ABSTRACT
Although the church continued to perform the roles and functions that it had provided in Birmingham before World War I, African Americans created some new religious responses to the economic depression and continued racial hostility after the war. The depression and continued migration of African Americans to Birmingham contributed to the emergence of a radical organization, the American Communist Party. One of the most effective African American Communists in Birmingham was Hosea Hudson. By World War II Gospel music in most Baptist churches was well on its way to becoming the most popular of all the music in those churches. Several factors accounted for the emergence of quartet singing in the Birmingham area. One was stimulation from African American education. A second factor in the emergence of quartet singing was the migration from the rural to the urban areas. A third factor that encouraged the emergence of quartet singing in Birmingham was innovation.
