Whats A Black Man Doing In The Episcopal Church

Recalling his personal journey of faith, the late Bishop of Southern Ohio, Herbert Thompson, offers a candid look at the struggle of the Episcopal Church and America in welcoming and embracing people of color.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Demby believed African American assimilation into the white Episcopal church was paved with education and moral rectitude. Thus his move toward integration and equality accommodated more than challenged the status quo. His rise to assistant Episcopal bishop for "colored work" in Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and New Mexico, provides depth to the larger American experience of segregation promulgated as a social good. Demby worked diligently to hire black priests, baptizing and confirming communicants, and building schools and other institutions of community service as a way to draw African Americans back to the Episcopal church. His ministry, writes Beary, "represents the zenith and the demise of Jim Crow in the Episcopal Church." Beary is an independent scholar, an Episcopalian, and former instructor at Lyon College. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

"The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church" by Lewis Marshall Hagood was originally published in 1890 and was, at the time, an important piece of non-fiction regarding the large number of African-Americans who converted to Methodism. This book recounts the religious history and connection between the African-American population and the Methodist church spanning from the time of the earliest slaves in the United States of America all the way to the post-Civil War era of American history. Though this book was almost a forgotten piece of history, it's once again available for the public to read to learn about this important part of American history.

Craig D. Townsend tells the remarkable story of St. Philip's, the first African American Episcopal church in New York City, and its struggle for autonomy and independence.