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| Detail of page 199 of the 1955 Diocese of New Jersey Convention Journal |
It was 1955. The aged Bishop Gardner had just passed away in late October of 1954, and his Suffragan Bishop, Alfred L. Banyard, had within three months been elevated to Bishop. Normally a key reason to ordain a suffragan, besides helping carry the workload for an aging Bishop, is to afford for smooth a transition between episcopates and prevent significant periods of disruption in governance and policy. However, when Banyard was elevated, he immediately began to make dramatic changes in diocesan governance and policy.[1] One of these changes was moving to end Black Churches in the diocese.
At the first diocesan convention following Gardiner’s death, Banyard announced multiple changes that he had already put in place. One was that he had immediately pushed the the leadership of the Diocesan Foundation to elect the Rev. Gerald R. Minchin to the office of Archdeacon. Installing Minchin ensured that Banyard would have a totally loyal deputy who he publicly proclaimed[2] would be “aggressive” in pursuing his agenda. The operations of the Diocesan Foundation, charged with overseeing many organs of action in the diocese, including the Department of Missions, the Department of Christian Social Relations, the Department of Christian Education, the Department of Field and Publicity, and the Church News,[3] would be significantly affected by this appointment and agenda. A key aspect of Banyard’s aggressive agenda that Minchin would be involved in enacting was his racial agenda, the first step of which involved enacting a universal policy of “integration” in the diocese. In his address to the regular 1955 diocesan convention Banyard stated:
It is a well-known fact that great progress has been and is being made in overcoming segregation and discrimination in every phase of life throughout our country. It is a Christian truism to state that such practices toward any race in the church as well as in the secular community are contrary to the Will of God. However, the church and its members everywhere must stand firmly for the integration of all people and practice that principle of living sincerely at all times and in all places. Therefore, I have appointed a committee of which the Rev. Canon Robert D. Smith is the chairman and composed of two other clergymen and two laymen, who are Trustees of the Diocesan Foundation, to prepare a statement and resolution to be presented to this Convention. If this is adopted, I believe that it will not only strengthen our own diocesan fellowship, but will have a far-reaching effect upon the secular life in the communities where our parishes and missions are located.[4]
Though in theory Banyard’s statement could sound to the credulous like a racially equitable goal, in practice the policy was aimed specifically at closing Black churches. This much is suggested from the framing of the Rev. Robert Smith’s statement[5] on the matter on behalf of the Diocesan Foundation at the 1955 diocesan convention:
STATEMENT ON SEGREGATION IN THE CHURCH
submitted by
THE COMMITTEE ON SEGREGATION OF THE DIOCESAN FOUNDATION
with the Diocesan Department of Christian Social Relations
The Committee on Segregation of the Diocesan Foundation is fully cognizant of the fact that it is, and has been, the position of the Diocese, (as it is that of the Church at large), that segregation of the races in the Church as well as in the community, is contrary to the Will of God. At the same time, it notes that there are churches in the Diocese whose members are entirely Negro. In some instances, this may be due in large part to the constituency of the community in which the church is situated. On the other hand, the Committee also notes that there are Negro families in the Diocese that pass not one but several “white” churches to attend a “Negro” church and travel as far as twenty miles to do so.
The Committee believes that the ascertaining of the facts and the determination of the best way to proceed on the basis of such facts, can only be secured by close and careful study, by conference and discussion, parish by parish, in communities where white and Negro dwell and where separate white and Negro churches seem to exist. It recognizes that the problem is too delicate and complicated to be solved solely by fiat or legislative action of Convention. It recognizes that there are emotional ties and bonds of fellowship that, no matter how they might have originally arisen from segregated patterns of living in the community, cannot be summarily dealt with. However, the Committee also recognizes that the goal can be nothing less than an all-inclusive fellowship in the Church in which there are no class, color, racial or national distinctions. It therefore urges upon those churches which are situated in communities where both Negro and white dwell, and especially where there are churches attended solely by white person and churches attended solely by Negroes—creative projects of inter-racial fellowship and cooperation in the interest of removing what racial barriers might exist, and in the interest of gradual elimination of separate churches where there is no good reason for separate churches to exist.
Respectfully submitted,
Robert D. Smith, Chairman
It is telling that what seems firstly, and most particularly, upsetting to the White authorities of the diocese, as seen from the first paragraph of Smith’s statement, is the existence of Black churches. It was, apparently, especially galling to these authorities that Black Episcopalians would choose to worship with fellow Black Episcopalians rather than at majority-white churches. Also, tellingly, Smith does not acknowledge that the Black Episcopal churches in question had been founded out of necessity as the result of white racism, instead suggesting that these Churches had simply “originally arisen from segregated patterns of living in the community,” making it appear almost accidental. This is a substantially false summary of a history which was both quite recent and well-known at the time.[6] Nor does Smith acknowledge that racism was still operative in his time, or that it might be a reason for the continued value of Black churches. Rather, he suggested that the only (and inadequate) reasons for the continued existence of Black churches were “emotional ties and bonds of fellowship,” which his argumentation suggests needed to be overcome as being against the “Will of God.”
In his statement, Smith acknowledges that “the problem is too delicate and complicated to be solved solely by fiat or legislative action of Convention,” and by this assertion he indirectly suggests the method by which Banyard would seek to solve the “problem.” Enacting the statement as a vague official policy through convention resolution, ostensibly oriented against all segregation, Banyard and his leadership would then move quickly to pressure Black churches specifically to close, using the pre-existing authorities and processes at their disposal, rather than overt legislative actions aimed exclusively at Black churches, which might have been directly, and successfully opposed. They justified their subsequent actions in the name of integration, pointing to this theoretically equitable policy ratified at the 1955 convention. That they had no intention of closing entirely white churches is shown by Banyard’s ambitious program of church-planting in exclusively white enclaves, such as (but not limited to) Christ the King, Levittown (which Minchin was already planning, based on the precedent of other dioceses).[7] The first Black Church closed (almost immediately) under the “integration” initiative would be St. Monica’s Episcopal Church in Trenton,[8] though others would soon follow, in some cases targeted seemingly specifically for having resisted Banyard.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparation Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
A planned all-white development that Banyard was, knowingly, especially keen to plant a church in. Minchin announced this the following year, though the planning had already been underway: Gerald R. Minchin, “Presentation of Mission Program to the Diocesan Convention,” in The Journal of the 172nd Annual Convention of the Church in the Diocese of New Jersey Held in the Crypt of Trinity Cathedral, Trenton, Tuesday and Wednesday May 8th and 9th, 1956; 146: “The new Levittown, New Jersey, to be developed between Highway 130 and the New Jersey Turnpike just east of Beverly, is now in the grading and plotting stage. Homes are to be erected and placed on sale in 1957. A total of 20,000 are planned. Land will be allocated for churches and I have already made such a request. The church structure must have a value of $100,000. Levitt and Sons, the developers, are kindly disposed toward our Church because of their previous experience in the Diocese of Long Island and Pennsylvania. I am sure that we will be allocated a fine strategic piece of property.
