Study of Black Churches Finds Little Activism

WASHINGTON —  Black churches’ political activism is spotty and focused more on voter registration and getting people to the polls than on shaping public policy, says a scholar who has spent three years studying the churches.

The Rev. R. Drew Smith of Morehouse College in Atlanta, a political scientist and Baptist minister, said two-thirds of the 1,893 pastors he interviewed said their churches ran voter registration drives and half said voters would be given rides to the polls on election day. But less than a fourth reported that their congregations were directly involved in advocacy on most public policy issues. The exceptions were public education, in which 40% of churches were involved, and civil rights, with 29%.