The Sermon that Shook a Seattle Congregation
A Seattle minister caused a sensation by preaching that biblical figures were of the Black race, citing historical and lineage arguments to his congregation.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
SEATTLE, Dec. 26.—J. M. Webb, pastor of the Church of God, sprung a sensation on his colored congregation yesterday when he announced from the pulpit that Jesus Christ was a direct descendant of the colored race and that the blood of the colored man flowed through the veins of the Savior. Solomon and Moses, according to the colored pastor, were also of the same race as himself. Elder Webb argued that Jacob's sons both had Canaanite wives and that the Canaanites and Egyptians were direct descendants of Ham, the father of the black race. In his sermon, he traced the lineage of the family of the Savior, and succeeded in convincing his congregation at least of the point of his argument.
“Jesus Christ was a direct descendant of the colored race and that the blood of the colored man flowed through the veins of the Savior.”
This 1903 account captures a moment of theological reclamation that prefigures later 20th-century movements like Black Theology and Afrocentric historiography. While the reporting adopts the era's clinical tone regarding 'sensations,' it documents an active intellectual and spiritual assertion of identity within Seattle's early 20th-century Black community.
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