offered to go into stores earlier than everybody else so that they didn't have to worry about everybody else in the store getting in the way.

So we found out there was so many things that we really could do and COVID brought those things to light and hopefully we won't turn our back on those things because as things begin to change, we still need to be looking at those things.

So COVID brought a lot of things to light.

One of the other things too, that it actually showed too, that the church is more than the building, that it really is the community and it is making sure that the people eat whether or not we're doing it on the inside of the building or on the street or in the parking lot.

We found out that we were making sure that people were able to stay in their homes and be able to get their rent paid.

We made sure that so many churches in Detroit was actually making sure that people had all of their necessities and were able to make ends meet.

There was all of these things that was taking place that we found out that we could do as a church and as a community.

And we did find out that the church really is about people and not just the building.

So that was one of the biggest things that came out of COVID.

Yeah.

Pastor Barry, so much of your work is also focused on opportunity, making sure that people in your community have opportunities to advance economically, to be more secure in their housing, more secure in terms of food and things like that.

I wonder what effect COVID has had on the effort to push people forward, to give them more than what they have now.

Well, one of the things that we found out was the needs of people a lot of times won't stop.

And again, COVID kinda magnified that, but we found ways to solidify the work that we're doing.

And one of the things that came out of that was a bigger partnership with Pastor Williams and with King Solomon.

One of our people was able to solidify bringing in over 1,000 meals every day to people in the community and neighborhood because of the work and the outreach he had already had.

So we wound up partnering with that outreach.

That outreach literally led to us going to the city of Flint, being able to feed thousands of people in Flint.

We found out that we were able to work with other community organizations that were not church, but because of the need that was in the community neighborhood we literally start working together and solidified how we were able to be able to help the people.

A great need that we expanded on was providing free internet to the community in Island View.

We have the Equitable Internet Initiative where we give the internet for free, and we're kind of a competition to Comcast and AT&T, but it's provided by the church.

We found out that we were able to expand that work to people in the community and neighborhood who before the pandemic did not necessarily need the internet, but because of the economic problem that was taking place with people losing their jobs, we found out that we can actually provide the internet to more people.

So it kinda expanded the reach of the work that we were doing.

And Stephen, if I could just comment behind him, Pastor Barry.

Look, I mean, the Black church has always provided an underground network of resources and messages, right?

We don't get millions of dollars of foundation funding but somehow we always make sure DTE bills get paid.

Somehow we always make sure water gets on.

Somehow we always make sure rent gets taken care of.

And somehow some who may have lost their jobs may get their jobs back at the call of a pastor.

I mean, this is what the Black pastor has done, this is what the Black church has done.

We have become the touch point for many folks who had come from the South to the North from the early '20s all the way up into present.

And so we still serve that place.

And maybe our megaphone isn't the loudest, but I'm willing to bet that you can go inside of a community and you can ask, with any Black church that's doing relevant work, where do you go to get help if you need it?

And they'll point to the Black church.

Reverend Simon, the Black church has always, especially here in Detroit, played a big role in boosting Black Detroiters participation in our democracy and engaging them in political activism.

Talk about how that has looked different in the last year because of the things that have gone on.

I think the activism it's kind of like a reawakening.

'Cause one thing about the Black church is everybody is welcome.

The doors are open.

You might not have come to church since your grandmother brought you.

But when things are happening actively, people come back to engage because they know that's the hub.

It's like the brain power.

And they come and not to just be told.

That's another thing.

They're coming to be fed, they're coming to share, they're coming to engage.

So the activism in the Black church in Detroit has been very prevalent.

I talked about how the shrine when Jaramogi unveiled the shrine, the Madonna and Child in black and how that changed the trajectory.

And I talked to other denominations and someone Catholic said that gave us the agency to sing gospel music, to stop listening to Latin.

So just like this season, and I call it the post-Obama season because up until the things that are happening now, people actually were believing that because we had a Black president, everything is all good.

Oh, we're liberated, we're on top.

And then they start to see that it is not, it wasn't enough.

They didn't fully understand.

And so the Black church has stepped up to help people with their understanding if they're willing to learn.

Black church is not exclusive where you can't come in, we're not going to tolerate you, no.

We welcome everybody and that's been something that's part of the Black church too, even since civil rights.

Now it can come in and you're not correct, we'll help you get there.

But the Black church has just been that hub always.

We got about two minutes left but Reverend Simon, I wanted to hear you talk just a little about Black Lives Matter and the way that it interacts with the black church.

If a church is not paying attention to Black Lives Matter or embracing it, something has become a disconnect.

Because it's not just like the three young ladies I'm talking about, it is a whole movement.

It's a whole movement of awareness.

It's a whole movement of justice.

And when you say justice I'm not talking about just social justice.

It's economic justice, it's water justice, it's food justice.

It's saying let's step forward and pay attention to the things that are still trying to marginalize and disenfranchise and exclude people from wherever.

Not just the poor, but the privileged is suffering.

So when we can't be a whole community, the community that God describes and talks about Jesus being one, well, we have to still be fragmented.

That's probably why Black Lives Matter will certainly continue.

There are tons of good things to read out there about it.

There are tons of things that as churches-- Another thing with Black Lives Matter and Black church, 'cause I'm going to use them as the same thing, is that no matter who's doing the work, if the work is good, we are all in.

We are all in.

If you need help, we will will undergird you.

If you're getting shaky, we come over and say it's okay to protest, but what about policies?

Let me show you how to write this policy.

Let me help you listen to what someone just said and then let's unpack it.

Oh no, there's an infiltrator, let's talk about this and love them back to where they need to be in support of not just the humanity as a whole, but Black church in particular.

And I would just say, Dr. Simon, you are spot on.

The Black church is Black Lives Matter.

Richard Allen left the Methodist church and started the Black church in the AME tradition because black lives matter.

Dr. King and Malcolm X and the list just goes on of folks who have continued to say, hey, our lives matter, whether it's in a faith tradition or whether it's in the culture of this community.

Thank you.

Really great to have all three of you here to kick off our celebration of the Black church of Detroit in 2021.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you for having us.

Before we leave, I wanna take a moment to acknowledge the great loss we experienced last week when history-maker and trailblazer Mary Wilson died at the age of 76.

Wilson broke barriers as an original member of Motown's legendary group The Supremes.

She and her Detroit childhood friends Diana Ross and Florence Ballard became absolute worldwide superstars in the 1960s.

And they always represented the city and the Motown sound with glamor and with class.

Detroit Black Journal host Ed Gordon had an in-depth interview with Ms. Wilson in 1986.

We have posted that conversation on our website at americanblackjournal.org in remembrance of the vocalist and performer who made this city so proud.

♪ My world is empty without you, babe ♪ ♪ My world is empty without you, babe ♪ ♪ And as I go my way alone And the losses keep mounting for us here in the city of Detroit.

We're also remembering two other prominent Detroiters who passed away.

Karen Hudson Samuels, executive director of the WGPR TV Historical Society, and Cliff Woodards II, a long time defense attorney and radio host.

Both were well-known in the Detroit community.

Karen Hudson Samuels of course was a close friend of our American Black Journal community here at Detroit Public Television.

We offer our condolences to both of their families.

That's gonna do it for us, thanks for watching.

You can always connect with us on Facebook and on Twitter.

We'll see you next time.

♪♪ Announcer 1: From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco: serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Announcer 2: Support also provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for journalism at Detroit Public TV.

Announcer 1: The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of American Black Journal in covering African-American history, culture and politics.

The DTE foundation and American Black Journal partners in presenting African-American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

Announcer 2: Also brought to you by AAA.

Nissan Foundation.

Ally.

InPACT at Home.

UAW: solidarity forever.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

(piano music)