James K. Humphrey and the Sabbath-Day Adventists - Hardcover

Jones, R. Clifford

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1578068916 ISBN 13: 9781578068913

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2006

Synopsis

In James K. Humphrey and the Sabbath-Day Adventists, R. Clifford Jones tells the story of this important black religious figure and his attempt to bring about self-determination for twentieth-century blacks in New York City. Humphrey was a Baptist minister who joined the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church shortly after arriving in New York City from Jamaica at the turn of the twentieth century. A leader of uncommon competency and charisma, Humphrey functioned as an SDA minister in Harlem during the time the community became the black capital of the United States. Though he led his congregation to a position of prominence within the SDA denomination, Humphrey came to believe the black experience in Adventism was one of disenfranchisement. When he refused to alter his plans for a utopian community for blacks in the face of dissent from SDA church leaders, Humphrey's ministerial credentials were revoked and his congregation dissolved. Subsequently, Humphrey established an independent black religious organization, the United Sabbath-Day Adventists. This book rescues the Sabbath-Day Adventists from obscurity. Humphrey's break with the Seventh-day Adventists provides clues to the state of black-white relationships in the denomination at the time. It set the stage for the creation of the separate administrative structure for blacks established by the SDA church in 1945. This history of a minister and his church demonstrates the struggles of small, independent, black congregations in the urban community during the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Author:

R. Clifford Jones is an associate professor at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. He is the editor of Preaching with Power and has authored scholarly articles on the emergence of the Sabbath-Day Adventists.

From the Inside Flap:

A story of an African American minister who broke from the Seventh-day Adventist church during the Harlem Renaissance

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1578068916
• ISBN 13: 9781578068913
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 277