The history of how blacks came to America is generally not found in city hall documents, but in the old Black churches and in the hearts and minds of elderly blacks who attended those churches. Through oral history and participant observation, this book attempts to unfold the story of what really occurred in the development of northeastern American towns and cities through the events that took place in Plainfield, New Jersey. This town was chosen for the study because of its large African-American population (65-70%), and the concentration of churches which were established around 1900.

"An interesting case study that chronicles the development of an African-American community through its churches in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries." - Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture