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After years of being involved in community and civil rights, Archibald J. Carey Jr. was drawn into the political arena as a candidate for public office, as a party operative, and as a federal appointee while maintaining his ministry and serving in several denominational roles. He believed that all of these activities were intrinsic parts of a public theology designed to lift African Americans and reform their religious institutions. Several pastors agreed that Carey’s blend of ministry and politics had made him ready for the episcopacy of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1949, Carey became president of the Connectional Council, a church-wide clergy/lay organization that served as a forum for developing initiatives intended to achieve denominational reform. But hostile colleagues in the Chicago Annual Conference questioned his loyalty to the AME Church. In 1947, Carey was elected to the Chicago City Council. His most important legislative effort focused on the elimination of racial discrimination in Chicago housing. Carey was reelected four years later.

The rough-and-tumble of Chicago politics did not deter Archibald J. Carey Jr., who maintained his strong commitment to public theology and his belief in the Republican Party as an effective vehicle for advancing the civil rights of African Americans. He remained steadfast in his conviction that clergy should be involved in electoral politics to push policies and initiatives that would benefit the disadvantaged. To achieve this objective, Carey forged a close alliance with Illinois senator Everett M. Dirksen and became an enthusiastic supporter of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns. He was rewarded with political favors and appointments that satisfied his political aspirations and helped him advance black civil rights. Under the Eisenhower administration, Carey served on various United Nations committees and as a spokesman for American foreign policy. However, he would later defect to the Democratic Party.

Archibald J. Carey Sr. groomed his son, Archibald J. Carey Jr., as his successor in religious and political leadership. He licensed his son to preach at Institutional Church in 1928 and ordained him as an itinerant deacon at the Chicago Annual Conference the following year. Both Careys saw the African Methodist Episcopal Church as a means to exert their influence on local politics and believed that loyalty to the Republican Party best served the interests of African Americans. This chapter examines how Archibald J. Carey Jr. wove politics into his ministry to create a seamless persona as a clergyman concerned with every aspect of the African American condition. It looks at Carey’s civil rights struggle and his development of extensive Social Gospel ministries at Woodlawn, along with his belief that clergy had a large role in the public square. The chapter also discusses Carey’s support for the NAACP’s patient and painstaking efforts to challenge Jim Crow in the courts, and his role as one of the founding fathers of the interracial civil rights organization, the Committee on Racial Equality (later renamed the Congress of Racial Equality).

This chapter focuses on the ministry of Archibald J. Carey Sr. in Chicago, where he arrived in 1898 familiar with politics and power players in both church and state. It looks at Carey’s leadership and influence among African Americans in the city, as well as his rivalry with a rising class of professional black politicians, rival ministers, female leaders, and others. The chapter also examines Carey’s public theology and how he blended it with Social Gospel, self-help, and civil rights agitation. Furthermore, it considers Carey’s rise as one of Chicago’s best-known pastors, how he was drawn into city politics, and how the Quinn Chapel, Bethel, and Institutional Churches all grew substantially under his stewardship.

Starting in the 1930s and 1940s, A. Philip Randolph won the support of a small but significant cadre of African American religious intellectuals, including Howard Thurman, Sue Bailey Thurman, Mordecai W. Johnson, William Stuart Nelson, Blanche Wright Nelson, Benjamin E. Mays, and George D. Kelsey. Archibald J. Carey Jr. and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. joined Randolph’s March on Washington Movement and became key figures of the grassroots mobilization tactics used by a younger group of ministers to advance black civil rights. Carey also endorsed the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He served as the Chicago NAACP’s third vice president in 1948 and relied on public theology to influence other ministers in his denomination. Carey was reelected as a Cook County judge in 1970 and 1976. He died at home on April 20, 1981, at the age of seventy-three.

This chapter examines the careers of Archibald J. Carey Sr. and his son Archibald J. Carey Jr., and how the two men mixed ministry and politics in their family’s native state of Georgia. It looks at the Careys’ roles as aggressive ministers in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and how the Church became a major institutional presence in Georgia. The chapter also discusses the influence of clergy/politicians in Georgia and in the South on the Careys, the Careys’ steady rise in the ministry, the elder Carey’s extensive involvement with other AME clergy and churches, and his son’s continuation of the family legacy of public theology by pursuing politics and civil rights activism.

This chapter examines how Archibald J. Carey Sr. inserted party politics into church affairs. It looks at how his election to the episcopacy of the African Methodist Episcopal Church allowed him to use public theology to benefit African Americans, his influence on the pastors and parishes in his districts and his alliances with white politicians, his dispute with fellow bishop Reverdy C. Ransom, and his uneasy balance of civic and church affairs. The chapter also considers Carey’s denominational assignments in the South and in the West, his relationship with William Hale Thompson, his promotion of women’s roles in certain areas of the church, his endorsement of the AME Church’s Five Million Dollar and Evangelical Campaign, and his clout in Chicago’s local church and public affairs.

Bishop Archibald J. Carey Sr. (1868–1931) was an “evangelical preacher” who believed in politics as a means for clergy to advance the social and economic interests of their congregations and communities. His son, Archibald J. Carey Jr. (1908–1981), showed the same commitment to ministry and politics. Both Careys, who were ministers to Chicago’s largest African Methodist Episcopal Church congregations, also used the Social Gospel to enhance their public ministry. This book examines how the Careys’ dual pursuits in ministry and politics mattered to the well-being of their congregational and community constituencies. It also looks at the crucial role of black preachers and black congregations in the struggle for civil rights, and their influence on public policy. The book explores how black clergy from Richard Allen and Absalom Jones to Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton, among others, pushed their religiously based activism to the forefront of the black freedom struggle, condemning slavery and segregation while arguing for the humanity of African Americans on both biblical and constitutional grounds.

Archibald J. Carey Sr. and his son Archibald J. Carey Jr. left a legacy of ministerial activism that empowered African Americans by fighting for their civil rights. By blending ministry and politics, the two men demonstrated their desire to benefit blacks. They negotiated the compromises embedded in getting to and staying in public office, and avoided becoming apologists for allies in both party and government. The Careys broke with the Republican Party when it failed to support African American aspirations and allied themselves with Democrats who were willing to support black equality. They mobilized their congregants to support Social Gospel initiatives, but their quest for personal and community benefits made them tolerate political parties or leaders who disrespected African Americans or denigrated the importance of civil rights. The Careys’ alliances with controversial political personalities suggest that both father and son were more interested in gaining political favors than protecting their moral legitimacy.