In The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du Bois, what is the significance of the role of the church in the Black Belt?

In his famous work The Souls of Black
Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois writes extensively (especially in Chapter 7) about the
so-called “Black Belt” and about the importance of churches in that region of the
South.

Among other things, Du Bois says the following
concerning churches in the Black Belt:

• The
  church was often both literally and figuratively central to the community, as Du Bois
  suggests when he says of one church,

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it is the centre of a hundred cabin homes; and
sometimes, of a Sunday, five hundred persons from far and near gather here and talk and
eat and sing.

• As
  the preceding quotation implies, the church was important not only religiously but also
  in promoting a sense of communal fellowship, or shared
  belonging.


• In the Black Belt, the church was also often a
  center of education. As Du Bois puts it, “usually the school is held in the
  church.”


• Churches could vary in size from the very small
  to the fairly large, but always they were important parts of the
  community.


• Later in the book, Du Bois suggests that the
  kind of religious services practiced in rural black churches (presumably including those
  in the Black Belt) was often intense and enthusiastic. Music and the preacher (he says)
  played very important parts in such services.


• The
  preacher, Du Bois notes, was often an extremely significant member of the community – a
  highly influential leader:

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The Preacher is the most unique personality
developed by the Negro on American soil: a leader, a politician, an orator, a "boss,” an
intriguer," an idealist, — all these he is, and ever, too, the centre of a group of men,
now twenty, now a thousand in number. The combination of a certain adroitness with
deep-seated earnestness, of tact with consummate ability, gave him his preeminence, and
helps him maintain
it.

• In addition,
  Du Bois contends that the

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Music of Negro religion is that plaintive
rhythmic melody, with its touching minor cadences, which, despite caricature and
defilement, still remains the most original and beautiful expression of human life and
longing yet born on American
soil.

Thus the church in the
Black Belt and in other rural areas of the African-American South helped foster
community, education, leadership, and artistic achievement.