For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.
NAACP Chief to Open Detroit Member Drive
Roy Wilkins, administrator of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will be the principal speaker at a public rally opening the 1953 membership drive of the Detroit branch NAACP at 3:30 p. m. April 19 at Ebenezer AME Church, Brush and Willis.
A parade from the Art Institute to the church will precede the rally. The Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr., is chairman of the drive.
L. Pearl Mitchell, special secretary of the NAACP, will direct the Detroit drive which seeks 7,500 members.
Attorney Edward Turner is president of the Detroit NAACP branch, and Arthur L. Johnson is executive secretary.
In April 1953 my father had just been dismissed from St. Mark’s United Presbyterian Community Church, where he had been pastor for several years, in a dispute with the governing Presbyterian body. Over 300 members resigned, leaving about 35 members in the congregation.
CHURCH MEMBERS QUIT IN SQUABBLE
Protest Dismissal of Young Detroit Pastor
Detroit – Rev. Albert B. Cleage, jr., was dismissed as pastor of St. Mark’s United Presbyterian Community church, here this week by the Committee of Missions of the Detroit Presbytery, the United Presbyterian church.
Members of the congregation protested the action by a wholesale resignation.
Dismissal of Reverend Cleage was the result of protests lodged with the committee by five church members, including Henry W. Cleage, the pastor’s uncle, following their resignation from the church in January.
OBJECT TO PROGRAM
The group objected to the young minister’s program of cultural and social activities, which, they said, interfered with the spiritual functions of the church.
Explaining their action the committee said problems of church discipline were also involved.
The charges against Reverend Cleage generally accused him of ignoring the authority of the committee and failure to program church activities in conformance with views of the committee.
MEMBERS NOT ASKED
Members of the congregation protested they had not been consulted in the dismissal. They had no word of the committee’s action until it was announced by the pastor.
Congregation members protested the dismissal without investigation and resigned from the church en masse.
At last reports they were organizing a new church with Reverend Cleage as pastor.
REPLACEMENT UNKNOWN
A replacement for St. Marks’ has not been announced. Approximately 35 members of the congregation remain.
One member said he did not resign because “two wrongs do not make a right.” He said that he objected to the dismissal but could not agree with the mass resignations.
The resigning members of the congregation said the Presbytery’s failure to consult or consider them in the matter made “it impossible for us to continue as members of this church.”
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A related post -> A Church and Two Brothers – Two Splits 1953
Such an interesting family history!!
Donna: Click for my 2025 A-Z Blog
Yes it is 🙂
The family rift must have been awful. Thanks for linking to the previous post.
7,500 members was indeed quite a goal. What was achieved?
It was a total break. Very sad.
What a challenging time! My heart breaks for everyone hurt by this.
It was especially sad for my grandfather and his brother
So very sad about the family rift. It would have been a challenging time for the family and the church, with quite different viewpoints. Your families have lived lives of struggle for their communities.
I was only six so I didn’t even realize what was going on. I just knew we moved to a different house and held church in a school for several years.
What a powerful and poignant moment in your family history — Rev. Cleage’s leadership clearly inspired deep loyalty and conviction. It’s moving to see how one person’s vision and courage could mobilize a community, even in the face of institutional resistance.
Yes it is.
I hadn’t known bout this, Kristin. Did any of the members of the congregation who resigned join the church your father became pastor of after that? So sad about the family rift.
(And yes, that was quite a goal–nice choice for Q!)
I believe all of them did. The congregation met at a school for several years and the parsonage was a big house where the extra activities were held. We lived upstairs and the activities were on the lower floors.
It is sad about the rift. My aunt told me about it in a very moving way years and years later.
That must have been a difficult time in the family!
Because I was only six, I didn’t know how serious it was. It was awful for my grandfather and his brother Henry especially, but their children also no longer saw each other.
We had something similar occur in our Presbyterian Church. It almost destroyed the congregation. It’s never fully recovered.
Church fights are so destructive. Everybody feels they are right and the other side is totally wrong so there is no chance for reconciling once it reaches that level.
Wow, that was dramatic!
I guess your father got to feel pretty vindicated by the response.
https://nydamprintsblackandwhite.blogspot.com
I’m kind of sorry I was only six and really missed all the drama.