God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story - Softcover

Watts, Jill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520201728 ISBN 13: 9780520201729

Verlag: University of California Press, 1995

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Jill Watts, Associate Professor of History at California State University, San Marcos, is at work on a book about Mae West.

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"Unearthing rare, scarce, and previously unknown original sources, Watts spells out a comprehensive, even definitive account of Father's controversial life and charismatic ministry. In addition to the fascinating biography, this is solid social and intellectual history as well."—American Academy of Religion

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"Unearthing rare, scarce, and previously unknown original sources, Watts spells out a comprehensive, even definitive account of Father's controversial life and charismatic ministry. In addition to the fascinating biography, this is solid social and intellectual history as well." American Academy of Religion

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God, Harlem U.S.A.

The Father Divine StoryBy Jill Watts

University of California Press

Copyright © 1995 Jill Watts
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780520201729
1
According to the Flesh

But if I would bear record of myself according to the flesh, it would only be a material or literary record. It would not really be practical or essential for the good of mankind. . . . Man, consciously, has in himself and in his history the records of every material thing in history of man and the history of the earth, and it proves nothing, in a way, towards salvation in my opinion.
New York News, August 20, 1932

Before the 1870s, Rockville was a quiet, modest village tucked among the rolling hills and dense woods of Montgomery County, Maryland. But after the Civil War, land developers saw an opportunity to make a profit and began promoting the town as "Peerless Rockville," an undiscovered treasure for "homeseekers and investors" searching for "health, wealth, and comfort." In 1873, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad established a regular route through Rockville, and by 1880, the town was in the midst of a housing boom. Sixteen miles up the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., Rockville, with its mild temperatures and cool breezes, offered a summertime refuge from the sweltering heat and humidity of the nation's capital. Rockville quickly became a popular resort town and lured the elite of Washington society, who fled from mugginess, mosquitoes, and malaria to the elegant homes and quaint cottages in the growing but still serene little town.1

Yet not everyone in Rockville enjoyed the pleasures of prosperity and leisure. At the northern edge of town was a black ghetto known as Monkey Run. White vacationers and residents of Rockville maintained an awkward relationship with the black population. Although they treated African Americans with contempt, whites were thoroughly dependent on the inhabitants of Monkey

Run to work in their homes, on their farms, and in their businesses. Six days a week, black men, women, and children trudged up a gentle slope to work in white neighborhoods. Except for the police, who monitored the ghetto from the courthouse bell tower, white residents paid little attention to the lives of those who lived in Monkey Run.2

However, in May 1897 the local white newspaper took notice of the death of Nancy Baker, a resident of Monkey Run. The paper reported that when Nancy Baker passed away, she was five feet tall and weighed 480 pounds. Her body lay in her home for almost two days as a local carpenter rushed to build a coffin large enough to accommodate her. On the day of her funeral, the coffin could not be removed until the door of her home had been cut away. Ten pallbearers carried Nancy Baker to her final resting place in a black Rockville cemetery. She left behind a husband and several children, including a teenage son, George Baker, Jr., who would become the evangelist Father Divine.3

Nancy Baker's life had never been easy. She was born into slavery in the 1840s in Gaithersburg, an agricultural hamlet about five miles from Rockville.4 Slavery in Maryland differed from that in other parts of the South. The need for slaves had lessened as Maryland farmers abandoned tobacco to cultivate grains and produce. While many planters sold their slaves to buyers from the lower South, others manumitted them. By 1850, over 45 percent of Maryland's African-American population was free. But Nancy was not so fortunate. Actually, the decline of slavery had detrimental effects on those like Nancy who remained enslaved in Maryland. They were separated from relatives and friends who had been sold away or freed and isolated from the support network that had developed among large slave populations.5

Under these conditions, Nancy grew to adulthood. She spent her early life on Mount Pleasant, a 180-acre plantation owned by Lemuel Clements and located just outside Gaithersburg. Local residents considered Mount Pleasant, with its two-story brick manor house high on a knoll, one of the finest estates in the area. A devout Catholic, Clements probably followed the church's requirements concerning the treatment of slaves and saw that all, including Nancy, were baptized and catechized. But Clements, like other Catholic masters, regarded blacks with animosity and treated his

slaves callously. In 1859, Clements participated in an unsuccessful campaign to expel free blacks from the state. Like other masters, he had no reservations about separating slaves from their families and friends, and sold Nancy away from the community that nurtured her to another Catholic slaveholder, Henry B. Waring.6

A longtime resident of Montgomery County, Henry Waring lived only a few miles from Mount Pleasant. In the late eighteenth century the Warings, prosperous tobacco planters and merchants, owned many slaves, but by 1864, Henry Waring had only nine slaves. As the Warings' only female slave, Nancy assumed the responsibilities of a house servantb cooking, cleaning, and caring for the master's and the slaves' children. Nancy's hours began before breakfast and lasted long past dinner. Expected to attend to any household or family emergency, she often worked late into the night. In constant contact with the master and his family, she bore the brunt of white racism and lived in danger of physical and sexual abuse. Improper clothing and inadequate nutrition contributed to the severity of her life. To add to her hardships, in 1860 she gave birth to her first child, Annie, who by the time she was four had been separated from her mother, possibly sold to another master.7

Nancy's slave community rarely accepted its subordinate status and devised a variety of covert and overt protests. One of the most powerful means of slave resistance was religion. Nancy lived in an intensely spiritual society whose flexible character embraced a variety of religious traditions and molded them into a doctrine that challenged slavery. The major organizational basis of the slave community, religion attracted enthusiastic participation by most slaves. Hidden from the master, religious practices and institutions evolved that affirmed black independence and defied the white superstructure. Combining teachings from European Christianity with African religious traditions, slaves fashioned their own syncretic belief system. Drawing from African roots, slave religion fused the sacred with the profane and maintained that spiritual forces actively controlled the material world. Moreover, as in Africa, everyone in the community played an active role in religious celebrations, and without a doubt, Nancy worshiped with her brothers and sisters in bondage when she could. These clandestine devotionals were held in safe private placesb the woods or slave cabins. Worship began with a song of praise and continued with biblically

inspired sermons, witnessing, singing, and dancing. The rituals and theology affirmed community solidarity and disseminated messages of hope and strength to those under white oppression.8

But like many other slaves, Nancy worshiped in two religious spheres, for her Catholic masters demanded that she attend their church. The Warings had built a small brick chapel on their farm that in the early 1800s served as the principal place of worship for local Catholics. Since she worked in the Waring home, she received further exposure to Catholicism. Frequent visits from parish priests, whom the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of California Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1995
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0520201728
• ISBN 13: 9780520201729
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 286
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Birkhäuser Berlin; orders-books@degruyter.com; ; Genthinerstr. 13; Berlin; 10785; Deutschland