RESOURCES: BLACK CHURCH HISTORICAL OVERVIEWS

Quick Links : CONTEMPORARY BLACK CHURCHES | ECUMENICAL-BLACK CHURCHES
REGIONAL BLACK CHURCH HISTORIES | GENERAL AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY

A collection of historical summary links to historically Black denominations
http://www.blackandchristian.com/blackchurch/highlights.shtml

“This Far by Faith” is a Public Broadcasting series originally broadcast in 2001. Extends from the roots of African religion to the impact of contemporary Black Churches on the American soul.
http://www2.blackside.com/Faith/

Preservation of Black Church History Project offers tools for Black churches to record their histories as well as essays on the Black Church
http://www.blackandchristian.com/blackchurch/index.shtml
http://www.blackandchristian.com/blackchurch/highlights.shtml

Black history including a “hot list” of links to speeches, slave narratives, civil rights documentation, black church burnings and much more
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/BHM/bh_hotlist.html

Starting with Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Valerie Cummings provides historical details on early New England church seating patterns for Black slaves and free Blacks.
http://www.seacoastnh.com/blackhistory/slaves3.html

CONTEMPORARY BLACK CHURCHES

An example of Black churches coalescing for community service, action and support.
http://www.denverblackchurch.org/about/history.htm

Kelly Miller Institute for Black Church History at Vanderbilt Divinity provides on-site resources and periodic conferences in conjunction with Scarritt Bennett Center.
http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/kmsi/default.htm

ECUMENICAL-BLACK CHURCHES

Black Catholic provides history of Black Christianity going back to three popes and various other African leaders in the early church
http://www.holyangels.com/black.htm

Black Berea Church goes back to a post civil-war debate over emersion in baptism.  The church leadership was an interracial group and grew into outreach to Black soldiers and their families in the west.
http://www.berea.edu/SOC/Burnside/EarlyBlackBerea/firstchristian/history.html

REGIONAL BLACK CHURCH HISTORIES

California African Methodist Episcopal church history.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/5views/5views2a.htm

Virginia Commonwealth University Black history web pages which include a section on Black churches in Virginia. 
http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/vbha/vbha.html

Canada was the destination for the Underground Railroad for escaped slaves.  One of the churches founded there was the British Methodist Episcopal Church
http://www.museum.guelph.on.ca/religion.htm

The Boston Black Meeting House was instrumental in the Revolutionary war.  Crispus Attucks, an African American man was the first casualty of the war.  This web site provides an analysis of the role of the Black Church in those times.
http://www.boston.com/blackhistory/church.shtml

Chicago Black Churches in historical perspective.
http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/Tours/AfricanAmerican.html

Indiana was home to Harry Hoosier, African American who was the first Methodist missionary to the Native Americans.  Click on Church and Community Life.  Indiana is called the Hoosier state, most likely because of Harry Hoosier.
http://www.ihc4u.org/thisfar.htm

For a range of theories (some of them racist) on the origins of the nickname “Hoosiers” :
http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/indiana_room/indiana_facts.html

A librarian’s lengthy account of name’s origin lends credence to it’s Black roots. 
http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/internet/extra/hoosier.html

North Georgia United Methodist Annual Conference web site on African American Methodists.  This site provides some useful background on John Wesley but tends to skip difficult eras such as the civil rights era.
http://www.ngumc.org/cm/african_american_methodism.htm

The Harlem,1900-1940 web site provides pictorial and documentary sources for the period referred to as the Harlem Renaissance.  Click on Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. for Black Church information
http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/

GENERAL AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY

A very user friendly web site with quizzes, folk tales, historic speeches, biographies, etc.
http://www.toptags.com/aama/

Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture provides research, online exhibits and much more.
http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html

Be sure to see the exhibit on 19^th century African American Women Writers.
http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/toc.html

This Special Presentation of the Library of Congress exhibition, The African-American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, showcases the Library's incomparable African-American collections.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/aohome.html

African American Mosaic is another Library of Congress online exhibition.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/intro.html

Official U.S. State Department Black History web site provides contemporary analysis of the impact of African Americans on global realities and connections, along with bibliographies, and treatises on “The Amistad Rebellion” “Civil Rights” etc.
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/blackhis/

Duke Universities photo and text online exhibit of African American Women’s history.
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/collections/african-american-women.html

This guide to African American research resources in North Carolina provides addresses and phone numbers of collection locations.  You have to go to these sites to access materials.
http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/PyaAfro2.html

A national park service African American history web site with comprehensive resources.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/feature/afam/

The Rosewood massacre in Oklahoma in 1923 has recently received attention and some compensation has been given to the heirs. This provides a detailed account of the events.
http://www.displaysforschools.com/history.html

A pop quiz and informational web site on about a dozen key 19^th century Black leaders.
http://www.brightmoments.com/blackhistory/fnmct.html