Politics in the Pews: The impact of black churches on American politics
Editors' note: This is part 11 of The Christian Post's year-long articles series "Politics in the Pews: Evangelical Christian engagement in elections from the Moral Majority to today." In this series, we will look at issues pertaining to election integrity and new ways of getting out the vote, including churches participating in ballot collection. We'll also look at issues Evangelicals say matter most to them ahead of the presidential election and the political engagement of diverse groups, politically and ethnically. Read other articles in the series by clicking here.
For generations, predominantly African American congregations have significantly influenced United States politics and social activism, often being crucial to large-scale cultural change.
Black clergy and churches have been at the forefront of causes like the Civil Rights Movement, the Poor People's Campaign, voter registration drives, organizing marches for social justice causes and other endeavors.
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But as with other religious groups, predominantly African American churches have seen declines in both membership and attendance, possibly impacting their political outreach.
The Christian Post spoke with African American pastors to get their thoughts on the impact of black Church involvement in American politics, the current challenges to that impact and Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump appearing to gain support in the black community.
Local work, national results
The Rev. Jimmie R. Hawkins is the advocacy director for the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Washington Office of Public Witness, a ministry that advocates for various public policies.
Hawkins told The Christian Post that in recent decades, he believes the influence of black churches has become visible through examples like the elections of President Barack Obama and Sen. Raphael Warnock, R-Ga.
"Black voting numbers went up significantly, and a lot of that was due to the work of black congregations in their local communities," he said. "I think a lot of the work that's been done by black congregations is done locally, and so, we don't see it from a national perspective."
"When you talk about mobilizing black voters, voter registration, a lot of that happens, obviously not on the campus, but a lot of individuals who are mobilizing are from the black faith community."
Hawkins pointed to Stacey Abrams, a bestselling author who was unsuccessful in her 2018 and 2022 campaigns as the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Georgia, as an example of modern activism. He said she "is definitely a person of faith" and "credited with winning Raphael Warnock's Senate position" in 2022 when the pastor of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. once ministered became the state's first black U.S. senator.
"A lot of her mobilization was done through the black Church, I would say in partnership with the black Church," he added.
Pastor Leon Morehead of New Grace Missionary Baptist Church in Highland Park, Michigan, told CP that he believes "it was the black Church that helped get Bill Clinton elected" in the 1990s.
"It was also the black Church that helped most definitely President Obama become elected because of how active their committees, their groups were at targeting the black Church," Morehead said.
Another example came in February when the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, two predominantly black denominations, announced an alliance to advance voter turnout in Georgia.
Hawkins mentioned the modern Poor People's Campaign, led partly by progressive activist Rev. William Barber II. In the early to mid-2010s, the campaign organized a "Moral Mondays" protest in North Carolina against various bills and policies by the Republican-controlled legislature and state government. Similar protests eventually spread to other states.
Hawkins, who participated in those protests, told CP that while the effort was "by and large" overseen by black clergy, most of those arrested in the protests "were white professionals."
"So, that was fascinating to me because they were not directly impacted by the things that they were fighting against," he continued. "You have a movement that I think was very unique in American history, wherein you have this effort being done, again not in total isolation, but primarily by black clergy to fight for voting rights."
The Poor People's Campaign has led what it labels "A National Call for Moral Revival," holding rallies in Washington, D.C. in recent years, including a demonstration at the National Mall on July 29 called the "The Mass Poor People's & Low Wage Workers' Assembly & Moral March on Washington."
"We are here today representing America's largest potential swing vote — poor and low-wage brothers and sisters who make this country work," Barber said during the gathering. "Determined with our moral and religious, labor, social justice advocate allies, we are determined that it is time to rise up and say together that its time to climb and take this nation to higher ground."
Barber, the former pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Goldsboro, North Carolina, has gained a reputation as one of the most vocal progressive Christian activists in the U.S. He told the crowd they stand in a "long tradition" of advocates driven by Scripture to inspire change in the country.
"We gather here today 70 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared that segregating children had no place in public education. It was not so much that nine white men in black robes woke up; it was that millions of Americans — white and black — rose up. Our nation's conscience cried that it was beneath the promise of the Constitution to inflict the stigma of race, that it was beneath the call of the scriptures that declares 'out of one blood God has made all people.'"
"We are assembled 59 years after Martin Luther King Jr. said: 'the greatest fear of the greedy oligarchy in this country was for the masses of white people and black people to form a voting bloc that could fundamentally shift the economic architecture of this country,'" he added.
While the Civil Rights Movement is more known for its push for racial justice, the modern Poor People's Campaign pushes for a host of public policy priorities, including raising the minimum age to $15, expanding voting rights, stopping foreclosures and evictions, enacting rent freezes, 100% student debt relief for poor and low-income borrowers, opposition to building a wall at the U.S. southern border and directing U.S. Department of Defense funding toward more domestic needs.
As for Barber himself, he has rallied in opposition to bans on abortion and called for an international boycott of North Carolina after the state passed a law in 2016 requiring schools and government buildings to force individuals to use bathrooms consistent with their biological sex.
Changes amid declining memberships
While the Church was once "the social hub, the interface of the [black] community," Morehead said that churches' influence on politics is changing because they are "fluctuating in attendance."
In June, Morehead's Detroit, Michigan-area congregation held an event titled "Lift Every Voice and Vote," which featured Highland Park Mayor Glenda McDonald and voter registration volunteers.
Despite extensive promotion by the church, the event only garnered around 30 attendees, reports The Christian Science Monitor. McDonald was disappointed.
While they may not be as intensely impacted as other churches and denominations, especially mainline Protestant denominations, black churches are also seeing a decline in attendance and membership.
These drops in local church involvement, Morehead said, are "just going to shift the way we do things," both regarding political activism and corporate worship.
"Now, we may not have 500 people in the building, but we have 500 people watching online. Or, we'll have 150-175 in the building, and we'll have 350 online. It just changes the way things are done," he said.
"Now you can't just say, 'Hey, here's my politician coming in, you all need to be in the building.' No, we have to make sure things are streamed and that they're well promoted, via social media and those avenues."
Morehead thinks "that the black Church is still a place where people are trusted" and that "we have to remember that, as long as people trust us, we have to be careful with what happens."
Hawkins, whose mostly white denomination saw its membership drop from approximately 2.5 million members in 2000 to around 1.14 million in 2022, said, "There's always going to be a remnant of folk who are smaller in number who are going to have an impact."
"But I also think, obviously, the reality is that with fewer people attending church, the institution is not going to have the impact that it has had in the past as far as the individual actions of a black congregation or the institution," Hawkins told CP.
"I also think that there are a lot of Americans who are not affiliated with congregations who would define themselves as spiritual. And so, I think that they are very engaged in justice movements."
As part of his advocacy work in D.C., Hawkins connects with young people of faith "to be a partner with them in their efforts."
"I do think it's going to have some diminishing impact, but I also think it's going to transition more, and it's going to evolve, where it might not be through someone who is a pastor of a church, but they are a person of faith who are engaged in justice issues," he said.
Trump and the black vote
Although African Americans have been a reliable voting block for the Democrat Party for decades, polling has suggested that Republican Donald Trump appears to be garnering increased support among the black community.
In the 2020 election, exit polls show that Trump garnered roughly 12% of the African American vote after only receiving about 8% of support from the demographic in 2016.
Polling from The New York Times/Siena College shows that support for Trump among black voters increased from 15% on July 2 to 23% on July 24. On July 2, 73% of black voters indicated they would support President Joe Biden. But on July 24, days after Biden stepped out of the race, support for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was measured at 69%.
Dan Hopkins, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in an op-ed in late June that data from the National Annenberg Election Survey found that older black voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic. Still, younger black voters favored Biden by much smaller margins.
"In fact, black voters between 25 and 34 gave just about equal support to Biden and Trump," he wrote, but stressed that the numbers could suggest "Biden's underperformance with young voters was really a weakness with infrequent voters."
When asked his opinion of the apparent rise in support for Trump among black voters, Hawkins told CP that "the percentages are very small" and that "I don't think it's going to be very large at all" for this year's election.
Hawkins believes that "the biggest danger" the Democrats are going to face come November will be the "foreign policy agenda" of the Biden administration, especially on Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza.
"I think there's going to be more of a danger of people not voting than there will be of people deserting voters of Biden over Trump. I don't think Trump is very attractive to the black community," Hawkins said.
"I think that the issues he proposes are not identical to the issues that are important to the black community. And I just think that, right now, there's more frustration that could be listed rather than an identification with Donald Trump as a candidate."
Morehead said shifts in support are not significant, telling CP that issues like Trump's recent "black jobs" comment likely turn off a lot of African American voters, seeing such remarks as being "racial dog whistle-type tactics."
Although some African Americans may support Trump because of his economic record, "many others" credit the Biden administration with helping on issues like paying student loans and handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christian Post Deputy Managing Editor Samuel Smith contributed to this report.
