The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

Tisby notes the contradictory characteristics of “freedom and bondage” and “racism and patriotism” during the Revolutionary period (41). White American soldiers and leaders declared their right to independence while enslaving Black people. The American church reinforced this contradiction between freedom and enslavement.

The Declaration and War for Independence

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed human rights for all people, but not for the enslaved. Tisby notes that these values of freedom and independence did not include women, Black people, and Indigenous peoples, whose civil rights remained limited. Black people endeavored to connect the revolutionary rhetoric of liberty to enslavement, but the institution continued.

The Great Awakening

As a religious movement, the Great Awakening shaped Protestantism before the Revolutionary War. It signaled the first significant number of Black people’s conversion to Christianity. However, Tisby observes that Black people made the religion their own by finding connections between the idea of rebirth and baptism with the spirituality of their indigenous traditions.

For Black people, Christianity represented “the hope of freedom” (45). Spiritual deliverance for them equaled “earthly liberation.” White Christians resisted the idea of social equality and enslavers were skeptical of Black people’s Christianization. Laws like the Negro Act of 1740 prevented Black people from gathering.