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| James D. Corrothers, around 1910 |
In 1898 . . . “a sunburst fell upon my being.”
James D.
Corrothers later recalled the moment when he decided to enter the ministry of
the AME Church. Upon learning his first assignment would be in New York, however,
he and his wife agreed they would rather return to Michigan.
Turning back the clock,
Corrothers found work unloading barrels of salt and flour from freight barges.
The wet salt made the skin on his hands crack open and bleed. He switched to
work on a fruit farm.
Eventually
James came around to the idea of taking the offer in New York. He dropped his
wife and sons with her family near Baltimore and hustled to the upstate town of
Bath, where he received news that his wife and younger son had died.
Corrothers had no time to
grieve. He brought his older son to Bath and worked for a pittance,
supplementing his income by publishing Negro dialect verse in The Century, Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Sunday Herald, and other papers.
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| Occasionally, Corrothers contributed to The Crisis, newspaper of the NAACP. His poem, "A Song of May and June," appeared in the June 1914 issue. |
Moving on, he earned success
and a good living as a pastor in the New Jersey towns of Red Bank and
Hackensack, and prepared to answer the call of another congregation. But then:
The
black tragedy of my life fell upon me; and I staggered and groaned, like a
bludgeoned traveler in the dark. I was a stranger and nearly penniless. I had
sacrificed all to do good, when, suddenly, I was accused of plotting to
ruin my bishop’s good name – a thing of which I was as innocent as Heaven
itself!
The bishop brought a lawsuit
against Corrothers, who was acquitted. It didn’t matter. He faced the wrath of
the influential leaders of the AME church. James never recovered from their
viciousness. He became an outcast immediately; no home, no congregation. He
could not get another job and writing opportunities dried up. Thankfully,
friends took in his son.
Shall
I tell of days of hunger, and wandering; of nights spent under the open, wintry
sky? Shall I tell of rebuffs and buffetings; of “friends” who forgot or who
“passed by on the other side”?
Many years later, Corrothers
reflected on the Black church’s domination of African-American society and
culture.
No
other Negro institution is so powerful; so influential. All Negro life in
American centres about the church. Coloured professional and business men, as a
class, find it wise and profitable to remain in the good graces of the church.
Even successful race leaders, like Dunbar, Frederick Douglass and Booker T.
Washington, have not disdained a hearing through the Negro church.
Sabotaged at every turn, Corrothers
gave up on being a minister ever again. He returned to New York where he found
a job in Brooklyn as a janitor’s assistant, working from 5am until midnight. He
loved the toil, he later wrote, and relished being able to send small gifts to
his son.
Then one day it came to him
that he should leave AME and join the Baptist Church, which welcomed him warmly.
Eventually,
Corrothers remarried; with his second wife, Rosina, he had another son. He moved
his family back to South Haven, Michigan, and built a brick church with his own
hands. As the area developed as a resort for whites, however, Blacks felt
unwelcome and left the area; so did he.
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| View of the Black River, South Haven, Michigan; Corrothers had a lifelong affinity with the area where he spent time as a child and started a congregation around 1910. |
Landing next in Lexington, Virginia, he renounced the Baptists for the Presbyterian Church over “a matter of conscience.”
In 1916, James Corrothers was ensconced as pastor of a church in Westchester, Pennsylvania. He died one year later.
While Corrothers figures in African-American history, his story does not resemble those of his peers who traveled a neat trajectory toward success. He moved often between triumph and despair, which may have reflected his own personality (at least in part).
The hideous treatment of Corrothers by the elders of the AME Church is shocking, but so was Corrothers' candid denouncement of its abuse of power. While he never achieved the renown of Booker T. Washington, his clear-eyed perspective on race in America sets him apart even today.
*This post is
the last of three about James D. Corrothers; see August 17 + 24.
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