Among the four ministers that were brought to revitalize San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Methodist Church, the last one was Cecil Williams, a black minister. Cecil was selected for his skin color. This was in the early days when civil rights laws were being passed. Cecil was brought in to handle the need for the church to have a functioning congregation. Cecil was very successful in attracting a young, hip congregation with live contemporary music and socialist sermons.
To me the relevant impact of Cecil Williams was his impact on the Methodist Church.
Until the early 1970's ministers in the Methodist Church served in a local church for roughly 3 years and then were assigned to a new church by their Annual Conference bishop.
This was a well-established tradition in the Methodist church from its founding. The idea of ministers able to move at three year intervals was based on the idea of simple living ministers. They could move and not become too attached to a local congregation and not too wealthy as a result of their fundraising skills.
Cecil created a large, several thousand member, congregation with a national reputation. As a consequence it became impossible for the bishop of the Northern California Annual Conference to send Cecil off to some local congregation outside of San Francisco. (Bishops Tippett and Cliff Crummy)
Because Cecil was black it was difficult to apply this rotating minister rule to him without coping with racist claims.
While Wikipedia mentions nothing about this, the Methodist Church was forced to drop one of its core important religious principles. The Methodist appreciation of simple living was demonstrated by the rotation of the ministers on a continual basis. This disappeared. Methodism was a mainstream church with increasingly Leftist political values.
This fear of being considered 'racist' for anyone dealing with blacks even in a normal way, was first evident to me in the late 60s. It continues to this day. We have twice elected a black president who had little qualifying experience for the job and was a prolific liar in his first four years in office. But American Lefties don't want to be considered 'racist'.