Four Corners: African Americans and 'white man's welfare', 1968

GIRL:

# On a higher plane

CHILDREN:

# On a higher plane

GIRL # That I have found 00:00:05:21

# That I have found

GIRL:

# Whoa, no… #

REPORTER:

Throughout America, there are hundreds of these shopfront churches. All of them teach a very basic hellfire type of Christianity. They have congregations of 30-to-40 who are mostly attracted by the pastor. The more puritanical the pastor, the more successful his church. The pastors, male or female, are mostly self-taught.

PASTOR:

Oh, there's someone new. Sharon, new people have to tell each other to obey God.

WOMAN:

Who's she talking to?

PASTOR:

I'm talking to Sharon. Who's Sharon?

REPORTER:

For many of the less educated these churches are an escape route to the world that is perfect and good. Many educated black people I talked with are turning away from any form of Christianity. They see it as the religious thrust upon their slave ancestors and they want no part of it. There's an increasing tendency to reject almost everything white. They take joy in being black and African. But this attitude has yet to reach down to the grass roots of black society.

PASTOR:

..of our sin.

CHILDREN:

# Oh, my Lord It's in his hands # Oh, it's in his hands # Talk about that Oh, my Lord # Goodness, oh Goodness, oh # Goodness, oh my Lord. #

REPORTER:

This is Mrs Kitty Furnell who lives opposite the little church. She has three children and is a deserted wife. For the last four years she's lived off the City of New York's Department of Social Services. In the United States, there's no uniform social relief and the amount a person receives depends on where they live. In the south it's very bad. In the north, quite a bit better, provided you're destitute. Miss Furnell gets $280 a month, pays $140 a month for her apartment and must be feed the 4 of them on about $30 a week. No mean feat in America. But she says she doesn't smoke, drink or gamble. Her one outing is across the road on Sunday. She says she manages quite well. Again, many militant black Americans are openly hostile to this form of welfare. They claim the white community are happy to keep the black on welfare. It breaks his spirit and will to compete with the white man. They point out that in Harlem it's easier to buy narcotic drugs than anywhere else in New York. Anyone can open a bar in Harlem, they say, but claim it's almost impossible to do so elsewhere. The white man doesn't give a damn about law and order in the black ghetto. 'Keep us on drugs, keep us drunk or on the welfare' — that, say the militants, is what the white man wants.