How the Black Church was a Saviour for the Civil Rights Movement

There is an ongoing debate on the extent to which religion impedes or expedites social movements. Here, the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) is used as an illustrative example of how religion can be key to a movement’s success. The reason why the CRM is used is that it was particularly effective at achieving change: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ameliorated the social, economic, and political condition of black individuals in the United States to a degree hardly matched by other social movements throughout history. Therefore, the fact that religion helped the CRM succeed may bode well for other instances of religious involvement in social movements, although that broader analysis is beyond the scope of the research presented here. For context, religious involvement in the CRM can be largely attributed to the black church—that is, black churches in communities, and organizations deeply affiliated with the black church, like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) or the NAACP. Given that context, the Resource Mobilization Theory (RMT) of social movement success is used to argue that the black church contributed greatly to both the CRM’s amount of resources and its ability to mobilize those resources. As such, CRM was able to organize and fund protests, as well as appeal to a broad population, ultimately resulting in legal and social reform. In particular, the black church was a key player in the success of the CRM because it provided material, moral, and socio-organizational resources that would not have otherwise been available to the CRM.

As per the Resource Mobilization Theory (RMT), a social movement can only succeed if it has the resources to do so, of which the black church provided three for the CRM: material, moral, and socio-organizational (Edwards). For context, according to the RMT, five types of resources are necessary for a social movement to succeed (Edwards). First are material resources—funds and meeting spaces, for example (Edwards). Second are social-organizational resources, which are social networks and organizational capacity (Edwards). Third are moral resources—broad-based legitimacy (Edwards). Fourth are human resources—that is, experience, expertise, labour, and skill. Lastly are cultural resources—specialised knowledge about how to accomplish certain tasks, like organising a protest (Edwards). The last two resources can be reasonably argued to be non-unique to religious organisations; human resources can exist if enough individuals are dissatisfied enough with the status quo to ramp up their support for the movement, and cultural resources mainly come from experts, which may well support the movement without a religious reason. What is argued, then, is that the first three kinds of resources—material, moral, and socio-organizational—were uniquely provided by the black church to the CRM. 

Firstly, then, the black church gave material resources to the CRM both through their well-established and tax-exempt donation networks and physical resources like meeting spaces. Such resources allowed the CRM to engage in the kinds of mobilization efforts that ultimately resulted in change. The black church was uniquely adept at funding the CRM in three ways. First, the black church had many members who were recurring donors. The reason why is that many members felt that they were obliged to reciprocate the goodwill of their church, and so, were often willing to donate when necessary (Ghose). Second, donations were often solicited from wealthy, religious philanthropists, who would accordingly donate a large amount of money in a single moment (The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute). Third, donations solicited by organizations like the SCLC were tax-exempt, which means they were not taxed and therefore all of the money donated could actually be used to fund the movement: indeed, an FBI document on the SCLC’s financial activities in 1967, states “the SCLC set up Foundations to serve as tax-exempt organizations that would solicit funds for SCLC” (FBI). The unique willingness for congregants and wealthy donors to fund black churches and the tax-exempt status of those funds meant that the CRM was able to fund prolonged protests, such as to, for example, solicit thousands of dollars in a short amount of time for a protest (Ghose). Indeed, to imagine the scale of the CRM’s funding operation, merely consider the fact that the amount of funds the SCLC solicited during the height of the CRM in 1967 was a gargantuan ”$901,021.52, [of which] the total expenses of SCLC were $859,933.34, [which left, still] $41,088.18” (FBI). There should therefore be little doubt that the black church was able to appropriate funds at a jaw-dropping scale. Crucially, then, these funds were key to the CRM’s mobilization efforts. For one thing, the donations were used to pay for communication and transportation, which were necessary for a sustained act of civil disobedience, including the pivotal Montgomery Bus Boycotts (Deloreto). For another, the money was used to fund human resources, for example, by funding the training of black leaders in impoverished communities (FBI). The final way in which the black church provided material resources to the CRM, then, was that it often provided key meeting spaces in which leadership could communicate plans for actions amongst themselves and to participants. An example was the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which members of the CRM met to plan local marches (PBS LearningMedia). Without the black church, these areas were presumably worse or unavailable because they were relatively smaller than churches and because other white-dominated spaces of similar size were unlikely to be lent out to the CRM. Ultimately, then, the black church was crucial in soliciting funds and providing meeting spaces to the CRM, which allowed the CRM to engage in the sorts of grassroots mobilization necessary for success. 

Furthermore, religious organizations provided moral resources — legitimacy — to the CRM by helping it adopt non-violence as a means of protest, which was less alienating to the general population than other, more radical means. As a result, the CRM gained broad-based support and thereby increased the pressure on legislators to pass Civil Rights legislation. First, and perhaps most importantly, non-violence would not have developed as a strategy adopted by the CRM without the black church. That sentiment was provocatively expressed by Hosea Williams, a member of MLK’s inner circle, quipping that “non-violence was as foreign [to a community systematically oppressed] as flying a space capsule would be for a roach” (Calhoun-Brown). Illustrative language aside, Hosea Williams might have been right. An aversion to nonviolent tactics in the black community would hardly be surprising: human beings have an inherent desire for retribution. To enact arguably justifiable violence against a violent oppressor would hardly have been a fringe idea to the black community. Despite that aversion to non-violence, though, it was the black church and its ministers that came to advocate for and push non-violence to the forefront of the CRM strategy (Sommers). In the most important example, Howard Thurman—a black minister—visited Gandhi in 1936, and was reportedly greatly inspired by Gandhi’s espousal of non-violence in protesting the British Raj in India (Sommers). Upon returning to the United States, Thurman frequently gave lectures and sermons about nonviolence. That passion culminated in the book Jesus and the Disinherited, which drew parallels between the oppressed black race and the similarly oppressed Jesus (Sommers). The book did so by arguing that, because Jesus was a non-violent protester, non-violence was the morally justified form of protest (Sommers). Martin Luther King Jr (MLK), who read Jesus and the Disinherited vigorously and attended many of Thurman’s talks, was greatly influenced by that idea and justification of nonviolence (Sommers). Before the march from Selma to Montgomery (later called ‘Bloody Sunday’), for instance, MLK told his marchers: “If you are beaten tomorrow, you must turn the other cheek” (Kiner). MLK’s seemingly brazen line is a direct citation of Matthew 5:39, in which Jesus urges his followers to turn the other cheek in response to violence—a religious justification of non-violence, inspired by Thurman’s thesis (King James Version of the Bible). Furthermore, perhaps a more famous example comes in MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In it, MLK makes his non-violent ideal clear, saying “we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence” (King Jr). Importantly, here too does MLK justify a non-violent message with religion: “God’s children,” which he refers to throughout the speech, include all—that is, violence is unjustified because violence to one is violence to all (King Jr). The implication of all that cannot be more important: the CRM adopting non-violence as a means of activism allowed it to apply enough force in its campaigns while staying in the good graces of both the establishment and moderate constituencies (Chenoweth). Indeed, non-violent civil disobedience still disrupted the normal lives of many individuals, which still pressured the government to acquiesce to the demands of the CRM (Chenoweth). With non-violence, however, the public found it much easier to support the CRM (Chenoweth). To understand why, consider what would have happened if the CRM adopted violence as a dominant strategy. Presumably, the CRM would have prompted many would-be supporters—moderate members of the public and the establishment—to turn away because they would have perceived the CRM as violently attacking their identity (Chenoweth). They, therefore, may have wanted to fight the movement instead of joining it, perhaps even engaging in mass counter-protests (Chenoweth). And given the relative power of the white establishment at the time, it is not hard to imagine a world in which such a violent CRM would have been crushed at the onset. As mentioned before, by contrast, non-violence espoused unity in shared humanity, which was more likely to draw support from moderates and the government, a key constituency that determined the success of the CRM (Chenoweth). Therefore, in using religion to discover and justify non-violence, the CRM gained the moral resources to convince a linchpin constituency to support its movement, which directly contributed to the passing of landmark Civil Rights legislation.

Lastly, the CRM appropriated the socio-organizational resources (e.g., social networks and organizational capacity) of the black church, allowing the CRM to better mobilize and organize instances of civil disobedience and subsequent negotiations with the government. The unique importance that the black church had in black communities allowed it to be an easy mobiliser, using resources like established donor lists, communication channels, congregant populations, leadership, and so forth (Ghose). Indeed, the black church was often the linchpin institution among black communities in the South (Ghose). The reason why is straightforward: black individuals were shunned from all major institutions in their society because those institutions were often white-dominated. So, they sought community and meaning in their own, black churches. As a result, these churches often became the epicenter of black communities, to which much of the human resources of those communities went (Ghose). Such resources were pivotal; not only did they include concrete resources like congregational communities, but they also included preachers who had a supernormal ability to galvanize and motivate their community to action (Ghose). And not only is MLK himself an example, but there is a wealth of historical evidence that suggests local black churches used their socio-organizational resources to spread news and messages in their community. On one such occasion, the Milwaukee Star published a news release that noted the coming publication of a pamphlet by the local black church, which would express the messages of the CRM through essay and illustration and would presumably be spread through the Milwaukee community (Milwaukee Star). Crucially, that example shows the black church’s use of socio-organizational resources like connections with local publication institutions (presumably used to print religious texts and bulletins before) to advance the CRM’s agenda. Here, it is warranted to stress the importance of socio-organizational resources to the success of a social movement. Without socio-organizational resources, any sustained action, and therefore, change, is near-impossible: protests falter when communication lacks breadth; many are not willing to make sacrifices for a movement if there is no long-standing communal tie to it; the lack of a charismatic and well-respected leader dissuades those on the margins. Perhaps even more importantly, it is improbable that any other institution would have had the power of the black church to mobilize their communities, because they lacked the same generational buildup of resources. As a result, these other institutions would not have been able to organize protests and marches effectively, even if the black community supported Civil Rights nonetheless. Ultimately, then, the black church was a vessel of socio-organizational resources for the CRM; the sorts of change seen in the 1960s that elevated the status of millions of black individuals owed to the communication channels and long-standing leadership of the black church. 

In summary, the black church contributed three important kinds of resources to the CRM. Firstly, it contributed funds and meeting spaces. Second, it contributed to the CRM’s legitimacy by making the CRM adopt nonviolence as a primary means of activism. Third and finally, it provided socio-organizational resources—leaders and communication—that were crucial in the CRM’s mass mobilization efforts. Given the RMT posits that all of these resources are necessary for a social movement’s success, the black church uniquely allowed for the CRM’s success. Religion can often hold change by the reins; sometimes, however, it can be among the strongest mechanisms for political and legal liberalization in a movement’s toolbelt.

Works Cited

*“Black Churches’ Role in Civil Rights Told.” Milwaukee Star (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) XI, no. 27, November 20, 1971: Page 7. Readex: African American Newspapers. https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&docref=image/v2%3A12A7AE31A7B3CA6B%40EANAAA-12CCE815B2DC3F98%402441276-12CCE815F11A1950%4014-12CCE816F3418178.

*Calhoun-Brown, Allison. “Upon This Rock: The Black Church, Nonviolence, and the Civil Rights Movement.” PS: Political Science and Politics, vol. 33, no. 2, 2000, pp. 169–74. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/420886. Accessed 19 Apr. 2025. 

Chenoweth, Erica. “The Future of Nonviolent Resistance | Journal of Democracy.” Journal of Democracy, 23 Oct. 2023, www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-nonviolent-resistance-2

Deloreto, Michael. “The Role of the Black Church in the Civil Rights Movement.” ArcGIS StoryMaps, 17 Dec. 2024, storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c3f33177f4874bbea9be032bb4ebd7cc.

Edwards, Bob, et al. “Resource Mobilization Theory.” The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, edited by David A. Snow et al., 2013, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431.wbespm447.

Ghose, Supad Kumar, 1, and UITS Research Center. “The Role of the Black Church in the American Civil Rights Movement.” UITS Journal, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 58–60. uits.edu.bd/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/05-The-Role-of-the-Black-Church-in-the-58-68.pdf.

*King Jr., Martin Luther, et al. “I Have a Dream” Speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. At the “March on Washington,” 1963 (Excerpts). 1963, www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/king.dreamspeech.excerpts.pdf.

*Kiner, Deb. “‘If You Are Beaten Tomorrow, You Must Turn the Other Cheek’: Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965.” Pennlive, 7 Mar. 2021, www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2021/03/if-you-are-beaten-tomorrow-you-must-turn-the-other-cheek-bloody-sunday-march-7-1965.html.

*Page: FBI File 104-10125-10133, Martin Luther King Jr., a Current Analysis.pdf/20 - Wikisource, the Free Online Library. en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:FBI_File_104-10125-10133,_Martin_Luther_King_Jr.,_A_Current_Analysis.pdf/20.

Sommers, Amy. “On The Origins of Non-Violence in the Civil Rights Movement: Howard Thurman in South Asia, 1935-1936.” BlackPast.org, 16 Oct. 2023, 

“Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclc.

“The Civil Rights Era | the Black Church.” PBS LearningMedia, 20 Oct. 2022, nhpbs.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/the-civil-rights-era-video/the-black-church.

*The King James Version of the Bible. E-book edition, Project Gutenberg, 2011.