was purchased by the United States, it was reportedly without a Catholic priest. Roman Catholic clerical leadership was lacking as most of the missionary priests had returned to their home countries.
The nineteenth century saw a great wave of Roman Catholic immigrants, primarily Irish, which had enormous impact on the Catholic Church in the United States, straining resources and ministry. By 1890, this flood of immigrants swelled to over six million Catholics. In many ways, Irish Catholics have influenced American Catholicism; they have provided most of the bishops and controlled most of the Catholic colleges and seminaries.
Although Roman Catholicism is the largest denomination in the United States today, in the South, especially the rural South, Catholics have remained a minority. From the time of the great influx of immigrants, the Catholic Church has remained mostly urban in location and outreach. Catholic immigrants entering a mostly Protestant South and an agrarian culture found that Southern Protestants viewed them with suspicion, wary of their diverse cultural and social practices, as well as what Protestants saw as Catholic ties to foreign influence.
The greatest problem facing the Roman Catholic Church in the South, however, in its early days and later, has been the shortage of priests and bishops and these clerics overburdened with administrative duties. Religious orders of women have traditionally taken up the slack, teaching in schools and supervising orphanages and hospitals. Today, of course, vocations in the religious orders have declined precipitously.
African American Denominations. In general, African Americans and whites worshiped together in the antebellum South. Usually, the former sat in slave galleries or, in smaller churches, at the back. They took communion after whites. Occasionally, separate worship services or sermons were held for slaves. It was only after the Civil War that congregations split along color lines.
In 1990, C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya listed seven major denominations comprising the African American worship experience, which, in their words, were the “independent, historic, and totally black controlled denominations, which were founded after the Free American Society of 1787 and which constituted the core of black Christians.” Usually poor and rural, these congregations tended to meet in vernacular church buildings, a few of which appear in this book.
African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), African American Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion), and Christian (formerly Colored) Methodist Episcopal Church (CME). By the close of the nineteenth century, more than two-thirds of black Methodists of Alabama left the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to join the earlier-organized black denominations African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and African American Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion). With so many black members leaving to join other denominations, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, gave all black churches and property belonging to them a new denomination, Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (CME), which initiated a name change in 1954 to Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
The AME Church is one of the oldest and largest Methodist bodies in the world, founded in 1814 in Philadelphia by a former slave. The AME Zion Church formed in 1821 in New York, separating from New York’s Methodist Church. Efforts were made by the Philadephia AME Church to bring AME Zion under its umbrella, but members in New York preferred to create their own denomination. Property rights within the Methodist Church system became a problem resulting in an 1816 ruling in favor of the AME Church.
AME Zion Church membership increased rapidly in the South after the Civil War and today is found all across the United States. AME Zion affirms traditional Methodist doctrine, but its worship styles tend to be more exuberant than those of white Methodist churches. The denomination is strongly evangelistic and has an active social justice ministry.
In Mississippi, after years of separate church conferences, white and black Methodist conferences came together and in 1988 merged into the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church.
National Missionary Baptists. By the 1950s, black Baptist churches could choose to become members of the Southern Baptist Convention, previously almost all white, although cultural and political interests continued to be divisive, limiting choice. With a membership today estimated at a million, the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America is one of the largest African American denominations. This body formed in 1988 when leaders of the National Baptist Convention of America, meeting in Dallas, voted to form this new convention with the goal of uniting all Missionary Baptist churches and organizations in the country for a wider ministry.
Roman Catholics. After the Civil War, black Roman Catholics mostly formed their own separate religious orders. Southern blacks seemed more at home with Protestant culture and, in general, affiliated with Protestant groups rather than the Catholic Church with its Latin rites and mostly urban outreach. Today, the African American Catholic community has increased nationally and is represented by the Subcommittee on African American affairs, which acts as the official voice in all matters of ministry. The National Black Catholic Congress and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops coordinate closely with this organization.
Today, black churches are among the most diverse as far as denominations are concerned.
There are churches of other denominations included in this book, such as Primitive Baptist and Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ. These, which are not as readily known in the South as the denominations above, are covered at the appropriate place in the text.
These early wooden churches, of varying denominations, are reminders of the indomitable religious spirit of the early settlers and of their will power and sheer physical strength. These churches are memorials of an enduring faith. Indeed, they are indelible “footprints on the sands of time” for succeeding generations.
Alabama
Autaugaville United Methodist Church
207 Autauga St. (off CR 21), Autaugaville, AL 36003
Autauga County
Organized as a church in 1822, Autaugaville’s Methodists erected this Greek Revival style church building in 1845. At that time, Autaugaville served the plantations and farms located on the rich bottom lands of the Alabama River. Greek Revival features include the in antis (recessed) portico with two box Tuscan columns and four pilasters. The double staircase leads to two doors. The church remains much as constructed and showcases a rare crown of thorns steeple. The church grounds include a small, ornate fence that encloses the cemetery.
The church continues an active ministry offering Sunday worship services.
Swift Presbyterian Church
23208 Swift Church Rd. (off Hwy. 20), Foley, AL 36535
Baldwin County
Located in a serene forest setting down a narrow road, this eclectically-styled historic church was built in an area known earlier as Sandy Creek, site of a logging operation. The logging company manager, Charles Swift and his wife, Susie Roberts Swift, were inspired by Mrs. Swift’s sister, Cornelia Miriam Roberts to build a church on a site in the pines that Miriam found especially spiritual. The sisters had attended Government Street Presbyterian Church in their native Mobile, so this church would be a Presbyterian one. Charles and Susie Swift donated both land and lumber to build the church. With additional help from family and friends, building began in 1905. Completed in 1907 and originally called “The Little Church in Piney Woods,” the church was formally organized by the Mobile Presbytery
