Churches and Civil Rights Movement by Janice Blizzard

In the 1940s-1960s, Baltimore’s African American leaders organized protests, boycotts, and restaurant sit-ins and many times the planning meetings were held at churches. If the planning wasn’t done in churches, the church ministers played a key role in letting people know about what was going on by giving African American movement leaders a chance to explain their plan to their congregation during the church service or at community meetings held at the churches.

One minister who did this was civil rights leader Rev. Marion Bascom, who believed in equal rights. He did this despite the fact that not all people would approve of his actions. One of his parishioners, Beverly Reid, said, “Reverend Bascom opened our doors to the demonstrators. Sometimes it was hard to find a place in the community to open its doors to you as demonstrators because they knew that would often lead to difficulties with whites in the community.”1

There were churches involved in the “Freedom Rides” and also the sit-ins in the early 1960s along Route 40.  Rev. Bascom believed that the change on Route 40 was brought along by pressure on profits since businesses would lose business due to protests and boycotts. Bascom was involved in the civil rights disturbances in Cambridge, Maryland.  He spoke in front of the City Council. Other leaders that were involved were Vernon Dobson, Frank Williams, and Bob Newbow.2

There were a lot of churches involved in this movement but one that hosted meetings and dignitaries such as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was Sharp Street Memorial Methodist Church. In 1944 Mrs. Roosevelt spoke at Sharp Street to try and help some of the problems for the city’s poor and African American community. Her appearance at Sharp Street tells you how important churches were to the African American community. You can tell that her appearance at Sharp Street Church was controversial due to the absence of leaders around the state. Juanita Jackson Mitchell stated, "Neither the Mayor nor the Governor came to this big mass meeting in Baltimore when the wife of the President of the U.S. spoke. And it’s very interesting that neither the Lyric Theatre nor the Ford Theatre would give us permission to hold a meeting there. And we had to meet in a black church, Sharp Street Memorial Methodist Church, right here in the heart of the black ghetto."3
  
Lillie May Carroll Jackson and Carl Murphy were the lead speakers for the March on Annapolis, a march organized to protest police brutality and job discrimination against African Americans, and they too used Sharp Street Methodist to plan meetings.  On April 23, 1942, the activists met at Sharp St. Methodist church in Baltimore.  Charter buses waited to transport them to Annapolis.  The two argued with the governor, to do something about job discrimination against African American people and police brutality.4

Many ministers supported student protest of downtown demonstrations. In 1960, an elderly white shopper said, “It’s a disgrace to Baltimore when ministers have to do this to get a right we take for granted” as he watched ministers protest the department stores downtown.5 This protest was led by the Rev. E. J. Odom church secretary of the NAACP. The ministers walked silently and carried signs reading “Brotherhood Begins Here, Ministers Support Students, Ministers Support Human Dignity, Discrimination is Unchristian and Immoral and Segregation is Evil.”6

In addition, ministers were active in integrating Gwynn Oak Park. In 1955 ministers along with civil rights groups like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) demonstrated against the segregation laws at Gwynn Oak Park. These protests were held at various times over the years but one huge demonstration occurred at Gwynn Oak Park on July 4, 1963.  Before this demonstration people met at Metropolitan Methodist Church in West Baltimore to load buses to Gwynn Oak Park. Three days later another protest was held at Gwynn Oak Park and this time 13 church leaders were arrested.7 Beverly Reid, who wasn’t arrested at these protests but was arrested trying to integrate a swim club in Cockeysville, remembers the arrests: “the jails were loaded with ministers, demonstrators and others that came with us to the protests.”8

Sharp Street Church also played a role in feeding the hungry of Baltimore. In 1983, a woman named Mrs. Ruby Gill, started a soup kitchen, located on the corner of Dolphin and Etting Street.  When farmers from Western Maryland became aware of Sharp Street and a sister church’s desire to feed the less fortunate and hungry, they donated fruits and vegetables to the soup kitchen.  Once the crops were donated, some Sharp Street members, along with members from the sister church, traveled together to New Windsor, Maryland, where they could see the food.9

The church and its leaders helped lead a charge to end segregation throughout Baltimore. As Sandy M. Shoemaker stated, “The church not only helped legitimize the activism of civil rights supporters but also provided them the theoretical basis for their struggle.”10 Whether ministers rallied their congregations over civil rights, food, jobs or just plain justice, ministers and the sanctity of the church were vital in helping the African American community throughout Baltimore.

David Milobsky, "Power from the Pulpit: Baltimore's African American Clergy, 1950-1970,"
Maryland Historical Magazine vol. 89 no. 3 (Fall 1994): 281.