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ABSTRACT
This article examines two figures from the early twentieth century beginnings of the Hebrew Israelite movement. Malinda Morris was a central, though forgotten, figure in William Crowdy’s Church of God and Saints of Christ but her creation of an independent Church upon Crowdy’s death has not so far been discussed. The strongest body of evidence regarding this Church is a booklet published by one of their Bishops, A.W. Cook, in Harlem, 1925. This booklet offers biographical, legal, constitutional, and theological information about Cook and his branch of Morris’ Church. Situated at a crucial juncture, at the beginning of the second wave of Hebrew Israelite preachers and congregations, Cook’s booklet offers some important insights into the development of foundational narratives of the movement, as well as allows us to reconstruct some of the life of this forlorn thinker and minister, and his leader Malinda Morris.
Acknowledgements
The author is very grateful to Dr DaVida Plummer and Charmaine Ringwood of the Church of God and Saints of Christ, and Wanda Roberts and Rev. Sharon Doyle of the Independent Church of God and Saints of Christ, for their time and help in filling in some details about Malinda Morris; to Dr Walter Isaac for his advice; to Lisa Keys of Kansas Historical Society and Cara Gilgenbach of Special Collections & Archives, Kent State University Library, for their hard work scanning hundreds of pages of archive documents; and to Sarah Carrier of the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for providing information regarding Bishop Cook’s booklet from their collection.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Landing, Black Judaism; Dorman, Chosen People.
3 https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2456965; the author has communicated with the library to verify these details.
4 The ICG is also listed with the same incorporation date as in the book at https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ny/16184.
5 Downs, Declarations of Independence.
6 Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Volume VI, 361–2.
7 The city directories and censuses consistently spell his first name Allen; however whenever he refers to himself, including in newspapers, it is spelt Allan.
8 The Montclair Times, August 12, 1911, 10.
9 The Yonkers Herald, July 10, 1915, 2; ibid., November 15, 1915, 12.
10 Including socialist atheist Hubert Harrison, notable for his proclamation directly opposite Cook’s, that because Jesus and God were white, he would prefer to go to Hell than Heaven, so as to be with the black Devil. Perry, Hubert Harrison, 484.
11 This is only a possibility; scholars still debate the cause for the African American identification with Israelites and it would be unwise at this stage to presume Cook’s depends upon direct descent from the normative Jewish community. See Isaac, Beyond Ontological Jewishness.
12 Collated from www.familysearch.org.
13 “In Memoriam,” The Montclair Times, April 6, 1929, 5.
14 The New York Age, August 14, 1926, 8.
15 The Montclair Times, November 26, 1926, 21.
17 Brotz, Black Jews, 10; Dorman, “A Colony in Babylon,” 220–33.
18 Wynia, The Church of God and Saints of Christ, 25.
19 Dorman, Chosen People.
20 Landing, Black Judaism, 92–4.
21 Ford, The Universal Ethiopian Hymnal.
22 “Negro Rabbi Held on Theft Charge; Kept Church Fund,” The Topeka Plaindealer, September 19, 1924, 1.
23 “Chicago Negroes say they will Erect Synagogue,” The Gazette, September 16, 1925, 16; “The Original Jews they Say,” The Tipton Daily Tribune, September 18, 1925, 3.
24 Despite this, he talks several times of “real Christianity”, a desideratum which eludes the people (29).
25 This is not to say that Cook actually kept the commandments, although it is impossible to tell. He at one point hypothetically refers to the raising of pigs for pork without criticism (15).
26 Crowdy, The Revelation of God Revealed, 39.
27 Emphasis mine.
28 Landing, Black Judaism, 53; cf. Wynia, Church of God, 50.
29 Dorman, Chosen People, 45; although his nephew Joseph Crowdy asserted that he was from the tribe of Judah: Weekly Prophet, July 21, 1905.
30 Cook is mentioned twice in editions of Garvey’s Negro World newspaper, both times relating to speeches given for the Yonkers branch of the UNIA (May 12, 1923, 8; December 10, 1927, 6), the last as chairman.
31 Landes, “Negro Jews in Harlem,” 185.
32 Key, “If thou do not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God”.
33 Aytes, The Teaching Black Jew.
34 Pp. 250–79.
35 For a comparison of a later Hebrew Israelite theologian with Black and Liberation theologies, see Miller, “The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem and Ben Ammi’s Theology of Marginalisation and Reorientation”.
36 Although we may find a curious reflection in Cone’s statement that, “All the black church has to do is to accept its role as the sufferer and begin to follow the natural course of being black. In so doing, it may not only redeem itself through God’s Spirit, but the white church as well. The black church, then, is probably the only hope for renewal or, more appropriately, revolution in organized Christianity.” A Black Theology of Liberation, 113.
37 This is not much different to David Walker and Henry McNeal Turner’s nineteenth century predictions of American punishment – even destruction – as a result of slavery. See Pinn, Why, Lord?, 39–56; cf. Moses, Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms, 30–48.
38 Key even claims that the “theodicy of deserved punishment” is “the real foundation of Black Judaism” (271).
39 On theodicy, see Boesak, “‘De Lawd knowed how it was,’” 156–68.
40 On the rising confidence and expectations of this period, see, e.g. Moses, Black Messiahs, 107–23.
41 This author’s impression is that more reference to the keeping of commandments can be found in antebellum Black thought, but more research would be required to prove this and discuss its significance and that of its disappearance.
42 Cone, God of the Oppressed, 268.
43 Landing, Black Judaism, 58; Wynia, Church of God, 26.
44 Walker, Life and Works of William Saunders Crowdy, 42; a recent CGSC document, “Influential Women of the Church of God and Saints of Christ” lists her in prime position, and as Queen. www.cogsoconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Binder1.pdf.
45 Ibid., 57. Walker states this happened in 1904 but the Minutes show her as pastor as early as 1901.
46 Ibid., 62.
47 According to a report in Grove’s version of the CGSC’s Weekly Prophet newspaper, “Discommunicated,” The Weekly Prophet, July 2, 1909.
48 “Follow Black Elijah,” The Washington Post, November 5, 1906, 9.
49 “Negroes comes here to Observe Passover,” The Courier News, April 11, 1906, 7.
50 “A Week with the Foot Washers,” New York Tribune, April 22, 1906, 2.
51 Stone, Song Composition, Transmission, and Performance Practice in an Urban Black Denomination, 87.
52 “Queen Melinda Dora Morris Way Street name change,” cogsoconline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EseU3_yWMkI.
53 Walker, Life and Works, 24.
54 The CGSC Constitution and Minutes support this, listing her as pastor in Newark alongside Elder Alexander Taylor at the 1901 meeting; the minutes of the October 1900 meeting of the Daughters of Jerusalem and Sisters of Mercy mention only her speech, although she already bears the title Saint Elder. Later Minutes support the Broome St address and replace Taylor with A.H. Anderson.
55 Dorman, Chosen People.
56 The ICGSC claim that some Western District Elders took her to court over her retention of the Church name, but her use of “Independent” led the judge to proclaim there was no conflict.
57 “Queen Morris Honors the Prophet,” Newark Evening Star, August 5, 1913, 6. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91064011/1913-08-05/ed-1/seq-6/.
59 “‘Holy Kiss’ Sect Say Leader Only Sleeping,” The Star and Newark Advertiser, August 13, 1908, 1. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91064009/1908-08-13/ed-1/seq-1/.
60 Stone, Song Composition, 114; corroborated by http://newarkreligion.com/churchyears/1930.php.
61 On female leadership in CGSC, see Wynia, Church of God, 73–5. On Morris and the issue of gender inclusivity in early Black Judaism, see Isaac, Beyond Ontological Jewishness, 247–54.
62 The most detailed account of the split of CGSC is given in Stone, Song Composition, 98–104.
63 Curiously, the ICGSC officials could find no record of Cook’s ordination, although one elderly member did recall him running Hebrew lessons.
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Michael T. Miller
Dr Michael T. Miller works in Jewish Studies, specializing in Jewish mysticism and philosophy, and more recently, Black Judaism. His second monograph, Ben Ammi Ben Israel: Black Theology, Theodicy, and Judaism in the Thought of the African Hebrew Israelite Messiah (Bloomsbury 2023) offers a theological analysis of Hebrew Israelite thought, aligning it with African American and Jewish precursors. He taught in Jewish Studies and Philosophy at Liverpool Hope University from 2016 to 2019, was a Research Fellow at FAU Erlangen-Nurnberg, and is currently a Gerda Henkel fellow working at the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies where he pursues research into the African Hebrew Israelite community.