Saved and Sanctified: The Rise of a Storefront Church in Great Migration Philadelphia

225 Pages·2012·1.341 MB·English

by  Deidre Helen Crumbley

Saved and Sanctified
The History of African American Religions
University Press of Florida
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
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Saved and Sanctified
The Rise of a Storefront Church
in Great Migration Philadelphia
Deidre Helen Crumbley
University Press of Florida
Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton
Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota
Copyright 2012 by Deidre Helen Crumbley
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America. This book is printed on Glatfelter Natures Book,
a paper certified under the standards of the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC).
It is a recycled stock that contains 30 percent post-consumer waste and is acid-free.

This book may be available in an electronic edition.

17 16 15 14 13 12 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crumbley, Deidre Helen, 1947–
Saved and sanctified : the rise of a storefront church in Great Migration Philadelphia /
Deidre Helen Crumbley.
p. cm. — (The history of African American religions)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-8130-3984-8 (alk. paper)
1. African Americans—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—Religion. 2. Philadelphia (Pa.)
—Church history. I. Title.
BR563.N4C78 2012
289.9'5—dc23 2012001056

The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University
System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf
Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida,
University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University
of South Florida, and University of West Florida.
University Press of Florida
15 Northwest 15th Street
Gainesville, FL 32611-2079
http://www.upf.com
This book is dedicated to The Saints.
· · ·
In Memoriam
Beloved Mother: Elder Bernice Nicholson Crumbley
Beloved Father: Elder Joseph Crumbley
Dearest Auntie: Roberta Nicholson Ragan
Sweet Cousin: Eugene Crumbley
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
· · ·
1. Call 1
2. City Tales 29
3. Saints Tales 49
4. Becoming Saints 107
5. Family 139
6. Response 165
· · ·
Notes 175
Bibliography 187
Index 201
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Acknowledgments
There are books that lure you into writing them. They give you no rest until
their story is told. This is one of those books. It drew me into the academy to
gain the intellectual grounding and professional credentials required to tell
the story of The Church in a manner that would command serious scholarly
attention. Still, it could never have been written without the generous coop-
eration of the saints who gave of their time, shared their personal lives, and
offered me more hospitality than I will ever be able to reciprocate. Their love
and prayers are greatly appreciated.
While the physical act of writing is a solitary act, a book grows out of
communications with mentors, colleagues, and the works of intellectual
ancestors. Although the work of some ancestral scholars ground this book
project, they are yet to enter the canons of anthropological literature. The
most notable example is Zora Neale Hurston’s The Sanctified Church (1981),
which has been recognized more for its literary value than as an anthro-
pological study. Happily, still among us is Ira Harrison, author of the first
institutional analysis of storefront churches that I encountered; the richness
of his archival materials, combined with the intellectual dynamism of Faye
Harrison, produced the groundbreaking edited compilation African Ameri-
can Pioneers in Anthropology (1999), which reinserted scholars of African
descent into the intellectual history of our discipline. Melvin Williams’s
Community in a Black Pentecostal Church: An Anthropological Study (1974)
paved the way for my book project, because of his strong message that an
urban storefront church of African American “saints” demands the serious
intellectual attention that anthropologists have given religious phenomena
from around the world since James Frazier’s The Golden Bough. I am also
indebted to Caribbeanist and humanistic anthropologist John O. Stewart for
his course African American Anthropology, which he taught at Northwest-
ern University in a way that validated the transnational study of the African