Author Toni Morrison, a Catholic convert who was raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, told Black World in 1974, “Where, for instance, could a person go to scream out his grief among people he trusted and not be embarrassed, except in a church?”
An outfit worn by Rev. Ike. on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. (Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Eula M. Dent Eikerenkoetter (Wife) and Xavier F. Eikerenkoetter (Son))
There is a display of handwritten notes penned by James Baldwin, the child preacher turned novelist, defining what citizenship means for Black Americans. At the top of a five-point list made on stationery from a Sheraton hotel, he wrote “to confront Religion/Race/Power.”
Another artifact in the exhibition is a typewriter from the Nation of Islam’s Temple No. 7, where the congregation’s secretary transcribed notes for Malcolm X when he was the Harlem, New York, mosque’s minister.
The most imposing artifact is a mannequin bearing a splashy outfit worn by Rev. Ike (the name used by the Rev. Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter), who preached prosperity via TV and radio and encouraged his mostly poor urban audience to aspire to wealthy lives. His black suit, worn when he received a lifetime achievement award in mentoring in 2004, is accessorized with a jeweled crown tie tack and cuff link.
“Any God that delights in the suffering of His people is a sadistic God, and I don’t pray to a sadistic God,” he told Ebony.
Among the civil rights leaders cited in the “Bearing Witness” section that focuses on protest and praise are the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King and grassroots civil rights leaders Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker, who grew up attending rural Baptist churches.
The exhibition, which also features an online dimension, is scheduled to be on view through November 2023.
This article originally appeared here.
