Samuel W. Williams: "Religion Is Justice"

Atlanta's Samuel W. Williams is a minister in the Progressive National Baptist Convention, which split from Joseph Jackson's group. He regards Jackson as a man with "no constituency. The silent majority is very silent." His own position, Williams feels, is within the black mainstream, trying to achieve social change while still trying to cooperate with the white community. Williams, in his 50s, is acting academic dean of Morehouse College in Atlanta, sole pastor of the 650-member Friendship Baptist Church, and chairman of Atlanta's Human Relations Commission.

Williams, like his former pupil, Martin Luther King, espouses a basic integrationist philosophy. "The Judaeo-Christian teaching," he says flatly, "is simple on the unity of mankind. Those in the black movement who are moving toward separation are wrong. We have been criticizing the white Protestants for separatism. If they were wrong, I don't see how the black militants can be right. What sense does it make in the last quarter of the 20th century for a person to get in a corner all by himself?"

Even so, Williams expects little from whites. Says he grimly: "White America would rather see this nation destroyed than give up white racism. The worst institution in America today is the white church. It has more hypocrisy per square inch than any other. And no impression I have received in the past five years has made any difference."

Ghetto Christ. Like Marshall, Williams sees the black church as a redeeming agent in a racist society. "The black man has understood, in a manner and depth that the white man has not, that worship is a lie if justice is not done: This explains why he has pressed for justice so much. Religion is justice. The black man sees Jesus as identified with the poor and the suffering. After all, he was something of a ghetto leader."

Accordingly, Williams feels that black demands for reparations are sound "in principle." Tactically, even James Forman's flamboyant pulpit takeovers may have been necessary, Williams concedes. "My uncle was a farmer and he had mules to work with. One day I saw him take a sapling and knock a mule to the ground. When I protested, he said, 'Son, I had to get his attention.' " Even violent resistance, says Williams, may be necessary some day. "I do not counsel violence," he insists. "It is a dangerous weapon. But it is conceivable that there are circumstances where it may be necessary."

To most black churchmen, as to Samuel Williams, the future is an open and agonizing question. Some, like Joseph Jackson, find their answers by retreating to solutions of the past. Others try different paths. Pastor Albert B. Cleage Jr. of Detroit's Shrine of the Black Madonna, who preaches that Jesus was literally black, has announced that he is founding a "Black Christian Nationalist Movement" that will have its first "national convention" in Detroit this week. Cleage, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of the National Council of Churches last December, also expects to attract black Jews,* sunni Muslims and even atheists to his "black liberation" movement.

No one solution is likely to satisfy the Marshalls and the Jacksons, the Williamses and the Cleages of the black church--let alone the diverse and troubled congregations, whose voices must also be heard in the land as their churches struggle for black identity and power. But because those churches are still the only institutions in the black community completely controlled by black people, they will continue to have an influence, however much the young may feel that the churches no longer speak to the black world's needs.

For the time being, as the separatists suggest, the best course for blacks may be to reinforce their churches as singularly black institutions, with their own special sense of the Christian message. Even many radicals, indeed, see the separatist stance as a temporary strategy, to be superseded when they can bring their unique spirit to society as a whole. "We've got to bring something more to the table than an appetite," argues Calvin Marshall. Certainly, black Christianity seems determined to do just that.

* There are approximately 50,000 black-skinned Jews, at least 10,000 sunni (orthodox) Muslims, and some 200,000 Black Muslims in the U.S. But generally "black religion" in the U.S. means black Christianity.

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