ABSTRACT
After the Civil War, artists were compelled to construct new images of the black man and his culture that would conform with his changed position in the American social and political world. The oldest black denominations, particularly the African Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches, saw membership increase enormously in their congregations, which had been established in the early nineteenth century, and they witnessed the founding of new congregations across the nation. Congregations encouraged the eccentricity of their pastors by accepting it with great enthusiasm—the mannerisms, peculiar use of the English language, and occasional unintelligibility. Black sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois was one of many observers who tried to describe this phenomenon for their readers. Another theme popular among postbellum artists was the watch meeting service of black Christians. Camp-meeting themes appealed not only to those artists in search of the sensational but also to those curious about the mystery associated with religious practices of the ex-slaves.
