Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1950, Page 78

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78 Proceedings of the Forty-First Convention,

Church will grow into a substantial Lutheran congregation in the
years to come.

The Mission Committee is aware of several other large con-
centrations of Negroes in several cities of Kansas, particularly in
Wichita and Topeka. There is a possibility that the humble begin~
ning in Kansas City, Kans., may lead to further missionary advance
in this kind of work.

THE OKLAHOMA DISTRICT
By the Rev. Jno. F, Schulz, Secretary of Missions

The State

Oklahoma’s Negro population is judged conservatively to be
in excess of 165,000. Over half of these live in, or in the immediate
reach of, Oklahoma’s three largest cities, Oklahoma City, Tulsa,
and Muskogee. The balance of the Negro population is found either
as a very small segment of the population of Oklahoma’s cities
and towns, or as workers of the soil in rural areas.

As almost everywhere in our country, the trend also among
Oklahoma’s Negroes is towards urbanization. To some extent there
has been an exodus to the North and to the West Coast, but these
past ten years have seen an amazingly rapid growth in colored
population in two cities of our State especially — Oklahoma City
and Tulsa (which by the way along with Shreveport, Dallas, and
Houston were among the nation’s first five cities in growth and
development in 1949).

Oklahoma City

Realizing the tremendous opportunity presented to the Church
by. such an influx of people into their community, and also prompted
by a desire to serve most adequately a few in the Negro com-
munity who were already Lutheran, Zion Congregation in Okla-
homa City undertook to serve the colored community there on
a part-time basis. Negroes in Oklahoma City numbered approxi-
mately 35,000. The pastor of Zion must of necessity occupy much
time in District work, since he holds the post of Secretary of
Missions for the Oklahoma District; and since his congregation is
large, till now the church has in its service a junior pastor also, as
well as a student assistant. Work at Zion Church received priority
rating in attention, and therefore work at the congregation’s mission
is admittedly not as thorough as the field deserves, nor as the con-
gregation or pastors would like to make it. Nonetheless, a frontier
post in this community has been established, and services are
being conducted each Sunday morning in the Seventh Day Ad-
ventist Church. If nothing else, the nucleus of Lutherans is being
retained and strengthened, and the church is making — even though
slightly — its imprint upon the community and its thinking.

Tulsa Opportunities

The situation in Tulsa is unique. Not only has the population
in a few short years leaped from some 18,000 Negroes to a figure
well in excess of 26,000, but even now, because of an expansion
of Tulsa’s industrial area into that section where the greater per-
centage of the colored of Tulsa is concentrated, there has already

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