Homosexuality and the Black Church

• Published in: The Journal of African American History 2008, Vol.93 (2), p.262-270
• Main Author: Harris, Angelique C.
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome; African Americans; AIDS; Essay Reviews; Gays & lesbians; HIV; Human immunodeficiency virus; Nonfiction; Religion
• ISSN: 1548-1867; 2153-5086

Black churches' battle with homosexuality is nothing new. In the fall of 1929, Rev. Adam clayton Powell, Sr., pastor of one of the best known black churches in the United States, Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, launched a campaign against homosexuality and other "vices" in the African American community.1 In his 1939 autobiography, Powell claimed that his motivation for this campaign was to protect the African American family.2 According to Powell, homosexuality was an alarming social trend that greatly threatened American families with men leaving their spouses for other men, and women choosing to never marry and instead engaging in relationships with other women. Powell wrote, "Why did I preach against homosexuality and all manner of sex perversions? Because, as every informed person knows, these sins are on the increase and are threatening to eat the vitals out of America."3 For years, Powell, and later his son and successor, Rev. Adam clayton Powell, Jr., condemned homosexuality as a sin and used biblical passages to support their views. In fact, in an attempt to get Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to call off a civil rights protest planned for the Democratic national convention in Los Angeles in August 1960, Powell, Jr., who was also the Democratic congressman from Harlem, threatened to spread the rumor that Dr. King and Bayard Rustin, who was an important advisor for King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), were lovers. The charge was untrue, but Rustin, who was homosexual, was forced to resign his SCLC position