Robert Bauman
Associate Professor
Washington State University Tri-Cities
In May 1969, the civil rights and Black Power activist, James Forman, issued his Black Manifesto, in which he demanded that churches and synagogues pay reparations for their role in slavery to black antipoverty organizations. This paper demonstrates that the manifesto linked Black Power and the War on Poverty and reshaped religious organizations’ antipoverty efforts. In particular, the manifesto exposed significant divisions within mainline Protestant, Jewish and Catholic denominational and ecumenical antipoverty efforts over issues of race and the War on Poverty. These denominational and ecumenical organizations had been some of the leading supporters of the Economic Opportunity Act and the War on Poverty in its first few years of operation. The negative responses of congregants to the demands of the Black Manifesto and its calls for reparations, however, led to a dramatic decline in support for the War on Poverty by many religious denominations and ecumenical organizations. After the manifesto, the War on Poverty was seen increasingly by some members of white churches as a radical program that appeased black revolutionaries. While financial support for religious antipoverty efforts declined, so did political and institutional support from many mainline churches, synagogues and religious institutions, many of whom had previously been strong advocates of the War on Poverty. While the link between religion and antipoverty programs was not completely severed, after the Black Manifesto it had been greatly damaged. Indeed, the manifesto and responses to it, divided denominations, led to a growing opposition to the War on Poverty and a fracturing of the once firm antipoverty coalition, and influenced the rise of conservatism.