Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) - Through a lens: Black History Month

Religious News Service photos preserve telling moments of African American Christian experience

DR. KING ARRESTED, 1965. [Pearl: 343596]

As staff members at the Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) further familiarize ourselves with the contents of the Religious News Service Photograph Collection, we have discovered powerful photos that speak to the experiences of African American Christians. These images, these moments captured by a lens, allow us to time travel, revisiting the tumultuous and varied history of the mid-20th century, as the collection spans the years 1945 to 1982.

This month, in celebration of Black History Month, we want to share some of the images that grabbed our attention and pulled at our heartstrings. We encourage you to browse digitized RNS images and our African American History Digital Collection in Pearl Digital Collections to find your own.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is seen here to the left, kneeling to pray with a line of others at a voter drive in Selma, Alabama, in early February. The group in its entirety is being taken to jail. Two hundred and sixty-five persons were arrested that day on charges of “parading without a permit” for walking to the Dallas County Courthouse in protest of discriminatory voter registration practices. Add another 500 people to the mix — students who skipped school in order to join the demonstration, and who were arrested on truancy charges — and the number grows to more than 700.

The majority of those arrested in Selma that day were released without bail, pending arraignment. King, however, chose to stay behind.

The demonstrators’ enthusiasm and persistence would not be for nothing. On August 4, the U.S. Senate passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the long-delayed issue of voting rights having been propelled to the forefront of U.S. politics because of the various drives and protests that had been launched in Selma. On March 7, a month after the voter registration drive pictured above, a similarly large group of demonstrators attempted to march from Selma to the Alabama state capital of Montgomery. This march is now referred to as “Bloody Sunday” — the group was stopped and violated by police using tear gas, night sticks and whips. Media coverage of the violent events of Bloody Sunday led to public outrage. On March 25 a group of around 25,000 people, led by King himself, successfully completed the journey from Selma to the capital.

REBUILT CHURCH DEDICATED, 1965. [Pearl: 151627]

1963 was a year of tumult and loss for many. The following year passed in much the same way. Over the course of the summer months of 1964, 20 Black churches were lit aflame and burned to the ground in Mississippi, the result of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. In that state specifically, the KKK was growing at a steady rate, with membership reaching more than 10,000. Across the nation the Klan was prepared to use violence to fight the burgeoning civil rights movement of the mid-20th twentieth century.

But the image above is one of celebration, as churchgoers and community members of Jackson, Mississippi, gather at the newly rebuilt Zion Hill Baptist Church in Summit. The building, rebuilt at a cost of $15,450, had been one of the many churches that had burned to the ground the previous summer. The Committee of Concern, an interreligious and interracial group, aimed to reconstruct the various buildings that had been decimated during the period of high racial tensions. At the time of the unveiling of the new Zion Hill church building, the group had managed to collect $92,000 from throughout the country toward their efforts. This money had gone toward the reconstruction of 12 churches in total — nine of which had been dedicated by the time this photo was taken, eight of which were in various phases of rebuilding.

BLACK EXPO, 1971. [Pearl: 150034]

At the 1971 International Black Expo, held in New York by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Rev. Robert Owens proudly displays his organization’s first long-playing record, “Happy Today” by the Echoes of Harmony. Owens, a Baptist pastor from Brooklyn, headed the Gospel Chords Program, through which the vinyl record was created. You can listen to the titular song here on YouTube.

Perhaps Owens was familiar with another Brooklyn pastor, the Rev. Dr. William A. Jones Jr., who served as the head of the expo. The expo was made possible by Operation Breadbasket. Often seen as the economic arm of the SCLC, Operation Breadbasket launched in February 1962 with the aim of improving the economic conditions of Black communities across the U.S., primarily through the support of Black-owned businesses. Over 100 organizations, businesses, and corporations could be found at the International Black Expo in early November 1971. The three-day expo also featured a variety of seminars on topics like politics, health and the Black family.

A New York Times article published on November 5, the day after the expo opened, tells us that the SCLC held a National Black Expo in Chicago two months earlier.

— In 2023, PHS was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize 22,500 photographs and supporting documents from the Religious News Service Photograph Collection. Learn more about the project.