10/25/2024
In a recent interview Supervisor Leticia Perez attacked a local Black Church for having political signs in the flower bed. Perez said "she didn't know" who put the signs there, but if the church did it they should lose their tax exempt status. Losing that status could in turn, close down the church.
Below is an excerpt from a Time Magazine article which explains the history of the Black Church and how it became a safe haven for the Black Civil rights movement. More to come 👇
Sixty years ago, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. used his religious authority and church rules to try to mobilize Black Baptists for what he viewed as the most urgent moral issue in America: Black people’s fight for jobs and freedom—or, as many activists called it, The Movement. What followed was a pitched battle, one that arguably lifted the Movement but tore apart an entire denomination. Now, as the future of both American religion and democracy hang in the balance—as millions of Americans argue over deeply felt moral values—the history of Black churches’ struggles offers both warnings and hope. Not because King was fighting for a righteous cause, but precisely because he and other Black religious people were wrestling with moral questions that had no simple answers.
Although the Black church today is practically synonymous with the fight for racial justice, in the 1950s and 1960s, devout Black Christians fiercely disagreed about whether their churches should get involved. The risks were plain. A church that opened its doors to civil rights activists could lose its valuable tax exemptions, or even be firebombed.
