The Practicality Of Holiness

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The Practicality of Holiness

A Historical Examination of Class, Race and Gender within Black Holiness Pentecostalism, Bishop Ida Bell Robinson, and the Mount Sinai Holy Church of America

Dara Delgado

University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio [email protected]

Abstract

In the second edition of the book African American Religion: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation, Hans A. Baer and Merrill Singer explore the relationship between Black Holiness–Pentecostalism and social activism. Ultimately, the authors conclude this portion of their study by asserting that “the vast majority of African American con- versionist sects [among which they include Black Holiness–Pentecostalism] remain apolitical in their posture toward the larger society.” The idea is that Black Holiness– Pentecostals tend to put more emphasis on socially approved behaviors, attitudes, work ethic, and styles of dress than on engaging in socioeconomic and political affairs. This article considers Baer and Singer’s claim that Black Holiness–Pentecostals have his- torically tended to be apathetic toward worldly concerns and puts that claim into conversation with the life and work of Ida Bell Robinson, founder of the Mt. Sinai Holy Church of America (1925–1946). I explore the issues of class, race, and gender in relation to holiness. Moreover, I contend that the distinct practices of early Black Holiness– Pentecostals proved critical to living a sanctified, or clean, life and also determined the ways local churches addressed and worked to remedy problems around poverty (both social and economic) in their communities.

Keywords

Pentecostalism – race – gender – holiness – economic justice – social justice – dress code

the practicality of holiness

1 Introduction

Here I want to consider Baer and Singer’s claim that historically Black Holi- ness–Pentecostals tend to be apathetic toward worldly concerns and to put that claim into conversation with the life and work of Ida Bell Robinson, founder of the Mount Sinai Holy Church of America (1925–1946). As such, I will explore the issues of class, race, and gender in relation to holiness. Moreover, I con- tend that the distinct practices of early Black Holiness–Pentecostals proved critical to living a sanctified, or clean, life and also determined the ways local churches addressed and worked to remedy problems around not only poverty (both social and economic) but also power in their communities.

Mount Sinai Holy Church of America (MSHCA) was founded by a black woman whose life and ministry included the black experience in the United States in the first four decades of the twentieth century. Therefore, it is not sur- prising thatMSHCAdeveloped into a ministry that was both woman-centered2 and race-conscious. To say that under Bishop Robinson’s leadership MSHCA

1 Hans A. Baer and Merrill Singer, African American Religion: Varieties of Protest and Accommo-

dation(Knoxville,TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 182.

2 It is important to note that the expression “woman-centered,” which denotes a subjective

structural commitment to having women at the highest level of leadership in the MSHCA,

is preferred to the more objective “woman-oriented.” I contend that the former highlights

MSHCA’s distinct and intentional practice of absolute gender equality and inclusion within a

mixed-gendered congregation, while the latter does not. In other words, “woman-centered”

points to MSHCA having been both founded by a woman and subsequently led by women,

but not to the exclusion of men, as compared to “woman-oriented,” which signifies a more

female-dominated and gender-exclusive institution. In his book,PassionatelyHuman,NoLess

Divine, historian Wallace D. Best examines women’s religious work in Chicago during the

migration era and offers Lucy Smith and All Nations Pentecostal Church as one such example

of a “woman-oriented” community. Unlike Robinson’s, Smith’s congregation was so singular

in its focus that it operated as “female sacred world” and thus remained “overwhelmingly

feminine” with a four-to-one female to male membership ratio. Wallace D. Best, Passionately

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was woman-centered is not to suggest that it ministered and catered to women only, because that was not the case; in fact, MSHCA has always been a mixed- gender religious community. Rather, by choosing to characterize the ministry as woman-centered, I am recognizing a distinct characteristic of MSHCA, namely, its commitment to maintaining female leadership at the highest levels of ecclesial authority.3 Similarly, by characterizing MSHCA as race-conscious, I am not negating the significance of the fact that Robinson led a mixed-race congregation at the height of segregation in the United States; rather, I am noting that as a religious community, even one that attracted white followers, MSHCA remained unapologetically and characteristically black in its perfor- mance, sociopolitical rhetoric, and epistemic framework.

Because Bishop Robinson’s life and work via MSHCA were woman-centered and race-conscious, it is imperative that I consider Baer and Singer’s claim in light of the complexities that surround power when black and holy women assert their agency in response to their spirituality and in defense of their human dignity. To that end, I employ styles of dress as a critical lens through which to examine how the Black Holiness–Pentecostal tradition, vis-a-vis MSHCA, used dress, particularly holy dress, as a means of subversion and reclaiming power. As such I intend to show how black and holy women in general and the women of MSHCA in particular used so-called “holy drag” to recover their black and holy bodies as sites of cultural and sexual inscription.

2 The Progressive Era and the Great Migration to the Urban North

The period that marked the beginning of the Progressive Era and continued through to the end of the Great Migration was both the best of times and the worst of times. During the supposed best of times, the United States of America “pulsed with the beat of sweeping social change, bold legislation, and auda- cious innovation, from settlement houses and neighborhood playgrounds to the Nineteenth Amendment for women’s suffrage, from the income tax to the

Human,NoLessDivine:ReligionandCultureinBlackChicago,1915–1952(Princeton and Oxford:

Princeton University Press, 1998), 175 and 161.

I am most grateful to Dr. Emilio Alvarez, Jr. for his critique of this claim of woman-

centeredness and for his suggested feedback encouraging me to distinguish between “wom-

an-centered” and “woman-oriented.”

3 Historically, this was not the case for other Holiness–Pentecostal denominations founded by

women. In fact, six of the nine original church elders were women and the organization con-

sistently had female bishops from 1924 to 2001.

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Social Gospel, from the assembly line to the movie theater.”4And yet, during the worst of times, theUSA’s “unbridled enthusiasm for [the] pursuit of wealth” and its creation of large corporations bolstered the spread of disease and poverty, the proliferation of urban slums,5and the violent anti-black racism of Jim/Jane Crow. Undoubtedly, for many the boom of industrialization was more of a curse than a blessing.

That Ida Bell Robinson was a woman pastor is a testament to the accel- eration of industrialization and the progress of Progressivism,6 but that Ida Bell Robinson founded a Black Holiness–Pentecostal denomination is a testa- ment to the correlation between the Great Migration and the emergence of the sanctified church in the urban North. Even amid institutional and systematic anti-black racism and sexism, Robinson took advantage of the best that the era had to offer with great courage, ingenuity, and enterprising savvy to create new opportunities for herself and others.7 In particular, Robinson claimed a per- sonal revelation that allowed her to transcend the supposed impediments of having been born both black and a woman by likening herself to Moses. Via this personal revelation and its concomitant mandate to “Come out on Mount Sinai” and loose the women,8 Robinson embodied a metaphysic that not only

4 Priscilla Pope-Levison, Building The Old Time Religion: Women Evangelists in the Progressive

Era(New York and London: New York University Press, 2014), 4–5.

5 Glenda Riley, Inventing the American Woman: A Perspective on Women’s History (Arlington

Heights,IL: Harlan Davidson, 2014), 153.

6 Mt. Sinai Holy Church of America, Inc.,Yearbook of Fourteenth Annual Convocation of the Mt.

Sinai Holy Church of America, Inc. (September 27, 1925), 22. Just because progress was taking

place does not mean that Robinson’s efforts went unchallenged. On day five of MSHC’s first

convocation, Eld. Mary Jackson shared the story of how Robinson began theMSHC. She noted

that “[Robinson] appeared before lawyers, judges, and notaries concerning this work to get

the charter … This being a very rare thing, these officials whom she was before said one to the

other: ‘This is a lot of power to give a woman.’”

7 In her chapter essay titled “Ida Robinson: Loosing Women to Lead,” Estrelda Alexander

makes an astute observation about what made Robinson a different type of woman reli-

gious leader during this era. She writes, “From the beginning, [Robinson] intended to start

a denomination—not just a congregation.” Concerning her desire to help others, during the

first convocation two men got up to testify about Robinson and the work. The second man to

speak, Eld. William T. Young, noted that “God had lifted her and stood her on an exceedingly

high place and gave her strength to reach down and draw others up also.” MSHC, Yearbook

(September 23, 1925), 15.

8 Mt. Sinai Holy Church of America, Inc., Celebrating our Legacy—Mt. Sinai Holy Church of

America, Inc., vol. 1 (Philadelphia,PA: Mt Sinai Holy Church of America, 1999), 139. According

toMSHCA’s denominational history, “1924 became a significant year in the life of [then] Elder

Ida Robinson. On several occasions, God had revealed Himself through visions and dreams.

He had made her to know the she was to be an instrument in His hand and to establish a

church that would allow full clergy rights to women.”

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problematized notions of femaleness and blackness, but also affirmed her as one called of God. Undoubtedly to the chagrin of the dominant anti-black racist and sexist culture that actively sought to malign her body as inferior, savage, and vile, Robinson persisted and cultivated a movement that would provide women with the same type of freedom and agency from within a com- plicated space of intersectionality in the social history of the United States of America.

Although little is known about what truly motivated Ida Robinson and her husband, Oliver, to migrate north,9 we can assume that she, like many other African Americans between 1916 and the late 1960s, set out in the hopes of find- ing better economic security and a haven away from the violence and oppres- sion of the South.10 Unfortunately, Philadelphia was not exactly the Promised Land, and it fell woefully short of providing its new residents with a welcome basket flowing with milk and honey. Instead, Southern black migrants found the “prospect of economic success and social well-being constantly under- mined by discrimination in the housing and labor markets.”11 Like other Black Holiness–Pentecostal leaders whose churches were in black urban neighbor- hoods, Robinson, as pastor at Mt. Olive Holy Church (Philadelphia) and Bethel Holy Church (Harlem), worked intentionally and diligently to respond to the variety of challenges posed by urban living.

3 Bishop Ida Bell Robinson: What Does It Mean to Be a Black

and Holy Woman?

Philadelphia, where Robinson lived and led the Mount Sinai Holiness Church of America until her death in 1946, was “a world where the working poor and the impoverished live[d] in neighborhoods lacking the political might and resources to secure the amenities of a stable and salubrious, family-oriented environment.”12 As such, her ministry did not have the privilege of being so

Beyond her sister’s invitation to join her in Philadelphia. See Harold Dean Trulear, “Ida B. Robinson: The Mother as Symbolic Presence,” in Portraits of a Generation: Early Pen- tecostal Leaders, ed. James R. Goff, Jr., and Grant Wacker (Fayetteville, AK: University of Arkansas Press, 2002), 312.

Deidre Helen Crumbley, Saved and Sanctified: The Rise of a Storefront Church in Great Migration Philadelphia. (Gainesville,FL: University Press of Florida, 2012), 7. Crumbley, Saved and Sanctified, 37. Crumbley notes that this disappointment and con- comitant economic hardship was exacerbated by the Great Depression, which ultimately “hit Black people with doubled force.”

Crumbley,Saved and Sanctified, 54.

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heavenly minded that it was of no earthly good. Instead of turning a blind eye to the sociopolitical and economic struggles around her, she led her local con- gregation and denomination in nurturing a prophetic social consciousness dis- tinctive to Black Holiness–Pentecostalism.

Robinson’s prophetic social consciousness as a Black Holiness–Pentecostal was likely cultivated during her time as preacher and pastor in the United Holy Church of America (UHC), the oldest Black Holiness–Pentecostal denomina- tion in the United States. It seems that after Robinson arrived in Philadelphia in 1917, she fellowshipped with the Church of God (TN). However, in 1919, she severed ties with the denomination and began to fellowship with UHC, where she was ordained to the ministry and eventually assumed the pastorate of Mt. Olive Holy Church (Philadelphia).13

Robinson was a gifted preacher, teacher, and singer; she was also a highly respected and valued member of UHC’s clergy. Under her charismatic leader- ship, the congregation grew so much that it had to relocate three times. Nev- ertheless, as questions concerning women preachers came to a head and UHC made the decision no longer to ordain women to the ministry publicly, Robin- son decided to sever ties with the organization.14 Based on the 1938 MSHCA Holy ConvocationYearbook, Robinson andUHCparted amicably and remained friendly toward one another.15 Because the split was over gender equality, Robinson retained much of UHC’s polity, doctrine, and practices.16

Taking her doctrinal cues from UHC, Robinson continued in the tradition of Black Holiness–Pentecostalism. As a Holiness-Pentecostal pastor, Robinson preached that evidence of sanctification is the “presence of the power of the Holy Ghost in the life of the believer” via acts of piety and a clean lifestyle.17As

16 17

Estrelda Y. Alexander, Limited Liberty: The Legacy of Four Pentecostal Women Pioneers (Cleveland,OH: Pilgrim Press 2008), 121. Also see Trulear, “Ida B. Robinson,” 312. Mt. Olive plays an important role in the histories of both denominations. For theUHC, Mt. Olive was one of the founding congregations of the Northern District of the United Holy Church of America.

Trulear, “Ida B. Robinson,” 312. According to Harold Dean Trulear, by 1924 women in the UHCwere having difficulty achieving ordination, and those that were ordained were rele- gated to private ceremonies and limited access to leadership roles.

MSHC, Yearbook (September 23, 1938), 24. The Yearbook notes that Elders Williams and Spann of theUHCattended the Convocation and were publicly recognized. It is unknown whether they were permitted to address the audience.

Alexander, Limited Liberty, 125.

MSHC,Yearbook(September 23, 1925). 2. On the first day of the very first convocation, dur- ing a business meeting with denominational leaders, Robinson “especially warned [them] to stand for the doctrine and lift the standard higher.” The sparse meeting notes omit details about what Robinson meant by “doctrine” or “standard”; nevertheless, given the context and its emphasis on establishing both structure and expectations among lead-

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a black person, she “exhibited an openness accompanied by a self-conscious identification with the experience of suffering and struggle shared by people of African descent.” As a black and holy person, she answered the call to cul- tivate ways of countering racial oppression and staving off the emotional and spiritual despair caused by the broader culture.18

Based onWilliam C.Turner, Jr.’s study ofUHC, we can surmise that Robinson, asablackandholypersonformedintheUnitedHolyChurchof America,would have been fully committed to the tripartite work of holiness, spiritual empow- erment, and prophetic social consciousness.19 This system of checks and bal- ances would have forced Robinson as a religious leader to (1) take notice of the world in which she and her congregants lived, (2) assume a sense of responsi- bility for ameliorating social and cultural woes that oppressed the community, and (3) fight the evils of systemic racism, poverty, and the like.20Moreover, from Turner we gather that as black and holy people, Robinson’s followers would have been called upon to sacrifice time, money, and resources to ensure that the gospel was preached, schools were erected, and “the world [was] helped.” Essentially, as black and holy people, they were to focus on a life of sobriety, “strict discipline, [and] deep devotion,” but also social responsibility and self- less service.21 For these reasons, it comes as no surprise that Robinson used her position of authority to assert her pacifism and decry World War II, to pastor a racially mixed congregation at the height of segregation in the U.S., and to address social issues such as racism (specifically lynching and white supremacy) and economic disparity.22

Therefore, beyond taboos around dress codes and uniforms, divorce and remarriage, alcohol and narcotics, and secular entertainment, MSHCA’s Holi- ness identity included a prophetic social consciousness that embodied the “sense in which the Holiness Movement was for the poor”23—those poor in body and spirit. Being for the poor conveys the notion of attraction and mis- sion. Said differently, while the poor were attracted to Black Holiness–Pente-

19 20 21 22

ers, we can infer that besides the extant Trinitarian vs. Apostolic/Oneness doctrinal issue, Robinson was likely referring to holiness.

William C. Turner, Jr., The United Holy Church of America: A Study in Black Holiness– Pentecostalism(Piscataway,NJ: Gorgias Press, 2006), 114.

Turner,The United Holy Church of America, 114.

Turner,The United Holy Church of America, 128.

Turner,The United Holy Church of America, 10 and 19.

Ida Robinson, “The Economic Persecution,” The Latter Day Messenger (May 23, 1935), 2. Bettye Collier-Thomas, Daughters of Thunder: Black Women and Their Sermons: 1850–1979 (San Francisco,CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998), 203–205.

Turner,The United Holy Church of America, 9.

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costal churches, the mission of Black Holiness–Pentecostal churches com- pelled adherents to serve the poor and to express their perfect love for God and humanity among them.

Under Robinson’s leadership, MSHCA’s concern for the poor resulted in the formation of individual service departments within the denomination, such as missions, education, and the young women’s Holiness home. In 1925, Home Missionary Sister Edna Jordan shared that loving and serving the poor meant “soliciting aid for the poor from the public, going out into the streets and lanes, bringing in the poor down and outs to be fed and clothed, and to hear the Word and be saved.”24 From Sister Jordan’s brief account of what serving the poor meant to her, we learn how affiliate churches of MSHCA not only expressed regard for and engaged with their local communities but also committed to practicing material works of mercy. Early sources confirm that the ministries associated with MSHCA readily provided shelter and food for the poor, visited the hospitalized and the imprisoned, buried the dead, and educated the igno- rant, all as a means of ministering to the physical needs of the human person and conveying the practicality of holiness.

4 Family: It Is a Holy Thing

Within the Black Holiness-Pentecostal tradition, family is immediate, ex- tended, and spiritual. One way to tell the story of Black Holiness–Pentecostal- ism is from the vantage point of family—specifically, one that has settled in the urban North, is living among a host of black Southern migrants, and is occupying a variety of storefronts, home prayer groups, and church buildings. Such a story would reveal how individuals, having made the decision to be saved, sanctified, and Holy Ghost-filled, believed themselves to be adopted into the family of God and thus voluntarily open to embracing a new community of strangers as their brothers and sisters. Undoubtedly, if a history of Black Holiness–Pentecostalism were told from a familial context, we would learn many things—but none more important than how “families” such as Mount Sinai Holy Church of America believed that it was unequivocally antithetical to true holiness either to ignore the world or to disregard opportunities to mit- igate the pain and suffering of the oppressed.

This notion of family does not mean that Baer and Singer were not correct, even if only in part, in their assessment of Black Holiness–Pentecostal orga-

MSHC,Yearbook (September 28, 1925), 24–25.

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nizations like MSHCA, as many sanctified communities did/do in fact place a great deal of emphasis on clean living via socially approved behaviors, atti- tudes, work ethic, and styles of dress. However, conceding this point should not also suggest that Baer and Singer did not overreach by claiming that this focus has been to the detriment of Black Holiness–Pentecostals’ sociopolitical involvement. If Baer and Singer are reducing sociopolitical engagement to pol- icy and programming, like that which is common to historical black Protestant denominations such as the Baptists, African Methodist Episcopal, and AME Zion, then Black Holiness–Pentecostalism falls woefully short.

However, if sociopolitical involvement includes community sustainment through street missions, soup kitchens, clothes distribution, literacy programs, and employment opportunities, then Black Holiness–Pentecostalism fits the bill.25 To claim that Black Holiness–Pentecostals are so busy looking to the heavens in anticipation of the Parousia that they neglect their own families— biological, spiritual, and racial—is to misunderstand the spiritual lives of African Americans living in a violent and uncertain world. Furthermore, such a claim grossly misrepresents the practicality of their spirituality. It seems that Baer and Singer’s conception of sociopolitical engagement is too narrow to appreciate fully how Black Holiness–Pentecostals “find in their sacred beliefs and practices a mediating space through which to respond to the ambiguities, horrors, and hopes of life.”26

Historically speaking, the practicality of holiness played an invaluable role, not only in how early Black Holiness–Pentecostals responded to the alterna- tions of “living while Black in America”27 but also in how they practiced self- defense and, subsequently, communal preservation. Strict guidelines about entertainment and commensality are an excellent example of how Black Holi- ness–Pentecostals attempted to employ holiness as a mechanism of safety and security. Specifically, holiness codes around prohibitive practices and restric- tive activities were rooted in the conviction that although God was faithful to protect and keep God’s Holy People, it was best for the saints to spend “most of

26 27

John Michael Giggie, After Redemption: Jim Crow and the Transformation of African Amer- ican Religion in the Delta, 1875–1915 (New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 4 and 7. Giggie, having noted a similar list in his text, refers to the period of World War I, “when southern migrants flooded northern cities and introduced new styles of music and worship to Black urban congregants, formed Holiness Pentecostal ‘storefront churches,’ and tested ideas about racial self-help made famous through the philosophy of Marcus Garvey,” thereby suggesting that holiness and social justice have been and always must be understood as two halves of the same whole in the Black Holiness–Pentecostal tradition. Giggie, After Redemption, xvii.

Crumbley,Saved and Sanctified, 11.

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their free time at church and avoiding worldly activities.” The rationale behind this was rather straightforward: “the church [is a safe place] where there are no penalties for being black and poor.”28This point, which stressed avoiding being “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” was concerned about limiting contact with any person, group, or thing—such as police, KKK, and warring gangs— capable of threatening the overall welfare of the family.29

5 Fighting Jezebel: Dissemblance and the Black and Holy Woman

Styles of dress is another example of how practitioners attended to the fam- ily and used holiness as a mechanism for its overall safety and preservation. Within Mount Sinai Holy Church of America both women and men had to adhere to a specific dress code.30 To be sure, the dress code prescribed to women was more intricate and imposing than the one assigned to men, but of course,thiswasnotwithoutagenderedandsociallyconstructedreason.Briefly, clothing, specifically women’s “clothing signified one’s moral status, as well as class.” For a woman to be viewed and subsequently valued as someone who was moral, chaste, and pious she had to be wholly covered up.31

Therefore, it is not surprising that consistent with most holiness traditions MSHCA’s strict dress code for women mandated both plainness and layers of clothing. Specifically, women were not to wear makeup, jewelry, braided hair, or short dresses; but they were expected to wear either plain, long, dark dresses with white lace cuffs and collars or long black skirts and white blouses with dark cotton stockings. Mandates regarding this particular style of dress often were ensconced in sanctimonious patriarchal hyperbole that stressed morality and modesty and thus functioned as an invaluable tool for those who wished to police not only women’s bodies but also their sexuality.32

Deidre Helen Crumbley, “Raising Saints in Exile: Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer in a Storefront-Sanctified Church,” inSocialWork Practice with African-American Families: An Intergenerational Perspective, ed. Cheryl Waites (New York: Routledge, 2008), 83. Crumbley, Saved and Sanctified, 154. Also see Turner, The United Holy Church of America, 130.

Arthur Huff Fauset, Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, reprint), 20. It has been well noted that the men of MSHCA were not permitted to wear neckties, but if they did “it must be either plain white or black.”

Kelly Brown Douglas,Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 6.

In her groundbreaking bookSexuality and the Black Church, theologian Kelly Brown Dou-

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The supposed threat of the black female body and her sexuality has a dark and painful history that began with the first encounters between Europeans and Africans and persist to the present day.33 The resultant dehumanizing images, myths, and stereotypes that labeled the black woman as depraved, lascivious, and seducing remained, and constituted many of the concerns sur- rounding black womanhood during the migration era. In fact, during the migra- tion era, new fears and concerns emerged about the free, independent, and uncontrolled black female body, and with its new ways of policing and con- trolling said body.

Historian Wallace D. Best notes that the Great Migration was “the most sig- nificant event in black American life since the Emancipation and Reconstruc- tion.”34Southern blacks who made the journey soon found that along with spa- tial and geographical changes came “significant social, economic, political, and cultural changes.” Arguably, black women more acutely than black men experi- enced the effects of this transformation and its concomitant alternations. Fur- thermore, within this complicated “historical moment of crisis and dislocation” came “distinct opportunities for Black female liberation and oppression.”35

The inherent tension between liberation and oppression often showed up when black women took advantage of the more liberating aspects of living in the urban North. In other words, their sense of discovery, exploration, and self-determinism was particularly troubling to black institutions and organiza- tions like the black church, who were resolutely committed to both hegemony and respectability. These untethered black female bodies were challenging and frightening not only because they exacerbated extant “fears of rampant and

34 35

glas quotes Christian ethicist James Nelson and his extremely helpful definition of sexual- ity: “Sexuality is a sign, a symbol, and a means of our call to communication and commu- nion. This is the most apparent in regard to other human beings, and other body-selves. The mystery of our sexuality is the mystery of our need to reach out to embrace others both physically and spiritually … [Sexuality] is who we are as body-selves who experience the emotional, cognitive, physical, and spiritual need for intimate communion—human and divine” (6).

Douglas comments, “During these encounters … Europeans were often struck by the stark differences in appearance between themselves and Africans.” These differences, beyond culture, included complexion and sparse dress. Eventually, European travelers and subse- quent colonizers concocted myths about Black sexuality that would furnish dehumaniz- ing stereotypes and images surrounding the Black body in general and the Black female body in particular. Douglas,Sexuality and the Black Church, 32–33.

Best, Passionately Human, No Less Divine, 71.

Hazel V. Carby, “Policing the Black Woman’s Body in an Urban Context,”Critical Inquiry18 (Summer 1992): 754.

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uncontrolled female sexuality”36 but also because their very presence threat- ened efforts to “restore a moral social order.”37 Unfortunately and shamefully, those who wished to control the black female body went so far as to try to cir- cumscribe black women’s freedom “to self-define and to control [their] own behavioral boundaries.”38

That the black church was complicit in disparaging the black female body vis-a-vis black womanhood is not surprising. In fact, in her groundbreaking text Sexuality and the Black Church, Kelly Brown Douglas reminds us that “[t]he manner in which Black women are treated in many Black churches reflects the western Christian tradition’s notion of women as evil and its notions of Black women as Jezebels and seducers of men.”39 Thus, patriarchal efforts to pro- tect black women from sexual predators, both black and white, while uplifting the race came to mean distinguishing black churchwomen from black non- churchwomen.Within Black Holiness–Pentecostalism the distinction between those who were black and holy (which is to say, proper ladies who were chaste, and pious) and those who were not (that is, “Jezebels” who were aggressive, cunning, and hypersexualized) often came down to the style of dress. The truly black and holy woman was to dress in modest clothing “that [did] not draw attention to the curves of her breasts, hips, or behind.”40 The goal was to publicly show that she was sanctified and therefore not available “for the sexual pleasures or bodily desires of either [herself] or others.”41 In other words, Black Holiness–Pentecostal churches like those affiliated with MSHCA attempted to hide the black female body by making it invisible through a form of respectability42 that demanded that sanctified women dress in “holy drag.”

36 37 38 39 40

41 42

Carby, “Policing the Black Woman’s Body,” 745–746.

Carby, “Policing the Black Woman’s Body,” 740.

Carby, “Policing the Black Woman’s Body,” 746.

Douglas,Sexuality and the Black Church, 6.

Monique Moultrie, “After the Thrill is Gone: Married to the Holy Spirit but Still Sleeping Alone,”Pnuema33 (2011): 243.

Moultrie, “After the Thrill is Gone,” 243.

Unquestionably, neither historic Black Protestant churches nor those affiliated with Black Holiness–Pentecostalism were the first to use style of dress in this way. Holy dress under the pretense of respectability was and has always been a tool for distinguishing one group/class from another and redefining the public image of black women living in the United States. The National Association of Colored Women (NACW), founded in the late nineteenth century, is the recognized forerunner of this practice, and since its found- ing, black women concerned with respectability politics have busied themselves with sanctifying black women’s sexuality in an effort to counter stereotypes, downplay sexual expression, and combat sexual exploitation.

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Nevertheless, there is another way in which to construe the holiness uni- form, namely one that is still woman-centered and race-conscious but attempts to move us beyond respectability and toward a reclamation of power. In her text Saved and Sanctified: The Rise of the Storefront Church in Great Migra- tion Philadelphia, anthropologist Deidre Helen Crumbley reminds us that holi- ness codes surrounding dress were not just a way of policing, silencing, and making invisible the black female body. Instead, she claims that dress codes like those used by the women of MSHCA intentionally set out to degender and to desexualize women as a protective measure against the widespread rape and lynch culture.43 Attempts to make themselves invisible, even going so far as to wear black or dark-colored clothing against their black/dark col- ored skin, was far from foolproof44 and still problematic and reductionistic. Nevertheless, for the black and holy woman, her style of dress became an active yet coded means of articulating to the world around her her unwill- ingness to be reviled or ravaged any longer;45 therefore, the holiness uniform served as a practical way of returning to her a means of control in sexual poli- tics.46

The noble effort to be freed from objectifying and exploitative notions that misrepresented black women as highly sexualized, evil seductresses, and Jeze- bels prompted black and holy women within the sanctified tradition in general andMSHCAin particular to employ “holy drag” as a culture of dissemblance. In studying the sexual vulnerability and powerlessness of black women “as vic- tims of rape and domestic violence,” Darlene Clark Hine notes that beyond being a woefully underanalyzed theme in black women’s history—I would add US-American religious history—this dearth is in large part due to a long- standing impenetrable cult of secrecy among black women. She dubs this secrecy “a culture of dissemblance” and defines it as the

43 44

Crumbley,Saved and Sanctified, 146.

The 1944 story of Recy Taylor is but one example of the limitations and the overall failure of this practice.

A most troubling aspect of black women’s history in the United States is the fact that the black female body has been the perpetual site of ridicule and abuse. Believed to be the antithesis of true womanhood, specifically that which constitutes the respect due to a “lady,” the black female body bore both the same violence and abuse that black men suf- fered while existing as “the unwilling [recipient] of the most depraved passions of White” men. Douglas,Sexuality and the Black Church, 39.

Crumbley,Saved and Sanctified, 146. Also see Arthur Huff Fauset,Black Gods of the Metrop- olis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North(Philadelphia,PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, reprint), 20.

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behaviors and attitudes of Black women that created the appearance of opennessanddisclosurebutactuallyshieldedthetruthof theirinnerlives and selves from their oppressors.47

The strict and almost sacred secrecy among black women is the effect of gener- ations of having to endure “combined influences of rape (or the threat of rape), domestic violence, and economic oppression.”48 For black and holy women like Bishop Ida Bell Robinson, plain, non-disclosing dress was not merely to deflect the unwanted gaze, although undoubtedly it included that, but it also was a practical means of preserving their personal and sexual autonomy vis-a- vis “their productive and reproductive capacities, and their sexuality.”49 If we think of such dress codes as acts of active resistance, or even protests, we can see how black and holy women creatively took what was ready at hand, that is, styles of dress, and validated it as sacred psychic space to harness power to: (1) resist “tropes that castigated their sexuality,”50 (2) attend to “the open wounds of the violence perpetuated in their bodies,”51 and (3) dispose of cul- tural inscriptions that maligned their bodies as being anything other than the temple of the Holy Spirit.

So, if austere plain public personas and representations of their bodily selves did not reinscribe socially oppressive and ill-fittedVictorian notions of woman- hood and morality, what did it provide black and holy women in the sanctified tradition during the migration era? For one, I submit that much like the verbal cult of secrecy that Hine proposed, holy drag reclaimed their ability to thrive and not just survive. In other words, in holy drag black sanctified women

collectively created alternative self-images … A secret, undisclosed per- sona [that] allowed [them as] individual wom[en] to function, to work effectively as … domestic[s] in white households, to bear and rear chil- dren, to endure the frustration-born violence of frequently under- or unemployed mates, to support churches, to found institutions, to engage in social service activities, all while living within a clearly hostile white, patriarchal middle-class America.52

48 49 50

51 52

Darlene Clark Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West,”Signs 14, no. 4 (Summer 1989): 912.

Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women,” 913.

Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women,” 915.

Monique Moultrie, Passionate and Pious: Religious Media and Black Women’s Sexuality (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2017), 7.

Douglas,Sexuality and the Black Church, 73.

Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women,” 916.

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delgado

Second, black sanctified women dressing in holy drag was a subversive act of resistance and protest because they voluntarily participated in the very oppres- sive structures that existed to restrict their access to power, with the singular goal of reconfiguring notions of race, gender, and sexuality to fit their unique circumstances. Moreover, in the hands of black and holy women, specifically those who constituted the poor and working classes, plain holy dress became a tool by which to take back two meaningful things: (1) how the world saw them and (2) how the world exerted power over them.

It is important to note that point number one is not just about representa- tion and public image. Instead, it has more to do with a self-conscious effort to change interpersonal relationships with those in positions of dominance and power. In other words, change in dress was supposed to signify a change in the way persons related to one another. Said differently, by choosing to wear a plain, austere style of dress, black and holy woman were expressing a nonverbal com- mand for mutual respect and human dignity.

Similarly, treating holy drag as a tool for taking back how the world exerts power over the black female body is also about social relations, but with par- ticular attention to the body and how rules, regulations, and mores criminalize, objectify, or pejoratively label that which is “other.” In choosing plain, austere styles of dress, black and holy women determined not only how their bodies were perceived, but also how their bodies wouldlive,move,andhavetheirbeing. Here, the holiness uniform takes back from external forces the power that seeks to regulate the black female body. In so doing, “holy drag,” as it were, signifies the black and holy woman as one who is both the bride of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit. This power move by black and holy women simultaneously shirks culturally inscribed denigrations of blackness while affirming blackness as theimago Dei.

6 Conclusion

By employing a prophetic social consciousness rooted in holiness and empow- ered by the supernatural, early Black Holiness–Pentecostals embraced a pro- gressive theology of salvation, albeit implicitly. Unquestionably, their sermons, songs, and doctrinal statements affirmed and maintained an unrelenting com- mitment to an evangelical understanding of the gospel, that is, personal sal- vation. However, their practices indicate that they were also committed to a prophetic social gospel that defended the oppressed, pursued justice, and pro- mulgated peace. By holding their concern for the eternal state of humanity’s soul in tandem with their concern for the current state of their communities,

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the practicality of holiness

neighborhoods, and race, Black Holiness–Pentecostals such as Mount Sinai Holy Church of America affirmed holiness as more than just “clean living.” They also affirmed holiness as a mechanism of economic, political, and social engagement.

Unquestionably, the black sanctified tradition is, in fact, the testimony of persons often on the margins who suffer or have suffered endless forms of physical, sexual, emotional, epistemic, and spiritual violence intended to bring about their full demise, yet have survived. In Black Holiness–Pentecostalism adherents found communities that were equally attentive to their spiritual and material needs. For black and holy women in sanctified churches like those affiliated with MSHCA, attention to their material needs often went beyond food, clothing, and shelter to include bodily concerns surrounding rape, the threat of rape, and domestic violence. So, while it is easy to look at holiness codes that pertain to dress as just another expression of black respectability politics, it behooves us to look closer. If we do, we will see how Southern black women migrants like Bishop Ida Bell Robinson were able to survive and, in many cases, thrive, because they took what was ready at hand and used it to defend their human dignity as well as their prophetic voice. Although imper- fect, and far from foolproof, style of dress was employed as a subversive tactic to reclaim their powerto live, move, and have their beingas black and holy. Thus, it is in the power of the Spirit—the Spirit of Justice and Truth—and in the face of the prevailing culture’s antiblack racism and sexism that these black and holy women uncompromisingly pursued and exhibited holiness, spiritual empow- erment, and prophetic social consciousness.

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The Practicality Of Holiness

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Is the Law eternal?

Haber oku tuzla evden eve nakliyat