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The Black Churches of Brooklyn. By Clarence Taylor. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. xxii, 297 pp. Cloth, $27.50, ISBN 0-23109980-0. Paper, $16.50, ISBN 0-231-09981-9.)
Clarence Taylor notes that scholars have paid more attention to black churches in the South than to those in the North and that studies of New York City's black churches have neglected Brooklyn in favor of Harlem. His goal in The Black Churches of Brooklyn is "not only to provide a deeper understanding of Brooklyn's black churches but to give a better understanding of the people and community these institutions sought to serve." Taylor does an excellent job of describing the formation of black Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, and Presbyterian congregations (he excludes Catholic churches because African Americans did not control them), explaining...