Saved and Sanctified: The Rise of a Storefront Church in Great Migration Philadelphia

During the first half of the twentieth century, millions of southern blacks moved north to escape the violent racism of the Jim Crow South and to find employment in urban centers. They transplanted not only themselves but also their culture. In the midst of this tumultuous demographic transition emerged a new religious phenomenon, the storefront Sanctified church. This book focuses on one such Philadelphia church - started above a horse stable, founded by a woman born sixteen years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and still active today. "The Church," as it is known to members, offers unique perspective on an under-studied aspect of African American religious organizations. This book tells of how one charismatic woman, with a call to preach the gospel, galvanized a handful of Great Migration Philadelphians to create an enduring community of faith amid rapid social change and racial inequity. Surviving the death of its founder and establishing power sharing by both male and female elders, The Church embodies grassroots institution-building and the propitious structuring of religious innovation. Through painstaking historical and ethnographic research, Deidre Helen Crumbley - who grew up in The Church - illuminates the crucial role these often controversial churches played in the spiritual life of the African American community during and after the Great Migration. She offers new perspectives on women and their changing roles in black churches, examines the tenuous relationship between traditional denominations and Pentecostal storefront churches, and dispels common prejudices about the people who attend them.--Publisher's description.

Author(s): Deidre Helen Crumbley
Published: 2012
Categories: African American churches