The Mississippi Delta's Religious Heritage

December is the month in which The DSU Year of Delta Heritage focuses its attention on the rich religious heritage of the Mississippi Delta.  Probably the second question strangers to the Delta are asked (after “Where you from?”) is “What is your church family?”  The Delta is a church oriented place and church families play important roles in people’s lives.  While there is no question about this, David Cohn, one of Greenville’s greatest journalists, did feel that he had to qualify the situation somewhat when he wrote: “This is a church-going and whisky-drinking society.”

Churches range in size and grandeur, from imposing brick edifices to single-room white frame structures that are little more than shotgun houses.  Some have impressive stained glass, others have simple clear windows.  Some are storefronts.  All are beautiful in their own right, and all have attracted the attention of photographers and painters, as have Delta cemeteries, with grave markers that range from the imposing to the hand-made. Delta baptisms are known around the world through the works of photographers and painters.

Churches (and cemeteries) are probably the most segregated places in the Delta, with very few exceptions.  Again the situation may need qualification.  Visitors of any ethnicity are likely to find welcome in any church, but membership still divides the Delta’s churches by race.

The Delta is overwhelmingly Protestant, with considerable diversity among congregations and sects.  Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian Churches are commonly represented in Delta towns, but so are various evangelical beliefs, ranging from Primitive Baptist through Church of the End Times.  Much has been written about social competition between, and disagreements among, sects over everything from acceptance of drinking to the use of packaged cake mixes and the acceptance of gay marriage or priests, but there is no question that all these groups are devout.  Catholic Churches are more common than elsewhere in the south, a reflection of the many Italian, Lebanese and Syrian immigrants who came as farm laborers.  Most Delta towns had thriving Jewish communities since most dry-goods stores were once Jewish owned, and many towns had attractive Temples although some have closed as the population has dwindled.  Most Christian Deltans view the Temples as just another form of “church”, and the discrimination that Catholics and Jews experienced elsewhere in the US is not part of the Delta’s heritage.  Some Delta towns had Chinese Baptist or Presbyterian churches in the past, taking advantage of retired missionaries who returned home with Chinese language skills, and some of these churches included schools for Chinese students, but out-migration has caused both schools and churches to close.

The older churches in the Black community include the Missionary Baptists (MB) and African Methodist Episcopalians (AME) who trace their origin back to 1788 when they were founded by Freedmen.  The Delta also played a critical role in the origin of a derivative of the black Baptist church.  Charles Harrison Mason, after meeting on courthouse steps in Jackson and in private homes, established the Church of God in Christ in a gin house in Lexington, Mississippi, Holmes County, in 1897.  A small but permanent church was built later that year.  Mason had originally been ordained a Missionary Baptist. After reorganization, the church, now known by the initials COGIC, moved its headquarters to Memphis.  In 1920, the Church of God in Christ (Holiness) officially split off and established headquarters in Jackson.

The Delta has a rich religious heritage, and is a land where faith- in God, in the future, in grace, and in ultimate redemption – unify all people.