With Jim Crow on the rise, Bishop Green of Mississippi suggested a meeting of the “Bishops of the Late Slave States” in preparation for the General Convention. Twelve southern bishops met in Sewanee, Tennessee in 1883 to consider segregation of the Church. The view of the Sewanee Conference bishops is described by Bishop Howe of South Carolina in his convention address of 1873:
I find, myself inclined to think, at least from present observation and reflection, that if our Church is to do any work of moment among this people, it must be done by the Church at large. Let a Missionary Jurisdiction be erected by the General Convention with express reference to these people, and let a Missionary Bishop be consecrated, who shall give his whole time and thought to this work; who, as the executive, not of a single Diocese, but of the entire Church, shall organize congregations, provide them with Church schools and pastors, and in due time raise up from among the colored people themselves, deacons and priests who shall be educated men, and competent to the work of the ministry. It would seem as if the Church, even in lack of precedent, ought to be able to provide for our perplexity.
When General Convention rejected the plan, southern bishops acted on their own by segregating blacks into “colored convocations” within their respective dioceses.
In 1907 the Sewanee Plan for a diocese for blacks was brought back to General Convention, this time by a blacks who chafed under the southern system of colored convocations. They wanted a diocese of black parishes under a black bishop. What convention did instead was to put into motion the creation of the office of suffragan bishop, action that was finalized at the 1910 convention. The understanding was the office was a middle road that would lead to black bishops for blacks — bishops without the powers of a diocesan, but rather answering to a white southern bishop.
The Very Rev. James. S. Russell, the son of slaves, served as the Archdeacon for Colored Work in the Diocese of Southern Virginia. He favored the status quo over either of these alternatives. He expressed his views in The Churchman of October 5, 1907:
A canon almost identical with the present, providing for a missionary episcopate, was presented to the General Convention of 1889. The Committee on Canons reported adversely upon it on the ground that it was antagonistic of the history and the traditional policy of the Church and episcopal jurisdiction in the sense that it created an “imperium in imperio”; that it trenched so closely on Article IV, that its constitutionality was doubtful, and finally it recognized a racial distinction incompatible with the general tenets and policies of the Church.
…
From time immemorial the boast of the Church has been the brotherhood of man, and its disregard of race or color in its ministrations. This is not a mere sentiment, as some claim, but one of the most cherished and time-honored principles of the Church, and one which she has held fast to throughout all the changes of the years. The one bishop administering to the sheep of both flocks is not a mere sentiment or tradition, but a priceless heritage, rendered sacred by the practice and injunction of the years. The bond of union between whites and blacks has been swept away successively until this is the only one left.
…
Talk about being a laughing stock — we would simply be the butt of other denominations. Our bishops under such a system [of suffragans], when compared with bishops of other denominations would appear at a disadvantage. … Our latter condition would be infinitely worse than it is now.
Biographical note: Born into slavery, Archdeacon James Solomon Russell (1857-1935) was founder of the St. Paul Normal and Industrial School (now Saint Paul’s College).
In 1882 Russell was ordained to the diaconate of the Episcopal Church by the bishop of the undivided Diocese of Virginia, the Rt. Rev. F. M. Whittle, who four years previously had opened the way for the Archdeacon’s training. Bishop Whittle appointed him as missionary to Brunswick and Mecklenburg Counties.
He was the first Negro to be appointed to any department of the Board of Missions of the National Council and served eight years (1923-1931) as an additional member of the Department of Christian Social Service of the National Council. He attended eleven consecutive triennial sessions of the General Convention.
James Russell Solomon was named a Local Saint during the 1996 Winter Session of the 104th Annual Council of the Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Southern Virginia. (Abridged from here.)