Compiled by the DiversityInc staff
© 2006 DiversityInc.com®
April 08, 2006
There is a battle taking place in black America, and as NPR reports, the platform is the pulpit of the black church. As history has shown, the civil-rights movement always has been intermixed with the black church, and issues such as social justice, economic opportunity and access to public schools have been the topics of choice for many black preachers and clergy since the days of The Reconstruction.
According to NPR, there has been a "recent rise of conservative black pastors." One particular pastor is Herb Lusk of Greater Exodus Baptist Church in Philadelphia, who has been on the forefront of bringing conservative views to a demographic that typically votes 90 percent to 95 percent in favor of Democrats.
Not only has Lusk appeared via satellite at the Republican Convention in support of President Bush, but as he explains, gone are the 1960s' approach of "just yelling and marching without dialogue."
On the opposite spectrum is Pastor Timothy McDonald of First Iconium Baptist Church of Atlanta. His pulpit has been used to voice his disapproval of the current president, and in contention with Lusk's statement that the 1960s style is dead, McDonald states, "There must always need to be a dissenting voice," adding that without that dissenting voice, the church will just become a tool of that party.
The breach between the black churches isn't anything new. As professor Fred Harris of University of Rochester tells NPR, the historic debate started ever since the days of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois.
DuBois said blacks must demand basic civil rights from the government, while Washington said we must earn them.
McDonald falls in the DuBois camp, and he wonders why some black leaders give into certain parties so easily. "They want African Americans to support their agenda—anti-abortion and against gay marriage. Now when African Americans say, OK, now support our agenda—[then when we ask] what's going on with criminal justice and poverty, then again, the evangelical, they dummy up."
Lusk, who leads a church of 2,000 members, argues that the church needs to be on the side of marriage and life, and because of that, Lusk sides with the Republicans. Although he has been called Uncle Tom many times, Lusk says his vote can never be bought.
The fight for the black vote continues to be a target for both parties. Even with the Democratic Party drawing 90 percent of the black vote, some blacks have questioned the strategy many white Democrats have used to get the black vote. "They go to black churches the Sunday before the Tuesday election giving the stomp speech," said Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher. The Republicans, Belcher points out, are not necessarily interesting in winning the majority of the black vote—the strategy is to win the specific targets of opportunity.
This was seen in the 2004 election when President Bush won 16 percent of the black vote in the highly contested state of Ohio. Many point to the amendment on the ballot banning gay marriage as the deciding factor on how Bush got the black votes, targeting the conservatism of blacks on gay marriage.
Posted By: Candice Johnson
Saturday, April 8th 2006 at 5:12PM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
