Black middle-class suburbanization emptied inner-city churches of their civic function

Evidence

The shift in location affected the social function of black churches in poor neighborhoods. What happens to the church as a hub of communal life (from food banks to job training to places for local neighborhood meetings) when most of the people who attend the church don’t live in the neighborhood or the church has relocated to some sprawling campus like a religious version of Walmart or Home Depot? In effect, communities left behind lose a vital institutional space that connects with their everyday lives. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 385

We have witnessed over the past few decades the disappearance of the neighborhood church in cities around the country, driven largely by the rapid suburbanization of the black middle class. As churches embraced growth plans that involved following these congregants to the suburbs, they left poor communities behind. And if the church stayed in the city, its members more than likely drove in from the surrounding suburbs. They no longer lived in the neighborhood. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 384

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader institutional decline argument and to social-capital theory about institutions as buffers. — connects to: Catholic bishops shifted resources to white suburban parishes while abandoning black inner-city churches — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 197; Black churches historically functioned as multipurpose civic institutions — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 798; Racial turnover destroyed area churches and forced costly congregation relocations — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 208
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 385; Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 384