Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Race, Religion, and Reparations: The Story of Second Baptist and Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois, by Michael Nabors and Michael Woolf. The book is available today from Nurturing Faith Books.
The year 1882 was filled with activity, events, and movement in the United States. Just before the summer season, the United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, signed by President Chester Arthur. The act banned the immigration of Chinese into the United States based solely on their national origin. In September, Congress passed the Immigration Act that imposed a tax on every immigrant living in the United States and restricted a swath of individuals from entering the country. People of color and women were the targets and victims of both acts.
At the same time this woeful mistreatment and discrimination against people was legislated, the country also expanded wealth for a few. Standard Oil Trust became a dominating monopoly in 1882 when it brought together the various companies owned by John Rockefeller and his associates. Thomas Edison began the first electrical plant that lit up a significant portion of lower Manhattan. The Nickel Plate Road ran its first train from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, and was promptly sold to William Vanderbilt for more than seven million dollars.
In an extraordinary sense, the making of the United States is intricately interwoven with aspirations for capital wealth and gain for the few along with suppression and the negation of freedom and independence for the majority. This is seen most clearly through the lens of race. White people were counted among the few who benefitted from capital wealth and gain, while Blacks were largely in the majority of those whose freedom and independence were negated. Just five years after the era of Reconstruction in the United States was a time unparalleled in the accumulation of wealth and gain for Black people. Hundreds and thousands of businesses, from funeral homes and insurance companies to small grocery stores and farms, as well as organizations, fraternal orders, houses of worship, and literal towns were all founded and organized by Black people. Secondary schools and colleges were begun as Southern states elected Blacks to political offices at every level. The Civil War was over. Slavery had ended. Tangible, visual signs of the upward mobility and progress of Black people, and thus the nation, were everywhere.
Just like that, in the blink of an eye, it ended with the Compromise of 1877 when Rutherford B. Hayes sold his soul for the presidency of the United States, earning 185 electoral votes to his opponent Samuel J. Tilden’s 184. The House of Representatives, controlled by Southern Democrats, allowed the decision of the Electoral Commission to stand because Hayes agreed to remove Union soldiers from Southern states. Now, twelve years after being summarily crushed after the Civil War, White Southerners were once again in political control of their states. The compromise had five demands issued forth by White Southern Democrats, including removal of Union soldiers from former Confederate states. The fifth demand? The right to deal with black people without northern interference. Soon enough, Blacks would be completely disenfranchised in Southern states with a new kind of racism growing in every public and private sector.
Lynchings soared. Author Michael Nabors’s maternal great-great-uncle James Ampey Jr. was found hanging from a tree nine miles north of his home in Richmond, Indiana. Beatings, rape, and threats became the order of the day. Blacks who had been heroes in the Civil War and had begun their own towns, established their own businesses, and founded their own churches were now dealt with in the severest, deadliest, and most evil of ways. Anarchy reined against Black people, guised in the acceptable and legal format of the ideas of “separate but equal,” segregation, and Jim Crow.
Amid this malaise of racist animus and race relations deterioration, something unfolded in Evanston, Illinois. First Baptist Church of Evanston was founded just prior to the Civil War in 1858. Frances Iglehart had begun a Sunday school for children in her home in 1856 that led to the church’s founding two years later. One Sunday in 1872, just after the congregation had moved its wooden framed structure to Lake Street and Chicago Avenue, the worship service was filled to overflowing. Suddenly, half the floor of the sanctuary gave way, sending congregants nine feet below. Miraculously, no one was injured. A Black member named Nathan Branch broke a stained-glass window from the balcony and leapt to safety. The next day he returned with money to pay for the broken glass. Branch had joined First Baptist after moving from Chicago to Evanston. Born into slavery in 1828 in Virginia, he was sold to plantations in Kentucky and Tennessee. Upon learning about the Civil War, Branch and his wife escaped slavery and made their way to Columbus, Kentucky, where he joined the 134th Infantry near the end of the war in 1865. In October of that year, Branch’s term expired, and he was discharged in Company D, located in Chicago. After moving to Evanston on July 4, 1869, he obtained a letter from the Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago to transfer his membership to the only Baptist church in Evanston. At the time, Olivet was one of the largest African American churches in Chicago. Branch was hired as a lamplighter in Evanston and as the church sexton at First Baptist, where he was responsible for ringing the bell.
By 1875, members of First Baptist had constructed its copper-clad Victorian Gothic house of worship on Lake Street. A stone’s throw (or two or three) from Lake Michigan, First Baptist quickly became the center of activity for Baptists and enjoyed an early reputation for ecumenism and mutual cooperation with other denominations. In the summer of 1882, Nathan Branch led a group of ten Black members of First Baptist Church in petitioning for letters of dismissal from the congregation. They joined another
group of Blacks who had petitioned for the same letters of dismissal from First United Methodist Church. Both groups began meeting together in a room at the United States Post Office located on Davis Street. After a period of time, it became clear that differences among Methodists and Baptists were a deterrent for the two groups to move forward as one. In late October, Ebenezer African Methodist Church was founded, followed two weeks later by Second Baptist Church.
One can only wonder what events or activities might have precipitated Blacks to depart from First Baptist and First United Methodist. Racism was taking on new forms everywhere, most of which were overtly sanctioned by the United States government or quietly allowed to become rooted, to fester and grow. There appears to be no written record giving cause for why Nathan Branch and other Blacks of First Baptist decided to leave the congregation. All were in good standing. Branch also appeared to be “beloved” by First Baptist, and for several decades he was invited back to participate and be acknowledged and honored as “Brother” by First Baptist members.
In 1898, both Iglehart and Branch were honored guests at the church’s fortieth anniversary.
Was the fact that First Baptist was predominantly White a cause for starting Second Baptist Church of Evanston? Was the fact that the church’s pastors and officers were White with no avenue for Black members to become pastors or officers one of the reasons? Was the fact that Black people had been founding their own churches during the prior decade (Reconstruction) a motivation? Was the growing number of Blacks moving into the town a cause for concern, which in turn may have created unease among Whites? After significant research, the answers to these questions are still hidden. What can be determined is what happened in the years that followed. While both congregations appeared to engage in mutual cooperation, telling factors would emerge in Evanston itself. In 1916, the Grove Street YMCA (not far from Lake Street Church) encouraged and supported Black Evanston residents in establishing the Emerson Street YMCA. The Black YMCA, no doubt, was built to continue the rooted segregation that was rampant around the nation. Additionally, the Foster Street School (once predominantly White) became the K-8 public school for Black children. At one time, Blacks lived all over Evanston. Yet, with the acceptance of segregation, discrimination, and racism, Blacks were eventually forced into the 5th ward, the most western section of town, furthest from Lake Michigan, Northwestern University, and a growing downtown.
Thus, it can be safely stated that racism existed in Evanston and became rooted in education, recreation, housing, and other public sectors. Added to the list was racism in faith communities that supported, ignored, capitulated, or remained silent as discrimination denied the Black community access to building generational wealth.
One can only wonder what might have been. What if both First Baptist Church (now Lake Street) and First United Methodist Church had worked hard to fully accept their Black members? What if both First Baptist and First United Methodist had fully assisted in the founding of Second Baptist and Ebenezer AME? What if Whites in both churches along with the northern churches of their denominations had decided in 1882 that “any” struggle our Black brothers and sisters endure is our struggle; “any” discrimination our Black brothers and sisters face will not be accepted; and “any” overt racism or prejudice against our Black brothers and sisters will be outed, dealt with severely, and ended? Instead, like the rest of the United States, White houses of worship in Evanston accepted what they must have deemed the inevitability and inviolability of racism, separate but equal, and injustice. Blacks in Evanston were forced to live as second-class citizens in much the same way as they did around the nation.
_______
‘Race, Religion, and Reparations: The Story of Second Baptist and Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois’ was written by Michael Nabors and Michael Woolf.
Rev. Dr. Michael Nabors is senior pastor of Second Baptist Church of Evanston, Illinois. Prior to arriving in Evanston, he was senior pastor of New Calvary Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, Assistant Pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church of Trenton, New Jersey, and Pastor of First Baptist Church of Princeton, New Jersey. He has also served as Director of the Master of Divinity Program and Professor of Preaching at Ecumenical Theological Seminary of Detroit. Dr. Nabors has taught at Calvin Theological Seminary, Ashland Theological Seminary, Marygrove College and most recently, Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. Dr. Nabors earned a B.S. in English and Creative Writing from Western Michigan University, M. Div. and Th.M degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary and the D.Min. from United Theological Seminary.
Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf is the senior minister of Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois. He rose to national prominence as a leader of the faith-based campaign to close the Broadview ICE Detention Center and is a nationally recognized advocate for immigrant justice, religious liberty, and interfaith solidarity. He is coauthor, with Anna Piela, of Confronting Islamophobia in the Church: Liturgical Tools for Justice and a frequent speaker on faith and public witness.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Nurturing Faith Books is the publication arm of Good Faith Media. You can find more information about our titles and how to publish with us here.