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Folder

Administration, 1919-1988

The Administration group was created in the course of processing and consists of those records related to the structure and organization of the church. This group, arranged alphabetically by type of material, runs just over one linear foot and includes annual reports, constitutions, financial records, histories, and minutes. The histories are valuable in providing self-reflective views of Second Baptist as a church very concerned with its place in history. The financial records are fulsome and quite detailed, so they provide telling insights into the challenges facing Second Baptist during the lean years of the Depression and the boom times of postwar Detroit. The annual reports and minutes of the advisory board and trustees are quite illuminative of the 1970s and 1980s as the church faced the challenges of an aging congregation grown fewer in number and the court controversy surrounding the removal of Pastor Holloman.

Collection

Second Baptist Church (Detroit, Mich.) Records, 1911-1989 (majority within 1926-1988)

14 microfilms — 1 folder

Oldest African American church in Michigan; administrative records, papers of individual pastors, church publications.

This record group thoroughly documents Second Baptist's efforts to tend to both the spiritual and physical needs of Black Detroiters since the 1920s. The Administration, Pastors' Papers, Publications, and Photographs series reflect, respectively, the internal workings of the church, the private efforts of the pastors over time, and the publicly presented external face of Second Baptist. The microfilm (representing 6 linear feet of manuscript material) consists of annual reports, financial records, histories, minutes of advisory board meetings, pastoral correspondence, annual and quarterly publications, and weekly bulletins. There is also a scattering of photographs. The work of Second Baptist before the 1920s is visible retrospectively in histories and reminiscences sanctioned by the church in the 1930s. The records of the church for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were evidently destroyed in the fires of 1916 and 1917.

Folder

Pastors' Papers, 1911-1988

The Pastors' Papers group comprises two linear feet and consists primarily of correspondence, reports to the pastor, and other materials related to the pastor's specific responsibilities. The materials within this group are first arranged chronologically according to the tenure of the pastor and then alphabetically by type. The bulk of materials within this group consists of the correspondence of Pastors Bradby and Banks. The eight folders of Bradby correspondence are an unusually rich source on Black Detroit history. They reflect his efforts to tend to the social and economic needs of his congregation through securing jobs (often at Ford) and housing for deserving church members. The more extensive Banks correspondence reflects a deep and abiding concern for the physical (as well as the spiritual) needs of his Second Baptist flock. Unfortunately these revealing runs of correspondence are incomplete: there are years missing for Bradby, Banks' correspondence for many years consists only of copies of his responses, and the pastoral correspondence of Epps and Turman is painfully thin.