The Negro's Church

{{Short description|African American history book}}

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The Negro’s Church (New York: Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1933) is a book by Joseph Nicholson and Benjamin Mays. It highlights the origins of African-American religion and how it became a way to cope under racist oppression. It said the songs, hymns, and dances of that culture were a way to "endure suffering and survive as it helped blacks get through heartache with the music of the soil and the soul".{{cite book | title=The Negro's Church | publisher=Arno Press, Inc. | author=Mays, Benjamin E. and Joseph W. Nicholson | authorlink=Benjamin Mays | year=1969 | location=New York | isbn=978-1498234290}}

In Chapter VI (titled "The Message of the Minister") the authors performed a systematic study of 100 sermons in order to evaluate the "teaching quality" by the minister in each Negro church. They separated the sermons into "three classes: those that touch on life situations, sermons that are doctrinal or theological, and those that are predominantly other-worldly". They then critiqued each of the 100 sermons and worked to further classify them.{{cite journal |title = The Negro's Church. by B. E. Mays, J. W. Nicholson |author = Pratt, Butler D.|journal = The Journal of Negro Education |volume=2|year = 1933|issue = 4 |pages = 502–505|doi=10.2307/2292062 |jstor=2292062}}