User:Daask/sandbox/George Frazier Miller

George Frazier Miller (November 28, 1864 – May 9, 1943) was an African-American Christian preacher, socialist, and civil rights activist. He was a leader of African-American Christian socialism as well as the black social gospel movement. Miller was pastor of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, New York from 1896 until his death in 1943.

Miller was one of the 29 founders of the Niagara Movement in 1905.

Miller was involved in the Conference of Church Workers among Colored People, and served as the organization's president in 1902.

Early life
"born in South Carolina and educated at Howard University and New York University. Miller was ordained on May 24, 1891. and appointed as rector of St. Augustine's Church in Brooklyn in 1896. St. Augustine's was the oldest and largest congregation in the diocese of Long Island.

Activism
Under Miller's leadership, St. Augustine's became a center for black activism.

"Early in the twentieth century, he was elected president of the National Equal Rights League, an organization dedicated to combating disfranchisement, segregation, and every other aspect of second-class citizenship for black Americans."

In August 1917, Miller was part of a delegation of prominent African Americans who went to the White House to present a petition to President Woodrow Wilson, urging him to support legislation making lynching a federal crime. The delegation included Fred Moore of the New York Age, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, realtor John Nail, cosmetics mogul Madame C. J. Walker, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. They were denied an audience.

Miller ran for congress on the Socialist Party ticket in 1918, and won 25 per cent of the vote in Harlem. He was one of many African-American socialists from Harlem who ran for political office 1918 to 1920, along with A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, George Frazier Miller, Grace B. Campbell, Frank Poree, and W. B. Williams His campaign was endorsed by the periodical Negro World and by Cyril Valentine Briggs of the Crusader

Miller was part of a delegation to President Coolidge which asked that he ban segregation of colored employees in federal agencies. The delegation was organized by the National Equal Rights League.

Views on World War I and patriotism
During 1917-1918 during WWI, Miller took down the American flag outside his church in protest against the war, which he regarded as immoral. Miller claimed that WWI had little to do with democracy, but was instead was about bolstering Wall Street and foreign loan programs.

Miller said that because of segregation, the American flag had no special significance or meaning for him, but was merely a piece of fabric.

Views on violence
"R. W. Bagnall, George Frazier Miller, and Byron Gunner have actually preached the use of force and encouraged resistance to the mobs to the extent that some Negroes have probably addressed themselves vindictively to the task of retribution."

Character
Miller was known for his fearlessness as well as "his strength of conviction as well as his eloquence and charm".

Miller was a highly cultured yet socially conscious Protestant Episcopal minister http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/145.html

"Miller had a reputation for being a radical, someone willing to stand up to the white power structure."

Influence
He was a leader of African-American Christian socialism along with Afro-American clerics such as George Washington Woodbey and Reverdy C. Ransom. Miller was a key figure in the development of the black social gospel movement, along with Baptist ministers James R. L. Diggs, Peter James Bryant, and William Jefferson White, Congregational minister Byron Gunner, and Episcopal rector Robert W. Bagnall.

Miller influenced other black leaders such as Richard B. Moore and Bertram Baker

Works

 * Socialism and its colored basis. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/gdc/scd0001/2007/20070525002so/20070525002so.pdf
 * Rev. George Frazier Miller, The Sacredness of Humanity: Annual Sermon of the Conference of Church Workers (Episcopal) among Colored People at St. Philip's Church, New York, October 6-9, 1914 (Brooklyn: Frank R. Chisholm, 1914).
 * National Lincoln-Douglass call and invitation
 * Search WorldCat for more works
 * National Lincoln-Douglass call and invitation
 * Search WorldCat for more works
 * Search WorldCat for more works
 * Search WorldCat for more works
 * Search WorldCat for more works