As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, Americans will once again hear the familiar stories about the nation’s foundations. It will highlight the Founding Fathers, the constitutional conventions, Congress, the courts, and the institutions that helped shape the nation. Yet a crucial part of that democratic story will remain overlooked if we don't focus on the contributions of Black churches.

It’s unfortunate to say that many of the democratic freedoms Americans celebrate today did not survive because state institutions consistently protected them. Rather, they survived because generations of Black Americans built, defended, and sustained democratic life when the nation itself failed to do so. From abolition and Reconstruction to the civil rights movement and beyond, Black communities repeatedly organized the institutions that transformed democratic ideals into lived realities.

For more than two centuries, Black churches have functioned as civic infrastructures of democratic survival. Before terms such as “community development,” “social impact,” “civic engagement,” and even “nonprofit” entered the American vocabulary, Black congregations were feeding families, funding schools, organizing mutual aid networks, supporting labor struggles, providing healthcare, sheltering vulnerable community members, and teaching the skills necessary for political participation in their communities.

If democracy is measured by elections but also whether people possess the resources, relationships, and collective power necessary to participate in public life, then Black churches have been among America’s most consequential democratic institutions.

This history matters. It corrects the historical record, and it challenges how we think about democracy itself, which is too often associated with government institutions alone. But democracy has always depended more on the engagement of the people it serves to progress and uphold the policies that allow for a healthy, thriving society.

Black Churches: Democracy After Emancipation

The end of slavery did not deliver freedom in any meaningful institutional sense. Formerly enslaved people entered a society that offered legal emancipation but little economic security, political protection, or social support. Federal promises were unevenly enforced, while Reconstruction faced relentless resistance from White supremacists. In response, Black communities built their own institutions, and at the center of this effort stood the Black church.

Read the full article about Black churches and democracy by Augustina Boateng at Nonprofit Quarterly.