Negro Baptists

Fifth largest religious group in the U. S. are the Negro Baptists. Four years ago their adult membership was 2,914,482.* Largest Protestant church in the world is Chicago's Olivet Baptist church, membership 12,000. Dr. Lacey Kirk Williams, urbane pastor of Olivet, has been president of the Negroes' National Baptist convention for eight years. Last week he called the convention to order in Chicago. More than 50,000 delegates were in the city. They thronged through the streets. They filled the Coliseum. They conducted a "grand musicale" (1,000 choristers), street parades, an athletic carnival on Soldiers Field at the lake front, a "jubilee pageant of progress'' (2,000 participants). Quite visible were delegates in Chicago, yet not one of the important white Chicago daily papers reported their activities last week. Negroes attributed that silence to a definite cause: Chicago Negroes are effectively boycotting local business houses which refuse to employ Negro help.*

President Williams required all his urbanity and parliamentary skill to keep the convention's business meetings from riot. Many Negro Baptists have become discontented with his long tenure of the presidency. This year they had as a sword over his head a scandal.

Last spring there were strong rumors that $62,000 had been stolen from the National Baptists' Sunday School Publishing Board at Nashville, Tenn. President Williams sent Edward Donahue Pierson to audit the books. As Pierson was returning from Nashville to Chicago, someone shot him to death near Scottsburg, Ind., stole his audit report. Arrested for complicity in the murder but free on bail is Dr. B. J. F. Westabrook of Indianapolis, President Williams' bosom friend. Arrested for the murder and still in jail is George Washington, Indianapolis detective.* Sought for extradition from Tennessee as accomplices are Dr. Arthur Melvin Townsend, secretary of the Publishing Board, executive committeeman of the Federal Council of Churches, and his son Arthur Melvin Townsend Jr.

Enemies of President Williams charge that, merely to avoid a church scandal, he has permitted the publishing house books to be doctored to hide the money theft. His friends deny this vehemently. Pierson, they aver, was murdered not because he carried incriminating records, but because he, a notorious philanderer, had vexed some wench's man. This sword of scandal the "enemies" tried to plunge into the head of their convention. But all during last week's sessions Dr. Williams kept bobbing out of harm, skillfully, urbanely.

*For the numerical rank of U. S. religious bodies, see TIME, June 30.

*A similar boycott has started in New Orleans. At Harrison, Ark., last week, unemployed whites drove Negro laborers from their work, pre-empted the vacated jobs.

*Not to be confused with George Washington, able pastor of Columbus, Ohio's Bethany Baptist church.

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