African American Religious Cultures (2 Vol. Set)

African American Religious Cultures

Selected titles in ABC-CLIO’s American Religious Cultures series African American Religious Cultures Anthony B. Pinn, Editor Asian American Religious Cultures Fumitaka Matsuoka and Jane Naomi Iwamura, Editors Hispanic American Religious Cultures Miguel A. De La Torre, Editor

African American Religious Cultures

Anthony B. Pinn General Editor

Stephen C. Finley Associate Editor

Torin Alexander Paul Easterling Derek S. Hicks Margarita Simon Guillory Assistant Editors

Copyright 2009 by ABC CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data African American religious cultures / Anthony B. Pinn, general editor ; Stephen C. Finley, associate editor ; Torin Alexander, assistant editors . . . [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978 1 57607 470 1 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978 1 57607 512 8 (ebook) 1. Blacks America Religion Encyclopedias. I. Pinn, Anthony B. II. Finley, Stephen C. III. Alexander, Torin. BL2500.A37 2009 200.89´9607 dc22 2009013494 13 12 11 10 9

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc clio.com for details. ABC CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116 1911 This book is printed on acid free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Dedicated to the Ancestors who gave birth to these traditions.

Contents

Acknowledgments xi Introduction: The Forging of African American Religious Cultures xiii

PART 1 ENTRIES 1 Apostolic Faith Mission Church of God 88 Baha´’ı´ Faith 91 Batuque 104 The Big Drum Ritual 107 Black Hebrew Israelite Tradition 111 Buddhism 115 Candomble´ 125 Catimbo´ 135 Christian Methodist Episcopal Church 136 Church of Christ Holiness USA 144 Church of God (Cleveland) 148 Church of God and Saints of Christ 152 Church of God in Christ 157 Church of the Living God, Pillar of Truth for All Nations 166 Commandment Keepers of Harlem 169 Conjure 174

African American Mysticism 3 African Americans and the Luthean Church 7 African Americans and Relgious Humanism 12 African Americans and Sec u lar Humanism 20 African Americans in the Episcopal Church 25 African Americans in the Presbyterian Church 38 African Americans in the Roman Catholic Church 48 African Methodist Episcopal Church 58 African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church 66 African Orthodox Church 73 American Muslim Mission 77

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Contents Convince (Jamaica) 178 Espiritismo 181 Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas 185 Gaga 191 Garı´funa Religion 193 Hoodoo 197 Jehovah’s Witnesses 201 Kumina 207 Macumba 211 Maroons 214 Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Inc. 218 Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc. 222 Moravian Church 226 Mormon Church 232 Nation of Islam 239 National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. 252

National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. 255 New Age Movement 265 New Thought Religions and the African American Experience 273 Obeah 283 The Orisha Religion in Trinidad 285 Oyotunji African Village 290 Palo Monte 303 Peace Mission Movement 308 Peoples Temple 314 Pocomania 322 Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. 330 Rada 339 Rastafari 341

Santerı´a 351 Santerismo 361 Seventh-day Adventists 363 Shrine of the Black Madonna 367 Spiritual Baptists 375 Spiritualism 380 Tambor de Mina 387 Umbanda 391 Unitarian Universalist Association 396

United Church of Christ 401 United House of Prayer for All People 405 United Methodist Church 412 Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church 421 Voodoo 427 Wicca 441 Xangoˆ 445

PART 2 ESSAYS 449 African American Literature and Religion 451 The African American Megachurch Phenomenon 463 African American Preaching and Sermonic Traditions 477 African American Religion and the Environment 491

African American Religion and Gender 499 African American Religion, Healing, and Health 509 African American Religion and Politics 517 African American Religion and Popular Culture 533

Contents African American Religion in the Urban Context 549 African American Religious Thought 561 Education and African American Religion 575

Psychology of African American Religious Behavior 593 Worship in the African American Church Tradition 607

Chronology of People and Events 615 Appendix: Primary Documents 637 An African-American Humanist Declaration 638 The Black Manifesto 642 Explaining the Peace Mission 650 Appendix: Related Topics 655 African Ritual Music in Cuba 655 Afro-Brazilian Musical Culture 660 Burial in the African Diaspora— African Burial Ground 664 Burial in the African Diaspora— Burial, African Practices in the Americas 666 Music of the Caribbean 669 Slavery, Plantations, and Afro-Caribbean Culture 673 Spirit Possession 676 About the Editors and Contributors 683 Index 689

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Acknowledgments

This encyclopedia appears almost ten years after it was first proposed. And, without the support and assistance of a good number of people, it would still be no more than a few email exchanges and computer files. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who made this project possible. At ABC-CLIO, Steven Danver made contact with me after the project seemed to have slipped through the cracks and encouraged me to continue work on this project. Lynn Jurgensen and Kim Kennedy-White have been a delight to work with; their good humor, patience, and sharp insights have been of tremendous help. Thank you. I also appreciate the hard work done by Kathy Breit, who copyedited the manuscript. I would also like to thank my students—Stephen C. Finley, Torin Alexander, Derek S. Hicks, Paul Easterling, and Margarita Simon Guillory—who served as editors on the project. Their careful attention to tasks assigned made it possible for me to split my time between this project and other responsibilities. I hope participation in this project proved to be a useful and informative experience for them. The editors would like to thank the many contributors to this project for their essays; this includes authors from other ABC-CLIO encyclopedias who met the use of their materials in this current project with support and encouragement. Finally the editors thank their colleagues, families, and friends for their patience and the numerous ways in which they provided assistance. The appendix includes three pieces for which permission was required. The editors acknowledge with gratitude permission to include the following: Mother Divine and the Trustee Board of the Peace Mission Movement authorized the reprinting of The Peace Mission Movement as Explained by Mrs. M. J. Divine (Philadelphia: Imperial Press, Inc./Palace Mission, Inc., 1982), 44–46; 99–102.

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Norm Allen and the Council for Secular Humanism (African Americans for Humanism) authorized the preprinting of ‘‘An African American Humanist Declaration.’’ Published in Free Inquiry, Volume 10, Issue 2 (Spring 1990): 13–15. Orbis Books granted permission to reprint ‘‘The Black Manifesto,’’ James H. Cone and Gayraud S. Wilmore, editors. Black Theology: A Documentary History, Vol. 1 (1993), pp. 27–36. I would also like to acknowledge with gratitude ABC-CLIO’s authorization of my use of materials from African American Religious Experience in America, a book I published with Greenwood Press in 2005. The licensing agreement between Greenwood Press and ABC-CLIO made possible the inclusion in this encyclopedia of many of the sidebars and material for the following entries: ‘‘Buddhism,’’ ‘‘Roman Catholicism,’’ ‘‘Church of the Living God,’’ ‘‘Church of God and Saints of Christ,’’ ‘‘Unitarian Universalist Association,’’ ‘‘Religious Humanism,’’ and ‘‘Lutheran Church.’’ Thanks to all who live these traditions, and to those who have helped us—in our modest way—share the importance and vitality of these traditions.

Introduction: The Forging of African American Religious Cultures

The Americas The term ‘‘America’’ at times has been used as a reference by citizens of the United States to describe their culture and geography. This rather narrow use of the term was challenged during the first few decades of the twentieth century in light of the history of this area of the world that helped shape the United States and its borders and that also involves a plurality of countries and worldviews (Levander and Levine 2008). The use of ‘‘America’’ to name a particular nation was challenged, and in its place, the ‘‘Americas’’ became a way to describe a particular hemisphere composed of numerous countries with interrelated histories and cultures. There were in fact, as historians have demonstrated, overlapping moments of contact, conquest, and development that bind the various areas of the Western Hemisphere together and that allow for synergy on a variety of levels, including the political, economic, and cultural. For example, the interests of Spain and France in the so-called ‘‘New World’’ involved more than one geographic location—spreading across various islands, North America, and South America. As a result, these areas represent something of a historical and cultural whole in that they share influences and experiences (Thomas 1997; Palmie´ 1995; Klein and Vinson 2007). The individual nations that currently comprise this hemisphere are formed and influenced not only from within their particular geography but also by other peoples and nations beyond their borders. They involve similarities of experience but also differences. The histories of various areas of this hemisphere converge and inform each other, but are not identical, resulting in a shared reality that extends beyond the story of any one country. This shared reality that constitutes the overlapping stories of life in the American hemisphere share a fundamental reality that also shapes this encyclopedia —the presence of people of African descent and the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

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It would be a significant mistake to assume what we refer to as the Americas was an unclaimed area of the world simply awaiting arrival and use by European explorers and economic speculators. No, European exploration did not involve the discovery of new lands, but rather the renaming and use of thriving populations and their homes. The area of the world of concern in this encyclopedia was invented; and this involved the applying of new names, new systems of politics, social life, and so on to existing societies. There were rich and diverse cultures already present. Within this encyclopedia, culture is understood as the beliefs and practices that shape the selfunderstanding, thinking, and activities of a particular group and the signs, symbols, and other ways in which these beliefs and practices are expressed. Yet, as the entries in this encyclopedia will suggest, these cultures are porous, open to influence and change as they are brought in contact with other cultures. While communities across the hemisphere do not necessarily refer to themselves as ‘‘American’’ in part because of the earlier and problematic use of the term, there are ways in which the word ‘‘American’’ serves as a marker of related developments and formations that shape the cultural worlds within this hemisphere. It is in this sense, in this way, that the term is used in the context of this encyclopedia: The term ‘‘American’’ is not used here to designate members of a particular nation. It is not political in that way, and it is not concerned foremost with economic and political realities. Rather, the term is used here as a way to think about overlapping religious realities. It is not uncommon for those of African descent in the Americas to refer to themselves in a way that notes their African heritage and their particular geographic location. Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean serve as two examples. And while noting and respecting this naming, this encyclopedia seeks to present religious culture in a way that sweeps across the hemisphere, recognizing points of religious overlap and difference. This does not rule out more localized approaches to naming such as the two noted above, but it allows for a more comprehensive (yet not definitive) examination of religious cultures of the hemisphere in a way that recognizes particular nations while putting the religions of these individual nations within a larger framework. In so doing, it uses a reference that considers the full range of this geography and the African cultural influence present in the American hemisphere—‘‘African American.’’

Africans in the American Hemisphere: African Americans Martin Bernal (Bernal 1987, 1991) and Cheikh Anta Diop (Diop 1974), among other scholars, have championed research that points out the impact of Africa on world civilization. But this cultural influence was not limited to contact between Africa and Europe. Scholars such as Ivan Van Sertima have argued with great academic force that Africans made contact with the American hemisphere long before the introduction of the slave trade. In fact, for example, he argues African influence on American culture(s) is still evident in the sculptures, inscriptions, and other artifacts associated with particular areas such as Mexico (Van Sertima 1976). The pre-Columbus presence of Africans in the American hemisphere is important in that it speaks to the rich cultural heritage of Africa and it also notes the manner in which the cultural life and practices in the American hemisphere were influenced by an African worldview. Yet, the number of Africans within the American hemisphere becomes significant numerically only with the slave trade.

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One of the most significant markers of the Modern Period, the age of science and exploration, is the development of the so-called ‘‘New World’’ (over against the Old World of Europe)—the Americas—as the major geography for the trade in enslaved Africans and the production of new wealth and new cultures. Numbering in the millions and moved to this location over the course of centuries, the enslavement of Africans from West Africa forged economic growth for Europe through the production of rum, crops, and other items in the Americas and transported elsewhere in the world. Over the course of the slave trade, more than 10 million Africans were brought to the American hemisphere to labor on plantations and to provide other forms of labor necessary to maintain the economic interests of Europe. This trade in Africans was an early example of the global market—a transnational economy—a web-like and interconnected structure that helped fuel the industrial, intellectual, and social advances marking the ‘‘Modern World’’ (Davis 2001). The forced movement of Africans across the Atlantic involved the entire American hemisphere and many European nations. The system of slavery, once begun in the ‘‘New World,’’ was a system based on the full participation of a good number of European countries. ‘‘Ironically,’’ notes historian David Davis, ‘‘the only New World colony that barred the importation of slaves was Georgia, whose founders sought a refuge for England’s deserving poor as well as a secure buffer between South Carolina’s menacing black majority and the hostile Spaniards in Florida, who were accused of inciting slave rebellions and encouraging runaways by offering freedom to those who escaped into Spanish territory. By 1749, however, Georgia’s trustees realized that it was impossible to exclude slaves from the colony and agreed to end their fourteenyear experiment with ‘free soil’ ’’ (Davis 2001, 179).

Justification for Slavery One might ask a question at this point: How could humans enslave other humans, and what would encourage this behavior on such a large scale? The answer most often given to this perplexing question suggests the physical difference between Africans and Europeans, along with their cultural differences, was used to justify the slave trade. Even countries initially reluctant to participate in this trade would come around due to the potential for economic gain. Religion offered a firm way of justifying this activity (Haynes 2002). With time, the Hebrew Bible was brought into the service of slavery when the story of Ham (the son of Noah) and his son Canaan—both assumed to be African—was used as justification for the enslavement of Africans: Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what

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Introduction his youngest son had done to him, he said, ‘‘Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.’’ (Genesis 9:20–25)

If Canaan is cursed to be a slave, some argued, and Africans are the offspring of Ham (and his son Canaan), then Africans are slaves due to divine action. This was not the only rationale offered for slavery, but its link to a sacred text gave it a certain type of authority and appeal. Regardless of the inconsistencies and flaws of the argument, it and others like it (e.g., physical difference marked inferiority) were held tenaciously. And at times, religious justifications would expand to include the pretext of introducing Africans to the Christian faith; but this evangelizing was spotty at best and was typically a thin veil covering economic motivations.

The Practice of Slavery There is evidence in written records of ‘‘Black’’ slaves present in Europe as of the 1300s. And many historians who study the Atlantic Slave Trade give special notice to the 1444 transport of Africans to Portugal by Antam Gonc¸alves and his crew. This did not mark an expanded interest in African servants in that the Portuguese were more interested in gold than in servants. However, limited interest in Africans would change as economic opportunity, particularly through the production of sugar, in the Americas generated need for laborers that could not be met through European indentured servants and the forced labor of indigenous populations. Having developed some familiarity with the capture and use of Africans as servants in Europe, the labor shortage was resolved by systematic introduction of enslaved Africans—a system of forced labor that would last some 350 years, and unmatched by earlier examples of slavery elsewhere in the world (Palmie´ 1995, 44). As many scholars note, Spanish authorities allowed the movement of 50 Black slaves to the island of Hispaniola to assist with sugar production at the start of the sixteenth century. Other islands such as Puerto Rico would also receive an influx of enslaved Africans provided to assist with gold mining. Cuba, for example, established late in the fifteenth century, had few slaves who worked the gold mines and a few other economic ventures such as tobacco (Thomas 2002). It was not until the revolution in Saint Domingue (Haiti) damaged its ability to produce large sugar exports that Cuba was able to develop a significant reputation as a prime location for economic growth. Whereas Saint Domingue lost much of its hold on the sugar industry, Cuba expanded its production of sugar. Labor was necessary for this work, and the import of slaves met this need. In fact, Cuba would become one of the largest importers of slaves in the nineteenth century. Islands such as Barbados, Jamaica, Martinique, and others would receive good numbers of Africans. The Portuguese moved into Brazil as of the 1500s, but gave limited attention to its economic potential until later in that century. This is in part because it had some difficulty determining the best way to exercise its claim to that territory over against the growing interests of Spain and France in Brazil. With time, however, Portugal would begin to develop trade in dyewood, cotton, and sugar. The number of Africans imported to provide necessary labor would increase

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and eventually accounted for almost 40 percent of the total number of Africans brought to the American hemisphere (Klein and Vinson 2007). The North American colonies entailed a smaller market than the Caribbean and Latin America, but this did not mean a lack of slave presence in the North American territories. The British, when they finally entered the slave trade in earnest, would surpass European competitors in the number of slaves transported annually to the Americas (Segal 1995, 12–14, 22). Although there were enslaved Africans in New England representing roughly 10 percent of the population by 1775, the bulk of this forced labor was on the tobacco and rice plantations of southern colonies where slaves represented a much larger percentage of the overall population. The first 20 Africans were brought to Virginia in 1619, but with time there would be an increase in the African presence throughout the colonies and this presence would revolve around labor. The presence of enslaved Africans in New England is first noted in Boston and is dated to the 1630s. And although one might speculate that trading in slaves was a practice more likely associated with southern colonies, Puritans in New England began trips to Africa to gain slaves as early as the 1640s. Although a rather dangerous undertaking, Massachusetts merchants took the lead in New England, supplying New Englanders as well as southerners with enslaved Africans. Yet prior to the eighteenth century, the number of slaves in the Puritan colonies was fairly small, much less than 10 percent of the total population. In the northern, middle, and southern colonies, the colonial period was marked by the labor of enslaved Africans. Enslaved Africans never outnumbered Europeans in the northern colonies, and this helped shape the nature of slavery in those colonies. However, and although most farmers did not have slaves, the labor of enslaved Africans in the South on sugar, cotton, and rice plantations, for example, was vital. Over the course of time, roughly 500,000 enslaved Africans were brought to North America. This is a number that pales in comparison to the number of Africans taken to Brazil during the centuries of the slave trade. Although numerous nations participated in the Atlantic Slave Trade, the British and the Portuguese dominated the transportation of Africans (Thomas 1997). One should not think, however, that enslaved Africans taken to one location necessarily stayed in that location. To the contrary, political challenges such as the North American Revolutionary War resulted in the movement of slaveholders and Africans from one New World location to others. With respect to North America, the Revolutionary War resulted in a movement of colonists loyal to England and their enslaved Africans relocated to Canada. According to David Brion Davis, there were slaves in British Nova Scotia as of the 1750s (Davis 2001, 179). Also, the Revolution in Saint Dominigue—the most productive revolution in the American hemisphere— resulted in slaves’ and slaveholders’ movement to other areas of the Caribbean and North America. In addition, it was the case that some enslaved Africans were ‘‘seasoned’’ or prepared for work as slaves in the Caribbean and then transported, for instance, to North American plantations. While economically rewarding, the dirty business of transporting enslaved Africans was brutal and resulted in the deaths of millions of Africans. The infamous ‘‘slaver’’ was one typically involved in a variety of ventures. ‘‘The typical slave trader was interested in all kinds of commerce as well

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as slaves: he might be a banker . . . or always also concerned in whaling, in order to make spermaceti candles. . .’’ (Thomas 1997, 291).

Transportation of Enslaved Africans Many of the first enslaved Africans in the Americas were transported from Europe, but with time colonists would request shipment directly from Africa. By the mid1500s, the number of slaves transported to the Americas was roughly 7,000 per year but this number would grow, and with time roughly 5 million Africans would be taken from western-central Africa (Klein and Vinson 2007; Thomas 2002). The trade in slaves was big business. For example, slave traders in France held more wealth than any other group of merchants. Slave trade became a complex enterprise—involving cooperation between various European nations and generating great wealth and advancement. ‘‘America became,’’ note Herbert Klein and Ben Vinson, ‘‘the great market for an estimated 10 million African slaves in the course of the next five centuries, and it was in the New World that African slavery most flourished under European rule’’ (Klein and Vinson 2007, 17). There was significant money to be made, but the initial costs were high and the risk great; and much of this risk and cost was defrayed through partnerships by which groups carried the expense and split the proceeds. The routes taken and the stops made reflected the desire to maximize profits. However, it was typically the case that the journey involved movement from Europe to Africa, where slaves were secured with payment made in the form of manufactured goods. Then the enslaved Africans were taken to the Americas and the ships loaded with produce from the Americas. The labor to carry out this route included the ship captain and a variety of others, such as officers, crew, doctor, and the person responsible for recording the various business transactions. Armed to prevent theft at sea by pirates, the ships loaded the cargo and began the arduous journey across the Atlantic (Thomas 1997, 301). Whether purchased or stolen, enslaved Africans were brought to the coast of West Africa for transporting. This movement to the coast in and of itself was a horrific process, involving movement over hundreds of miles with limited supplies and limited rest. It was not uncommon for some Africans to die prior to reaching the coast because of fatigue and lack of proper food and water. Others would not make it to the cost with their initial group because they were sold to other slavers along the route to the coast (Segal 1995, 29). After travel to the coast, survivors were stored in far from comfortable and healthy environments. Little attention was given to arranging them in accordance with cultural groups—the Ibos here and the Madingos over there for instance. The rapid growth in the need for and movement of Africans made such distinctions inefficient economically. They were loaded onto ships once they were available. ‘‘ ‘When our slaves,’ wrote, again Captain Thomas Phillips, ‘were come to the seaside, our canoes were ready to carry them off to the longboat . . . if the sea permitted, and she convey’d them aboard ship, where the men were all put in irons, two and two shackled together, to prevent their mutiny or swimming ashore. The negroes are so willful and loth to leave their own country, that they have often leap’d out of canoes, boat and ship, into the sea, and kept underwater till they were drowned, to avoid being taken up. . .’’

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(Thomas 1997, 404). It was often the case that this process of movement to the ships did not take place until enslaved Africans had been branded with a hot iron to indicate to whom they had been sold and who now held them as property. This practice was replaced in time with the use of a piece of metal worn around the neck or wrist that bore the symbol of a particular slaveholder. Bodies were not simply branded or otherwise differentiated as a physical marker of ownership. Many countries, such as Portugal, also required that enslaved Africans be baptized. Sufficiently marked and in some cases baptized, enslaved Africans began the long and terrifying journey we call the ‘‘Middle Passage’’—the movement from the West coast of Africa to the American hemisphere. This journey was dreadful regardless of who captained the ship, or which nation sponsored the voyage. ‘‘It,’’ notes Thomas, ‘‘was the sea, the vast, mysterious, terrifying ‘green sea of darkness,’ which gave the Atlantic slave trade its special drama’’ (Thomas 1997, 407). We have no recorded accounts from enslaved Africans concerning the nature of this experience—the feel of the crowded boat, smell, the terror of darkness below deck, and pain caused by the movement of the water as it generated seasickness, as well as the mental and physical trauma of the journey itself. Instead, we must rely on the accounts provided by Europeans involved in the trade who recounted various aspects of the journey. For example, a doctor on one of the ships reported that: The slaves that are out of irons are locked ‘‘spoonways,’’ according to the technical phrase, and closely locked to one another . . . Those which do not get quickly into their places are compelled by the cat [whip] and, such was the situation when stowed in this manner, and when the ship had much motion at sea, that they were often miserably bruised against the deck or against each other . . . I have seen their [the slaves’] breasts heaving and observed them draw their breath, with all those laborious and anxious efforts for life which we observe in expiring animals subjected by experiment to bad air of various kinds. (Thomas 1997, 413) Because volume translated into high profits, as many Africans as possible were loaded naked unto the ships. And to avoid revolts, adult males were bound and guarded. Women and children did not pose the same threat, so they were allowed a greater degree of movement. Yet, to avoid suicide due to the terror and uncertainty of the journey, they too had to be monitored and controlled. The conditions under the deck, where the vast majority of slaves were held, were stifling, and seasickness only added to the deplorable conditions. The small and confined space meant adults had restricted mobility and had to lie on their backs, or on some ships they sat up but without the possibility of standing upright. The desire to maximize profits also meant keeping as many of the enslaved Africans alive during the journey as possible. To accomplish this, slave ships required periods of exercise that involved ‘‘dancing’’ or other practices on the deck; and feedings—at times of spoiled food—took place typically a couple of times each day by force if necessary. Some supporters of the slave system argued dancing slaves were a sign of good humor and enjoyment on the part of the enslaved (Pinn 2003). However, it does not take much thought to recognize that

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this would be far from the case. Slaves moved around the deck not because of enjoyment but because they were forced to do so under the threat of physical punishment. The poor conditions—large numbers in confined spaces—cruel treatment, suicides, and disease resulted in fewer Africans arriving the Americas than had been loaded initially on the ships.

Selling Africans Upon arrival to various ports spread throughout the Americas, enslaved Africans were prepared for market and sold to planters in North America, South America, and the Caribbean. The process of selling slaves held some similarities across the Americas, in each instance suggesting that enslaved Africans were treated as if indistinguishable from cattle and goods. In Brazil, the process was often as follows: . . .the slaves would be prepared to be sold, being shaved, fattened, and if necessary painted (to give the illusion of health) . . . Slaves would also be made to dance and sing, in order to raise their spirits, in the same way as abroad the ship which had brought them from Africa. Buyers would again patiently examine the wares, feeling the Africans’ limbs and bodies much as butchers handled calves. The slaves were often asked, as they had been told to do before leaving Africa, to show their tongues and teeth, or to stretch their arms . . . Often slaves would be sold at auction by one or other of the houses which specialized in the business, the bidding being at the door of the customs house. Occasionally the merchants would seek to sell their slaves by hawking them, chained, from house to house. (Thomas 1997, 432) Slaves that were not purchased for whatever reason were often left behind, without proper shelter or means to sustain life. In North America the following description was offered concerning the sale of Africans: The slaves are put in stalls like the pens used for cattle—a man and his wife with a child on each arm. And there’s a curtain, sometimes just a sheet over the front of the stall, so the bidders can’t see the ‘‘stock’’ too soon. The over-seer’s standin’ just outside with a big blacksnake whip and a pepperbox pistol in his belt. Across the square a little piece, there’s a big platform with steps leadin’ to it. Then, they pulls up the curtain, and the bidders is crowdin’ around. Them in back can’t see, so the overseer drives the slaves out to the platform . . . they have white gloves there, and one of the bidders takes a pair of gloves and rubs his fingers over a man’s teeth, and he says to the overseer, ‘‘You call this buck twenty years old? Why there’s a cup of worms in his teeth. He’s forty year old, if he’s a day.’’ (Mellon 1988, 291)

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Treatment and conditions for enslaved Africans across the Americas varied depending on a variety of factors including the ratio of Africans to Europeans, the type and location of work (e.g., mining, cultivation of crops—rural or urban), and the disposition of slaveholders. Regardless of policies or laws, slaveholder disposition determined the food available to enslaved Africans as well as living conditions and the types of punishment inflicted. Nonetheless, throughout the Americas life for enslaved Africans entailed status as ‘‘non-free’’ and hence a hard and torturous existence. This reality starts early and is noted by, for example, the fact that they were seldom referred to by name during shipment and distribution (Segal 1995). In this way, they were deemed similar to livestock. One should not think that enslaved Africans did nothing to challenge their condition. There are too many accounts of revolts and rebellions for that to be the case. According to historian Hugh Thomas, the first recorded rebellion in the American hemisphere took place on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1522, and it was followed by other attacks on the slave system elsewhere in the Americas (Thomas 1997, 104). The Maroons of Jamaica, for example, were able to maintain their independence through settlement in remote areas and strong physical resistance to British efforts. And in North America, slave rebellions were also noted and others were able to escape slavery by moving to free states or Canada. The most famous revolt is perhaps that which took place in Saint Dominque (Haiti) during which enslaved Africans on the island were able to resist the French and gain their freedom. The fear of rebellion both during transport and once in the Americas was an undeniable dimension of the slave trade throughout its history. Most enslaved Africans, however, remained confined to the system of chattel slavery.

Forging Life in the American Hemisphere In some regions, it was not uncommon for large numbers of enslaved Africans to arrive from particular African cultural regions. For instance, during some of the sixteenth century, most of the enslaved Africans brought to Mexico and Peru were from Upper Guinea. In the seventeenth century many of the enslaved Africans in Mexico and Peru were believed brought from Angola (Klein and Vinson 2007, 136). In eighteenth century North America, the presence of enslaved Africans from the Kongo presented itself in cultural formations such as dance, the visual arts, and other practices. For example, ‘‘black American traditional burials,’’ writes art historian Robert Farris Thompson, ‘‘reveal telling regularities, like the importance of depositing on the tomb the last-used objects of the dead, plus seashells, pipes, pierced vessels, and planted trees’’ (Thompson in Gundaker 1998, 38). All such elements suggest the complex movement of cultural elements across the Atlantic Slave Trade. The African presence in the American hemisphere was not limited to enslaved Africans but also included those who were free—by escaping, purchasing their freedom, being granted their freedom, and in some cases having been born free. Together they made every effort to forge cultures that helped them survive the hardships of life in a hemisphere marked by slavery and oppression. This process involved a blending of their African cultural heritage, elements of European culture brought to the Americas,

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and elements of the cultural worlds of the indigenous population. These two volumes will help readers better understand the cultural worlds developed by enslaved Africans, free Africans, and their descendants in the American hemisphere. The process of enslavement and the nature of life in the Americas—a new and foreign environment—made the full-scale maintenance of culture worlds impossible. However, cultural memories in stories, folktales, songs, quilts, elements of language, and so on were shared. This cultural information spread through newly formed communities and families particularly on large plantations and in towns where Africans from the same regions of Africa could be in contact. The remembering and passing along of this information allowed for the preservation of certain elements of African culture, which were combined with cultural influences from Europe expressed by colonists as well as cultural influences from the indigenous Americans. As one might imagine, where there were large numbers of Africans and fewer colonists—such as much of the Caribbean and Brazil—African retentions (e.g., language and customs) were more substantial and more highly visible to both Africans and Europeans. Groupings of Africans from particular regions and other factors may have contributed to the presence of African cultural retentions in the Americas, and these retentions would have revolved heavily around materials that allowed enslaved Africans to make sense of their new surroundings and circumstances. While these elements of African culture would have covered a variety of daily activities and thought patterns, some would be more easily transferable than others. That is to say, ‘‘those beliefs relating the individual to health and well-being, interpersonal relationships, and relation of the self to the cosmos were most likely to retain their power in the New World’’ (Klein and Vinson 2007, 143). Drawn from a variety of sources and forged within a context of oppression, enslaved Africans developed practices and beliefs, structures and worldviews, that helped them make sense of their world, maintain some sense of selfworth and importance, and link individuals with larger communities and the larger natural environment. Regarding this, religion is a prime example of the cultural worlds developed by African Americans in every region of the Americas. ‘‘The gods of Africa,’’ remarks historian Albert Raboteau, ‘‘were carried in the memories of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. To be sure, they underwent a sea change. African liturgical seasons, prescribed rituals, traditional myths, and languages of worship were attenuated, replaced, and altered, or lost. Still, much remained. . .’’ (Raboteau 2002, 16). The slave trade and system of slave labor that had so greatly impacted the American hemisphere would shift and change as colonial politics shifted, revolutions occurred, moral and ethical reflection on slavery grew, and centers of economic power changed. During the first three decades of the 1800s, various European nations would rethink and eventually end their participation in the Atlantic Slave Trade—but it would continue until close to the end of the nineteenth century. The suppression of the slave trade begun in the early nineteenth century resulted in an influx into various locations in the Americas of free Africans who had been taken from slave ships on their way to American ports. Settling in locations such as Cuba and Brazil, these free Africans and their presence would create tension that persisted until the slave system was dismantled fully: Should they live in separate communities? Should free Africans labor on

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plantations, and if so under what rules? Would their presence result in rebellion on the part of enslaved Africans? A complex and interconnected array of reasons—abolition, changing economic structures among them—would eventually bring the forced labor model to an end.

African American Religious Cultures The nature and practice of religion was transformed within the crucible of the slave trade. What follows are just a few examples of religious developments provided as a way to introduce the general subject of this encyclopedia and to give readers a sense of the proper backdrop for the religious practices and beliefs discussed in the pages following this introductory essay. Historian of religion Charles Long provides great insight when saying, from the start of the age of exploration in the fifteenth century through our current period, ‘‘the Western world, through conquest, trade, and colonialism, made contact with every part of the globe. These encounters and confrontations with other cultures raised again the issue of religion’’ (Long 1986, 3). Religions follow and are shaped by the changing patterns of the slave trade and the raising and lessening in importance of particular slave ports. As one might imagine, this pattern of religious development draws on the strength of numbers, the size of populations from various areas of Africa in one colonial location, as well as the types of labor and ‘‘free’’ time afforded them. Such factors influenced the nature of the religious beliefs and practices formed as well as the modes of their expression available in the American hemisphere during the period of slavery. Denominations expanded their reach and revised their theology and practices, and traditional African forms of religiosity were planted in a new geography. There were no neat divides between these various belief systems. To the contrary, elements were transposed and new dimensions added. Within the context of communities of enslaved and free Africans in the Americas, a rich environment of religious pluralism emerged—one that involved various combinations of Christianity and traditional African-based religious beliefs and practices. In some instances, what emerged was Christianity with an African outlook; but in other cases, there developed Africanbased traditions. Slaveholders believed African-based religions, as well as unsupervised gatherings of Christianized Africans, dangerous because they could serve as inspiration for revolts and rebellions throughout the American hemisphere. Two examples are offered here. First, one of the most famous rebellions took place in Saint Domingue (Haiti). This event, marked by the efforts of key leaders such as Toussaint Louverture, is known to history as the Haitian Revolution. Occurring from 1791 to 1803, and resulting in the establishment of the independent nation of Haiti, it was the most damaging and successful slave revolt to ever take place in the Americas. Some argue that a Vodou ceremony held on August 14, 1791, sparked the revolution and gave it great energy and determination by connecting physical struggle to spiritual powers and religious authority given by the African gods. As would also be the case elsewhere in the Americas, the ability to gather in sustained ways, to live in close proximity with limited interference from Europeans, only served to enhance the growth of African-

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based traditions. Economic changes in the nineteenth century combined with an absence of Catholic missionary effort from the Revolution until 1860 served as a locus for religious growth: ‘‘The consolidation of the Revolution, and the land grants to former slaves it made possible, transformed Haiti into a rural nation of subsistence farmers working their small plots. This new peasantry organized itself around small villages that functioned as extended family compounds . . . they opened a new space for the preservation’’ of African-based religious systems such as Vodou (Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert 2003, 103). In Brazil as well, religion was often related to rebellion, in one instance resulting in the conspirators—Muslims from Nigeria—being sent back to Lagos to avoid any additional trouble (Johnson 2002, 74). In North America, famous rebellions during the 1800s were led by professed Christians such as Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, and Gabriel Prosser. In each case, these men and those who fought on their side believed God required them to strike a blow for their freedom, and they used biblical passages to justify this stance. Turner, a minister, saw signs and other spiritual indicators that a great mission was his. He had been set aside by God to accomplish a great mission; he need only wait for the proper sign (the eclipse of the sun). It came in 1831: Before midnight, with only a hatchet and a broadax, they set out for the home of the man who at the time was Nat’s own master, John Travis. At the Travis house they slaughtered everyone—Travis, his wife, and five others. They took what guns and ammunition they could find, and, dressing their lines like infantrymen, they marched off to perform the bloodiest slave insurrection in American [i.e., United States] history. By Tuesday morning, August 23, at least seventy slaves had killed fifty-seven whites in a twenty-mile area of the Boykins district of Southampton County [South Carolina]. (Wilmore 1983, 70) Turner was eventually caught and executed, but he never repented of his deeds. He continued to assert that the Christian faith and his ministry required this fight against slavery. It was clear that religion, regardless of how slaveholders might seek to use it to preserve the system of slavery, could be used by enslaved Africans to demand and secure their freedom. Whether embraced to secure their survival by helping them make sense of the world or used to push for freedom (in body or spirit) from the slave system, religion maintained its importance for enslaved Africans and free Africans in the Americas. And these various religious traditions emerged through a process of contact and exchange. While scholars debate the proper naming of this process of blending African, European, and American elements into the formation of new religious traditions and the reshaping of the Christian faith, less argued over is the importance and strong presence of a rich mosaic of religiosity marking the American hemisphere. And although different in many ways, the African-based traditions developed in the American hemisphere do share certain elements including a rich pantheon of deities, spirits, ancestors, and other forces, spiritual power in all living things, the necessity of interaction between humans and other forces mediated through those with religious knowledge, the use

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of ritual practices, and the existence of sacred objects (Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert 2003, 9–11).

The Caribbean The population of enslaved Africans in Cuba combined with mulattos and free Blacks to create a sizable Black population on the island. Growth was the consequence of work needs and a decreased fear of slave revolts. The crown, local authorities, and the church worked to guarantee stability through legal regulations (supposing humanitarian concerns such as health care, housing, and food) and, in the case of the latter entity, religious and theological structures and instruction. A great deal was taken from Africans during the process of enslavement; however, the ability of the African gods to travel, housed in memories, remained intact. The central elements of the Catholic faith operating in Cuba involved the basic sacraments—baptism, confirmation, matrimony, extreme unction, the Eucharist, penance, and holy orders—as well as the practice of cult-like devotion to the saints. The Catholic Church found it fairly easy to control formal practices (e.g., the sacraments) because they involved traditional training and access. However, devotion to the saints did not require the same level of knowledge and laity was able to exercise great authority over the cult of the saints (Pinn 1998). Cubans did not need priests to announce what the saints desired or what they were willing to perform for those in need. Nonclergy persons were able to gather, interpret, and work with this information. And these developments took place within three primary locations—the mutual aid societies (the cabildo) initiated by church leaders, slave quarters, and mountain settlements—and involved a blending of religious sentiments and practices drawn from a range of regions of Africa but dominated by the Bantu from the Congo and Yoruba of West Africa, Europe, and indigenous practices. Within this context numerous African-based traditions developed, including Regla de Ocha (the religion of the orisha) or what we commonly refer to as Santerı´a (Olmos and Parvaisini-Gebert 2003, 24–25). The Church had no reason to like the attention given to African-based tradition, but there was little it could do to prevent such devotion. The best alternative was to tolerate these popular practices and hope the Africans would eventually grow tired of them. Commitment to the religious education of slaves was spotty due to issues such as economic growth and the nature of slaves: Are they humans with souls that must be saved? Are they capable of understanding the gospel of Christ? Yet there was another factor that with time became major; the African slaves brought within them a religious orientation capable of incorporating elements from the Catholic Church. Dominican representatives of the church and others worked to address the needs of African slaves very early, attempting to ensure that they were churched and churched accurately and adequately (Pinn 1998). This was much easier with slaves found within cities, but measures were also taken to bring those living on plantations outside the cities into the church through proper and consistent instruction. A similar situation occurred elsewhere in the Americas. For example, although ultimately concerned with wealth, slaves in Saint Domingue (Haiti) did receive religious

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attention from Spaniards. The Catholic Church actively encouraged missionary activity, following the activity of the conquerors, on the island. However, the geography of the island, combined with a relatively limited number of religious leaders limited the complexity and depth of missionary work. By the second decade of the sixteenth century, enslaved Africans were being imported to Saint Domingue from various areas of West Africa, but were eventually dominated by groups from current Benin (once known as Dahomey). When the French took over, troubles with religious instruction for enslaved Africans would intensify. However, this would change some in 1685 with the Code Noir that regulated life for French colonies and required baptism and religious instruction for enslaved Africans. And while this push for religious instruction included a ban on African-based religious practices, the latter were not so easily removed (Pinn 1998). As one priest notes, African practices were not abandoned by enslaved Africans, but rather were combined with the Christian teachings offered them: The Negroes have no scruples . . . They intermix Dagon’s ark and secretly keep all the superstitions of their ancient idolatrous cult with the ceremonies of the Christian religion. All the Negroes have much devotion for the communion wafer. They eat it only when they are ill, or when they are afraid of some danger. In regard to the holy water, the little bit of water that is consecrated during the Sunday Mass, it is rare that one finds one drop of it when the ceremony has ended; they carry it in little calabashes and drink some drops when they rise (in the morning) and pretend that it will guarantee their welfare against all the witchcraft that might befall them. (Desmangles 1992, 26–27) The Catholic Church could not wipe out Vodou (meaning ‘‘spirit’’ or god and referenced as Voodoo in much of the United States), the African-based tradition first named Vaudoux in the eighteenth century, in Saint Domingue. Instead, it had no choice but to make peace with it. There remained a tension, however, in that during particular periods of history practitioners had to maintain a level of secrecy. Such need to practice undercover certainly helped to promote a fusion of Catholicism and African-based tradition as the saints and certain other elements from the former were used to cover the gods and rituals present in the latter (Pinn 1998). That is to say, what ever the content of the religion brought by the slaves from Africa might have been . . . it was evidently influenced by several factors: the ecology of the plantation, the slave’s daily schedules, their acquisition of new friends or comrades, a new language for communication, new types of housing, new diet, new patterns of social organization and political power, new kinds of work specialization . . . and a new calendar of events that included Catholic religious feasts and national holidays. (Laguerre 1980, 24) What emerged is perhaps one of the most elaborate and complex religious traditions to emerge in the Americas (Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert 2003, 102).

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Throughout the Caribbean African-based traditions would develop and evolve, and while they would experience both periods of growth and decline, they remained vital and viable sources of religious meaning. Not all religious practices, however, are community based. In addition to those noted above, rather individualized practices such as Obeah in Jamaica and other Caribbean locations emerged in the seventeenth century and helped Africans make sense of their new surroundings and circumstances. The range of religious traditions within the Caribbean is expansive. Furthermore, the European influence on African American religion was not limited to the Christian Church. In addition, practices such as Spiritualism (communication between humans and the deceased) moved from France into the Caribbean and, for example, resulted in the emergence of traditions such as Espiritismo in Puerto Rico as well as Spiritual churches in North America.

North America Vodou (Voodoo) and other African-based religious traditions would continue an exchange with Christianity, particularly Roman Catholicism. However, with time, North America came to be associated not with Roman Catholicism (with few exceptions such as Maryland and Louisiana) but with Protestant denominations. This impacted the development of African American religion in North America in that Roman Catholicism’s structure (such as the importance of Saints) allowed for connection to African gods in function; but Protestantism lacked this structure (e.g., attention to saints) and lacked the same type of elaborate rituals. Nonetheless, African-based practices did develop in North America, alongside African American Christian churches. But these practices were typically without the same level of complexity found elsewhere in the Americas where there were larger numbers of Africans with greater opportunity through societies and other community organizations to exchange information without interference from Europeans. Baptism was not enforced in the same way in the British colonies of North America, and in fact there was strong debate over whether it was necessary or advisable to introduce enslaved Africans to the Christian faith. Some believed doing so might require their emancipation: To baptize them would be an acknowledgement that they are human, and if they are human can they be rightly held in bondage? Others argued Africans did not have the necessary intellect or soul to benefit from the Christian faith. This would differ in the areas once held by the French and the Spanish: Where Catholicism dominated, Africans were baptized, and African-based traditions such as Vodou (Voodoo) would thrive. However, in the British colonies, the seventeenth century entailed limited attention to the spiritual needs of Africans. In the northern colonies of North America, figures such as John Eliot and Cotton Mather sought to give some attention to converting enslaved Africans as did the Quakers. And in the eighteenth century, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts would push for religious instruction to enslaved Africans in the middle and southern colonies (Pinn and Pinn 2002). Efforts in the colonies were hampered not only by the limited number of traveling ministers but also by the weak interest on the part of many slaveholders to open their

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plantations to religious instruction. They feared such instruction might interfere with an ability to secure work in that Africans might begin to resent their condition. Also, they believed, as noted above, spirituality might result in rebellion. This uncertainty concerning the benefits of instruction meant spotty attention to the spiritual needs of Africans in the colonies. In so many of these cases, conversion was hampered by the requirements to learn catechisms, which was a difficult process in that enslaved Africans, by law, could not be taught to read and write. It was also clear to Africans that much of what they were being taught was meant to safeguard the system of slavery —a reality they found offensive in that it suggested God ordained their enslavement and required them to obey their masters. The conversion of enslaved Africans was slow under these conditions, until the 1730s and the First Great Awakening. This was a period of revival in the colonies during which many colonists and Africans (free and enslaved) developed energetic relationships with God and moved into churches, particularly Baptist and Methodist churches that allowed more involvement in ministry without formal training and that had fewer strict rituals and structures. This event, combined with another Awakening in the 1800s, marked the movement of large numbers of Africans into Christian churches, both majority-White churches as well as independent churches run by Africans. One should not think, however, that African American religion in North America was limited to various approaches to the Christian faith. To the contrary, Christian churches in North America existed alongside African-based traditions and also alongside modified forms of Islam. The latter, Islam, arrived with enslaved Africans and according to the historical record available through diaries and other written materials persisted. African-based traditions also took root in these colonies. Hoodoo, voodoo, conjure, and other modes of religious expression and practice lived alongside Christian churches—finding expression in the quiet and more secretive moments of life. That is to say, particularly in somewhat isolated areas in Georgia and South Carolina, the coastal plantations that absorbed the slave traffic were remote from one another. The jungle swamps of the low country and the wide expanses of water separating the coastal islands made communication difficult among the plantation laborers of this section. With the continued arrival of Africans to these isolated plantation communities native ceremonies and customs were renewed or exchanged. (Georgia Writers’ Project 1972, xxii) The movement of enslaved Africans from islands in the Caribbean to North America also served to reinforce African-based traditions by bringing to communities of enslaved Africans expertise and additional practitioners.

Latin America Making use of what freedom of movement they could manage, and using the resources available to them, free and enslaved Africans forged religious realities in

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the context of Latin America that merged the African past and the American (European and indigenous) present. ‘‘Through a variety of means—ritual, communal, familial, aesthetic, etc.—Africans and their descendants,’’ writes Rachel Harding, ‘‘created alternative spaces, alternative definitions of themselves and of the meaning of their presence in the New World’’ (Harding 2000, xvii). Numerous traditions mark the religious landscape of Latin America, but it is perhaps in Brazil that the thickest collection of Africa-influenced traditions is located because of the dominance of Brazil in the slave trade. West Africans, for a good stretch of time Ewe speaking and Yoruba speaking, as well as those from West Central Africa, brought with them African religious sensibilities and worked them in light of their new environment and an array of available religious orientations (Harding 2000). This blending resulted in the development of religious traditions such as popular Catholicism and Candomble´. Concerning the latter, based on the circumstances encountered, what had been communally based practices or regional variations lost much of their force and attention as religious beliefs and practices became more standardized and revolved around a more generally held arrangement of divine figures. To some extent this new religious arrangement was made necessary by the softening boundaries separating various groups of Africans—Hausas, Angolans, and so on—and the development of communities reflecting less clearly defined cultural groupings (Johnson 2002, 67). Although African-based religions existed in Brazil long before observers decided to make mention of them, according to many sources, the term ‘‘Candomble´’’ was used first in the early nineteenth century to name a new religious tradition in Brazil, specifically Salvador and Reconcavo (Harding 2000). While the exact moment when Brazilian religions such as this one began to emerge, it is safe to say that, as elsewhere in the Americas, these traditions emerged in accordance with the need of Africans to frame their world and life experiences in ways that connected them to realities larger than enslavement. The number of Africans in Brazil over against the number of Europeans made it difficult to control, and certainly prevented an ability to stop, the practice of African-based religions. Roman Catholic officials at times attempted to co-opt these practices, or assumed the availability of Catholicism would eventually supersede African religion they considered inferior practices. The Church was incorrect. Africans might incorporate certain elements of Catholicism, such as the saints, but the continuing presence of Candomble´ makes clear its persistence and importance as a distinct religious tradition. In other words, ‘‘the use of Brazilian Catholic institutions such as lay confraternities and devotions as a base for the maintenance and cultivation of African spiritual values and traditions was very common through the colonial period and into the first half of the nineteenth century in Bahia,’’ which was the location for Candomble´. In fact, Harding continues, efforts to suppress African practices during the 1800s, around the time Brazil became independent from Portugal, also correspond to the growth in houses of the Candomble´ practice called terreiro (Harding 2000, 50). What one notes here is the manner in which these New World religious traditions are both flexible enough to adopt new practices and beliefs but firm enough to resist efforts to dismantle them. This is the case not only with Candomble´ but also with other

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traditions such as Batuque and Tambor de Mina that nourish spiritually some of Brazil’s residents.

Learning about African American Religious Cultures Numerous traditions developed over the course of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Overlapping in some ways and distinctive in others, these traditions frame life and the worldview of African Americans to the present. While some have waned in influence, others have grown in visibility and influence. However, regardless of the number of participants or other visible markers of importance, these various religious traditions help to define the shape and content of life in the American hemisphere. Through the religious cultures they entail, one gains a great deal of insight into the history of this hemisphere and the various groups of African Americans who inhabit it. This encyclopedia is concerned with the religious worlds of African Americans— the wide-ranging and complex communities of people of African descent who populate the hemisphere. Why these peoples are called African American here, regardless of their particular national home, should be clear at this point, and some sense of what it has meant and what it has entailed to create religious cultures should also be somewhat clear. What remains to be given is some attention to the structure of the encyclopedia—its various components and what they are meant to offer readers. This two-volume encyclopedia is meant to provide a glimpse into the religious worlds created by African Americans. But such a project cannot hope to capture and discuss every religious tradition present in the American hemisphere. The number of traditions is too large. What is offered in these pages is a ‘‘snap shot’’ of the religious heritage of the New World, and the traditions selected for inclusion are meant to signal a sense of the rich religious terrain that is the Americas. This is only a limited look into the religious worlds created over the course of centuries and under extreme circumstances. In a sense it provides a general mapping of the religious world that is the New World. Not everything is covered, but as is the case with any map, enough is presented to provide a working sense of the area being observed. This mapping of African American religious cultures is, in fact, a charting of particular traditions as a way of suggesting the complexity and diversity of religious beliefs and practices in the American hemisphere. As is the case with any encyclopedia, there are ‘‘thin’’ spots and areas given greater attention than others. This is the nature of such a project, and this tendency is further enhanced by the secrecy covering some traditions and the more public posture of others. No preference is given to particular religious traditions. None are considered more ‘‘important’’ or ‘‘better’’ than others. To the contrary, they are all presented as vital in that they are embraced by members of particular communities and are understood as life affirming and beneficial by adherents. With this in mind, the length of particular entries is not a marker of greater or lesser value; rather, length is simply a function of available information and overlap between some traditions. The encyclopedia begins with religious traditions in the Americas, presented in alphabetical order. These essays, of varying lengths, are meant to provide basic information such as historical development and major beliefs/practices. While not covering every nation within the American hemisphere, an effort has been made to give some coverage

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to the three large geographies that typically come to mind within thinking about this hemisphere—North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. An effort has also been made to provide some attention to biographical information on key figures. These biographical sketches outline the contributions of particularly important figures in the development of the traditions covered. In some instances, where traditions are less formally structured, little can be offered regarding key figures. However, where and when available, every effort has been made to offer a sense of ‘‘who’s who’’ within the religions of African Americans. The biographies are sketches, not full presentations. They will not give readers a full sense of the life and accomplishments of those presented here. Some of the leaders noted will be familiar to readers—perhaps this is the case in terms of some of the Christian denominations covered. With respect to other biographical entries, readers will encounter some leaders for the first time in their educational process. While the first section of the encyclopedia is concerned with a sense of religion in the Americas by means of attention to particular traditions, the second section of the encyclopedia provides more sustained focus on major issues and concerns. Arrangement of the essays in the second section of the encyclopedia is not meant to suggest greater importance of the United States, but rather to show sensitivity to the context of the major market for the encyclopedia. These essays tend to focus on North America because it is assumed most users of this encyclopedia are situated in North America, particularly the United States. And these documents will help such readers better contextualize major topics in religion within their national context. However, it is hoped that these essays will also be of value to readers outside the United States as well in that, while focused on a particular context, the overlapping nature of life in the Americas will allow these essays to offer information relevant to other areas of the Americas. For example, while highlighting the United States, the ‘‘Megachurch’’ phenomenon is certainly not limited to the United States. It is also a relevant conversation beyond the United States as the broadcasts, Web sites, and publications of U.S. ministers impact the thinking and actions of Christians on a global level. The environment and religion essay is also a topic impacting life beyond the United States. These are just a few examples of how the topical essays might offer information and insights extending beyond the particular context of the United States. In addition to presentation of traditions and special topics, this encyclopedia also provides a chronology of major happenings as a way to help readers further contextualize the development and spread of the traditions covered. Additional context is given through the appendix in which primary materials that focus on some of the issues and concerns noted in the other entries are included. The appendix is limited in size, a necessity considering the length of the overall project, but it provides interesting detail. A second appendix provides information related to particular practices and various elements of religious ritual. This encyclopedia is a resource and is meant to provide a basic understanding that can then be supplemented by more in-depth readings. And the bibliographies offer additional readings for those interested. It is hoped that the images also found in the encyclopedia will encourage readers to think about the ‘‘look’’ of some of the practices covered. Move through this encyclopedia as you see fit. Read the entries in whatever order you find suitable. But however you decide to use this work, it is hoped that it will leave

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you with a greater understanding of the complexity, richness, historical importance, and ongoing meaning of the religious cultures made by African Americans in the American hemisphere.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785–1985 (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987). Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume II: Archaeological and Documentary Evidence (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991). Davis, David B. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). Davis, David B. In the Image of God: Religion, Moral Values, and Our Heritage of Slavery (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001). Desmangles, Leslie G. The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992). Diop, Cheikh Anta. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality (New York: Lawrence Hill and Col, 1974). Duncan, Carol. This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto (Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008). Gundaker, Grey, ed. Keep Your Head to the Sky: Interpreting African American Home Ground (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998). Harding, Rachel E. A Refuge in Thunder: Candomble´ and Alternative Spaces of Blackness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). Haynes, Stephen R. Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Johnson, Paul C. Secrets, Gossip, and Gods: The Transformation of Brazilian Candomble´ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Klein, Herbert S., and Ben Vinson III. African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Laguerre, Michel S. Voodoo Heritage (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1980). Landes, Ruth. City of Women, 2nd ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006). Levander, Caroline F., and Robert S. Levine, eds. Hemispheric American Studies (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008). Long, Charles. Significations (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986). Mellon, James. Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988). Olmos, Margarite Ferna´ndez, and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santerı´a to Obeah and Espiritismo (New York: New York University Press, 2003).

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Palmie´, Stephan, ed. Slave Cultures and the Cultures of Slavery (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee, 1995). Pinn, Anthony. Varieties of African American Religious Experience (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998). Pinn, Anthony B. Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). Pinn, Anthony, and Anne Pinn. Fortress Introduction to Black Church History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002). Postma, Johannes. The Atlantic Slave Trade (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003). Raboteau, Albert. Slave Religion: The ‘‘Invisible Institution’’ in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Savannah Unit, Georgia Writers’ Project, Work Projects Administration. Drums and Shadows (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986 [1972]). Segal, Ronald. The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995). Thomas, Hugh. Cuba, 3rd ed. (London: Pan Books, 2002). Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870 (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1997). Van Sertima, Ivan. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (New York: Random House, 1976). Wilmore, Gayraud. Black Religion and Black Radicalism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983).

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ENTRIES

A AFRICAN AMERICAN MYSTICISM

‘‘Mysticism’’ as a term has been too insulated and largely associated with elite discourses in the academy, church, and society for most African Americans to view it as having any importance in their own religious culture. Indeed, a cursory review of American popular and scholarly literature reveals that mysticism has been generally identified with the cultivated inwardness of groups like the Society of Friends (Quakers) and the ecstatic otherworldliness of groups like the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming (Shakers). At the same time, there is a pronounced revival of interest in mystical religion among twenty-first-century religious seekers. On the whole, mainstream accounts of mysticism demonstrate a perennial preoccupation with individuality, an absence of socially formative power, and a disregard for the concern of the whole. So interpreted, about the best that can be hoped for with respect to mysticism is an intuited and parallel relationship of like-minded individuals in pursuit of a marginally common goal.

Historical Development Experiences that engender and enable religious faith are arguably among the most important predictors and precipitants of culture in African America. However, despite the cultural capital often associated with religion, commentators who write about the black estate seldom if ever deal with the topic of mysticism. It is interesting to note, for example, how scholars have neglected the mystical flowering of the African Diaspora from Old World indigenous and ethnic permutations to New World Christian conversionary accounts. Certainly, not every experience by peoples of African descent of the sacred can or should be subsumed under the rubric of mysticism, but careful examination reveals the mystical tradition to be an integral aspect of African American religious culture and life.

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African American Mysticism

The expressions of African American mysticism recounted here offer a dramatically different departure where issues of meaning, power, and value are concerned. There is no single substantial definition for mysticism. That being said, a working definition at least is in order: Mysticism is a generic term for intimate discourse and practices that speak to what it means to be human in relationship to the transcendent and the mundane. Not an uncommon experience, mysticism is translated into a diversity of religious and metaphysical positions —Christian, Muslim, African derived, humanist, and everything in between—in relation to the lived social context. Mysticism, simply considered, is a more focal and fontal experience of religion. Mysticism can constitute a life way or a moment in life. In the context of African America, mysticism places the question of black being—identity and community—at the center of its most urgent formulations (Pollard 1990, 28–42).

Mystic ancestors include known and unknown members of the ‘‘Invisible Church’’: Harriet Tubman, the inspirited and providentially appointed ‘‘General’’ and ‘‘Moses of her people’’; the freedom-obsessed insurrectionists Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, and David Walker; and God-intoxicated visionaries James Smith, Rebecca Cox Jackson, Julia Foote, Zilpha Elaw, and Amanda Berry Smith (Harding 1981; Dodson 1982, 276–89; Humez 1984, 129–43). There is Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956, faced with escalating threats against his family, seated at his kitchen table praying when ‘‘rationality left me . . . and almost out of nowhere I heard a voice that morning saying to me: ‘Preach the Gospel, stand up for the truth, stand up for righteousness’ ’’ (Carson 2000, 114–15). Malcolm X, who was transforming into El Hajj Malik El Shabazz and was the featured speaker at the Harvard Law

JARENA LEE (1783–?) Born in 1783 in the state of New Jersey, Jarena Lee began working as a ‘‘servant maid’’ at the age of seven and would continue as a domestic into her adult life. Prior to her conversion, knowing the depths of suffering and oppression, she had been tempted on several occasions to ‘‘destroy her life.’’ Lee’s spiritual awakening also occurred at an early age and rescued her from social and possible physical death. But Lee’s mystic visions contained an ecclesial as well as social imperative, challenging male leadership prerogatives with a fierce insistence that God had called a woman to preach. Now a widowed mother of two, she committed herself to full time ministry, fired by denomina tional rebuff and righteous discontent. Lee’s mystic articulations are a beautifully human counterpoint to the unfathomable brutality, demonic design, and intended perpetuity of raced, gendered, social, and religious bondage she faced. Lee is one among the many of African American women visionaries, mystic insurgents who not only envisioned divine agency but established a course of action in the quest for human survival and wholeness. Lee’s spiritual autobiography, first published in 1836, is the earliest known to be written by an African American woman and predates the more familiar fugitive slave narratives.

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Malcolm X (1925 1965) during a press conference for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964. (Library of Congress)

School Forum in 1964, glanced out the window when ‘‘awareness came surging up in me . . . how deeply the religion of Islam had reached down into the mud to lift me up, to save me . . . ’’ (Malcolm X 1965, 293).

The exemplars are also twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers like Zora Neale Hurston whose novels, folklore, and research from Tell My Horse to Sanctified Church is concerned with the serious and substantive evolution of black

SOJOURNER TRUTH (1797–1883) The life of Sojourner Truth is further testament to the surging power of the African American womanist mystic tradition. It is often rather conveniently forgotten that Isabella Bomefree, born into slavery in upstate New York in the late eighteenth century, had long seen visions and dreamed dreams about the role she would play in helping her people. She recounts the authenticating power of mystical religion in The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. The racist and patriarchal macrocosm serves as a vivid reminder that here was a woman continually confronted by her negative and anonymous status in the extant social order. Truth, having experienced the ignominy of being sold on repeated occasions, now experiences the agony of having her son sold away. She determines that she will get him back. Like other nineteenth century African American women, Sojourner Truth, too, knew well the seeming permanence of gendered and racial proscription. Under the aegis of African American mysticism, Truth engaged in a fierce interplay between her emerging womanist sensibilities and the rupturing of social and religious conven tions. She was a ‘‘true believer,’’ freed by this most intimate of experiences to challenge prevailing social norms and expectations.

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African American Mysticism

religious belief and practice from Africa throughout the Diaspora. There is W. E. B. DuBois’s triumph ‘‘Of the Faith of our Fathers’’ and lament ‘‘Of the Passing of the First Born’’ in the Souls of Black Folk. James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Alice Walker’s By the Light of My Father’s Smile, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved are all soaring and unconventional (and by definition controversial) stories of spiritual and corporeal redemption. There are artists, dancers, painters, poets, musicians, and filmmakers like Katherine Dunham, John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Julie Dash, Maya Angelou, Tupac Shakur, Meshell Ndegeocello, Bob Marley, John Biggers, and countless more. Mysticism, that is to say, a people’s most intimate experiences of faith and hope, compassion and critique, abounds in African American religion, culture, and life.

Beliefs and Practices The African American encounter with mysticism is far-reaching in scope and extensive in time. It is a saga of mythic beginnings and the myriad of experiences of Africa’s children predating antiquity and stretching forward to the transatlantic epic, to the vast millions of women, children, and men who were snatched from Africa over a period of some 400 years and their yearning to finally and at last be at home. It is an originating orientation whose roots also lie in the oft-forgotten and perhaps never to be told discomforting remembrances of African families, elders, chiefs, and clans, entire communities who grieved for the return of their relatives to the Old World. Despite their movement into the New World, the descendants of Africa never stopped

searching for ways to reunite the severed links. Differences of region aside— throughout the Americas—in lands claimed by Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, and English the children of Africa everywhere found powerfully creative ways to transcend the degradation of their estate. Out of the great diversity of oppressed black humanity was forged a common bond, a unified set of experiences, the constituent universals that would lead to a proverbial recognition throughout the Diaspora: ‘‘The blood that unites us is thicker than the waters that divide us,’’ and a positive if rather enigmatic understanding on both sides of the Atlantic— we are Africans (Gomez 2005). This mystic revalorization or imagination of origins, and a people’s concern to authenticate their utter humanity takes a seminal shift in the land that was to become the United States of America. Mystic-laden traditions from the African inheritance to Azusa Street and beyond were to leave an indelible imprint on a people having undergone the horrific terror of the Atlantic world (the triumphant ‘‘rise of the West’’) to call forth oppositional and independent understandings of themselves. At the middle point between the competing worldviews of the modern and postmodern world they found resident an alternative vision. The basis for this new critical stance of human renewal and possibility, of resistance and contestation, sprang from the visions, dreams, and contemplations of (in this instance) the descendants of Africa in North America. The interrelationships of these meanings and events—challenged, contradicted, and sometimes even reversed—are at the heart of an inchoate mystic experiencing endemic to African American religious and social life. Alton B. Pollard III

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Carson, Clayborne, ed. The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), IV: 114 15. Dodson, Jualynne. ‘‘Nineteenth Century A.M.E. Preaching Women.’’ Women in New Worlds, ed. Hilah F. Thomas and Rosemary Skinner Keller (Nashville: Abingdon, 1982), 276 89. Gomez, Michael. Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Harding, Vincent. There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America (New York: Harcourt, 1981). Humez, Jean M. ‘‘ ‘My Spirit Eye’: Some Functions of Spiritual and Visionary Expe rience in the Lives of Five Black Women Preachers, 1810 1880.’’ Women and the Structure of Society, ed. B. J. Harris and J. K. McNamara (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1984), 129 43. Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Grove Press, 1965). Pollard, Alton B., III. ‘‘Howard Thurman and the Experience of Encounter:

A Phenomenological View.’’ The Journal of Religious Thought 46, no. 2 (Winter Spring 1990): 28 42. Pollard, Alton B., III. Mysticism and Social Change: The Social Witness of Howard Thurman (New York: Peter Lang, 1992). Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinher ited (Nashville: Abingdon Cokesbury Press, 1949). Thurman, Howard. Deep Is the Hunger (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1951). Thurman, Howard. The Creative Encounter (New York: Harper, 1954). Thurman, Howard. The Inward Journey (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1961). Thurman, Howard. The Search for Common Ground (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE LUTHERAN CHURCH Historical Development When Christianity in African American communities is mentioned, the typical image is of people gathered in one of the

HOWARD THURMAN (1899–1981) Howard Thurman is the most expressive figure in African American mysticism. Thurman is best known for the San Francisco congregation he co founded and co pastored from 1944 53, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples (Fellowship Church), considered to be one of the first authentically inclusive models of institutional religion in the United States. A former dean of the chapel at Howard University (1932 1944), he would gain further renown at Boston University as the first African American dean at a major white university (1953 1965). Years would pass before Thurman would begin to identify his early and almost unconscious ‘‘experience of encounter’’ and ‘‘sense of Presence’’ with mysticism. Fully attuned to the collaborative forces of bigotry and how the social order was set against him and the African American community, his formidable mystic perceptions made him wary of any group or entity claiming exclusive jurisdiction over the whole of life, including church and state. In Thurman’s thinking it is vital religious experience, an ontological and epistemological reordering, that provides an aperture for the worlds’ disinherited to operate with freedom and integrity as individuals and communities in the social sphere.

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African Americans and the Lutheran Church

predominantly African American denominations—living out the religious heritage of Richard Allen, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King Jr., and Fannie Lou Hamer, among others. But to think this way entails a limited view of African American religious life, a perspective that ignores a good percentage of African Americans and their Christian commitments. African American Christians dominate the religious landscape of African American communities in the United States. But one should not assume that all African American Christians are affiliated with historically African American denominations. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are spread across numerous denominations, including the Lutheran Church. From its initial beginning in Europe, the basic patterns of Lutheranism spread, eventually moving into the North American context as Europeans sailed to the colonies beginning in the 1600s. Lutheranism, like other forms of Protestantism—so named because those associated with the general movement protested against what they considered problems in the Catholic Church—spread across a great territory (Noll 2001, 12). In 1649 a group of Lutheran colonists established themselves in an area stretching from what is currently Manhattan to Albany. In spite of this movement, congregations had a difficult time recruiting clergy willing to undertake the dangerous and frustrating work of leading new congregations in the ‘‘New World.’’ The few ministers available had to spread their services over large geographic areas, attempting to meet the basic needs of several congregations at one time—each receiving a few sermons during a year. Based on this shortage of clergy for the growing Lutheran presence, it was not until 1669 that those in New York celebrated communion.

It would take roughly a century for these small congregations to solidify into a formal network. The first synod (the Ministerium of Pennsylvania)—a regional grouping of congregations— was developed in 1748 when Henry Muhlenberg gathered together a group of Lutherans for the purpose of better organizing their activities and developing communication between various churches. This push toward firm organizational structure was matched in 1786 by liturgical conformity through the production of a book of service and a hymnal. At this point in the eighteenth century, Lutherans numbered roughly 7,000 spread across 70 churches (Lagerquist 1999, 55). The number of Lutherans would grow with time, as would the mechanisms (e.g., schools, magazines, missions organizations) used to conduct their work. This growth, however, was not without controversy and splits. For example, debate over the extent to which the uniqueness of the North American context should impact the presentation and application of traditional Lutheran doctrine—should there be a liberal application of Lutheran doctrine, or should there be a more orthodox application—resulted in the formation of various synods. In 1847, as a result of this debate, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod formed with an interest in preserving a traditional or conservative application of doctrine. Other synods formed were the General Synod and the United Synod (Noll 2001, 21). Such difficulties and divisions were only intensified during the early twentieth century as a new wave of Lutheran immigrants reached the United States with their assumptions concerning church life in tow. The twentieth century was marked by continued disagreement and splits over theological issues, but also efforts to

African Americans and the Lutheran Church merge like-minded Lutherans. In either case, the significance of Lutheranism and its appeal remained. The numbers tell the story in that two of the largest denominations in the United States are Lutheran—the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with over 5 million members as of 2002 and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod with roughly 2.5 million members. This membership is diverse, representing various racial and ethnic groups. Within this communion of Lutherans who work to safeguard and enhance their church are African Americans. Theirs is a history of involvement that moves through numerous difficulties, always pushing for a richer participation in Lutheranism. It is a story of religious commitment beginning during the period of slavery. In 1669 an African was baptized into fellowship within the Lutheran Church in New York (Lagerquist 1999, 26). Starting out with a few scattered conversions and baptisms, Africans slowly gained access to Lutheran churches with a noticeable increase as a result of the revivalism and pietism that marked the 1730s and the early 1800s, in the northern colonies and southern colonies, respectively. Not all Africans became members of predominately white congregations. For example, Jehu Jones formed an African Lutheran church in New York in 1832. But much of this work took place within the context of tension over slavery—with many Lutherans seeking to aid Africans without disrupting the system of slavery. Daniel Payne, a Lutheran of African descent who eventually joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church, spoke to this contradiction and called for Lutherans to fight against slavery because of the manner in which it damages the God-human relationship. The strategies

used to approach Africans certainly involved a compromise with slavery. Yet in some areas such as the Southeast there was a noteworthy increase in African membership, with estimates approaching 10,000 before 1860. Consensus did not exist in Lutheran circles concerning the proper response to slavery, although most Lutherans in the nineteenth century were not concerned with what might be considered the political ramifications of religion. Some objected to it, while others endorsed segregation and did nothing to change the social status of Africans. There was little interest in using Lutheranism as a way of transforming the socioeconomic and political nature of American life. The segregation model fueled developments such as support for the formation of separate regional conventions. Creation of the Alpha Evangelical Synod of Freedmen resulted from such an effort, but its independence was rather limited as Black leadership was replaced by White leadership. The relationship of African Americans to Lutheranism was troubled at times, but efforts were made sporadically to ease this tension. One such attempt involved the Lutheran Church, prior to its merger with two other Lutheran churches, in America’s consultation on Minority Group Interests. African Americans and other representatives of the minority presence in the church suggested goals for improving the relationship between people of color and Lutheranism. Some of the goals were rather ambitious, such as a call for aggressive evangelization of minorities until the makeup of the church represented the population breakdown of the United States (Lagerquist 2001, 142). In such efforts the American Lutheran Church devoted resources to educational

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African Americans and the Lutheran Church

opportunities for African Americans, and in the early 1980s the Board of American Lutheran Church Women put in place a policy requiring the presence of women of color on the board as a way of ensuring the development of policies and plans that were sensitive to the needs and wants of women of color. Lutherans would approve the ordination of women, and the first woman would become a bishop in 1995. The efforts of the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church of America, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Church were combined to some degree through the development of the African American Lutheran Association, an organization of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (a 1988 merger of the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church of America, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches). Conferences related to the experiences of African Americans in the Lutheran Church and financial support of mission activities, for example, are used to push Lutheranism to confront issues of race. This work includes fostering an ongoing conversation concerning the legacy of slavery and the reparations debate.

Progress has been slow with respect to an increase in black membership. As of 1999, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—the largest Lutheran Church in the United States with some 5 million members—reported African American membership of less than 54,000, roughly 1 percent of the total membership of the denomination.

Beliefs and Practices While it is not completely accurate to argue that Lutherans, in spite of the name of the denomination, are committed to the teachings of Martin Luther, it is reasonable to suggest that the Book of Concord containing some of his religious thought guides the theological sensibilities of most Lutherans in the United States (Lagerquist 1999, 5–6). Luther began to ask questions concerning the nature of the Roman Catholic faith and the activities of the Church. In keeping with the traditional academic practice of his time and location, Luther posted 95 theses for debate in Wittenberg, in 1517. Church officials considered this a challenge, and he was eventually asked to recant his views. Luther refused because to do so would be to reject

ADDIE BUTLER (1946–) Addie Butler holds a doctorate from Columbia University and has held numerous posts in higher education. In addition, Butler has had great influence within the Lutheran Church. For example, she has chaired the Worship and Music Committee of the Refor mation Lutheran Church in Philadelphia. On the regional level, she has served as the Vice President of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Butler has also held the post of Vice President of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (1997 2003). She has also served on the Board of Trustees for the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Her service to the church has been recognized in a variety of ways, including the church’s Service to God Medal.

African Americans and the Lutheran Church Scripture and the ministry of Jesus the Christ as he understood them. Luther did not reject Catholic Church per se; rather, he rejected what he considered its troubled teachings and attitudes. Luther developed a reformation of the Catholic Church’s position on the nature of salvation. The Church’s theology and actions suggested that salvation could be secured through good works, but Luther’s reading of Scripture posed an alternative: Salvation is simply a gift from God, given to humans through divine Grace and accepted by faith. Humans do not merit salvation, nor can they behave consistently in a way that would earn it. Furthermore, he believed preoccupation with the monastic system and priesthood as exceptional modalities of service to God did not recognize the manner in which people could serve God in productive ways through their daily lives, within the context of their secular employment. Luther believed that each individual was capable of developing a relationship with God and was capable of understanding Scripture with the aid of the Holy Spirit, when sermons and liturgy were made available in the language of the ‘‘common’’ people (Balmer and Winner 2002, 37). That is to say, there is

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something to be said for the notion of a calling from God to service, but Luther understood this call as a general process by which people should attempt to live righteously within all professions and all dimension of life. Hence, all believers should be active in the worship experience because all believers are equal in the sight of God, regardless of their socioeconomic circumstances. In essence he argued for what is commonly called the priesthood of all believers. In addition, Luther argued that only baptism and communion should be recognized as sacraments. The Augsburg Confession (1530) outlined the underpinning of this new theological and liturgical position, and it provided the framework for the doctrinal commitments of Lutherans. Shaped by the Augsburg Confession, the most recent statement of faith found on the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (the largest Lutheran communion in the United States) Web site summarizes basic dimensions of its theological heritage. It does so by highlighting the saving work of God through Jesus Christ, who ‘‘is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation.’’ Furthermore, ‘‘the proclamation of God’s message to us as both Law and Gospel is

NATHANIEL CARTER (1875–1904) Carter was trained and ordained into the Lutheran ministry in 1896, after having arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, four years earlier. He was attracted to the missionary work being done amongst African Americans in that area of the country by the Lutheran Church. Carter’s ordination made him one of the first African Americans to reach that sta tus within the denomination. Among his responsibilities was a fund raising tour con ducted in the Midwest. The success of his efforts resulted in enough money to build, in 1897, St. Philip’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. He pastured that church until his death in 1904.

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African Americans and Religious Humanism

the Word of God, revealing judgment and mercy through word and deed, beginning with the Word in creation, continuing in the history of Israel, and centering in all its fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ.’’ The nature and purpose of Jesus Christ is presented, according to Lutherans, through the canonical Scriptures, which tell the story, inspired by God, of God’s work through Jesus Christ. These Scriptures provide all information necessary for salvation (http://www.elca .org/co/faith.html). Anthony B. Pinn

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Balmer, Randall, and Lauren Winner. Prot estantism in America (New York: Colum bia University Press, 2002). Braaten, Carl F. Principles of Lutheran Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007). Lagerquist, L. Anne. The Lutherans (Cleveland: Greenwood Press, 1999). Lull, Timothy F., and Mark S. Hanson. On Being Lutheran: Reflections on Church, Theology and Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). Noll, Mark. The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity (St. Louis: Eerdmans Publishing, 2001).

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND RELIGIOUS HUMANISM Historical Development While there remains a good deal of debate concerning the nature and meaning of ‘‘Religious Humanism,’’ it is reasonable to claim that it is an umbrella category used

to capture a full range of religious and spiritual perspectives, involving a general suspension of belief in the supernatural and focusing on human accountability and responsibility for what takes place in the world. It, like secular humanism, holds claims related to divine beings and notions of transcendence suspect. But unlike secular humanism, it finds a more general and natural or earthbound sense of religiosity useful and healthy. That is to say, religious humanism is a form of religious belief and practice, but one without notions of the divine and without appeal to transcendent realities such as heaven, hell, angels, and demons. Its commitments and perspectives are less concerned with relationship with God or gods, and more concerned with framing and celebrating proper human living through good practice, or ethics. In this respect, religious humanism as an umbrella category can, in practice, include agnosticism to aggressive atheism and every orientation in-between. Many reduce this mode of humanism to atheism—a rejection of God; religious humanism tends to give less attention to disproving the existence of God than does secular humanism, although critiques of traditional forms of theism are not uncommon. Instead, its primary concern is with providing moral and ethical principles that promote healthy life options for humans and a proper relationship to the larger, natural environment. Religious humanism, as the phrase suggests, is a humancentered religious orientation. It is religious or religion because it, as other traditions discussed in this encyclopedia and as defined in the introduction to the encyclopedia, provides life orientation. It is religion or religious because it provides adherents with an ‘‘ultimate’’ life orientation, complete with thought and practices that shape and guide movement through

African Americans and Religious Humanism the world. Some refer to this orientation as religious naturalism. Attention to religion within African American communities typically revolves around discussion of theistic orientations such as black churches, Islam, and so on. And, in part, this narrow focus is premised on an assumption that people of African descent in the Americas are theists, or believers in God or gods. Although it is certainly the case that many African Americans acknowledge divine beings as part of their religious thought and practice as evidenced by the large number of African Americans who claim to pray, for example. However, not all people of African descent have held to theism. In fact, there is substantial historical and cultural evidence to suggest that many African Americans, from their early presence in the American hemisphere have rejected theism and have embraced various modes of religious humanism. As the spirituals, a musical form established by African Americans early in their presence in North America, speak to an early belief in divine figures who impinge on human history, the blues, another early mode of musical expression created by free and enslaved Africans, point to a deep suspicion concerning the supernatural and the idea that the world is managed by a kind and loving God. The sentiment expressed in cultural forms such as the blues were also present within popular conversation and established within the minds and sensibilities of some enslaved Africans (Pinn 1998). A popular example of this disregard for the supernatural, for early examples of religious humanism, is found in the reflections of Rev. Daniel Alexander Payne, an African American minister during the nineteenth century. Chronicling the feeling of enslaved

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Africans to the religious hypocrisy of those who profess Christianity yet hold slaves, he wrote the following words in 1839: ‘‘ . . . they hear these masters praying in their families, and they know that oppression and slavery are inconsistent with the Christian religion; therefore they scoff at religion itself—mock their masters, and distrust both the goodness and justice of God. Yes, I have known them even to question his existence’’ (Pinn 1998, 161). This rejection of theism, typically in the form of Christianity, is not limited to a few voices during the period of slavery. Early African American expressive culture such as folktales and folk wisdom also speak to this nontheistic stance. From the Br’er Rabbit stories told early in African American history, in which human ingenuity and accountability are highlighted over against divine intervention, to more forceful presentations, cultural wisdom speaks to a range of religious possibilities, including the humanism of a figure such as John Junior, a chimney sweeper (Pinn 1998). In this particular story, John rails against Christianity, the dominant symbol of theism for many: ‘‘I strictly have my fun. No, I ain’t tendin’ been’ no Christian . . . What in the world is they prayin’ fo’? Tryin’ to get to heaven? They is goin’ to get there anyhow. There ain’t no other hell but this one down here’’ (Brewer 1968, 268). John expresses the human-centered orientation that some African Americans embraced over against Christianity or other theistic orientations. Examples of humanism as life orientation, as religious system, are found throughout African American culture, from the period of slavery, through Reconstruction, and into the twentieth century. And perhaps the most forceful

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and clearly presented presentation of humanism as religion within African American communities is found in the literature produced during what we commonly refer to as the Harlem Renaissance. While this cultural movement’s dates are difficult to claim with great certainty, it is reasonable to argue that the Harlem Renaissance spread from roughly 1919 to the 1930s. More certain is the impact artists associated with this movement, such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, and Zora Neale Hurston, had on the cultural selfunderstanding of African Americans in particular and Americans in general during the early twentieth century (Pinn 1998). These artists provided rich and thick depictions of African American life, including its religious dimensions. Of note is the manner in which standouts such as Johnson expressed as part of their work and personal orientation an undercurrent of humanism in African American communities. Johnson argues that theism works for some, and their attention to such an orientation should be respected; but he moves in another direction. As a student at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University), Johnson read leading agnostic writers such as Thomas Paine, and those materials

James Weldon Johnson left his mark in so many areas of African American culture during the early part of the twentieth century that he is not easily categorized: he was a songwriter, poet, novelist, scholar, diplomat, and civil rights activist. (Library of Congress)

served to reinforce and name a nontheistic (or humanistic) orientation he had first embraced as a much younger man. In other words, ‘‘his doubts concerning religion and the church increased with each year. He could not, however, resolve the tension

ANTHONY B. PINN (1964–) Anthony B. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. Prior to Rice, Pinn taught at Macalester College (St. Paul, Minnesota). He is also the executive director of the Society for the Study of Black Religion. Pinn received the BA from Columbia University, and the MDiv from Harvard Divinity School. Pinn also completed the MA and PhD at Harvard University. His teaching interests include liberation theologies, black religious aesthetics, religion and popular cul ture, and African American Humanism. His work in African American Humanism has served to further clarify its presence and practice within African American communities.

African Americans and Religious Humanism solely out of his narrow experience with his family or church. It would take a few years, and a sense of life styles beyond the provincialism of Jacksonville, for Johnson to find his answer in agnosticism’’ (Levy 1973, 15). Such a move away from Christianity does not always involve for African Americans a move into agnosticism—for some it is a much more direct path to overt atheism, with a heightened concern for human accountability and responsibility for the quality of life for humans and the rest of the natural environment. The changing nature of life for people of African descent in the Americas challenged long-held assumptions concerning the nature and meaning of religion. Continued racial discrimination, the Great Migration—the mass movement of African Americans in the United States from rural areas to cities in the North—and numerous other economic and political issues pushed for greater clarity but complexity with respect to what it means to be ‘‘black’’ and ‘‘religious.’’ While black churches and other religious orientations presented throughout this encyclopedia continued to maintain adherents, humanism was not without its share of

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committed persons. Some of these adherents were rather critical of black churches and belief in God in more general terms. In particular, one sees this with African American involvement in the Communist Party during the first several decades of the twentieth century. It was not uncommon for some African American communists to push a materialist agenda, one that had little room for notions of transcendence and divine intervention— preferring instead a read of human history and proper mechanism of socioeconomic and political advancement (Pinn 1998). The optimism that marked much of life in the United States prior to World War I was broken, and in its place was a measured realism and suspicion concerning the nature of labor—the ‘‘haves and the have nots.’’ While not all African American Communists and Socialists were opposed to theistic religion—in fact several African American Socialists were leaders of black churches—it was not uncommon for some to critique and reject theism. Take, for example, the words of Hosea Hudson (who maintained belief in God) speaking about Communist colleagues during the 1930s. ‘‘I had heard,’’

ALICE WALKER (1944–) One of the most significant writers of the twentieth century, Alice Walker received her undergraduate degree from Sarah Lawrence College. Holding a variety of jobs, she wrote her first book in 1968, which generated opportunities, including a faculty appoint ment at Wellesley College. Walker continued to write, producing such important books as The Color Purple and In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. The definition of ‘‘woman ism’’ found in the latter became a significant conceptual framework for a turn in African American Religious Studies called womanist theology and ethics. Within many of her works of fiction as well as more autobiographical writings, elements of humanism are present and are combined with a more general regard for the environment or nature as the source of meaning. Her contributions to humanism were acknowledged in 1997 when she was named ‘‘Humanist of the Year’’ by the American Humanist Association.

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recounts Hudson, ‘‘other Party people talking. Some of them had never been members of no church, talking about there wont no such thing as God: ‘Where is he at? You say it’s a God, where is he at? You can’t prove where he’s at’ ’’ (Painter 1979, 133). This humanism (in the form of atheism) noted in the statement above is further evidenced in literature extending beyond the Harlem Renaissance and the 1930s flirtation with Communism. Richard Wright, at one point a member of the Community Party and a writer, comes into prominence on the heels of the Harlem Renaissance during a phase of literary production at times referred to as Black Realism during the 1940s and 1950s. Wright, like many African American humanists, moves to this religious orientation in response to what is perceived as the inadequate response of Christianity to human suffering through a theodicy (doctrine related to the question ‘‘what can one say about divine justice in light of human misery?’’) that embraces and celebrates suffering as a sign of divine favor, deserved punishment, or necessary condition

leading to great reward or gain. From Wright’s perspective only a humanbased, human-centered, life orientation gives African Americans the proper perspective on life that can address suffering and produce mature strategies for living. His position, based on this recognition, involves a disregard for God—not love for God, not hatred toward God, but disinterest (Pinn 1998). Wright expresses this stance when reflecting on a conversation had with a young man when Wright was a child. ‘‘It would have been impossible,’’ Wright recounts, ‘‘for me to have told him how I felt about religion. I had not settled in my mind whether I believed in God or not; His existence or nonexistence never worried me. I reasoned that if there did exist an all-wise, allpowerful God who knew the beginning and the end . . . this God would surely know that I doubted His existence . . . And if there was no God at all, then why all the commotion?’’ (Wright 1991, 134). Rejection of theism as evidenced in the literature of figures such as Richard Wright and in political activism such as

RICHARD WRIGHT (1908–1960) One of the leading figures of Black Realism in literature, whose writing represents for many the height of the ‘‘protest novel,’’ Richard Wright came into public view with a col lection of short stories titled Uncle Tom’s Children (1938). This book was followed by a string of texts that would secure his reputation, including Native Son (1940), Black Boy (1945), and The Outsider (1953). Within his early writings one finds much thought drawn from his Communist leanings developed during his time in Chicago (1927 1937). Wright grew disillusioned with the Communist Party and with the possibility of racial equality in the United States, and, after some time spent in New York City, he moved to Paris in the latter part of the 1940s. In Paris he was influenced by the existen tialist thought of figures such as Jean Paul Satre. Within Wright’s fiction one finds a strong critique of traditional, Christian religion, and in its place he suggests a form of humanism.

African Americans and Religious Humanism found with African American Communists does not always involve an explicit rejection of theistic communities such as black churches. In some cases, holders of humanist sensibilities have maintained a more pragmatic relationship with Christian organizations in that these organizations: (1) hold significant sway within African American communities; and, (2) provide optimal organizing and recruitment opportunities because churches represent large numbers of African Americans. This is the case, for instance, with some political activity during the 1960s as promoted by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Initially aligned with the Civil Rights Movement and its Christian orientation, this organization of students committed to social transformation became somewhat disillusioned with the manner in which the Christian ethos of the movement tended to cripple more aggressive strategies (Pinn 1998). In such instances, some members of SNCC who appreciated more humanistic orientations voiced their perspective over against

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Christianity. James Forman, the executive secretary of SNCC during its formative years and later member of the Black Panther Party, frames his political perspective and activism in terms of a human-centered viewpoint: I reject the existence of God. He is not all powerful, all knowing, and everywhere. He is not just or unjust because he does not exist. God is a myth; churches are institu tions designed to perpetuate this myth and thereby keep people in subjugation. When a people who are poor, suffering with dis ease and sickness, accept the fact that God has ordained for them to be this way then they will never do anything about their human condition. In other words, the belief in a supreme being or God weakens the will of a people to change conditions them selves. (Pinn 2001, 272 273)

Forman was not alone in recognizing the theological problems often associated with theism. However, some members of the Black Panther Party (an organization started in the 1960s in California to combat racism) appreciated this critique

JAMES FORMAN (1928–2005) James Forman, after service in the military, received his undergraduate degree at Roosevelt University where he also worked out the initial framework of his humanism. While doing graduate work at Boston University, racial discrimination and the mounting civil rights activities caught his attention and resulted in him beginning work as a commu nity activist in Tennessee. In 1961, he would become a member of the new Student Non violent Coordinating Committee that served as an arm of the Civil Rights Movement. He played a major role in SNCC’s activities, but his militant stance on many issues meant disagreement with SNCC. Forman eventually left the organization and played a leader ship role in other groups such as the Black Panther Party. As part of the Black Economic Development Conference held in Detroit (1969), he is remembered for his taking over of a worship service at Riverside Church in New York City during which he read the Black Manifesto calling for economic and political justice. Forman continued his educa tion, receiving a PhD in 1982, and organized various journalism projects.

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but also felt at times the need to maintain cordial connections to churches. The examples of SNCC and the Black Panther Party raise an interesting question regarding African American humanism as a religious orientation in that they point out the possibility of this religious orientation within the context of a defined community. It is not simply the intellectual agenda of individuals; rather, it is also a religious commitment expressed within the context of groups. In addition to the political organizations noted above, African American humanism is also expressed up to the present in organizations such as the Unitarian Universalist Association—a non-creedal denomination (Pinn 1998). Although African Americans make up roughly only 1 percent of the denomination’s 150,000 members, the leadership of the organization reflects their involvement. For example, Rev. Dr. William Sinkford, an African American, is president of the Association (see the entry on the Unitarian Universalist Association). Others who are less vocal about their humanism and are not markedly atheistic maintained membership in traditional churches, choosing to simply interpret church creeds and theology in light of their humanist sensibilities.

Beliefs and Practices Regardless of their particular setting, and the range of perspectives within the framework of Religious Humanism, it is marked by allegiance to an assortment of guiding principles and assumptions, including the following: 1. Humanity is fully and solely account able and responsible for the human condition and the correction of human ity’s plight. 2. There is a general suspicion toward or rejection of supernatural explanations and claims, combined with an under standing of humanity as an evolving part of the natural environment as opposed to being a created being. This can involve disbelief in God(s). 3. There is an appreciation for African American cultural production and a perception of traditional forms of black religiosity as having cultural importance as opposed to any type of ‘‘cosmic’’ authority. 4. There is a commitment to individual and societal transformation. 5. There is a controlled optimism that recognizes both human potential and human destructive activities. (Pinn 2004)

WILLIAM R. JONES (1938–) Recently retired from Florida State University where he was Professor of Religion and Director of African American Studies, William R. Jones also taught at Yale Divinity School. He received the BA from Howard University, the Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School, and the PhD from Brown University. Working in philosophy and theology, Jones is best known for his critique of African American theism and liberation theology found in Is God a White Racist? as well as his analysis of race based discrimi nation. Jones has been active in the Unitarian Universalist Association and has held numerous leadership positions within the organization.

African Americans and Religious Humanism While there is some variation, these principles represent the general sense of ethics that frames religious humanism within African American communities. These five concerns entail, to some degree, what we might identify as core concerns, and it is these principles that frame anything one might label humanist practices. Unlike many of the religious traditions found within African American communities, there is little about the core humanist principles that necessitate a central or common space for practice. That is to say, unlike black churches such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the stated creed does not require or even work best in the context of collective worship. In fact, the notion of worship does not fit well into the humanist vocabulary. Instead one might talk in terms of humanist celebration that range from rather mundane activities engaged in by individuals to more formal and recognizable moments of communal celebration such as a Sunday service in any number of Unitarian Universalist Churches. What the humanist aims for involves the development of a healthy relationship with self, community, and the larger environment. Such

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appreciation for life, in a general sense, for the humanist is sacramental. The lack of attention to transcendence and the supernatural means for the humanist ‘‘mundane’’ activities—like a walk through the woods, gatherings with loved ones, community service, and so on—have a celebratory or sacramental nature to them. In short, any activity that sharpens commitment to healthy life and that promotes strong and positive relationships, that connects humans to the earth and each other, can involve for the humanist a moment or practice of celebration. Anthony B. Pinn

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, Norm, Jr., ed. Personal Paths to Humanism (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003). Brewer, J. Mason, ed. American Negro Folk lore (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968). Forman, James. ‘‘God Is Dead: A Question of Power.’’ The Making of Black Revolution aries (Washington, DC: Open Hand Pub lishing, 1985). In By These Hands: A Documentary History of African Ameri can Humanism, ed. Anthony B. Pinn (New York: New York University Press, 2001).

MARK MORRISON-REED (1950–) Rev. Mark Morrison Reed has pastored numerous Unitarian churches, including Toronto Unitarian Church. He also served from 2001 to 2003 as the first African Canadian president of the Canadian Unitarian Council. Morrison Reed’s publications on the history and contributions of people of African descent to Unitarianism are groundbreaking and continues to inform conversation with the Unitarian Universalist Association and beyond. In addition to his pastoral and administrative work, Morrison Reed has also taught at Mead ville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, Illinois. He is known and highly regarded for his race relations work within Unitarian Universalist communities, helping the organization address issues that began to emerge in significant ways in the 1970s.

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Jones, William R. Is God a White Racist? A Preamble to Black Theology (1973; Bos ton: Beacon Press, 1996). Levy, Eugene. James Weldon Johnson: Black Leader, Black Voice (Chicago: The Uni versity of Chicago Press, 1973). Morrison Reed, Mark D. Black Pioneers in a White Denomination, 3rd ed. (Boston: Skinner House Books, 1994). Painter, Nell Irvin. The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979). Pinn, Anthony B. Varieties of African Ameri can Religious Experience (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998). Pinn, Anthony B. African American Human ist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of Nimrod (New York: Pal grave/Macmillan, 2004). Pinn, Anthony B., ed. By These Hands: A Documentary History of African Ameri can Humanism (New York: New York University Press, 2001). Walker, Alice. The Color Purple (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1982). Walker Alice. ‘‘The Only Reason You Want to Go to Heaven Is That You Have Been Driven Out of Your Mind.’’ Anything We Love Can Be Saved (New York: Random House, Inc., 1997). Wright, Richard. Native Son (New York: Harper Brothers, 1940). Wright, Richard. Black Boy (American Hun ger) (New York: Harper Collins Publish ers/The Library of America, 1991).

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND SECULAR HUMANISM Historical Development Humanism is a nonreligious life stance drawing upon reason, experience, and observation to formulate ethical ideas and

to develop wisdom and scientific knowledge to further human advancement. Humanism has a very long tradition. It can be traced back to ancient India, China (Confucianism and Buddhism were originally human-centered religions), and Greece. Protagoras (481–411 BCE) summed it up in his work Of the Gods: ‘‘Man is the measure of all things, of the reality of those which are, and of the unreality of those which are not.’’ Or in today’s terms, human thought and human action must be at the center of human existence. The welfare of the human race—rather than the supposed will of God—must be humanity’s chief concern. Confucius (551–471 BCE) believed that morality could be derived without reference to the gods. He taught that, in order to attain wisdom, human beings must strive toward kindness, righteousness, and social justice. He stressed education, but not prayer. Centuries before the birth of Christianity, he stressed the silver rule: Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. In about the third century BCE, humanists founded the Carvaka and Lokayata movements in India. The Carvakas and Lokayatas stood in opposition to superstition and literal interpretations of Hindu teachings. They were atheists, rationalists, and materialists. They repudiated belief in the soul, reincarnation, immortality, and other religious beliefs in their day. They believed that priests were unnecessary and that people should focus on enjoying life in the here and now. They critiqued the Vedas and the Upanishadas, the leading religious books among the ancient Indians. Eventually, religionists successfully hindered the movements and obliterated most of their writings. The Carvakas lasted until about 1400 CE.

African Americans and Secular Humanism There have been many other humanist movements throughout the world since ancient times, including the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Today there are humanist groups in several nations. There are thousands of humanist publications and numerous books on the history and philosophy of humanism. Humanism has been embraced as an alternative to religion and as a response to White supremacy by African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance was essentially a Black humanist movement. In 1923, Jean Toomer wrote Cane, a superb collection of poems, stories, and sketches about life for Blacks in the United States. Toomer once attended a lecture by the agnostic Clarence Darrow, which caused him to abandon his belief in a universe operated in accordance with God’s divine laws. In Cane, Toomer has a story called ‘‘Kabnis,’’ in which the character Kabnis is highly critical of Black preachers. Layman, another character, goes further and says all preachers are parasitic. Nella Larsen, the author of the novella Quicksand, was deeply humanistic. Helga, the main character in the novella, is forced to embrace theism, but in the end, she rebels and comes to view theism as a tool of oppression against Black people. The poet Sterling Brown wrote ‘‘Slim in Hell,’’ in which a Black man named Slim Greer dies and is transported to heaven. Saint Peter meets him, gives him angel wings, and instructs Slim to find out what is going on in hell. Slim is shocked to find out that hell and the Deep South look remarkably similar and gets the surprise of his life. Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, and other major writers contributed to the Harlem Renaissance. It was one of the most creative periods in African American history, and many of the

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works that came from that time are still widely read and appreciated today. In 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party. Drawing upon Marxist-Leninist ideals, they developed a theory that Newton called ‘‘revolutionary humanism.’’ They advocated ‘‘community control of police’’ and led a successful breakfast program for school children. They established a completely secular ten-point program listing their demands and worked closely with poor and progressive people from varied backgrounds. In the same year, Ron Karenga, now known as Maulana Karenga, created the Kwanzaa celebration. Karenga, a nontheist, has always been careful to note that celebration is not religious, but cultural. It is held December 26 to January 1 to promote Black pride, unity, and an appreciation for African culture and values. It is now embraced by millions of people throughout the world. These are just a few examples of Black involvement in the promotion of humanist ideas. However, organized humanism in the United States has primarily been led by Whites.

Huey Newton (right), founder of the Black Panther Party, sits with Bobby Seale at party headquarters in San Francisco, July 1967. (Ted Streshinsky/Corbis)

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In 1980, Paul Kurtz founded Free Inquiry, the nation’s leading journal of secular humanist thought and opinion, and the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH) in Buffalo, New York. (In 1996, the world witnessed the fall of the former Soviet bloc, the Berlin Wall, and communism. The group then changed the name to simply the Council for Secular Humanism.) Kurtz founded the organization and the journal in response to the Religious Right’s continual assaults upon secular humanism. The Council is primarily an educational organization. Among its main concerns are the development of a secular ethics, church/state separation, the promotion of good science, and achieving the good life for human beings in the here and now. The Council published the first issue of Free Inquiry in the fall of 1980. The magazine featured A Secular Humanist Declaration that Kurtz put together. Many famous leaders and thinkers signed it, including science fiction writer Issac Asimov, philosophers Sir A. J. Ayer and Sidney Hook, DNA co-discoverer Francis Crick, and psychologist B. F. Skinner. The declaration called for unfettered free inquiry into all areas of human endeavor. It opposed religious intolerance and stressed the importance of selfreliance and human-centered thought and action, as opposed to supposed divine intervention. The New York Times featured the statement on its front page, and publications throughout the world ran stories about the declaration. In 1983, the Council established the International Academy of Humanism. Humanist laureates include: • Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate in Literature

• Le´ opold Se´ dar Senghor (1906– 2001), former president of Senegal • Taslima Nasrin, author, physician, social critic • Salman Rushdie, author, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (U.K.) • Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director, Hayden Planetarium In 1985, Jim Christopher founded Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), an alternative recovery group to groups depending upon a ‘‘higher power’’ to fight their addictions to alcohol, illegal drugs, tobacco, and other substances. The group has based its mission around the premise that it is unnecessary to believe in a Supreme Being to battle addiction. The program is international and has helped to save thousands of lives, from prison inmates to professionals. Though the program is nonreligious it is not antireligious and religious people are welcome to join. SOS also stands for ‘‘Save Our Selves.’’ The group, a program of the Council for Secular Humanism, has published many pamphlets and books on the subject of sobriety from secular perspectives. On August 31, 1989, Norm R. Allen Jr. became the executive director of African Americans for Humanism (AAH), a subdivision of the Council. The group’s concerns include: • The promotion of ethical values • The defense of church/state separation • Opposition to racism in all of its forms • The fostering of skepticism of untested claims to knowledge • Critiques of religion, bad science, pseudoscience, and claims of the paranormal • Education

African Americans and Secular Humanism • The defense of democratic values • The pursuit of happiness for individuals and society AAH was formed in an effort to help attract more African Americans to organized humanism. Historically, there have been few non-Whites involved in organized humanism. Today, though, largely due to the efforts of AAH, the Council, and Prometheus Books headquartered near Buffalo, New York, and headed by Paul Kurtz, there are several humanist groups in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. However, there is still not much involvement among non-Whites in the West with organized humanism. AAH has had success where other efforts have failed. The organization has had news articles and essays in most of the Black newspapers throughout the United States. Representatives of the group have been featured on many of the Black radio stations throughout the United States.

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In 1991, Allen edited African-American Humanism: An Anthology, the first book to demonstrate the extent to which humanism has substantively influenced and developed African American thought, intellectualism, and activism. In the same year, Allen became editor of the AAH Examiner, the international newsletter of AAH. The quarterly newsletter features essays, articles, poems, reviews, news, and other items of relevance to humanists of African descent. In 1995, the National Center for Science Education, Inc., published several statements on science titled Voices for Evolution. Though very few African American organizations weigh in on the topic of evolution versus Intelligent Design or Creationism, AAH issued a statement. It read in part: AAH is concerned that Blacks and other minorities are woefully underrepre sented in the sciences. It will become

JAMES FARMER, JR. (1920–1999) James Farmer joined the advisory board of African Americans for Humanism in 1989. Farmer came to fame as one of the Civil Rights Movement’s Big Four leaders (with Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and Martin Luther King, Jr.). In 1942, he co founded the Com mittee of Racial Equality, which was later changed to the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In May of that year, CORE, in opposition to racial discrimination, led a success ful boycott of a restaurant in Chicago. In 1961, Farmer participated in the first major Free dom Ride in the American South. The event was successful and persuaded many to embrace the cause of passive resistance. As a result, CORE became one of the most suc cessful and influential civil rights groups in the U.S. In 1973, Farmer signed Humanist Manifesto II, a document that offered humanistic solutions to humanity’s problems. A. Philip Randolph, another African American humanist widely regarded as the grandfather of the Civil Rights Movement, also signed the manifesto. Both men were friends of Paul Kurtz, the founder of the Council for Secular Humanism. In 1997, historians, columnists, civil rights leaders, and several members of Congress petitioned the White House to bestow the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, upon Farmer. Early the following year, the NAACP gave Farmer, then 77, its Lifetime Achievement Award. Shortly thereafter, then President Bill Clinton awarded Farmer the Medal of Freedom.

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African Americans and Secular Humanism increasingly difficult to attract and retain minority students to the sciences if they are constantly bombarded with pseudosci entific misinformation and unscientific methods of investigation. For these rea sons, AAH opposes the introduction of Creationism into all science curricula of the U.S. public schools.

Other groups that presented statements included People for the American Way, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Psychological Association, and numerous religious groups. Another topic that most Black leaders have been reluctant to tackle is the exploitation of Black people by faith healers. Allen has written on this topic for Free Inquiry, and many Black newspapers throughout the United States reprinted the article. In the 1990s, psychic hotlines were big business. According to financial analysts, psychic phone networks earned

about $2 billion by 1999. Black celebrities such as Dionne Warwick and Latoya Jackson promoted the phone networks, and Blacks were largely represented among those using these services. Allen and AAH member Patrick Inniss wrote strong critiques of the hotlines for Free Inquiry and the AAH Examiner, respectively. Allen demonstrated that a belief in psychic hotlines among African Americans is part of a long history of African Americans’ belief in prophecy and paranormal claims. Many Black newspapers reprinted either Allen’s or Inniss’s article. In 2001, Christopher C. Bell Jr., who later joined AAH, wrote The Belief Factor and the White Superiority Syndrome. Bell argued that an image of a White Christ had a devastatingly negative effect upon the collective psyche of Black people. He discussed research that showed that fundamentalist religion tended to create an unscientific mind-set in its

REGINALD FINLEY (1974–) Reginald Finley, aka the Infidel Guy, has been involved with African Americans for Humanism since the late 1990s. Finley likes the term ‘‘infidel’’ because he says that everyone is an infidel in the opinions of millions of people. (Christians are infidels to many Muslims, Muslims are infidels to many Christians, Muslims and Christians are infi dels to many Jews, etc.) Finley, a former R&B singer from Atlanta, Georgia, is a former phone ‘‘psychic.’’ He and his wife, Amber, worked in that capacity and were surprised at how easily they were able to cull information from unsuspecting callers. Sometimes the callers would volunteer information without any prodding. Most callers were impressed at the supposed paranormal powers of the phone psychics, and the work was fairly lucrative. However, after a while, Finley and his wife grew tired of the game and moved on to something new. Finley eventually started his own Web site, www.infidelguy.com. Featured on the site are such programs as ‘‘The Infidel Guy Show,’’ in which the host interviews leading scientists and freethinkers. ‘‘The Debate Hour Show’’ hosts debates on the existence of God, Intelligent Design versus evolution, and other topics. ‘‘Infidel Radio’’ is a program that features first rate theologians, philos ophers, and scientists.

African Americans in the Episcopal Church adherents. He argued that though an image of a White Christ gives Blacks a sense of inferiority, on the other hand, it gives Whites a sense of superiority. Bell called for a moratorium on the display of White Christ figures. In 2003, Allen edited his second book, The Black Humanist Experience: An Alternative to Religion. The book included essays by African American humanists discussing their personal paths to humanism and the various ways in which humanism could benefit society. Contributors included writers from the United States, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa. In the introduction, the editor discusses highly successful secular primary and secondary schools in Curacao, the Netherlands Antilles, and Nigeria, respectively. In his essay on his personal path to humanism, the editor discusses the importance of AIDS prevention and stem cell research, as well as religious barriers to these areas. Further, he argues for a rational and scientific approach to the study of the natural world. African American humanists and African American religious leaders/observers differ in how far they are willing to go to critique harmful religious ideas and their sources. For example, progressive religionists might critique sexism, patriarchy, and homophobia in the church. However, they might not be willing to thoroughly critique the biblical passages that give support to these reactionary messages. Furthermore, they are unlikely to be willing to question theism itself, which some humanists believe is a major source of human misery. Humanists seem more likely to embrace an unwavering commitment to free inquiry into all areas of human endeavor, which, indeed, is the mission statement of

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the Council for Secular Humanism, than are most religionists. It is for this reason that African American humanists must continue to be involved in intellectualism and activism geared toward the liberation of African Americans. Norm R. Allen Jr.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Kurtz, Paul. Embracing the Power of Humanism (Oxford: Rowman & Little field Publishers, 2000). Kurtz, Paul. Affirmations: Joyful and Cre ative Exuberance (Amherst, NY: Prome theus Books, 2004). Kurtz, Paul. What Is Secular Humanism? (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006). Madigan, Timothy J. Promethean Love: Paul Kurtz and the Humanistic Perspective on Love (New Castle, England: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006).

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH Historical Development When the first Africans to arrive in the parts of North America settled by English were carried to Virginia aboard a Dutch slave ship in 1619, they arrived in a colony served by the Anglican Church, a direct ancestor of today’s Episcopal Church. Thus the connections, good, bad, and indifferent, between African Americans and what was to become the Episcopal Church are more longstanding than those with any other English denomination. The definition of the Africans’ relationship to the church was crucial in helping to shape slavery in its North American manifestations. At first, the

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English thought that their Christian identity was a defining characteristic as opposed to the African peoples that they bought from the slave traders. Still, many English slaveholders feared that Christian conversion and baptism of their slaves might result in the slaves being granted freedom, and for good reason. One of the claims made by Elizabeth Key, a mixed-race daughter of an English planter, in her eventually successful suit for freedom filed in 1655, was that as a Christian baptized as a child in the Anglican Church in Virginia, she was entitled to her freedom and could not be held as a slave. The court record is unclear as to which of Key’s claims were decisive in her being granted freedom, but in any event White Virginians—it turned out— were not willing for her case to serve even as a possible precedent for African slaves who came within the embrace of the Anglican Church. In 1667 the Virginia legislature enacted a law providing that baptism did not change the condition of a person as to whether he or she was slave or free, hoping thereby to encourage masters, who would no longer harbor doubts that they would lose slave labor, to permit Christian instruction of their slaves. Legislatures in other provinces where Anglicanism was established— New York and the Carolinas—enacted similar laws. All of these laws helped to contribute to a caste system where privilege was allotted to ‘‘whites’’; religion turned out to play a subservient role in the social construction of race, as a means of determining who could be subject to enslavement. The first widespread and systematic, yet halting, attempts to convert African Americans to Christianity under Anglican auspices came in 1703, with the establishment of the Society for the

Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) as a missionary arm of the Anglican Church. While the SPG’s missionary work focused on European Americans and Native Americans as well as African Americans, several of their missionary workers, including Elias Neau in New York and Francis Le Jau in South Carolina, found that much of their work would focus on the religious instruction of African American slaves. Slave masters were often suspicious, if not downright hostile, to the work of Neau and Le Jau, fearing that freedom for the slaves might be part of the missionaries’ hidden agenda. The missionaries, consequently, had to emphasize the utility of their religious instruction for the slave masters as well as the slaves. Far from making slaves ‘‘proud and Undutifull,’’ Le Jau was at pains to show that his missionary work resulted in Christian slaves ‘‘who behave themselves very well.’’ Still, the slave revolts and rumors of revolts that occurred in both South Carolina and New York in the early eighteenth century left both master and missionary stirring with unease. Le Jau regarded it as ‘‘a singular Providence’’ that not one of his Christian converts had been implicated in a 1714 slave plot in South Carolina (Sernett 1999, 30, 32). Neau’s work did not emerge from a 1712 Negro revolt quite so unscathed. Of the 21 African Americans executed, Neau had to emphasize that only two of the alleged revolters had been his students, and only one of those had been baptized; he also noted that the baptized slave was exonerated posthumously. The work of Le Jau and Neau was limited in other ways as well. Only oral instruction of potential converts was allowed; instruction in literacy was forbidden. Given all the limitations

African Americans in the Episcopal Church and opposition to their work, the number of converts gained by SPG missionaries was meager. In the middle of the eighteenth century, several events converged to make black Christianity, and with it black Anglicanism, more feasible. Most noteworthy was the Great Awakening, an evangelical outbreak preached by George Whitefield and others along the North American Atlantic coast and into the frontier. Whitefield and the preachers of John Wesley’s Methodism were part of a new dissent only loosely associated with the Anglican Church, and many of these evangelical preachers left Anglicanism for Methodism. But that was not the case with all, and the first black preacher who ended up embracing Anglicanism and being ordained as a priest did so not in the numerous states in which Anglicanism had once been an established church, but in the state of Pennsylvania, where Anglicanism had been a tolerated outsider. Absalom Jones, a 47-year-old evangelical preacher, had led a group of African Americans out of the St. George’s Methodist Church in 1793 when a white deacon had contested their choice of seats during worship. In the following year, African Americans in Philadelphia opened their first church in that city. Prior to 1794, African Americans had been organized nondenominationally in the Free African Society, but the opening of a church presented an occasion to choose. The majority of the new congregation rejected the Methodists who had so recently presented an affront and chose the Protestant Episcopal Church whose Philadelphia-based bishop, William White, had been their strong supporter. Religious leadership of this new congregation was first offered to Richard Allen, later to become famous as a

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founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; but when Allen, who desired to remain Methodist, declined, the leadership of the new congregation was assumed by his close friend Absalom Jones. The new congregation adopted the name of St. Thomas African Episcopal Church and was received in the diocese of Pennsylvania in 1794. Jones received the ordination of deacon in 1795 and of priest in 1804; he was the first African American to be ordained to the Episcopal priesthood. The establishment of other African American Episcopal congregations followed closely behind the establishment of the St. Thomas congregation. The Free African Church of St. Philip, established in 1809 but tracing its roots to Elias Neau’s school more than a century earlier, adopted an Episcopalian identity in 1818 and became St. Philip’s Episcopal Church. Strong leadership was provided by Peter Williams Jr., owner of a tobacco store, ordained in 1820 to the office of deacon and six years later as the second African American Episcopal priest. In 1910, it was one of the first black churches to relocate to Harlem. Black Episcopal congregations were also established in Baltimore, Providence, Detroit, and Newark prior to the Civil War. Most African American Episcopalians in the South remained in mixed-race churches. They were generally subject to the full range of oppression and vagaries offered by American slavery; the church usually provided no recourse. A notable example is Harriet Jacobs (1813–1897), who, in the 1830s, attended the segregated services for the few but very respectable African American members at the stately St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Edenton, North Carolina, one of the first Episcopal

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parishes to be organized in the state in 1701. Most ministers there emphasized the Apostle Paul’s teachings for slaves to obey their masters; an exception, William Cairnes, who was friendly toward slaves, lasted only one year in the post. Jacobs’s master, James Norcom, who subjected her to relentless sexual persecution and other cruelties, eventually joined this church, and she affirmed that she received worse treatment from him after he had become a church member. Later, after escaping from slavery and reflecting from the safe distance of England, she admitted her ‘‘prejudice against the Episcopal Church,’’ because of its ‘‘contemptuous’’ treatment of African Americans and the numerous misdeeds of slaveholding clergy and laity; consequently, the whole Episcopal service had seemed to her ‘‘a mockery and a sham’’ (Jacobs 1987, 278). If Jacobs’s experience should be seen as at all representative of that of African Americans in the South, it would not furnish a strong foundation for retention of African Americans in the Episcopal Church after emancipation. African Americans in the Episcopal churches of the North struggled against racial oppression and slavery, often against the wishes of the white Episcopal bishops who had supervision over their black congregations. Peter Williams of St. Philip’s received an appointment to the Board of Managers of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, but when New York Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk, a supporter of colonizationism, requested Williams’s resignation from this post, Williams felt constrained to comply. When Alexander Crummell, a prote´ge´ of Williams, applied to undertake a seminary education at the General Theological School of the Episcopal Church in New

York, Onderdonk vetoed his admission solely on the basis of his race. Crummell informally attended classes at Yale University, received ordination as deacon and priest in 1842 and 1844, and ended up receiving formal ministerial training at the University of Cambridge in England, graduating in 1853. Like Williams, Crummell was also active in the American and New York State Anti-Slavery Society. Race oppression in the church and secular arenas, in both the North and the South, was severe enough in the early

The Reverend Absalom Jones, Rector of St. Thomas African Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Absalom Jones was the first African American to be ordained to the Episcopal priesthood when he received the ordination of deacon in 1795 and of priest in 1804. He led St. Thomas African Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. (Schomburg Center/ Art Resource, New York)

African Americans in the Episcopal Church nineteenth century that many African American Episcopal clergy felt that their best chances to make a living and to contribute to humanity lay outside the United States. James Holly, a Catholic who converted to the Protestant Episcopal Church at age 26 in 1855, vigorously promoted African American emigration to Haiti. In 1861, Holly moved to Haiti, along with more than 100 members of his family and church. Within a year, the Protestant Episcopal Church had agreed to grant financial support for Holly’s mission effort, and in 1874, Holly was consecrated in a New York Episcopal Church as a bishop; his episcopal responsibilities were in Haiti, as head of the Orthodox Apostolic Church, in communion with other Episcopal Churches. He was the first African American to be consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church. Holly continued to advocate Haitian emigration until the time of his death in 1911. A diverse cadre of leaders, white and black, were involved with the Liberian branch of the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church was first established in the portion of Liberia settled by African Americans from Maryland in 1836. Its two leading personalities, who often clashed, were the white American John Payne, who arrived as a missionary in 1838 and was elevated to the post of Missionary Bishop in 1851, and Alexander Crummell, the African American recent graduate of the University of Cambridge who arrived in 1853. Payne envisaged an Episcopal Church in Liberia under white American oversight and with primarily Americo-African clergy; Crummell envisioned an Episcopal Church under the control of black men, a church that would make a strong contribution to building a Liberian nation. He marveled

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at the way that ‘‘God, after carrying on His work of preparation in the black race in America in dark, mysterious, and distressful ways, has at length brought out a ‘remnant’ of them and placed them in a free Republic, to achieve high nationality, to advance civilization and to subserve the highest interests of the Cross and the Church!’’ (Crummell 1891, 446). Crummell’s Pan-Africanism was widely known among African Americans in the United States as a result of his numerous publications and an influential visit to the United States in 1861 and 1862. A worn-out Payne resigned in 1871, and Crummell, weary of conflicts in both church and state in Liberia, returned to the United States in the same year. The Episcopal Church in the United States would subsequently consecrate two black bishops for service in Liberia, Samuel D. Ferguson in 1885 and Theophilus Momulu Gardiner (as suffragan) in 1920. Both consecrations took place in New York’s Grace Episcopal Church. Ferguson, a native South Carolinian who had emigrated with his parents to Liberia at age 6 in 1848, presided over a thriving Episcopal church, with 7,688 baptisms and 3,949 confirmations during his 22 years as bishop. Gardiner was the first native-born African consecrated as an Episcopal bishop. The Union Army’s victory in the Civil War and the coming of emancipation sparked an exodus of a different sort. Many African Americans left the Episcopal churches in the South, mostly in favor of independent black Methodist and Baptist congregations, where African Americans could experience selfdetermination in church affairs and where there were no racial bars to advancement. One example was James Porter, an influential lay leader

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GEORGE FREEMAN BRAGG, JR. (1863–1940) George Freeman Bragg, Jr. (1863 1940) knew the power of the printing press from his early childhood, when he was hired as a valet by the editor of the Petersburg Index. His early life included service as a page in the Virginia legislature, employment as a teacher, and studies at the Theological School for Negroes, from which he was expelled for lack of humility but to which he later returned. He was ordained an Episcopal deacon two weeks prior to his 24th birthday, and within two years was ordained as priest, mar ried, and assigned to a church in Norfolk, Virginia. He authored about 25 books. The most important of his books is History of the Afro American Group of the Episcopal Church (1922). His most notable pastorate was in Baltimore, beginning in 1891. He worked closely with both Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois on such issues as opposing disfranchisement of African Americans in Maryland, but increasingly was identified more closely with DuBois and the Niagara Movement. For three and a half decades, he was general secretary of the Conference for Church Workers among Colored People within the Episcopal Church.

(chairman of the Board of Vestry, lay reader, choir director) in St. Stephen’s Church in Savannah, Georgia. He was not permitted to fulfill his aspirations to become an ordained Episcopal priest, so, by 1873, he had joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church and had been ordained as an elder in that church. In South Carolina and Alabama, the decline of black membership was an overwhelming 80–90 percent. Some of the African Americans who remained in the Episcopal Church did so precisely because they were part of a small wealthy elite who had little desire to mix with African Americans of lower social ranking or of darker skin coloring. Others, of course, had nurtured profound long-term ties with the Episcopal Church and would not relinquish these under any circumstances. Thus, Alexander Crummell played an active role within the denomination after his return from his almost-two-decadeslong sojourn in Liberia. In 1874, he founded an African American congregation in Washington, D.C., St. Luke’s

Episcopal, and he became its first rector. Crummell’s rhetoric was changed, however. He was no longer a fervent African emigrationist, and he was now much more focused on improving social conditions within the African American community. As was fashionable among white Protestants in the immediate postwar years, the Episcopal Church founded an agency to look after the freed slaves, the Protestant Episcopal Freedmen’s Mission, in 1865. If possible, the Mission wanted to keep African Americans within the Episcopal fold. (This organization later changed its name to the Commission of Home Missions to Colored People; its existence was discontinued in 1878, due to the evaporation of financial support in the North, and active opposition among southern white Episcopalians.) This mission accomplished less than some competing majority white denominations, such as the Congregationalists and the Methodist Episcopal Church. One accomplishment was the founding of St. Augustine’s Normal School and

African Americans in the Episcopal Church Collegiate Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1867. St. Augustine’s (now a college) survives as of this writing. Two later schools founded by Episcopalians for African Americans also survive: St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School (now a college), in Lawrenceville, Virginia, in 1888, and Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina, in 1897 by a 23-year-old African American woman, Elizabeth Evelyn Wright. Differing emphases have been given to Booker T. Washington’s industrial style of education and W. E. B. DuBois’s classical style of education throughout these colleges’ histories. While all of these institutions eventually added a four-year collegiate program of education, all three did so decades after their origins, between 1924 and 1944. One significant educational institution for African Americans that does not survive today was a theological seminary founded in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1878, because the Episcopal bishops did not want African American students in their all-white seminaries. The seminary for African Americans was named in 1884 the Bishop Payne Divinity and Industrial School, after Alexander Crummell’s antagonist in Liberia. (In 1910, the name was shortened to the ‘‘Bishop Payne Industrial School.’’) The life and demise of this chronically underfunded theological seminary, which educated many African American Episcopal clergy over the next seven decades, would mirror almost precisely the history of racial attitudes within the Protestant Episcopal Church. Much of the debate within the Protestant Episcopal Church focused on the question as to the structural relationship of African Americans and predominantly black congregations to the denomination

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as a whole. Significant factions of the denomination, especially southern white laity, resisted any relationship for African Americans to the denomination that did not give full license to white domination and control. In 1875, the predominantly black St. Mark’s Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was denied full membership in their diocese, an action that precipitated the withdrawal of six African American Episcopal congregations in that state. An 1883 conference at Sewanee, Tennessee, rejected the proposal for a bishop to be appointed for black congregations, instead backing a proposal that African American congregations be segregated into a special missionary organization supervised by the white bishop of their diocese. Alexander Crummell opposed this plan, urging more black ministers in the cities where large numbers of African Americans lived, more black professors and teachers to mold those ministers, and an additional seminary for African American ministers in the Southwest. While Crummell thought it important that there be a strong black ministry, he did not explicitly take a position on appointing black bishops for work within the United States. Crummell had some support among white ministers, and the Sewanee plan received a mixed reception at the 1883 General Conference, where it was supported by the House of Bishops but failed at gaining the endorsement of the House of Deputies. Nonetheless, many southern dioceses unilaterally implemented plans to segregate or exclude black parishioners, in effect denying power to black laity through setting up segregated colored convocations. The Virginia and South Carolina dioceses denied African Americans representation at their yearly

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conventions. Crummell and his supporters organized the Conference of Church Workers among Colored People (CCW) in an attempt to gain more respect for African American Episcopal clergy and laity; they followed Crummell’s position on more black leadership for black congregations within the Protestant Episcopal Church, and strongly denounced any measure, like those of the Virginia and South Carolina dioceses, that denied representation to African Americans in church affairs. When the CCW presented a petition covering these points to the 1889 General Convention, the Convention did not endorse their stance, holding that there would be no interference from any national body in the southern dioceses’ administration of their own affairs. One vocal critic of this sorry series of church decisions was W. E. B. DuBois, scion of several generations of Episcopalians; he had been baptized in an Episcopal church in Connecticut. In a 1907 letter, DuBois excoriated the Protestant Episcopal Church as lagging behind other churches on human rights questions. He saw Southern Episcopalians as morally bankrupt on racial issues and criticized Northern Episcopalians for their timidity in not standing up against the oppressive attitudes of their southern coreligionists. Crummell died in 1898, and a diverse, but not always harmonious, cadre of African American Episcopal leaders emerged in the decades following his death. George Freeman Bragg, Jr., a graduate of Bishop Payne Theological Seminary, served as rector of St. James’ First African Church in Baltimore for nearly a half century after 1891. He provided steady leadership for the CCW, arguing for a racial missionary district where African American Episcopalians

could govern their own affairs without constant supervision from whites. He presented his argument often at General Convention meetings, but his ideas were rejected by that body. Bragg made a fine contribution as an historian, publishing his History of the Afro-American Group of the Episcopal Church. Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, a prominent African American educator and Episcopal lay leader, testified both to the mistreatment of African Americans and ministers and to the appeal of the ‘‘quiet, chaste dignity and decorous solemnity’’ of the Episcopal Church to some in the African American community (Cooper 1892, 34). William Montgomery Brown, the white bishop of Arkansas and a strict segregationist, was one of the first Episcopal leaders to support the appointment of African American bishops, as long as those bishops did not have authority over whites. In 1905, he appointed George Alexander McGuire as archdeacon for colored work in Arkansas, a position that McGuire held for only three years, as he found it impossible to get along with Brown’s racism. McGuire eventually became chaplaingeneral of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and left the Episcopal fold to found the African Orthodox Church. Under Brown’s successor, James Winchester, the Arkansas diocese resolved to appoint an African American suffragan (assistant) bishop, and Edward Demby, who had served several African American Episcopal parishes throughout the South before accepting appointment as archdeacon for colored work in Arkansas, was consecrated to the position of suffragan bishop on September 29, 1918. Henry Delany received an identical position in North

African Americans in the Episcopal Church

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ALEXANDER CRUMMELL (1819–1898) Alexander Crummell was born in New York on March 3, 1819, of free African American parents. He studied at the Noyes Academy and Oneida Institute, and, with the support of Peter Williams, Jr., determined to pursue priesthood in the Episcopal Church as his vocation. The General Theological Seminary in New York barred his admission on racial grounds. At the age of 30, Crummell matriculated at the Queens’ College in Cambridge. His studies were impeded by illness, poverty, and the death of one of his children, and he attempted to juggle his studies and his anti slavery lecturing, with mixed success. In 1853, however, he earned his B.A. degree, and he embarked for Liberia where he and his family could live under black authorities. In Liberia, Crummell served as missionary, preacher, college professor, and politician. He was the author of several books, including The Future of Africa (1862). In 1871 Crummell returned to the United States. He served Episcopal Churches in Washington, D.C., until his retirement in 1894. In 1882, he helped to found the Conference of Church Workers among the Colored People, and in 1897, one year prior to his death, he founded the American Negro Academy.

Carolina, and he was consecrated two months after Demby. These two men were the first two African Americans consecrated as bishops by the Protestant Episcopal Church for work within the United States (and the third and fourth overall, after Holly and Ferguson). The CCW, however, did not extend full support for these new bishops, criticizing Demby and Delany for allowing themselves to be subject to manipulation by whites; Bragg believed that they had been selected because whites saw each of them as ‘‘a good and safe Negro.’’ Bragg undoubtedly was disappointed over having been denied elevation to the office of bishop twice in the previous decade, in 1911 and 1917, despite much support from black clergy. He may indeed have been a more activist bishop than either Demby or Delany, who were relegated to the sidelines and given little to do. The position of the Episcopal Church changed substantially in the 1940s and 1950s, as the Church swung toward a

more racially inclusive and integrationist position. Several black clergy played a role in the Church’s transition. Bravid Harris, a graduate of St. Augustine’s and Bishop Payne Divinity School, was appointed ‘‘Executive Secretary for Negro Work’’ in 1943; in the same year, the Church’s National Council committed the Church to oppose racial segregation in everything pertaining to the church’s program. Harris remained in this position only two years. In 1945, he was consecrated Missionary Bishop to Liberia, a post he was to fill successfully for almost two decades. He was succeeded as Executive Secretary for Negro Work by Tollie Caution Sr., who was to fill a variety of leadership positions regarding the Church’s work in racial justice matters until 1967. Caution was relatively conservative in his approach to racial politics, but he also found himself in a position where liberal whites in the Episcopal hierarchy often set the agenda on racial matters without consulting him. Twice his position with the

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denomination was abruptly altered, in 1957 with an early ‘‘retirement’’ and later rehiring to another position, and again in 1967 upon his dismissal with the concurrence of the presiding bishop because he ran afoul of white liberals’ priorities in racial justice matters. Even those African American Episcopal clergy who disagreed with Caution’s politics regarded the insensitivity that whites in the denomination had shown toward him a cause for indignation and protest. A decision was made to close a dilapidated Bishop Payne Divinity School by its trustees in 1949. Embarrassment at its inferior condition and the refusal to sink further funds into a two-tiered system of theological education signified an early, though still tentative, denominational change of heart on segregation. In Virginia and elsewhere in the South, the bishops edged toward integrating the previously all-white Episcopal seminaries; the most profound struggle took place at the University of the South in Sewanee, where a mass resignation of theology faculty in 1951 and a public scolding by James Pike, who declined a honorary degree from Sewanee in 1953, were necessary before the Sewanee trustees would agree to admit African Americans to their School of Theology. (Segregation at the undergraduate level at Sewanee, however, would not be abandoned until 1961.) Several black Episcopalians played an important role in persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to issue its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision mandating desegregation. Lead counsel Thurgood Marshall, himself later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967, was one of the black Episcopalians whose efforts were notable in this regard. But Marshall did not have great influence with the denomination’s leadership, which

continued to be quite ambivalent in regard to the southern freedom movement. In 1951, Alger Adams, an African American priest from Yonkers, New York, criticized the Episcopal Church as ‘‘Church Jim Crow.’’ Those last few African American congregations that had been excluded from white Southern dioceses in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction were finally restored to the membership they should have had all along. Thus, in 1954, St. Mark’s Church in Charleston and other African American Episcopal congregations in Charleston were finally admitted into fellowship with the state Episcopal convention. But black priests in South Carolina in the 1950s were expected not to speak out on civil rights issues. Henry Parker, an African American deacon at St. Paul’s Church in Orangeburg, South Carolina, was accused of shirking his duties and was dismissed in 1956 by his white bishop; many in the denomination were convinced that the real reason for Parker’s dismissal was his membership in the NAACP. Moreover, integration was not a panacea if it meant simply that black Episcopal congregations were to be absorbed by white ones; the Episcopal Church lost 10,000 members between 1948 and 1958, a loss attributed to simply transferring members of closed black churches to neighboring white congregations, without empowerment of the black membership. Activist Episcopal laity and clergy, however, placed continuing and relentless pressure on their denomination. A key role was played by the interracial Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity (ESCRU) founded in 1959 and active subsequently in demonstrations and nonviolent direct action against segregation and racial injustice, whether perpetuated within or outside of the Episcopalian fold.

African Americans in the Episcopal Church Meanwhile, in 1962, one northern diocese, Massachusetts, decided to elevate an African American priest, John Burgess, to the office of suffragan bishop. Two other dioceses, Los Angeles and Long Island, followed suit in appointing assistant or interim African American bishops in the 1960s. Then in 1970, Burgess became the diocesan bishop in Massachusetts, and the first African American to preside over a predominantly white diocese. As of 2006, 38 black bishops (at some time during its history) have been consecrated by the Episcopal Church for service in the United States, Liberia, or countries in the Caribbean or Central America. (To place this in perspective, more than 1,000 bishops have been consecrated by the Episcopal Church since its formal organization in 1784.) Some Episcopalians played a prominent role in the civil rights and black power movements of the 1960s. In the St. Augustine, Florida, civil rights campaign in 1964, it was widely noticed when three Episcopalian women— Esther Burgess, the African American wife of John Burgess, as well as the white wives of former bishops in Central New York state and Los Angeles—were refused service when they tried to order a meal at a segregated restaurant. Continuing civil rights activism eventually landed these three women briefly behind bars in the St. Augustine jail. Six African American Episcopal clergy were among the 49 signers of the inaugural ‘‘black power’’ statement by the National Conference of Negro Churchmen in July 1966. This statement provided support for the controversial positions of Stokely Carmichael, then a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and criticized the easy assumptions that integration could be achieved merely by

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absorbing African Americans into white institutions. ‘‘We understand the growing demand of Negro and white youth for a more honest kind of integration; one which increases rather than decreases the capacity of the disinherited to participate with power in all of the structures of our common life’’ (Sernett 1999, 558). Perhaps the most notable of the Episcopalian signers of this declaration was Nathan Wright (1923–2005), a priest and the director of urban work in the Newark, New Jersey, diocese. His book Black Power and Urban Unrest: The Creative Possibilities, published in 1967, was one of eighteen that he published. His emphasis on the need for black empowerment, rather than integration with whites, was one of his most significant and consistent themes. Also responding in a favorable way to the economic empowerment themes of Carmichael was the Union of Black Clergy and Laity, better known by its subsequent name, the Union of Black Episcopalians. This black caucus of Episcopalians, founded in 1968, superseded the CCW that had owed its existence to the ministries of Crummell and Bragg. One indication that African American religious music and culture was breaking through to the wider denomination could be seen in the Episcopal Church’s publication of an excellent hymnbook of African American sacred music, Lift Every Voice and Sing, in 1981. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the Episcopal Church turned more firmly and decisively to antiracist policies. A 1994 letter from Episcopal bishops declaring racism to be ‘‘totally inconsistent with the Gospel’’ has been followed by other actions, including mandatory antiracism training for Episcopal leaders beginning in 2000 and an initiative taken in 2006 by some Episcopal dioceses to

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BARBARA C. HARRIS (1930–) Barbara Harris was born in Philadelphia on June 12, 1930. She was active in the civil rights struggle in the 1960s, especially in the voters’ rights part of the campaign. Her human rights activism naturally expanded to include activism in women’s rights. She pressed successfully for women’s admission to an organization that came to be known as the Union of Black Episcopalians. She experienced a strong calling to become a priest. Her theological study in the late 1970s consisted mostly of correspondence courses from Villanova University and the Metropolitan Community Center in Philadel phia. She was ordained as a deacon in 1979, and as a priest the following year. Her ministry was diverse in the forms that it took. Harris was elected suffragan bishop of the Massachusetts Diocese in 1988, the first female priest anywhere in the worldwide Angli can Communion to be elevated to the office of bishop. In the fifteen years prior to her retirement from the Massachusetts diocese in 2003, she continued to be a very vocal campaigner for gender equity and other human rights’ issues. From 2003 to 2007, she was an assisting bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C.

begin to reexamine their own past with an eye to documenting their own complicity with slavery and discrimination. African American Episcopal clergy and laity have often taken the lead in other human rights campaigns as well. They have generally supported women’s rights, including the struggle for women’s ordination within the Episcopal Church. In 1977, Pauli Murray became the first African American woman ordained to the Episcopal priesthood. She was a noted author and lawyer whose research had been instrumental in the finding for school integration in Brown v. Board of Education. In 1989, Barbara Clementine Harris, an African American Episcopal activist on women’s ordination and other issues, was consecrated as the suffragan bishop of the diocese of Massachusetts, thus becoming the first female bishop consecrated throughout the worldwide Anglican communion. Harris retired in 2003. More varied has been the African American response to the consecration of V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as Episcopal bishop

of New Hampshire in 2003. In the Diocese of Long Island, for example, the presiding bishop, Orris G. Walker Jr., an African American, supported Robinson’s elevation to the post, but many African American priests and parishioners in his diocese were opposed to Robinson becoming a bishop. Since 1973, the first African American priest, Absalom Jones, has been celebrated as a saint in the Episcopal Church; his life is commemorated on February 13 of each year. The 2006 General Convention took initial steps toward adding a commemoration of Thurgood Marshall to the Episcopal Church calendar. His life would be celebrated on May 17, the date in 1954 that the Supreme Court handed down its decision on Brown v. Board of Education.

Beliefs and Practices In 1887, Alexander Crummell argued that the Episcopal Church could not model its ministry to African Americans

African Americans in the Episcopal Church after ‘‘the old plantation ministry,’’ which too often had featured uneducated ministry with little attention to elevating the culture of African Americans. Crummell’s prescriptions consequently focused on ensuring an excellent education for African American ministers; he was fully cognizant of the ‘‘tendency,’’ evidenced among all African Americans at that time, to emphasize ‘‘racial autonomy and racial self-training.’’ With the slow progress of racial integration within the Episcopal Church during the last half of the twentieth century, the sense of a special mission for black ministers and congregations within the Episcopal Church has been maintained, while there is also a strong recognition that the mission of black congregations is meant to benefit the whole church. The Office of Black Ministries is a place within the denomination where these varying emphases can be nurtured. As one might expect, a contribution that black Episcopalians (from Williams, Crummell, and Bragg onwards) have made is to emphasize the social dimension of the gospel. A recent manifestation of this is the global movement of Afro-Anglicanism, which has taken on racism as a worldwide problem. In a 1985 statement, Afro-Anglicans affirmed that they are ‘‘an integral part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’’ who maintained an ‘‘Anglican emphasis on scripture, tradition, reason, liturgy, ministry, and social witness’’ (Conference 1987, 85). However, they protested against the ‘‘cultural captivity’’ that continued to be evident in the Anglican tradition (Conference 1987, 90). A variety of affirmative measures were proposed to free the church from ‘‘the considerations of color, class, and sex [which] still mar the freedom of Christian

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fellowship,’’ ranging from championing black religious icons to opposing the ‘‘increasing expenditure on armaments to the detriment of basic social and economic needs’’ to establishing an ‘‘effective dialogue with persons of other faiths, especially with Islam, Judaism, and the traditional religions of Africa, Asia, and the new world’’ (Conference 1987, 86, 88, 89). Stephen W. Angell

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Archives of the Episcopal Church USA. The Church Awakens: African Americans and the Struggle for Justice (Austin, TX: Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 2008). Online exhibit available at http:// www.episcopalarchives.org/Afro Anglican history/exhibit/index.php (accessed February 19, 2008). Beary, Michael J. Black Bishop: Edward T. Demby and the Struggle for Racial Equality in the Episcopal Church (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001). Bragg, George F., Jr. The History of the Afro American Group in the Episcopal Church (Baltimore: Church Advocate Press, 1922). Conference on Afro Anglicanism. ‘‘The Codrington Consensus.’’ Journal of Reli gious Thought 44, no. 1 (Summer Fall 1987): 84 93. Cooper, Anna Julia. A Voice from the South (Xenia, OH: The Aldine Printing House, 1892), 34. Crummell, Alexander. Africa and America: Addresses and Discourses (Springfield, MA: Willey and Company, 1891), 446. DuBois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 1903).

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Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, 2nd ed., s.v. ‘‘Episcopali ans,’’ by Lillie Johnson Edwards (Farm ington Hills, MI: Gale, 2005). Encyclopedia of African American Religions, s.v. ‘‘Episcopal Church,’’ by Harold Dean Trulear (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2005). Hein, David, and Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr. The Episcopalians (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004). Hewitt, John H. Protest and Progress: New York’s First Black Episcopal Church Fights Racism (New York: Garland Pub lishing, 2000). Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself, ed. Jean Fagan Yellin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987). Montgomery, William E. Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree: The African American Church in the South, 1865 1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993). Oldfield, J. R. Civilization and Black Progress: Selected Writings of Alexander Crummell on the South (Charlottesville: Published for the

Southern Texts Society by the University Press of Virginia, 1995). Sernett, Milton. African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999). Shattuck, Gardiner H., Jr. Episcopalians and Race: Civil War to Civil Rights (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000). Spencer, Jon Michael. Black Hymnody: A Hymnological History of the African American Church (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992).

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH Historical Development Similar to other black Christian denominations, the formation of blacks in the Presbyterian denomination began with slavery and early efforts to convert southern and free northern slaves to

JOHN ‘‘JACK’’ GLOUCESTER (? –1822) A former slave, John Gloucester founded the First African Presbyterian Church in June 1807 along with twenty two other members. Having been the slave of Gideon Blackburn who was a white Presbyterian missionary, he was taught theology and was said to be quite gifted as a preacher and educator. Demonstrating a concern and passion for mis sions, he was approved by the General Assembly to conduct missionary work among his own people. He was formally received by the Philadelphia Presbytery in 1811 in which at this time his church had grew to over one hundred members. Not only was Gloucester a key leader in his own community, he also placed high value on education, and founded a school for African American youth. Later on, he managed to raise money to purchase the freedom of his wife and four children. Among other notable accomplish ments of this Presbyterian pioneer, in 1847 Gloucester traveled to England and man aged to raise over four thousand dollars for the ministry of the Lombard Street Church. There, he became the first Presbyterian minister to be presented with a Black clerical gown, black or white. Gloucester died of tuberculosis in 1822.

African Americans in the Presbyterian Church Presbyterianism. While the first African American Presbyterian Church was formed in 1807 (by ex-slave John ‘‘Jack’’ Gloucester), other churches were simultaneously being formed in areas such as New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. Unlike in the North, southern Presbyterian efforts were often less successful than other denominations such as the Baptists and Methodists, given their ambivalent support of and often rocky relationship with the issue of slavery. Aside from churches, the Presbyterian Church has also been highly successful in establishing schools for blacks in southern regions, such as Lincoln University and Stillman College. Analogous to the complex and hybrid nature of black Christianity in general, the black presence in the Presbyterian denomination tells a similar saga of struggle, continued existence, and, above all, hope. Historically, Presbyterianism in general was resettled from Great Britain to larger North America, but initially was not a denomination that was at the outset appealing to black people in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly due to the issue of slavery in general. Presbyterianism was introduced to the ‘‘New World’’ around 1630, but it would not be until the period leading up to the Revolutionary War of 1776, that one feels a pulse of the developing and sprouting relationship and encounter between blacks, mainly slaves, and white Presbyterians. It has been suggested in pamphlets such as The Early History of the Presbyterian Church in the USA among Negroes, written by an early black Presbyterian educator, that most blacks were introduced to Presbyterianism within the white homes of

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employers. Within the context of domestic employment, many slaves were taught by their employers how to read certain passages of both the Bible and Catechisms. In 1747, organized efforts led by Presbyterian minister Rev. Samuel Davies were among the first aggressive Presbyterian conversion efforts of slaves. Many scholars believe that Rev. Davies baptized over 150 slaves. Although the Presbyterian denomination displayed and projected an ambivalent and inconsistent posture and practice regarding the issue of slavery, the attractive educational and social benefits of Presbyterianism continued to draw many blacks into the white denominational fold. Unlike the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC), no separate African American Presbyterian denominations were specifically founded in the North. There was one specific Presbyterian denomination founded in the South during the historical split of Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1869, which culminated in the still active Second Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1874, originally referred to as the Colored Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In the South, black families in both the Carolinas and Georgia have strong Presbyterian ties dating back to roughly six generations. In 1807, the country’s first African American Presbyterian congregation was founded by a slave named ‘‘Jack,’’ renamed by his Presbyterian missionary owner to ‘‘John Gloucester,’’ in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Having been taught theology by his owner, Gloucester was said to have a strong and fervent gift for preaching. The First African Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia was strongly supported by white Presbyterians, who were

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especially proud of their day school and educational ministry. During this time, Philadelphia had a small population of a little more than 50,000 overall, which included roughly 5,000 free blacks and 30 slaves. Overall, blacks were disadvantaged and impoverished, but managed to squeeze into a southeastern section of downtown Philadelphia. This historical moment was overshadowed by racial awakening and solidarity among many blacks in general in terms of the formation of social clubs, organizations, and fraternities that emphasized racial pride and self-help. During an 1807 General Assembly, Gloucester met with the white pastor of Philadelphia’s Third Presbyterian Church (now called Old Pine Street) named Archibald Alexander, who thought it was time that the Reformed family of Presbyterianism made room for a church that met the needs and allowed space for the cultural and social particularity of Africans. Alexander was impressed with Gloucester’s gifts and was able to persuade his owner Gideon Blackburn to transport Gloucester to Philadelphia. The following spring, Gloucester would find himself preaching in a vacant lot in South Philadelphia. Receiving their charter from Pennsylvania Supreme Court on December 12, 1809 (but not accepted as a mission congregation by Philadelphia Presbytery until October 1811), this black Presbyterian congregation began with as few as 50 members. Gloucester emphasized social welfare and education in his denomination, and when he passed away in 1822, his congregation was numbered at about 300 members. Because of financial and familial hardships of Gloucester in specific and the congregation in general, the church was outstripped by the Second African

John Gloucester founded the first African American Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in 1807. (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture)

Presbyterian Church, a congregation that was composed of a faction of parishioners who split under the guidance of Gloucester’s son, Jeremiah. With the erection of First African Presbyterian Church along with other churches in the North before the Civil War, high value was often placed on evangelism, education, and social reform, a distinct black Presbyterianism was blossoming. During the antebellum period, key black Presbyterian pioneers used their intellectual and educational resources to combat racism not only in the larger society, but also within the churches themselves. Along with giants such as Gloucester, folk such as Samuel E. Cornish, editor of the first black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, who also founded First Colored Presbyterian

African Americans in the Presbyterian Church Church in New York City, zealously served the economically impoverished areas of lower Manhattan. The seeds of congregational independence were occurring in the North and in 1897 southern Presbyterians likewise encouraged black independence with the creation of the Afro-American Presbyterian Synod, attracting the participation and enthusiasm of many black members. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm soon waned given the overall racist and suspicious disposition of the white denomination. Such feelings often caused many black members to yearn for ecclesiastical separation, but many chose to remain in mostly white dominated congregations. Given the complicity of many white Presbyterian denominations toward aggressive antislavery and civil rights policies and social action, black Presbyterians were intentional about creating and organizing a caucus prior to the Civil War. Undergoing a few transitions, this caucus currently exists under the name of the National Black Presbyterian Caucus (NBPC), which currently continues to carry on the spirit and tradition of black Presbyterianism. Against the backdrop of the political climate of the 1960s coupled with a rough and tumultuous uphill struggle with an all-white denomination for over 100 years, black Presbyterianism began to flourish. Connecting with the black consciousness of the 1960s and much influenced by the message of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., folks such as Elder G. Hawkins, Robert P. Johnson, and other clergy-activists created the Commission on Religion and Race in 1963. Almost consistently since the Civil War, caucuses have played a formative and meaningful role among black Presbyterians. Five years later,

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the Black Presbyterians United (BPU) was formed to encourage younger and more radical leaders to the forefront of the struggle with an emphasis on selfdevelopment and a commitment to racial solidarity. There are many organizational resources in the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) that are focused on servicing the needs and concerns of blacks in the Presbyterian Church. For example, one of the more pressing concerns of black Presbyterian congregations has been a decline in membership. This was one of the foremost concerns for the Office of Black Congregational Enhancement (BCE) developed in 1988, which drew heavily upon the scholarly work of Gayraud Wilmore (1998 edition of Black and Presbyterian: The Heritage and the Hope). Wilmore’s work provided a seminal foundation for the BCE, and drawing from Wilmore’s work, the BCE identified five historic resources important for the ministry of black Presbyterians specifically and the black community in general: a focus on freedom with an emphasis on liberation, importance of origins, more specifically keeping in mind the image of Africa as the land of those origins, keeping justice at the center of the God concept, incorporating cultural creativity in religious practice, and lastly, recognizing the blending of sacred/secular unity of everyday life. Moreover, Wilmore’s work included important challenges that were incorporated into the mission and focus of the BCE, including intentional models for black leadership that were sensitive to both black consciousness and a sustained faithfulness to traditional Presbyterian polity. The incorporation of Wilmore’s work enabled wide reaching additions in the area of congregational life, Christian

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education, outreach ministries, and evangelism, among other areas. Black Presbyterian organizations have worked earnestly to provide ongoing support to black Presbyterians in general, working hard to empower black Presbyterian congregations and continually encouraging and developing strategies and resources for congregations centered on and within black heritage. Between the years of 1991 and 1994 consultations were held within many presbyteries in which both lay leaders and black congregations had the opportunity, among other things, to express their concerns and commitments about being black and Presbyterian. Some of the concerns noted and shared included issues such as conflicts regarding the mission of particular congregations, issues regarding how to deal with the legalism of Presbyterian polity in general, concerns regarding increased attention toward the black middle class with less attention toward the black poor, lack of sustained attention toward black history, heritage, and identity, and concerns regarding various worship styles that were not meeting the needs of black members, among a host of other concerns, which included economic, criminal justice, education, and sociopolitical concerns central to the black community. In fact, in 1994 a new paper was released by the 1994 committee entitled ‘‘Is This New Wine?’’ which challenged black Presbyteries to strengthen their commitment regarding black identity in general and increased attention to the black poor in particular. Even more pressing, the paper made the stated challenge that, ‘‘If Black Presbyterian leaders thought that Presbyterian polity prevented them from making this commitment they should withdraw from the PCUSA and form their own denomination.’’ The

African American advisory committee continues to play an important role in developing church growth strategies as well as serving as an important source for the NBPC. Similarly, the BCE likewise continues to develop both resources and strategies to educated Presbyterian leaders regarding the life, history, and sources specific to black life and heritage. According to an ethnographic survey conducted by Scott C. Williamson of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, a demographic profile of blacks in the Presbyterian denomination suggested that blacks comprise roughly 2.7 percent of the PCUSA, consisting of more than 70 percent females with a median age of 57. This median age for black females in the PCUSA is slightly two years older than the median age of the whole denomination in general. Findings also suggest that black members hold long and consistent membership in the denomination, with most black members maintaining membership for 19 years, five years longer than the average length of membership for all PCUSA members. A third of black PCUSA members (36 percent) have been members of their congregation for more than 25 years. These numbers suggest that black membership is strong, durable, stable, and longstanding, with 41 percent of black members attending church nearly every week. Black members also hold varieties of positions in the PCUSA, but only a few as organist and choir director. Although blacks comprise roughly 39 percent of PCUSA church choirs, they make up only about 4 percent of employment positions of choir director or organist. Given the ambivalent and rocky relationship between blacks and the mostly all-white denomination, the question of religious roots is an interesting one.

African Americans in the Presbyterian Church Findings report more than a few noteworthy insights into the familial and religious roots of blacks in the Presbyterian denomination. It is likely that most black PCUSA members come from religious households that attended church worship services quite frequently, although these familial religious roots have certainly undergone some form of grafting. About 62 percent of black members were not raised Presbyterian, with 36 percent claiming religious ties to the Baptist denomination and with 26 percent belonging to other religious groups. Approximately one-quarter (24 percent) of those raised Presbyterian by familial tradition still belong to their childhood congregations. These findings suggest that blacks in the Presbyterian denomination are not only committed members, but have likely contributed much to the denomination as a whole. Black members tend to be female, urban, and highly educated, with almost half hailing from the South, more specifically the Carolinas, with almost half being married. Occupationally, over half are employed with the remainder in retirement status and most black members tend to be middle to upper-middle class, contributing much of their financial capital to their churches along with other organizations and social causes. Most are overwhelmingly Democrats in a largely Republican denomination, in comparison to the only 25 percent white members self-identifying as Democrats. Most black members identify themselves as theologically moderate, with the remainder classifying their theological posture as directly to either the ‘‘right’’ or ‘‘left.’’ Overall, black members in the PCUSA demonstrate a zeal for and participation in social and economic justice, along with an emphasis on core Christian values.

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Beliefs and Practices Historically, the PCUSA holds a strong commitment to what is referred to as Reformed Faith and is characterized as being very much confessional with strong emphasis on creeds and confessions such as the Nicene (325 C.E.) and Apostle’s creeds along with others such as the Westminster Confession (1646) and the Heidelberg Catechism (1646). Most black clergy and ordained persons in the PCUSA accept these confessions and statements, making use of and emphasizing their core tenets in sermons, worship, and preaching. The theological stance of most black Presbyterians has been characterized as theologically moderate to liberal, especially regarding tenets such as the Virgin Birth and the Second Coming, although less orthodox in their position compared to other groups of color (Korean and/or Hispanics) in the PCUSA, they do express a more orthodox posture in general compared to overall membership. This theological commitment to core orthodox tenets are reflected in findings that suggest nine out of ten black Presbyterians believe that Jesus was born of a Virgin along with eight out of ten who believe in core themes such as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, life after death, as well as the existence of Satan. Interestingly enough, although roughly 83 percent reported believing in heaven, only 65 percent believe in hell. Similar to many white members, about 25 percent of blacks expressed moderate uncertainty regarding the uniqueness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ when asked about whether or not only followers of Jesus can be saved, with over 50 percent of black respondents reporting that belief

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in Jesus was only one of many ways to find salvation. Black Presbyterians also express an almost equal balance between church and individual authority, supporting individual rights to arrive at religious beliefs independent of the governing authority of the church. While individual rights are emphasized, many do not believe that the final authority regarding issues of morality rest solely on individual authority; rather many opt to seek religious truth in acceptance (not refusal) of church doctrine. Compared to the majority of white PCUSA members, black Presbyterians are less likely to be theologically conservative, displaying an open disposition toward other religions. That is to say, most black Presbyterians do not display an exclusivist posture toward the subject of salvation, but almost 75 percent believe in the centrality of the Bible as the Word of God, making them more orthodox overall compared to their white counterparts, in their view of the Bible. According to the black Congregational Enhancement of the PCUSA, most black Presbyterians believe in the universal unconditional love of God, which empowers black Presbyterians to be prophetic witnesses in the world. Although there may be an expressed uncertainty regarding central theological tenets such as God’s revelation in Jesus, many black Presbyterians are more than certain of their commitment and call to social justice, especially in the areas of taking care of the poor and the elderly, as well as fighting for and on behalf of social and economic justice. Many blacks in the Presbyterian denomination also hold a strong commitment to evangelism and social outreach. Black Presbyterians also seek to reflect on the black experience in light

of their developing theological commitments. In 2003, Gayraud S. Wilmore provided the NBPC with a concept, which later developed into a book project entitled Pragmatic Spirituality: The Christian Faith Through an Africentric Lens, that greatly impacted the incorporation of black cultural resources into theological beliefs and tenets. Drawing from Wilmore’s definition of ‘‘pragmatic spirituality,’’ which focused on the working of the Holy Spirit to provide both inward and outward transformations, four ‘‘corresponding negations’’ for the larger historic Presbyterian commitments were provided: no praise without performance, no peace without justice, no reconciliation without liberation, and no participation without power. By way of current expressions and historical connection, many black Presbyterian congregations are informed by and incorporate an Afrocentric perspective into both worship and congregational life. This not only includes worship expressions but more than that it likewise is characterized by a reflection on the Christian Gospel from the context and needs of the black experience in general. Similar to other black denominations in general, Black Presbyterian congregations integrate Afrocentric rituals and traditions into their religious lives. Most black Presbyterian Churches claim to proclaim the Gospel from Afrocentric Christian spirituality, with an emphasis on liberating people in order to become disciples of Jesus. In fact, almost three-quarters of black Presbyterians belong to black churches in particular. As such, black Presbyterian churches blend cultural resources in the areas such as congregational life whereby curriculum makes use of the cultural resources and takes the specificity of black religious reality into account. Other incorporations

African Americans in the Presbyterian Church include appropriating traditional hymnals, developing and broadening black liturgies to include elements from various countries, and even displaying images such as the Black Christ and the Black Madonna. In this sense, many black Presbyterian congregations encourage the incorporation of Africanized symbols by making them particular to their Christian orientations. For example, such symbols may include West African Adinkra symbols such as Gye Nyame (the supremacy of God), Puntunfunefu Deneyemfunefu (unity in diversity), or Nyame Birlbi Wo Soro (‘‘God is in the heavens: A Symbol of Hope). Other resourceful ways in which denominations have incorporated cultural particularities can be seen in the sourcing of a wide range of sacred texts such as writings and passages from Frederick Douglass or the use of poetry from Alice Walker. Worship within many black Presbyterian congregations is reflective of an influence from not only Pentecostalism but also the spirituality and use of Gospel songs, fervent preaching, and even liturgical and praise dance. It is likewise characterized by the utilization of black music, and elements such as dancing, banners, processionals, and even the incorporation of liturgical elements outside of the Presbyterian tradition itself. As many black Presbyterian churches seek to negotiate the balance between their commitments to Reformed theology and their own cultural particularities, such tensions are notably seen within the areas of music and praise. As Gospel songs along with contemporary praise melodies from within and outside of popular culture grow in popularity, many black Presbyterian churches are increasingly questioning the relevance and adequacy of more traditional hymns. While historically it has been argued that the preaching style of

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the black Presbyterian minister reflected a stronger emphasis on sound doctrine, accurate hermeneutics, and Reformed distinctness, this is also beginning to change with the demands and expectations of Afrocentricism, which emphasizes a more lively and cultural sensitive form of worship. Many black Presbyterians seek to hold the Reformed tradition with high regard while also acknowledging and asserting the important role of black cultural life. The NBPC affirms their commitment to a racially diverse ministry while also acknowledging the authenticity of the black witness and advocating for racial justice, with an emphasis on maximizing black participation in the life of the church in conjunction with the development of strategies that focus on celebrating black religious heritage and cultural plurality. Other caucuses such as the BCE offer many resources to assist the continued incorporation of black life into elements of faith, practice, and congregational life by providing numerous print, periodical, and online resources to offer members of the PCUSA access to strengthening the mission and life of black Presbyterian churches. Currently, they are focused on increasing ethnic membership by 20 percent, taking seriously the critical necessity of evangelism and church growth strategies. Black Presbyterianism has a rich past and present history of educational, political, and religious activism and advancement. Earlier notable people, such as Lucy Craft Laney, a slave and the daughter of a Presbyterian minister responsible for founding a pioneering black school, along with others such as Daniel Jackson Sanders, a former slave who eventually became the first black president of Biddle University, now

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referred to as John C. Smith University, along with everyday people such as Albert Byron McCoy who worked tirelessly for many years as a director of Sunday school missions in North Carolina, give glimpses into the reality that black Presbyterianism is full of a rich participative dimension by blacks. Noted earlier, many black Presbyterians creatively formulated their own strategies of social protest by utilizing and appropriating the intellectual resources and skills offered to them by Presbyterianism. Such tactics can be seen within the legacy of ministers such as Samuel Cornish and Theodore S. Wright, who, along with other notable figures such as Henry Highland Garnet, J. W. C. Pennington, and Francis Grimke, labored diligently in the Presbyterian church and often combined the resources of the skilled and trained mind with their racial and political passions to assist in creating a more racially just society for all humans. Additional accomplishments of these pioneers include Cornish becoming the first black editor and founder of the First Colored Presbyterian Church of New York

City, along with Wright becoming the first black graduate from a theological seminary (Princeton Seminary) in 1828, eventually taking over Cornish’s congregation, which eventually became the second largest black church in New York City. Figures such as Pennington and Garnet encouraged members to take progressive and radical stances toward racial justice, and it was Wright’s mentee Garnet whose 1843 address to slaves encouraged many of them to embark on armed struggle. When National Missions created a specialized board called the Division of Work with Colored Persons headed by Rev. McCoy in 1938, many blacks began to feel a sense of relief and self-determination within the white denomination. McCoy was asked to serve as secretary of this new unit, which was created to help serve its black constituency. With the social unrest of the Supreme Court’s 1954 ‘‘separate but equal’’ decision, blacks in the Presbyterian church began to caucus again, this time creating a group called Concerned Presbyterians, in which the efforts of

SAMUEL ELI CORNISH (1795–1858) As a black abolitionist, journalist, and Presbyterian minister, Cornish was the first edi tor of the black newspaper, Freedman’s Journal (along with John Russworm) and later editor of Colored American in 1827. After moving to New York City in 1821 and under the mentorship of John Gloucester, Cornish was able to organize a group of black Pres byterians establishing what was officially established as the New Dempster Street Pres byterian Church while also having the privilege of founding the First Colored Presbyterian Church of New York City, officially becoming ordained in 1822. Cornish was said to be more of an educator and journalist than a minister. In 1828 he became an agent for the New York African Free Schools, often visiting parents to encourage at tendance. Before dying in 1858, Cornish organized Emmanuel Church in New York City for a brief time, which he led until 1847. Cornish remains an important figure in the early abolition movement, although his later reputation became overshadowed by young more radical colleagues. Most of Cornish’s legacy rests on his journalist achieve ments and skills.

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KATIE GENEVA CANNON (1950–) Born in 1950, Katie Geneva Cannon became the first black woman to be ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Growing up in rural North Carolina, issues of race and gender have always been central issues of exploration for Cannon. Cannon enrolled in Barbara Scotia College, a school initially founded in 1867 for freed women slaves. Rising to the top of her class, education became central in Cannon’s life. After a trip to Africa in 1971, Cannon stud ied at the seminary of Interdenominational Theological Canter (ITC) in Atlanta, Georgia, where she realized that ministry was much more than just a vessel for political and social action. Cannon received a PhD from Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1983. She is currently the Annie Scales Rogers Professor of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and the Presbyterian School of Christian Education (PSCE), where her work is dedi cated to exploring the areas of Christian ethics, womanist theology, and women in religion and society. She lectures widely on various topics related to theology and ethics, and is the author of numerous articles and seven books, which include her notable works, Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community and Black Womanist Ethics.

clergy involved in activism, such as Hawkins, Johnson, and Bryant George, culminated in the creation of the Commission on Religion and Race in 1963. Other major leaders include important people on local levels such as Sarah Mapps Douglass, who was the daughter of one of the founders of First African Presbyterian Church. Mapps Douglass was responsible for administering the primary department of Institute for Colored Youth, which was a Quaker-sponsored school in Philadelphia. Later on, she became the vice-chairperson for the Women’s Pennsylvania Branch of the American Freedman’s Aid Commission. Having taught in the Institute for Colored Youths for seven years, Mary Jane Patterson graduated from Oberlin College in 1862, giving her the distinction of being the first black woman to receive the bachelor’s degree. Figures such as Hawkins, who became the first black moderator of the Presbyterian Assembly in 1964, along with others such as Katie G. Cannon, who became the first black woman to be ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1974 and Thelma Blair who

became the first black woman to be elected moderator of a Presbyterian General Assembly, contributed much to the rich history of black Presbyterianism. Monica Miller

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Dubois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (New York: The Modern Library, 1963). Hageman, Howard. Pulpit and Table: Some Chapters in the History of Worship in the Reformed Churches (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1962). Haney, Marsha Snulligan. Evangelism Among African American Presbyterians: Making Plain the Sacred Journey (Lan ham: University Press of America, 2007). Newberry, Edward B. ‘‘Reformed Theology and African American Presbyterian Worship.’’ The Bulletin of the Institute For Reformed Theology 4, no. 1 (Winter 2004). Newbold, Robert E. Worship Old and New: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Intro duction (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994).

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Paris, Peter. The Spirituality of African Peo ples (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). Periscope 4. ‘‘African American Presbyter ians Living into the 21st Century.’’ Avail able at http://www.pcusa.org/ blackcongregations/pdf/periscope4.pdf. Web site for the Black Congregational Enhance ment of the PCUSA, which includes links to online resources: http://www.pcusa.org/ blackcongregations/resources.htm. White, William P. The Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. A Camera and Pen Sketch of Each Presbyterian Church and Institu tion in the City (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1895). White, William P., et al. Still Philadelphia: A Photographic History, 1890 1940 (Philadel phia: Temple University Press, 1983). Williamson, Scott C. ‘‘African American Members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.): Survey Results.’’ Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, May 1999. Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black & Presbyterian: The Heritage and the Hope (Philadelphia: Geneva Press, 1983). Wilmore, Gayraud S. ‘‘Identity & Integra tion: Black Presbyterians and Their Allies in the Twentieth Century.’’ The Diversity of Discipleship: Presbyterians and Twentieth Century Christian Witness, ed. Milton J. Coalter, John M. Mulder, and Louis B. Weeks (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991).

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Historical Development African American Catholics claim the same faith and understand themselves as an important part of the Roman Catholic

presence in the United States. The style of expression may differ in some cases, but there are no significant differences in liturgy between White and African American Roman Catholics. Differences are more a matter of perspective— viewing the faith from the vantage point of African American culture—than the theological or ritual content of the Church’s practices. In short, the story of African American involvement in Roman Catholicism is more a story of the struggle for inclusion in the full life of the Church, rather than a story of diverse practices. In other words, as Professor Jamie Phelps remarks, it is the story of the struggle to ‘‘make it possible to be Black, Catholic, and American without being cursed and spit upon, devalued and marginalized’’ (Phelps 1997, 18–19). In the context of what becomes the United States, the first Catholic of African descent was Estebam, a slave who in 1536 was brought to the territory comprising present day Florida, Texas, and Arkansas (Davis 1991, 28). It was not uncommon for Spanish and French colonists to baptize their slaves into the Catholic faith. In addition, in the eighteenth century, conflicts between the Spanish and the English in the Southeast also resulted in some slaves converting to Catholicism as they were encouraged by Spaniards to flee their English slaveholders and live free in Florida, if they converted. The strength of Catholicism in Florida fluctuated for some of the eighteenth century depending on who controlled it at any given moment. Even so, by 1791 there were roughly 100 African Catholics in Pensacola alone (Davis 1991, 31). There was a rhetoric of conversion regarding enslaved Africans but, as was

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Mother Frances Fieldien (left), superior general of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, and Sister Mildred Howard (right) standing in front of Saint Frances Orphan Asylum, Baltimore, Maryland, in 1915 with a group of orphans in their care. (Courtesy Oblate Sisters of Providence)

the case with Protestants, this did not mean that most slaves owned by Catholics received sustained religious instruction. A suspicion concerning the consequences of instruction, combined with a limited number of priests to service the needs of slaves and whites made outreach difficult. Attention to Africans was spotty at best, and the ability to practice their faith was often hindered. In spite of this dilemma, blacks joined the Roman Catholic Church. Estimates suggest that there may have been 1,000 African Catholics in Louisiana prior to the start of the Civil War. Growth of the Church’s African membership, however, was not limited to Florida and Louisiana, although they represent an early African Catholic presence. To get an accurate picture of the movement of Catholicism within early African

communities in North America, one must also note the growth that took place in what would become Missouri, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. For example, before the end of the eighteenth century, there were roughly 3,000 African Catholics in Maryland. While the number of Africans who communed in the Roman Catholic Church grew in the Mid-Atlantic area and the South. Scholars generally agree, however, that the first African Catholic parish—Chapel of the Nativity—developed in Pittsburgh in 1844. Such growth is impressive, and it provides a sense of the makeup of Roman Catholic community; but numbers do not suggest very much with respect to the religious life of enslaved Africans. Nonetheless, enslaved Africans and free Africans who were part of the Catholic

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Church, according to historian Albert Raboteau, ‘‘were attracted to the centuries-old rituals of Catholicism. They found deep meaning in the Mass, the sacraments, and in personal devotion to the Virgin and the Saints’’ (Raboteau 1996, 119). Regarding this, it is likely that most African Catholics had a worship experience in keeping with the dominant social sensibilities that meant segregated worship in white churches. Prevailing social attitudes made it difficult for Africans to undertake the sacrament of ordained church ministry, and African women were not encouraged to become women religious. In fact, it is not until roughly 1829 that African women, who had developed a school for young girls, made their profession and successfully entered religious life through the formation of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. The four women—Marie Madeleine Balas, Rosine Boegue, Almeide Ducheniea Maxis, and Elizabeth Lange—and their work were recognized and approved by Pope Gregory XVI in 1831. Some years after being approved by the pope, the Oblate Sisters of Providence expanded by opening a short-lived school for African children in Philadelphia in 1863. In addition to providing this educational opportunity, they also worked with orphans in New Orleans.

Thirteen years after the formation of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the Sisters of the Holy Family formed in New Orleans to take care of destitute Africans. Three of the women associated with the Sisters of the Holy Family took their canonical vows in 1852. Life for these women was intense, as free as possible of ‘‘worldly’’ distractions: ‘‘The sisters arose at 4:30am and they retired at 8:45pm. At 5:00am there was morning prayers, after half an hour of meditation, followed by Mass . . . . The meals were in silence with reading. Individual spiritual reading in French or English preceded supper’’ (Davis 1991, 108). Other communities of African sisters developed over the course of time, each with a commitment to focusing life on service to God through attention to others. The work of these women is important in itself, but it is also significant in that it points to the striving of the African Catholic population, marking its efforts to experience the full life of the Church and to bring the best of the Catholic heritage to those of African descent. This striving for participation in the life of the Church did not simply involve women religious. It also entailed the efforts of African men to enter the priesthood. The practice of ordaining Africans was adopted in the eighteenth century in

GEORGE CLEMENTS (1932–) Clements earned two degrees from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary. And after complet ing his education in 1957, he began work in the pastorate. During his time in Chicago, Clements was very involved in the civil rights struggle, including serving as chaplian for the local black panthers. In 1969 he was made pastor of Holy Angels Church in Chicago. Clements, in addition to civil rights activism, took a great interest in the adoption of children in need, founding the One Church One Child, One Church One Addict and One Church One Inmate initiatives. In 1981, he became the first priest to adopt a child.

African Americans in the Roman Catholic Church keeping with the vision of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Pope Gregory XV developed this organization for the purpose of organizing ministry within the various mission areas. However, for the most part its work involved Africans outside the United States. In North America, the idea of ordaining blacks met with opposition through the early twentieth century. Early efforts to bring black men into ministry date back to the late 1800s when the Congregation of the Holy Ghost received three men interested in preparing for the brotherhood (Davis 1991, 145–146). Marking the concern of a minority of the Church, such efforts met with very limited success. The first Africans ordained priests in the United States happened to be brothers, born the slaves of Michael Morris Healy. With the encouragement of the bishop of Boston, John Fitzpatrick, James Augustine, Patrick Francis, and Alexander Sherwood were educated at Holy Cross College. James Healy not only became a priest in 1854 but also the first African American bishop (Portland, Maine). Alexander was ordained in 1858, and after receiving a doctorate in canon law he joined the faculty of a seminary in New York state. Patrick, after further study, but before receiving his doctorate in philosophy, was ordained in 1864. After holding several posts, Patrick eventually became the president (1874) of Georgetown College (now Georgetown University). Mention must also be made of Augustus Tolton who was born a slave, but without the socially derived benefit of skin that could pass as white. He, because of his dark complexion, unlike the Healys, had the fact of his African ancestry presented during the process

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of his push for training and ordination. After demonstrating an interest in ordination and after struggling for enrollment in college, Tolton was ordained in Rome in 1886. The initial idea was for Tolton to train for missionary work in Africa, but this did not happen. Instead he was sent to the difficult pastorate of a small African American church in Quincy, Illinois. After a short time in Illinois, Tolton was transferred to a new African American parish in Chicago, one with limited resources. His reputation for commitment to African American Catholics spread beyond Chicago and, according to historian Cyprian Davis, ‘‘more than he realized, he was the inspiration for the remarkable movement of faith and evangelization among the African American Catholic laity in the last decade of the 19th century’’ (Davis 1991, 162). Tolton’s ordination was followed by that of others such as Randolph Uncles. This slow increase in the number of African American priests inspired the creation of a seminary in Mississippi for the training of African Americans. African Americans were interested in the priesthood and were making efforts to secure ordination, but a nagging question persisted: What should be done with African American priests and African American Catholic laity? The number of black Catholic parishes increased during the late nineteenth century, but the problem of racial discrimination persisted. The Roman Catholic Church of the nineteenth century was not certain what to do with its African membership. So, it was often the case that treatment varied from one diocese to another as each bishop determined what constituted the proper place for those of African descent in the

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Church. There was no interest on the part of most in losing African American members to Protestant churches; yet, there was no agreement on a strategy for making fellowship in the Catholic church attractive and rewarding for African Americans. How and by whom should African Americans be evangelized? Should there be separate churches for them? Should they be included in ordained ministry? African American Catholics did not rely on the good graces of white Catholics to promote their full inclusion in the life of the Church. Figures such as Daniel Rudd, who founded the American Catholic Tribune, worked to organize a national conversation concerning the state of the Church and the work of African Americans within the Catholic community. It was argued that a national conversation, beginning in 1889, spearheaded by African Americans would increase their visibility and would foster substantive changes within the Church in the United States. There was also an implicit assumption that the increased visibility of African American Catholics might have significance with respect to the general perception of African Americans, and might contribute to the push for the larger social transformation. That is to say, the presentation of African American Catholic’s spiritual and moral commitments might contribute to a national shift with respect to civil engagement between the races in that it would point to the merits and capabilities of African Americans. Through a series of congresses the objectives for the better treatment of African Americans outlined by Rudd and others were expressed. These objectives or goals were very similar to those expressed by African Americans in

Protestant churches. In both cases the emphasis involved the Church as a religiously oriented clearinghouse of sorts for a synergy of spiritual, educational, economic, political, and moral growth and opportunity. In short, religious commitments well lived should foster transformation on all levels of individual and communal existence. Good Catholics should be good citizens who strive for racial equality. One can easily argue that African American Catholics sparked a self-evaluation of Roman Catholicism in the United States based on a strong commitment to religiosity sensitive to the unique U.S. cultural context and historical moment. This process involved both an affirmation of the Catholic Church’s potential and also a critique of its shortcomings with respect to issues of racism both inside and outside the Church. In response to the work of the congresses initiated by Rudd, the Church formed the Catholic Board of Negro Mission. However, the issues it was charged with addressing—such as mixed churches versus segregated congregations—were so intense that the Board accomplished little. Some church leaders, including Pope Benedict XV, made an effort to address the concerns and needs of African American Catholics. But the Church relied so heavily on the goodwill of individual bishops and congregations that little systemic progress was made. Irrespective of shortcomings, there were signs of promise, including the development of educational opportunities for African Americans interested in service to the Church. The middle of the twentieth century marked a change in the status of African Americans in the Roman Catholic Church. This shift was part of a larger trend toward

African Americans in the Roman Catholic Church

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JAMES AUGUSTINE HEALY (1830–1900) Healy was born near Macon in Georgia. He received his early education at a Quaker school in New Jersey. He was also given an opportunity to study at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts. Holly was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church in 1844. His relationship with the Church would continue to grow and flourish, resulting in a groundbreaking development when he became the first African American priest in 1854. He was made the first African American bishop in 1875. In 1900, he was appointed Assistant to the Papal Throne, only one step below the office of a cardinal.

diversity as the descendants of immigrants gained authority and positions of privilege within the church. Neighborhoods changed. The descendants of immigrants moved out of the inner city and African Americans moved in. Former immigrants who once simply identified themselves as Catholics from a particular place in Europe, now understood themselves as white in keeping with the racial structure and hierarchy of the United States. This phenomenon was a sociological fact with religious ramifications in that churches experienced changes in membership and were forced to address issues of race. According to John T. McGreevy, ‘‘change from a Euro-American Catholic to an African-American neighborhood moved to a different rhythm . . . These developments—neighborhood changes, a growing distinction between ‘black’ and ‘white’ and a blurring of lines between EuroAmerican Catholic groups’’ occurred across the urban landscape (McGreevy 1998, 35, 36). Racial issues within the Church notwithstanding, African Americans continued to find the ritual and teachings of the Church spiritually appealing, and a key source of what they considered the most appropriate manner for connecting to God. As the size of African American membership increased, it became

difficult to continue thinking of them as an ‘‘add on,’’ an aberration on the fabric of Catholic community. This did not mean that discrimination against African Americans ended, nor did it mean the kind of active participation in the struggle for equal rights the Church could have mustered. (For example, Catholic schools were only integrated slowly and this was typically done over strong objections.) Rather, it entailed greater space within the Church structure for African Americans to express their concerns and exercise their gifts and talents. As the Civil Rights Movement heated up and in light of Vatican II, some, but certainly not most, African American priests and laity—figures such as Chicago’s Father George Clements— fought (often against both the Church and the larger society) for a more liberationist agenda with regard to civil rights and for the development of a religious identity that was true to the growing concern with black consciousness that marked the late twentieth century. These more progressive Catholics developed various organizations such as the Black Clergy Caucus (founded by George Clements) to provide a structure for the immediate action they felt was necessary if the Church wanted to be relevant to the lives of African Americans. Some

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African American priests gave this push an aesthetic dimension by using artistic representations of an African Christ and Virgin Mary, as well as by appealing to the importance of African saints (McGreevy 1998, 224–225). Such structural and aesthetic action was not without opposition. The Church addressed issues of racism through pastoral letters coming from American bishops and also from the African American bishops (more than ten by the late twentieth century). Subtle moves were made to improve the visibility and power of African Americans in the Catholic Church, including the establishing in 1988 of Eugene Marino as the first African American archbishop in the United States, in Atlanta, Georgia. Some of the roughly 2 million African American Catholics wanted more than the addition of African Americans to a troubled system, one that still contained only a small number of African American priests—roughly one for every 5,000 African American Catholics (Raboteau 1996, 117; McGreevy 1998, 381). Churches were being closed, African American churches included, and there was little from the perspective of many to suggest a deep concern on the part of Church hierarchy. Some African Americans called for fundamental theological and ritual changes that recognized and celebrated the history and talents of African Americans. One of the more noteworthy advocates for radical change is George Stallings. Stallings, educated in Rome and ordained in 1974, gained attention in the late 1980s because of his fiery rhetoric directed at the Roman Catholic Church for its failure to creatively address moral issues such as the celibacy of priests and its failure to develop rituals in keeping

with the cultural heritage of African Americans. Stallings’s services in Washington, D.C., drew thousands of African American Catholics (as well as African Americans from other religious communities) interested in the Afrocentric style of worship that greatly resembled the energetic services associated with African American Pentecostalism. Afrocentrism is a philosophy of life premised on the idea that people of African descent should view life from the perspective of Africa. That is to say, Africa and the welfare of those of African descent should be at the center of their thought and actions. According to Stallings, ‘‘I realized the church is a white racist institution controlled by a preponderantly Euro-American white male hierarchy that for a century had decided the fate of black people in the Catholic Church . . . . My blackness could no longer tolerate it!’’ (www.bccandidates.com/ StallingsBio.htm). He developed a new congregation without the approval of the bishop. The first Mass at this new church, Imani Temple (The African American Catholic Congregation), took place on July 2, 1989. Following this, it declared its independence from Rome on January 31, 1990. The mission of this new organization was stated on the church program as follows: It is the mission of the African American Catholic Congregation to be a pre eminent holistic provider of spiritual and educational development. The African American Catholic Congregation, an autonomous and independent Catholic institution, understands that a people who do not take control of their destiny, moved by the genius of their culture, can never achieve full spiritual, economic, social, cultural, and psychological maturity. Therefore, the African American Catholic

African Americans in the Roman Catholic Church Congregation and its parishioners and [sic] committed to the movement and struggles of our days, in hope of preserving our tomorrows.

More troubling for Church hierarchy than the worship style referred to as the ‘‘Gospel Mass’’ was Stallings’s theological position on the issue of ordination that marked a clear rejection of church authority and tradition. Rejecting restrictions on who could be ordained, Stallings ordained a former nun in 1991, and boldly stated that his church was prochoice, supportive of the gay and lesbian lifestyle, in favor of marriage for priests interested in it, and committed to the right of couples to divorce. In taking this position Stallings knowingly disregarded canon law. He rejected the general authority of the pope and the local authority of the bishop. It should come as no surprise that Stallings’s teachings and actions resulted in the development of a religious movement that led to his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. But his removal from Roman Catholicism did not stop him from fulfilling his religious agenda in that he developed an independent church housed in six locations, serving as its archbishop (consecrated by Richard Bridges of another independent church). It is estimated that his organization has a total membership of over 3,000. Stallings’s activities have taken an odd twist. In recent years, and over the objections of some of his followers, Stallings has developed a relationship with Rev. Sun Myung Moon, going so far as to marry a member of Moon’s Unification Church. In response to questions concerning the marriage, Stallings said: ‘‘Jesus was an Asiatic Jew with black blood flowing through

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his veins. Look at me, a man of African descent about to marry a woman of Asian descent. We are about to have some new Jesuses’’ (www.cesnur.org/2001/moon may23.htm). This connection to the Unification Church marks a theological shift within Stallings’s organization. He seems to be moving even further away from anything recognizable as Roman Catholicism. Where he and his followers will ultimately settle in terms of theology and ritual structures remains to be seen.

Beliefs and Practices Stallings’s work involves a break with many of the traditional beliefs and practices of Roman Catholicism. A major distinction between Roman Catholicism and Stallings’s position as well as that of other Christian denominations revolves around the infallibility of the Pope with respect to issues related to the faith and its practice. Declared during the First Vatican Council in 1870, this perspective on the pope is significant in that it promotes a strong hierarchical structure within the Church and centralizes formal authority within one figure, whose authority stems from the Apostle Peter as the first leader of the Church. This understanding of Peter and his ministerial descendants is drawn from Jesus Christ’s comments regarding Peter: When Jesus came into the region of Caes area Philippi, He asked His disciples, say ing, ‘‘Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?’’ And they said, ‘‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’’ He said to them, ‘‘But who do you say that I am?’’ And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’’ And Jesus answered and said

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African Americans in the Roman Catholic Church to him, ‘‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’’ (Matthew 16:13 19, King James Version)

This authority held by the pope is deeply important in that it results in the pope having the right at times to teach what Catholics are to believe regarding the faith in ways that are not open to question because they contain no errors. The pope is not the only figure in the church permitted to teach Catholics what to believe and how to conduct themselves. Bishops can teach the principles of Catholic life, but this involves teachings that are subject to revision and change. That is to say, what bishops teach is subject to alteration; if this were not the case, their authority would in fact challenge that of the pope. In both cases —teachings open to change and teachings not subject to alteration—the fundamental source of information is the revelation from God housed in sacred Scripture and more contemporarily in the working of God’s spirit in the modern world. Much of what is taught within the Church results from councils called by the pope to discuss with the bishops important and pressing issues. The teachings generated by these councils can be declared infallible. And members of the church, to varying degrees, are familiar with the basics of the councils’ work; but less well known is Canonical Law, revised in 1983, that provides a code for

the general processes guiding the Roman Catholic Church. This law is not as directly theologically framed and formulated as are the workings of the various councils. Furthermore, Canonical Law is the product of the pope in consultation with a small group of canon lawyers as opposed to the gathering of the pope and bishops that defines the work of a council. In a sense the importance and authority of the bishops and the pope speak to the Roman Catholic Church’s deep appreciation for those who have committed themselves to the service of God and God’s Church on the highest levels. This type of appreciation might also play into the significance of saints—individuals who displayed unusually strong devotion to God expressed through extraordinary events associated with their lives—within Roman Catholicism. For Roman Catholics, the saints are important on some level because they are able to intercede for the living and thereby help them in their effort to live a proper life. Of particular importance with respect to the saints is the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. There are similarities between Roman Catholicism and many of the other traditions outlined in this volume in that doctrine and ritual are of fundamental importance for the assurance of good spiritual health. Participation in the life of the Church requires markers, ceremonies or ‘‘rites,’’ that denote the movement of the individual into the community of the faithful. There are three such ceremonies or sacraments in Roman Catholicism: baptism, confirmation, and communion. The first involves a symbolic ‘‘death’’ of the sinful person through the sprinkling of water on the child or adult. This ceremony opens the person to a relationship with God within

African Americans in the Roman Catholic Church the context of the community of believers. One of the activities made available to the person through baptism is communion. This ritual involves recognition of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world. Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world on the cross, and the ritual of communion is a remembrance of this event. Communion is a part of the ritual of the churches but unlike many other Christian churches, Roman Catholics argue that the wine and bread consumed during this ceremony become the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. This belief is referred to as transubstantiation. The final sacrament involves a public pronouncement of the person’s embrace of Catholic teachings, and it takes place after the person has studied the doctrine of the Church. It is what one might consider the final phase of initiation into the Roman Catholic Church. In addition to the previously mentioned sacraments, there are ritualized activities

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that are quite important to Roman Catholics. Confession is one such ritual through which the believer is given an opportunity to confess shortcomings and receive instructions for overcoming sin. Since Vatican II, the nature and frequency of confession has changed. Fewer people undertake it on a regular basis, and limited church resources (including a declining number of priests) make it difficult for priests to provide this service regularly. Furthermore, the shift follows a theological change regarding perceptions of sin through which ‘‘sin is less juridical, so that the faithful focus upon their fundamental life’s direction toward God rather than evaluating every act independently’’ (Gillis 1999, 171). Much of the connection to God’s will that some might have felt through the process of confession is undertaken by many through the process of prayer in both formal and informal spaces set apart for this activity. Anthony B. Pinn

RICHARD ALLEN (1760–1831) The person who spearheaded the foundation of the AME Church was Richard Allen. Allen was born a slave, in the Philadelphia household of Benjamin Chew, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General and a Quaker turned Anglican. When Allen was six years old, he, his mother, and several siblings were sold to Stokely Sturgis, a struggling small farmer in Delaware. Despite the fact that Sturgis sold Allen’s mother and three of his brothers and sisters in 1777, Allen remembered him as a humane man. When Methodist preach ers first visited Allen’s neighborhood in Delaware in 1780, Allen was a ready convert and invited the preachers, with Sturgis’s permission, to hold services at his master’s house. He became recognized as a leading Methodist preacher. In Philadelphia, Allen attended St. George’s Methodist Church, a mixed (although segregated) congregation, and held services for African American Methodists at 5 AM every Sunday. He also took part in the activities of the Free African Society, along with Absalom Jones; the Free African Society was a self help organization aiming to build up institutions for the African American community, such as a cemetery, a church, and schools. Allen’s 15 year bishopric proved to be an important and consequential one. Allen died in 1931.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Davis, Cyprian. The History of Black Catho lics in the United States (New York: Crossroads, 1991). Gillis, Chester. Roman Catholicism in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). Hayes, Diana L. Hagar’s Daughters: Wom anist Ways of Being in the World (Boston: Paulist Press, 1995). Hayes, Diana L., and Cyprian Davis, eds. Taking Down Our Harps: Black Catholics in the United States (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998). McGreevy, John T. Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth Century Urban North (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). Phelps, Jamie T., ed. Black and Catholic: The Challenge and Gift of Black Folk (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1997). Raboteau, Albert J. A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African American Reli gious History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).

AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH Historical Development The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church is the largest of the independent African American denominations in North America. The AME Church originated as an early protest against racial discrimination among American Methodists, and simultaneously as an arena in which black culture and leadership could be lovingly and systematically nurtured. In 1792, Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and other African Americans were

attending the services at St. George’s Methodist Church in Philadelphia, but an incident during prayer where a white deacon threatened to pull Allen and his friends off their knees because they were not situated far enough back in the gallery caused the group of black men to walk out of St. George’s, and this highlighted the urgency of beginning a church expressly for African Americans in Philadelphia. By 1794, many of the members of the Free African Society had built just such a church; it would be named St. Thomas’ Church, and they decided that it should affiliate with the Episcopalians. When they asked Allen, the leading black minister in Philadelphia, to become their pastor, Allen declined. The black Episcopalians’ second choice was Absalom Jones, who accepted the post. However, Allen strongly wished to remain a Methodist. Instead, in that same year, Allen turned a discarded blacksmith shop into a new black Methodist congregation, which he called ‘‘Bethel.’’ The Bethel African Methodists were still tied to the white Methodists. Bishop Francis Asbury helped Allen to dedicate his church in 1794, and, five years later, Asbury would ordain Allen as a deacon. However, attempts by white Methodist ministers to exert control over the Bethel church during the next two decades would pose severe problems for Allen. Bethel’s articles of incorporation, drawn up by a white Methodist, were amended at Allen’s direction in order to ensure that Bethel’s black church members had control over their own church affairs. Pennsylvania courts upheld these actions over against the complaints of the white Methodist ministers, culminating in an 1816 decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Supreme Court

African Methodist Episcopal Church absolved Allen’s congregation of any obligations to the white Methodists of St. George’s, effectively establishing its independence. Allen seized the moment by convening a gathering of black clergy from five states with a view to establishing a new denomination. One attendee was Peter Spencer, who, three years earlier, had established the independence of his African Union Church in Wilmington, Delaware. His presence may have signified a willingness to consider merging these two forms of independent black Methodism, but the results of Spencer’s consideration must have been negative because this juncture never occurred, and Spencer took no further part in the work of the AME Church. Another attendee was a mixed-race Methodist preacher from Baltimore, named Daniel Coker (c. 1780–1846). Coker had been born into slavery in Maryland, but Coker had become a fugitive, ending up in New York City. Quakers assisted him in purchasing his freedom. He then returned to Baltimore where he preached and taught school. Unlike Allen, he was highly literate; one expert on African Methodism stated that Coker ‘‘possessed more information on all subjects than usually fell to the lot of colored men in his day’’ (Payne 1891, 89). Allen’s Philadelphia gathering decided to organize as an independent denomination and to elect a bishop to preside over the new denomination. The man elected to serve was Coker, perhaps because of his literacy. Coker declined the episcopacy, however, although the reasons for his action remain unclear; some authorities state that it was thought, on further reflection, better to have a bishop who was purely African (like Allen) rather than a

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mixed-race bishop like Coker; others state that Allen was out of town when the election occurred, and was angry when he heard of the election’s outcome and was able to have it reversed. In any event, after Coker declined the office, Allen was elected and consecrated the first bishop of the AME Church, and his friend Absalom Jones assisted in his consecration. One unanticipated challenge faced by Allen was a request from a woman, Jarena Lee (1783–1851?), to preach the gospel in the context of the AME Church. On the first occasion that Lee approached him, Allen gently dissuaded her from pursuing what she understood to be her calling. When, in 1818, some years later, she stood up on the floor of Bethel Church and renewed her request, Allen changed his mind and agreed to support her in an evangelistic ministry outside the ordained offices of deacon and elder, which structured the upper levels of the Methodist ministerial hierarchy, including most of the paid pastorates. Lee proved to be an indefatigable and effective traveling evangelist, who was remembered especially in midwestern states like Ohio, along with William Paul Quinn (1788?–1873), another traveling evangelist who would later become an AME bishop. Quinn and Lee had much to do with the spread of the AME Church through the states carved out of the Northwest Territory. In expansion of his denomination, Allen did not only look west, he looked south also. A large group of black Methodists broke off from the Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1817, and they moved to affiliate with Allen’s denomination. Harassment from the authorities in South Carolina did not deter them; by 1820,

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DANIEL ALEXANDER PAYNE (1811–1893) Daniel Alexander Payne was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 24, 1811. He subsequently studied at the Lutheran seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, after which he was ordained in the Franken Synod of the Lutheran Church. Eventually moving to Philadelphia, Payne would join the AME church in 1842. From the time of his affiliation, Payne was a major advocate for an educated ministry within the AME Church. As a bishop, Payne was intent upon establishing a literate culture within the AME Church, so that requirements of education would have some substance to them. The renowned AME Church Review, a literary magazine, was established in 1884 under Payne’s guidance. Payne also believed that the AME Church should have a semi nary. He made more than one attempt at founding such an institution, but he would have the greatest success with an institution in southwestern Ohio, near Xenia, to which he would give the name ‘‘Wilberforce University,’’ after the English parliamentarian William Wilberforce, who was instrumental in Britain’s ending of the slave trade and of slavery itself within its dominions.

Morris Brown (1770–1847), the pastor of the congregation, had come north to meet with Allen. Two years later, a muchdisputed conspiracy in Charleston was allegedly centered around Denmark Vesey, a lay member of Brown’s flock. In the aftermath of that event, Vesey and more than 30 other black Charlestonians were executed, the Charleston AME Church was closed, and Morris Brown was exiled to Philadelphia, where Richard Allen welcomed him. The exiled Brown was to become the second bishop of the AME Church. The AME Church would not reopen in Charleston until 1865, but meanwhile the AME Church grew among African Americans in border cities such as Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Louisville, and St. Louis. John Mifflin Brown founded a congregation in New Orleans in 1843, and it remained open until 1858. In 1841, a decade after Allen’s death in 1831, another former Charlestonian, Daniel A. Payne (1811–1893), joined the AME Church, and he would prove to be a major influence in the church for

most of the remainder of the nineteenth century. The thin, almost emaciated, puritanical Payne rose rapidly through the ranks of the denomination, becoming bishop in 1852. In large part due to the efforts of Payne, the church would open Wilberforce University in 1856, with mostly white Methodist trustees; in 1863, the Methodist Episcopal Church wished to sell its interest in the property; Payne bought the property for the AME Church, and it was subsequently entirely under the control of the AME Church. Wilberforce University would have many subsequent challenges, including a disastrous fire in 1865. For a time, the state of Ohio provided substantial funding, but due to concerns of separation of church and state, Wilberforce University was divided in two in 1946, with the statesupported portion of the university adopting the name ‘‘Central State University.’’ The AME Church had an antislavery stand, at least from the time that Richard Allen, together with Absalom

African Methodist Episcopal Church Jones, had published in 1794 An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves. In effect, Allen and Jones, were building on the antislavery position of John Wesley, a stand that the latter had made public in his 1774 publication, Thoughts upon Slavery. Allen and Jones wrote to slaveholders, ‘‘if you love the God of love, clear your hands of slaves, burden not your children or country with them’’ (Campbell 1995, 24). The South Carolina exiles Brown and Payne preserved an antislavery stance within the AME Church, but as styles of antislavery proliferated in mid-nineteenth-century America, so such styles also proliferated within the AME Church; there was no single pattern. Of the 31 African Americans in one Pennsylvania county who were ‘‘agents’’ in the Underground Railroad, it appears that more were members of the AME Church than any other; i.e., of the 15 whose religious identity is known, 8 were AME. Not all African Americans believed that the AME Church and its clergy were doing all that they might. The fiery 26year-old Mary Ann Shadd decried the role played by AME clergy: ‘‘Their gross ignorance and insolent bearing, together with their sanctimonious garb [shows] the downright degradation of the free colored people of the North’’ (Kashatus 2002, 58). Indeed, when the subject of antislavery strategy reached the floor of the 1856 General Conference, a majority of the delegates voted against the ultraist position, apparently agreeing with the elderly Richard Robinson, who stated that it was unnecessary for African Americans to adopt an outright abolitionist position, because ‘‘every colored man is an abolitionist, and the slaveholders know it’’ (Payne 1891, 339). It was much to be preferred, believed

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Robinson, for the AME Church to maintain a low profile. What both Shadd and Robinson pointed to, in very different ways, was the fact that AME clergy devoted far more of their efforts to community building in the antebellum era than to politics, although their community building may have undergirded antislavery politics in a more subtle manner than Shadd’s comments would allow. Those African Methodists who sought refuge in Canada, seeking an extra level of protection from the pro-slavery laws of the United States, organized themselves in 1855 into the ‘‘British Methodist Episcopal Church’’ with the help of Payne and their American coreligionists. The BME Church would rejoin the AME Church in 1884. One antebellum AME clergyman with a reputation for militancy was Thomas Henry, an Underground Railroad agent for two decades. In the late 1850s, he was pastor of the AME Church in Hagerstown, Maryland. Henry was a confidant of John Brown, and his name was found in Brown’s papers. Before he could be arrested, Henry sought refuge in Philadelphia, and church leaders then assigned him to a circuit in upstate New York rather than send him back to Maryland. When the Civil War broke out, AME clergy closely monitored the policies of the Lincoln administration. Bishop Payne, for example, successfully lobbied the president to sign the bill for the emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia enacted in April 1862. When Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, William Hunter and Henry McNeal Turner were two AME clergymen who helped to recruit black regiments for the Union Army, subsequently serving the regiments they helped to raise as chaplains.

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In the period from 1863 to 1868, there were numerous proposals made to reunify Methodism. Some proposals sought to bring together only black Methodists, while James Lynch and Daniel Payne, among others, looked favorably at a reunion of Methodism along racial lines. Many of these proposals would have involved changing the name of the AME Church and discarding the word ‘‘African,’’ a nonstarter for many. None of these reunion proposals worked out, as the attachment to denominational prerogatives, including keeping all of the current AME bishops, remained strong. The AME Church’s post-emancipation advance into the South began with the arrival of James Lynch and J. D. S. Hall as missionaries to South Carolina’s Sea Islands in May 1863. It would eventually reach to every southern state, although competition with other branches of black Methodism—especially the AME Zion Church and the CME Church—would greatly restrict AME prospects in such states as North Carolina and Alabama. Through successful revivals and transfers of membership from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the ranks of membership of the AME Church grew steadily. In 1858, the AME Church had only 20,000 members, and its southern members would have been almost entirely in border states. By 1896, it would have 452,725 members, and most of the increase occurred in the 11 former states of the Confederacy. By the 1990s, the AME Church would claim 3.5 million members worldwide. In the area of education, AMEs in virtually every southern state established their own colleges, over the objections of Payne, who correctly believed that the denomination could not adequately support such a proliferation of colleges. Many of these

institutions were eventually closed, but the denominational colleges and seminaries that survive include: Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio; Payne Theological Seminary, also in Wilberforce, Ohio; Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, reorganized from an earlier educational venture in 1880; Morris Brown College, in Atlanta, Georgia, founded in 1881 (as of 2007, operating with reduced staff and student body and without accreditation); Paul Quinn College in Dallas, Texas, founded in 1872 (as of 2007, placed on probation by its accreditors); Turner Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia, founded 1894 and, since 1958, a part of the Interdenominational Theological Center, a consortium of six seminaries; and Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida, founded in 1883. There were intensive discussions within the turn-of-the-century AME Church as to how to implement its educational mission, and these discussions often played out in denominational periodicals such as the AME Church Review. Many AME church leaders agreed with Bishop Payne about the need for a Christian education and with Booker T. Washington about the need for a practical (or, as often stated, an ‘‘industrial’’) education. However, Charles C. Cook, writing in the Review in 1904, was among those who discerned a false dichotomy between ‘‘industrial’’ and ‘‘classical’’ education: ‘‘No educational scheme can stand, whose high arch of family and social life does not rest upon twin pillars of industry and culture’’ (Angell and Pinn 2000, 90). Industry, he observed, bid to eclipse religion, book learning, and politics, because ‘‘behind industry, as it is at present regarded, lies wealth. The last has now become first’’ (Angell and Pinn 2000, 91), and the dollar sign

African Methodist Episcopal Church has conquered. However, others, such as Will M. Jackson, writing in 1889, feared that African Americans were ‘‘educating the head at the expense of the hands’’ (Angell and Pinn 2000, 86) with the danger that honest toil might be treated disdainfully. This kind of controversy even raged about the AME ministry, with some denomination members stoutly insisting that educated ministers had such little regard for the old-time revival religion that they harmed the churches rather than building them up. Ministers associated with the AME Church such as Daniel Coker and Scipio Beanes undertook missions outside North America in such locations as Liberia and Haiti as early as the 1820s, but these missions did not result in permanent churches being established. A much more concerted missionary effort began in the 1880s into the first two decades of the twentieth century, in Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Haiti, Bermuda, British Guiana, Cuba, and Mexico, among other locations. There were many reasons for such missions. African Americans who suffered from increasing segregation in the United States sought homes in countries where the color line was not drawn. Some also had a strong desire to assist those who had no knowledge of Christ to undergo moral reform. Some saw Christian missions undertaken by African Americans as a way to unify peoples of color and to build up churches without racial prejudice. The AME Church experienced its greatest missionary success in South Africa, with the decision of Mangena Mokone to bring his Ethiopian Independent Church into affiliation with the AME Church in 1896, a merger facilitated by his niece, Charlotte Manye, who had

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experienced AME hospitality at Wilberforce University during a tour by the African Jubilee Choir of which she was a part. The flexibility of the leadership in applying church rules that had aided the AME mission to the southern United States also aided its spread in South Africa. Not very helpful, however, was the inconsistent leadership from the long succession of American ministers and bishops sent to guide the South African church and juggle admittedly conflicting demands from white officials and a wide range of colored and black constituents. Some, but not all, of the AME churches in South Africa proved to be hospitable to Black Nationalism. Some black South Africans sent their children to Wilberforce University and other American schools; one of the first sent across the ocean, Francis Herman Gow, became the first South African–born AME bishop. The AME Church has been slower in encouraging indigenization than some other American missionary churches; during the twentieth century, most of the episcopal leadership for the church would come from American bishops. By 2007, two of its African bishops, Wilfred J. Messiah and Paul J. M. Kawimbe, were African born. The Church hailed this as ‘‘a milestone in the reality that our church is global’’ (Christian Recorder online, July 13, 2007). The AME Church has expanded to having a presence in 22 African nations, most of which are in southern Africa.

Beliefs and Practices The AME Church has been a pioneer in the ‘‘Black Theology’’ movement. Henry McNeal Turner, in the nineteenth century, was a pioneer in his oft-repeated admonitions to AME Church members to ‘‘respect black’’ and his controversial

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assertion in 1898 that ‘‘God is a Negro.’’ Turner explained that ‘‘We have as much right biblically and otherwise to believe that God is a negro, as you buckra or white people have to believe that God is a fine looking, symmetrical, and ornamented white man’’ (Angell 1992, 261), inasmuch as every race of people has a right to envision God in their own image. Other AME theologians explored the Biblical basis for Black Nationalism. George Wilson Brent, writing in the Review in 1896, explored Biblical references to Cush, Canaan, Egypt, and Ethiopia, concluding that ‘‘Africa, our fatherland, the home of the Hamitic race, is the only country on earth whose past, present, and future so concerned our Lord, that of all notable events in the lives of Joseph, Moses, Jacob, Abraham, Solomon and Our Savior Jesus Christ, the fact of their being there became a turning point in their lives’’ (Angell and Pinn 2000, 148). In more recent times, James H. Cone, born (1938) and raised in the AME Church in Bearden, Arkansas, has pioneered the academic study of Black Theology with such works as Black Theology and Black Power (1969), God of the Oppressed (1975), and For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church (1986). From Richard Allen’s lifetime onwards, the AME Church has been faced with responding to women who have been called to preach and who claim the right to exercise their ministry. Allen himself gave informal permission to Jarena Lee to preach in 1818, but he did not ordain her. After Allen’s death, Lee did not find AME leaders so hospitable to her ministry. In 1835, for example, she recounted that she returned to Philadelphia and found the AME pulpits closed to her. In 1850, Bishop Payne

related that female preachers in the AME Church sought to erect a parallel structure for assigning women to congregations ‘‘after the manner of our Annual Conferences,’’ but that their efforts ‘‘fell to pieces like a rope of sand’’ (Payne 1891, 237). The influence of the Holiness Movement after the Civil War gave further impetus to the cause of women’s preaching, most notably through the career of Amanda Berry Smith, an evangelist who preached in India, Africa, and England, as well as North America. After a well-received sermon delivered to the AME General Conference in 1872, Berry disclaimed any interest in churchly ordination, stating that she was ‘‘satisfied with the ordination that the Lord has given me’’ (Angell and Pinn 2000, 282). Other women who experienced the call did want that human recognition. One who succeeded, at least for a time, was Sarah Ann Hughes, an evangelist and pastor in North Carolina, who was ordained by Henry McNeal Turner in 1885. However, her ordination was overturned two years later because of the opposition of many male ministers who claimed that the ordination of women was unbiblical. Dozens of women served as ministers in AME Churches during the next decades, including a few who accepted pastorates, but none of these women were ordained. By the mid-twentieth century, AME men’s interpretations of Paul’s epistles had shifted sufficiently that in 1948 when Rebecca M. Glover, assistant pastor of the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C., became only the second AME woman to be ordained, her ordination stood. The first woman elected to the episcopacy in the AME Church was Vashti McKenzie, a pastor from Baltimore, who was consecrated as a bishop in 2000. She now serves the Thirteenth

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HENRY MCNEAL TURNER (1834–1915) Standing increasingly in opposition to the elderly Bishop Payne during the Reconstruction era was one of Payne’s former prote´ge´s, Henry McNeal Turner (1834 1915). Like Payne, Turner was from South Carolina, moving north to join the AME Church in 1858. Turner rose rapidly in AME ranks and, in 1865, took charge of AME missionary work in Georgia. He was a ‘‘race man’’ who accomplished an enormous amount in both the ecclesiastical and the political arenas, organizing AME congrega tions and the Republican Party in Georgia. Turner took an active role in Reconstruction politics, serving for one term as a representative in the Georgia State Legislature, and for a brief period as postmaster in Macon, Georgia. Turner’s main involvement with Afri can issues came in the last two years of Daniel Payne’s life or after his death, including four missionary journeys to Africa and sponsorship through the International Missionary Society of two shiploads of African American emigrants to Africa after the demise of the American Colonization Society in the early 1890s, a Society of which Turner had been honorary vice president. Turner became a bishop at the General Conference of 1880, along with another southerner, Richard Cain (1826 1887) of South Carolina. Turner passed away in 1915.

Episcopal District, which comprises Tennessee and Kentucky. Two other women have subsequently been elected as bishops: Carolyn Tyler Guidry, who serves the Sixteenth Episcopal District, which comprises AME Churches in the Caribbean and in London; and Sarah Frances Davis, supervising the Eighteenth Episcopal District, which includes conferences in the smaller southern African nations of Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, and Mozambique. Among the programs and stances taken by the AME Church and its bishops in 2007 were the following: an agreement that the AME Church should encourage HIV testing among its constituents; a pledge to support efforts to strengthen literacy among African American children; a resolution of opposition to ‘‘the unjust war in Iraq’’; and the recommendation of a process to build up ‘‘an educational endowment fund for the church to undergird the financial health of our educational institutions’’ (http://www.ame-church.com/news-and-

events/convoIX-highlights.php, 2007 Convo IX highlights). Stephen W. Angell

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY African Methodist Episcopal Church. Official Web site. http://www.ame church.com/ index.php. Angell, Stephen Ward. Henry McNeal Turner and African American Religion in the South (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992). Angell, Stephen W., and Anthony B. Pinn. Social Protest Thought in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000). Campbell, James T. Songs of Zion: The Afri can Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Collier Thomas, Bettye. Daughters of Thun der: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, 1850 1979 (San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers, 1998).

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Dodson, Jualynne. Engendering Church: Women, Power, and the AME Church (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002). Kashatus, William C. Just Over the Line: Chester County and the Underground Railroad (West Chester, PA: Chester County Historical Society, 2002). Libby, Jean, ed. From Slavery to Salvation: The Autobiography of Rev. Thomas W. Henry of the A.M.E. Church (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1994). Melton, J. Gordon. A Will to Choose: The Origins of African American Methodism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007). Payne, Daniel Alexander. Recollections of Seventy Years (New York: Arno Press, 1968 [first published, 1888]). Payne, Daniel Alexander. History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (New York: Arno Press, 1969 [first pub lished, 1891]). Pinn, Anthony B. Making the Gospel Plain: The Writings of Bishop Reverdy C. Ransom (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999). Walker, David. Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles. Electronic Edition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2001 [first published, 1829]). Wright, R. R., Jr. The Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Nashville: A.M.E. Sunday School Union, 1963).

AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL ZION CHURCH Historical Development The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion Church) recognizes its founding in 1796, the year in which a number of African Americans, the majority of whom were members of John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in

New York, New York, petitioned for the privilege to hold meetings under their own leadership. This was the second secession effort of note by African American congregants within the Methodist Episcopal Church, the first being in 1787 by African American members of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, under the leadership of Richard Allen. The denomination that grew out of the Philadelphia movement would take the name African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church). Unlike the Philadelphia community, however, there was not a single incident that served as a catalyst for a move toward separation. Instead, the African American congregants in New York simply seemed desirous of a place and a setting in which they might greater exercise their spiritual gifts and offer mutual support. This petition was granted by Bishop Francis Asbury. The leaders of this effort included Francis Jacobs, William Brown, Peter Williams, Abraham Thompson, June Scott, Samuel Pontier, Thomas Miller, William Miller, James Varick, and William Hamilton. Three of these individuals, Abraham Thompson, June Scott, and Thomas Miller, were already recognized preachers, and William Miller was an exhorter. Thus, some of this number already had limited opportunities to exercise their calling, albeit under the supervision of white Methodists and only as the opportunities presented themselves within the Church’s association. By 1799, the growth in participation of African Americans in the Methodist Episcopal Church in New York, led these members to propose the establishment of their own house of worship. In the interim period, their independent gatherings were taking place in space owned and

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JAMES VARICK (1750–1827) James Varick was born near Newburgh, New York in 1750. Raised for the most part in New York City, Varick appears to have been the recipient of some elementary educa tion. At age sixteen, he would join the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, the con gregation at that time little more than a year old. He was eventually licensed to preach by this body. He would support himself and his family through the trade of shoemaking, opening his own business by 1783. Varick was one of the black members who partici pated in the development of separate meetings for black congregants, which eventually lead to the existence of the independent African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. In 1806, Varick and two others were ordained as the first black deacons in New York. He would be instrumental in the spread of the AME Zion Church to New Haven, CT in 1818 and to Philadelphia, PA in 1820. Finally, following a two year struggle with the white church hierarchy, he was finally ordained as the first black superintendent (bishop) of the AME Zion Church in 1822. In 1817, he became one of the vice presidents of the New York African Bible Society. Before his death on July 22, 1827, he helped found the Freedom’s Journal.

controlled by white Methodists. After initially failing to secure one site on Orange Street, between Cross and Chatham, they purchased a site situated at the corner of Church and Leonard Streets and fronting on Church Street. There they erected a building that they called the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, securing a charter in 1801. The young congregation would confront various trials during its early formative years. For example, two of the earlier founders, Abraham Thompson and June Scott, attempted to start another society separate from the Zion Church, which they named the Union Society. Thompson would shortly return to the Zion Church while Scott remained with the Society until it soon folded, after which he joined another church. In 1813, Thomas Simpkins was expelled from the Zion Church, where he had been a member and trustee. With the assistance of one of the early founders, William Miller, he was able to

establish a new society, drawing several members of the Zion community. Around 1810, both Simpkins and Miller had begun to make overtures toward the Allenites in Philadelphia, much to the dismay of the Zion Church. The new congregation they founded was named Asbury Church, and though never officially associating with Bishop Allen’s congregations, there were clear theological and liturgical influences derived from the Allen’s African Methodist movement. Another point of contention between Zion and Asbury was the latter also receiving recognition from the Methodist Episcopal authorities. Another person of note during the early days of the ‘‘Zionist’’ movement was William Lambert. One of those who left the Zion Church for the Asbury community, he continued to be thwarted in what he considered to be a calling to the ministry. He eventually left for Philadelphia, where he came under the influence of Bishop Richard Allen. Under Allen, he finally

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obtained a license to preach. Lambert subsequently returned to New York, were he was determined to found a congregation affiliated with Allen’s Methodist movement. With the assistance of Rev. George White, he obtained property in the area of Mott Street. Significantly, these activities coincided with Bishop Allen’s investigations into extending the jurisdiction of his denomination, an investigation that involved communication with several African American Methodists in the New York area. Also at this time, Henry Harden, an African Methodist Episcopal elder from Baltimore, came to New York, joining Lambert and White in their efforts to form an association of African Methodists. Harden had been authorized by the denomination to head African Methodist Episcopal Church work in New York City. The Zionists’ leadership promptly viewed this as an encroachment on their jurisdiction and appeared to take a stance of noncooperation with the ‘‘Allenites.’’ Interestingly, the earlier separatists that constituted the Asbury Church aligned themselves with the Zionists in this dispute. One should note, however, that while the leaders of these early African Methodist associations were often at odds with one another, this was not always the case. For example, Christopher Rush, who became one of the early bishops within the AME Zion Church, notes in his early history of the church that James Varick, the man who would become the denomination’s first bishop, offered the opening prayer for a meeting during Bishop Allen’s first visit to New York to assess the progress of Harden, Lambert, and White. Rush also notes that it was quite common for the laity of the various groups to attend one another’s meetings.

Nevertheless, the dissension between the various groups persisted. Though similar in many ways, they possessed distinct and separate senses of identity associated with their particular histories. As mentioned earlier, the African Methodists under Allen had had a much more contentious relationship with the Methodist Episcopal Church than had the Zionists in New York. Consequently, the Philadelphia-based church tended to exhibit a stronger separatist politics than the New York–based community. This is not to say, however, that the Zionists did not value their autonomy. After all, their autonomy enabled them to more fully explore and express their gifts as Christians. It was in this context that the Zionists called for an official meeting on August 11, 1820, to discuss their future viability. Two questions were placed before the gathering: should they rejoin

Christopher Rush, second bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. (History of All the Religious Denominations in the United States. Harrisburg: John Winebrunner, 1848)

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church the white Methodist Episcopal Church or should they join with the Allenites? The prescient answer to both questions was no; i.e., neither option was acceptable. They would chart their own unique course. The Zionists eventually followed in the footsteps of the Allenites and the Asbury Church in ordaining their own deacons and elders. Over the course of the next several years, they began a mission effort leading to the founding of congregations in Flushing, New York; New Haven, Connecticut; and even Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; assimilating a group of schismatics that had severed ties with Bishop Allen to found the Wesleyan Church. Under the leadership of individuals such as James Varick, George Collins, Charles Anderson, and Christopher Rush, the Zionists drew up doctrines and disciplines, elected elders, and finally organized in 1821 as a national body, adopting the name ‘‘African Methodist Episcopal Church of America.’’ In 1822, James Varick, then pastor of Zion Church, was elected their first superintendent (a designation that was later changed to bishop) and served until 1828. In 1848, Zion was officially added to the name of the denomination, to become the ‘‘African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church’’ to make clear the distinction from the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Prior to the Civil War, the church experienced little growth. The growth that did occur during this period is generally attributed to the gifts and talents of Christopher Rush, who was Varick’s successor as general superintendent. Rush, a native of North Carolina, had escaped from slavery when he was approximately 21 years of age. He traveled north,

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eventually arriving in New York in 1798. The young man shortly affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, eventually joining Zion Church soon after its founding. Before long, Rush discerned a call to the ministry. He was licensed to preach in 1815, and eventually was ordained seven years later in 1822. Over the next several decades, Rush would prove himself to be one of the most gifted leaders of the young denomination. He was a tireless advocate for the emancipation and formal citizen status for all African Americans. He was an important member of the Phoenix Society, founded in 1833 to foster the education of African American children and adults through classes, lectures, lending libraries, job centers, and mutual aid funds. He was also quite active in the American and Foreign Antislavery Society as well as the Convention of Colored People of the United States. Indeed, the AME Zion Church as a whole was very much involved in the Abolitionist Movement. Many of its churches would serve as ‘‘stations’’ on the Underground Railroad, a vast informal network of routes, safe houses, and individuals that assisted fugitive slaves in reaching the relative safety of the North as well as Canada. This commitment to the antislavery struggle was likewise codified in the earliest documents of the denomination. For example, from its inception, the denomination’s book of rules, regulations, and rituals known as the Discipline stated that no one who owned slaves could be a member of an AME Zion congregation. Further, among persons involved in the life of the AME Zion Church as well as the movement to abolish slavery in the United States, one will find the names of activists such as Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass

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(who was also an AME Zion lay minister), and Harriet Tubman, perhaps the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. With such a heritage, the denomination is frequently referred to as ‘‘The Freedom Church.’’ With the retirement of Rush as the General Superintendent of the Church in 1852, a power struggle ensued, resulting in a schism within the church that would eventually be resolved some eight years later, just before the start of the Civil War. Finally, in the period that followed, the postbellum Church experienced significant growth, expanded not only in the South but also in the West. This period would also mark the church’s entry into serious mission outreach, leading to its having a noteworthy presence in the Caribbean and eventually Africa. For instance, Andrew Cartwright was the first Zionist missionary in Africa in 1878. In addition, Bishop John Bryan Small was also an early missionary to the continent, eventually heading the church’s first Episcopal district there. To date, AME Zion mission churches and schools have been established in Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria. The church also has a presence in Georgetown, Guyana, as well as several congregations in Canada, the latter due to the church’s involvement in the Underground Railroad. In 1996, the AME Zion Church celebrated its bicentennial, first with a gathering in Washington, D.C., in July of that year, and later in October, in the denomination’s birthplace, New York, New York.

Beliefs and Practices Social justice and democracy for all have been highly regarded within the denomination, to the point of being reflected in

its ecclesiology. For example, initially favoring a more democratic structure than their white and black associates of the Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal Churches, AME Zionists initially followed an organizational model more akin to the Methodist Protestant Churches, which meant that in lieu of bishops elected for life, they elected ‘‘superintendents’’ for their episcopal overseers with terms of four years. Interestingly, as part of their continuing rivalry, AMEs began to cast aspersions on the efficacy of the superintendents. The Zionists eventually adopted the title of bishop and extended tenure to life. The life tenure would be amended in later years with the institution of compulsory retirement for bishops at age 70. In the contemporary context, AME Zion bishops collectively provide oversight of the entire Church, while exercising specific individual leadership responsibilities in a geographical area, called an episcopal district. These episcopal districts are composed of one or more annual conferences. Today, there are 12 episcopal districts covering the United States and abroad, ministering to the needs of over 1 million persons. As the executive unit of the Church, the Board of Bishops exercises its authority by directing the Church’s ministry and mission work on five continents. Indeed, it oversees and promotes the activity of the Church in the period between the General Conferences of the Church, which are held every four years. The Board of Bishops convenes twice a year, at such time and place where a majority attendance can be assured. Another way in which the democratic and egalitarian principles characteristic of the denomination are shown is through the inclusion of laity on most of the high

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JULIA A. J. FOOTE (1823–1900) Julia A. J. Foote was born in 1823 in Schenectady, NY, the daughter of former slaves who had purchased their freedom. Her family moved to Albany, NY, and, it was there that Julia underwent a profound conversion experience and joined a local African Meth odist church. After moving to Boston, MA, Julia would begin her affiliation with the Afri can Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. She shortly became a presence in the community, exhorting persons within and without the congregation about the blessings of sanctification. Undeterred by criticism, Julia began to hold religious meetings in her home, open to all whom where interested. Just prior to 1845, Foote would meet with other likeminded women in Philadelphia, where they held a series of religious meetings. In 1851, she experienced throat difficulties and was forced to restrict her evangelistic efforts, settling in Cleveland, OH. She would not return to preaching until sometime in the early 1870’s, joining a Holiness revival in the area. Foote eventually reaffiliated with A.M.E. Zion Church, receiving an appointment as a missionary. On May 20, 1894, she became the first woman in the AME Zion Church to be ordained a deacon. Before her death on November 22, 1900, she was ordained an elder in the Church.

councils of the Church. For instance, most of the administrative departments have their own governing board of lay and clergy members. Others are operated simply under the auspices of a supervising bishop. Members of these boards are selected from individuals nominated by annual conferences and other groups. In addition to board

members, there are varieties of staff that coordinate and carry out the daily activities of each department. Through the work of these departments, the Church is able to maintain a common vision, mission, and ministry. As noted in the previous section on the history of the Church, education has

JAMES WALKER HOOD (1831–1918) James Walker Hood was born on May 30, 1831 in Kennett Township, Chester County, PA. He and his family moved to Wilmington, DE in 1841 where his father worked as a tenant farmer. In 1852, Hood moved to New York City. There he was licensed to preach in 1856, by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. In 1957, he moved to New Haven, CT and joined the AME Zion Church in that city. In 1860, Hood was ordained a deacon and commissioned to do missionary work in Nova Scotia. Hood would return to the United States in 1863, serving on the staff of the church in Bridgeport, CT. In 1864, Hood was ordained an elder in the church, the same year that he moved to North Carolina, where he would spend the rest of his life. In 1872, Hood was elected a bishop in the AME Zion Church. In 1881, Hood was a delegate to the Ecu menical Conference in London. He later served as the president of the conference in 1891 when it convened in Washington, DC. In 1884, Hood published the first collection of sermons by an African American, entitled The Negro in the Christian Pulpit. Hood died on October 30, 1918.

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traditionally been held in high regard. Thus, it should come as no surprise that one of the most influential administrative departments within the denomination is the Christian Education Department (CED). Founded in 1887, the CED provides supervision, guidance, direction, and programmatic support of the Christian training and development of the entire membership of the denomination. The Christian Education Department supports Christian development in homes, churches, camps, as well as church-related schools, colleges, and seminaries. This is accomplished through workshops, seminars, conferences, and conventions. The CED also establishes curriculum and other standards to support Christian education programs throughout the Church. The department consists of two divisions: the Home and Church Division, and the School and College Division. The Home and Church Division includes Varick’s Children, Youth Ministries, Young Adult Ministries, Adult Ministries, and Church School Literature. The School and College Division oversees the activities of the various institutions of higher education associated with the Church. These institutions include Livingstone College (Salisbury, North Carolina), Hood Theological Seminary (Salisbury, North Carolina), Clinton Junior College (Rock Hill, South Carolina), Lomax Hannon Junior College (Greenville, Alabama), A.M.E. Zion University (Monrovia, Liberia), and Hood Speaks Theological Seminary (Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria). Another significant legacy of the Church has been the involvement of women in its growth and development. Indeed, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was the first of the historically black churches to ordain women to

full ministry. Beginning in 1891 at the second Ecumenical Conference, Bishop James Walker Hood defended the right of women to be elected delegates to the general conference of the denomination. At the 73rd Session of the New York Annual Conference held at the Catharine Street AME Zion Church in Poughkeepsie on May 20, 1894, Bishop Hood ordained Julia A. J. Foote as a deacon. On May 19, 1895 Mary J. Small, the wife of Bishop John Bryan Small, was ordained a deacon by Bishop Alexander Walters at the 67th Session of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Conference. In 1898, she became the first woman in Methodism to be ordained an elder by Bishop Charles Calvin Pettey at the Philadelphia and Baltimore Conference. Two years latter in 1900, upon transferring to the New Jersey conference of the Church, Foote was ordained an elder by Bishop Alexander Walters. Of the African American Methodist denominations, the AME Zion Church has continued to have the highest approval rate for women as pastors. Despite this early progressivism, however, they have yet to ordain a female bishop, an event that has taken place within the AME Church and the predominantly white United Methodist Church. Another indication of the importance of women in the Church can be seen in the existence of the Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society. Though not officially coordinated as a national organization until 1880, there were local and regional women’s organizations in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church that antedate it. Among the early leaders of this body, one finds the names of Mary Jane Talbert Jones, Meriah G. Harris, and Annie Walker Blackwell. The purpose of the Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society of the African Methodist

African Orthodox Church Episcopal Zion Church is to promote growth in the knowledge and understanding of God and the gospel as revealed through Jesus Christ; to teach the concepts of Christian missions and provide opportunities for participation in the work of mission and ministry; to live a life exemplifying and testifying to the power of Christ; and to support evangelism at home and abroad, through one’s charitable gifts of money, time, and talents. Finally, among the historically black churches, the AME Zionists are distinguished for their commitment to ecumenism, namely the promotion of unity and cooperation between various Christian groups or denominations. Their first serious ecumenical effort was during the Civil War in 1864 when the AME and AME Zion Churches almost reached an agreement that would bring the two denominations into one union. The efforts failed due to the failure of AME conferences to ratify the measure. In subsequent years, the AME Zion Church has engaged in discussions with the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (formerly the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church—the third major historically black expression of Methodism in the United States) as well as with white Methodist communions. The AME Zion Church has also been involved with the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and the World Council of Churches. Torin Alexander

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Baldwin, Lewis V. ‘‘Invisible’’ Strands in African Methodism: A History of the Afri can Union Methodist Protestant and Union American Methodist Episcopal

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Churches, 1805 1980 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1983). Bradley, David Henry, Sr. A History of A.M.E. Zion Church, 2 vols. (Nashville, TN: Parthenon Press, 1971). Johnson, Dorothy Sharpe, and Lula Goolsby Williams. Pioneering Women of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (Charlotte, NC: AME Zion Publishing House, 1996). Martin, Sandy Dwayne. For God and Race: The Religious and Political Leadership of AMEZ Bishop James Walker Hood (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999). McClain, William B. Black People in the Methodist Church: Whither Thou Goest? (Cambridge, MA: Shenkman Publishing Co., 1984). Richardson, Harry V. Dark Salvation: The Story of Methodism as It Developed Among Blacks in America (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1976). Walls, William J. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church: Reality of the Black Church (Charlotte, NC: AME Zion Publishing House, 1974).

AFRICAN ORTHODOX CHURCH Historical Development The African Orthodox church is a Christian denomination in the Episcopal tradition, which was founded in 1919 in Chicago, Illinois, amidst the Pan-African Movement. Chicago at that time had become a place in the Midwest where thoughts and ideas of African unity flourished as many Africans in America attempted to understand themselves better. During this time the African Orthodox Church was competing with the growing movement of Black Muslim and Judaic groups that began to spring

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GEORGE ALEXANDER MCGUIRE (1866–1934) George Alexander McGuire was born March 26, 1866 in Sweets, Antigua. Records are not clear as to McGuire’s parents, but it is known that he was a part of the Anglican church at an early age. He was formally trained at Moravian’s Nisky Theological Semi nary on the Island of Saint Thomas and became involved with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Around the turn of the century, in 1894, McGuire made his way to the United States. In 1913 McGuire went back to Antigua for a few years feeling spiritu ally spent by his work in the United States. Five years later McGuire returned to the United States to continue his work in the Episcopal Church. In 1918 he became the Chaplain for Marcus Garvey’s organization the UNIA. In 1921 McGuire was conse crated a bishop by Archbishop Vilatte and Bishop Nybladh. After his consecration he remained active in the UNIA until Garvey relocated to the Caribbean in 1924. The next year McGuire relocated to Florida and began expanding his Church internationally to South Africa, Venezula and his home island Antigua just to name a few. McGuire died in 1934.

up in the region as well as on the east coast of the United States. However, this tradition like the others was focused on the ideologies of Pan-Africanism and Black Nationalism as a cultural and political point of departure for all believers. Furthermore, like many of the religious groups, which sprang up during this time, the African Orthodox Church experienced periods of intense growth because of the migrating population of African Americans in the United States. In particular, the African Orthodox Church is an Episcopalian congregation that felt it necessary to form its own church in order to meet the spiritual and communal needs of the Black population. This religious body was founded by George Alexander McGuire with other Black Episcopalians who wanted a home for worship that would speak to their needs. McGuire was consecrated bishop of the church on September 28, 1921, in Chicago, Illinois, by Episcopal Archbishop Joseph Rene Vilatte and

assisted by Bishop Carl A. Nybladh who had also been consecrated by Vilatte. At first the new denomination was called the Independent Episcopal Church to quite literally signify the church’s independence from the White Episcopal tradition. However, this moniker was changed in 1924 to the African Orthodox Church to identify the church’s ideological connection to Pan-African and Black Nationalist thought. It is important to note that the PanAfrican/Black Nationalist thought of McGuire did not just come about because it was the popular ideology of the times; the Archbishop himself was a member and the chaplain of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which was a nonreligious Pan-African organization founded by Marcus Mosiah Garvey in Harlem, New York. McGuire left this organization in 1924 only because Garvey decided to relocate the national headquarters of the organization from Harlem to the Caribbean. Unwilling to leave the congregation placed in his

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DANIEL WILLIAM ALEXANDER (1882–1970) Daniel William Alexander was born in South Africa, December 23, 1882. Early in his life Alexander was baptized in the Anglican Church of the Province of South Africa. Alexander became aware of the efforts of the African Orthodox Church through the UNIA’s publication the Negro World. Not only was he exposed to the ideas and mission of the church through the periodical, more importantly he was exposed to the ideology of Pan Africanism. These efforts on the part of Alexander attracted the attention of the South African government. The government had files on all Black or ‘‘Native’’ churches because they were not under direct European supervision and control. Alexander made his way to the United States in 1927 where he met with McGuire to be consecrated as a bishop of the African Orthodox Church in South Africa. After this, Alexander returned to South Africa to begin forming African Orthodox Churches. Furthermore, he made efforts to form congregations in Uganda, Kenya, and Rhodesia (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). In 1970 Alexander passed away.

care, he left the UNIA and began to concentrate on the growth and progression of his church. Early in the history of the church much of the congregation was composed of Anglican Caribbean immigrants. This may be due to the connection between the African Orthodox Church and the UNIA, which was led by a Jamaican who also came from the Anglican Church. In 1925 the church began to spread to the southern United States, before they began having religious aspirations oversees. In 1927 Daniel William Alexander of the South African Anglican Church appealed to McGuire to be consecrated into the African Orthodox Church so that he may bring the teachings of the people of South Africa. By the time of McGuire’s death in 1934, his church had grown to over 30,000 members and had extensive international influence in the Caribbean and on the continent of Africa. The African Orthodox Church maintained organizational and ideological solidarity through the 1950s and 1960s. Further, the church has continued its efforts in reaching

Africans throughout the world. They continue to consecrate their own bishops and even lift certain individuals such as John Coltrane to the rank of sainthood, which demonstrates a continuously evolving and dynamic religious ideology, allowing members of congregations to grow spiritually as well as culturally.

Beliefs and Practices The African Orthodox Church came to fruition during a very ideologically rich period in African American history. Like many religious and cultural groups of the time period the ideology of Marcus Garvey made up the material used as the foundation for theological structure. Particularly, Garvey’s ideology of PanAfricanism influenced the Church not only in their naming but more importantly in influencing their posture toward Africans from diverse regions of the globe. This is what inevitably led Alexander to McGuire in his attempt to address the spiritual and cultural needs of his people in South Africa. The organization teaches cultural pride and

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progress as well as endeavors to demonstrate the spiritual and cultural strength of African people. The African Orthodox Church of South Africa took a similar posture because it was dealing with racial oppression. However, since this church was on the African continent, it had a different orientation with respect to the cultural practices of the people in the church. For instance, it was very important that the church be grounded in African philosophy, mythology, customs, and mores. However, despite this concern for culture, the African Orthodox Church was considered a reform church. Whereas some churches in South Africa were radical, meaning they held an anti-European militant posture toward the European colonizers and culture, a reform church, despite the connection to the African culture of the region, wanted to maintain European doctrinal and liturgical forms. This posture was a move away from McGuire’s perspective in that he pushed a more radical approach to Christianity. In practice, the African Orthodox Church in the United States as well as in South Africa and the Caribbean maintains

a threefold ministry of deacons, priest, and bishops who emphasize apostolic succession of power. The church also observes the seven sacraments just as the Roman Catholic Church, and its worship style is liturgical and infuses elements of Eastern and Western rites of Orthodoxy. In this respect, the African Orthodox Church, while appealing to African culture mores and nuances, maintains its Episcopal identity through its beliefs and practices. However, it must be acknowledged that appeal to African culture makes all the difference for the congregation of the church. It is in this space that African people can worship in the fashion they desire while maintaining some semblance of cultural integrity. Paul Easterling

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Johnson, Morris R. Archbishop Daniel Wil liam Alexander and the African Orthodox Church (San Francisco: International Scholars Publications, 1999). Terry Thompson, Reverend A. C. The His tory of the African Orthodox Church (New York: Beacon Press, 1956).

JOHN COLTRANE (1926–1967) Jazz saxophonist John William Coltrane received Sainthood from a San Francisco congregation of the African Orthodox Church. The sainthood of Coltrane was inspired by Archbishop Franzo King and his wife Mother Marina King who claimed to have felt the presence of God in Coltrane’s art during a concert in 1965. The couple claimed to have received a ‘‘sounds’’ baptism when they heard Coltrane’s song ‘‘The Love Supreme.’’ For them Coltrane had the ability to wins souls for God through his music. Fur ther, Coltrane felt that his gift was to be used for that central purpose. It was not enough to be understood as a jazz musician because his music could speak to hearts and minds. The name of the African Orthodox congregation that raised Coltrane to the position of saint is St. John Will I Am Coltrane Church of San Francisco, and it is still lead by Archbishop King.

American Muslim Mission

AMERICAN MUSLIM MISSION Historical Development After his father’s death from congestive heart failure on February 23, 1975 and his own elevation to the leadership of the Nation of Islam as Supreme Minister at the Savior’s Day convention on February 26, 1975, Wallace Delaney Muhammad (Warith Deen Mohammad) began making plans to radically change the Nation of Islam and move it toward orthodox Sunni Islam. On March 7 he announced that members of the Nation would no longer refer to whites as ‘‘devils’’ because they have been treating blacks more fairly but they would not be allowed to join the Nation. But on June 18 at a meeting at McCormick Place in Chicago, he announced that ‘‘There will be no such category as a white Muslim or a black Muslim. All will be Muslims. All children of God’’ (Nashville Tennessean, 1975). This announcement sent shock waves through the audience and the national membership of the Nation because whites could now join their movement. Dorothy Dorsey became the first white person to join Wallace’s new direction. We turn to a brief biographical sketch of Wallace Muhammad’s background before analyzing the changes and schism in the Nation of Islam movement. On October 30, 1933, Wallace Delaney Muhammad was born to Elijah and Clara Muhammad in a poor ghetto called Paradise Valley in Detroit, Michigan. He was the seventh child of eight children that Elijah originally had with Clara. Since Elijah Muhammad was deeply immersed in the activities of the new Nation of Islam, having joined in 1931,

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he and Clara decided to name their new son after Master Wallace (Wali) Dodd Fard (Farrad) Muhammad, the founder of the new religious movement. The initials of ‘‘WDM,’’ which appeared on the uniform lapels of male members, referred to Fard Muhammad but they were also the same as Wallace Delaney Muhammad’s. This act of being named after Master Fard grew into a legend in the Nation with many stories developing around it. The legend was that Wallace Delaney Muhammad was ‘‘special’’ because he was named after Master Wallace Fard, Allah in person, and was also a son of the Messenger Elijah Muhammad. He was thus specially ordained for leadership from his birth. Immersed in the intense milieu of the Nation, Wallace Muhammad eventually believed in the legend that he was somehow special, and he has made reference to it in countless speeches. For example, he said: My father told me once, ‘‘son you’re dif ferent.’’ He didn’t tell me this once, he told me this more than once and there are those who heard him say this to me. He said ‘‘Son you are different.’’ He said ‘‘You are different because when you were formed, I was devoted to the teachings of Islam and I was new in it.’’ Elijah also told Wallace: ‘‘When you were born son, what was in me went straight into you.’’ (Mamiya and Lincoln 1992)

Wallace grew up in poverty on the South Side of Chicago after the Muhammad family fled there from Detroit to avoid the violent conflicts of succession after Master Fard disappeared in 1934. Since his father spent some time in the Washington, D.C. area, living alone, constantly moving, and using aliases to avoid being killed by his enemies (1935–1942) and later was

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incarcerated for failure to register for the military draft (1942–1946), Wallace was largely raised by his mother, Clara Muhammad, and became deeply devoted to her. That devotion was reciprocal because Clara also sought to protect Wallace from harm by Muslim ‘‘zealots,’’ after Malcolm X’s assassination. In a tribute to his mother’s influence, Wallace changed the name of the University of Islam schools to the Clara Muhammad Schools in the masjids of the American Muslim Mission. All of Wallace’s education in elementary and secondary schools occurred at the University of Islam in Chicago. He developed a keen interest in science, psychology, and religion. He also attended Wilson Junior College, where he studied microbiology, and Loop Junior College, where he studied English, History, and the Social Sciences. However, he did not go further to complete a Bachelor’s degree. Instead, like many black men his age, he began to develop his skills in the trades of carpentry, masonry, and plumbing, which became the main way he supported his family. Throughout his educational years and his work life, Wallace Muhammad was very active in the Nation of Islam. He moved through the ranks from the Fruit of Islam to assistant minister of Temple No. 2 in Chicago and for a while his father appointed him as the Minister of the Temple No. 12 in Philadelphia. Wallace, like his younger brother Akbar, began to have doubts about the teachings and doctrines of the Nation of Islam. On his own, he began to read and study about orthodox Sunni Islam. His brother Akbar was fortunate to be chosen by Minister Malcolm X to receive a scholarship in 1963 to study at the University of Al-Azhar in Egypt

Wallace Muhammad in 1979. (Bettmann/ Corbis)

along with another African American Muslim named Ahmad Khalid Tawfiq, whom Malcolm called the ‘‘little Samurai’’ because of his small stature and outstanding skills in the martial arts. Akbar eventually became a scholar and professor of Islamic Studies at SUNY Binghamton, and Tawfiq was the founder of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem. As mentioned before, Wallace was incarcerated from October 1961 to January 1963 in a federal prison for failure to register for the military draft during the Vietnam era. Instead of being depressed Wallace reveled in the freedom from the responsibilities of running a Nation’s temple so that he could spend all of this time studying about orthodox Islam, including learning some Arabic and reading the Qur’an daily. When he returned from prison, he began to teach some of the things he had learned. Elijah Muhammad suspended Wallace in 1964 for the first of three times for teaching things contrary to the Nation and also for providing confirmation to Malcolm X about Elijah’s paternity of other children with his secretaries. After Malcolm’s assassination, Wallace quickly made amends with his father and apologized to the membership of the

American Muslim Mission Nation for his errant ways. He was afraid that the zealots who killed Malcolm would also be after him. However, in the ensuing years, he began to express his doubts publicly that Master Fard was Allah. He was suspended two more times, and returned each time to apologize. The fact that Wallace was once again back in the fold of the Nation in 1975 when his father died made it easier for Elijah’s close advisers to choose him to become the next leader, the Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam. Keeping the leadership of the Nation within the family contributed to the development of the concept of ‘‘the royal family,’’ referring to blood ties to Elijah Muhammad. Wallace has always been a humble person, never seeking the limelight. He also had a deep interest in spirituality. As Malcolm X once said of him, ‘‘I felt that Wallace was Mr. Muhammad’s most strongly spiritual son, the son with the most objective outlook. Always, Wallace and I had shared an exceptional closeness and trust’’ (Malcolm X and Haley 1999, 303). He was not a great public speaker or charismatic personality the way Louis Farrakhan was. In fact, a Playboy Magazine article once said that Wallace had the charisma of ‘‘a post office clerk’’ (Gans and Lowe 1980). However, what the Playboy authors missed was the ‘‘spiritual charisma’’ that he possessed. This spiritual charisma enabled his followers to trust him and his teachings. In his appreciation for the teaching and leadership of Malcolm X, Wallace renamed Temple No. 7 in Harlem as the Malcolm Shabazz Masjid and he had Minister Louis Farrakhan lead the renaming ceremony in 1976. In his personal life, Imam Muhammad has been married four times, has eight children from those marriages, and has

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ten grandchildren. He has shunned the ostentatious lifestyle that his father had. For example, he never moved into the ‘‘Palace,’’ the large, luxurious quarters with an indoor courtyard area and marble floors that Elijah Muhammad had built for himself and two other similar houses for relatives in Chicago’s Hyde Park district. Instead he sold the Palace buildings to Louis Farrakhan, who has resided there since. He also does not use the fancy limousines that Farrakhan prefers. Muhammad resides in a modest middle class house in a suburb of Chicago. He has never strayed far from his working class background. However, some practices from the Nation of Islam still affect him. Whenever he travels to give lectures or attend conferences, a security detail consisting of his chief aides, the local Imam, and Muslims from his movement quickly forms to provide transportation and protection for him. He also holds meetings with Imams and other followers before or after his speeches. Both his humbleness and his spiritual charisma have generated a loyal devotion and respect for his leadership. As some of his followers have written: African Americans do not revere or worship the Imam as the whispers suggest: we follow the late Prophet of G d. Our Imam points us to him and to the Quran with everything he does and says, he is so respectful of the common person that it would certainly be insulting and sinful not to return that respect. (Islamic History Group Project 2006, 123)

In order to move the Nation in the direction of Islamic universalism, Wallace Muhammad began by reinterpreting its basic racial doctrine in a symbolic manner. Following Malcolm X’s lead,

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he put emphasis upon the attitudes, values, and behavior of a person, upon ‘‘mindedness,’’ how a person thought. After his experience of the Hajj, Malcolm said: We were all the same (brothers) because their belief in one God had removed the ‘‘white’’ from their minds, the ‘‘white’’ from their behavior, and the ‘‘white’’ from their attitude. (Malcolm X and Haley 1999, 347)

The new direction was formulated in the key phrase, ‘‘Man Means Mind.’’ For Wallace, the devil is a ‘‘mind,’’ an attitude. A person who is born white is not ipso facto evil or the Devil. Whiteness is a symbol of evil only when it is linked to the attitudes and values that characterize white supremacy and racism. Blackness, on the other hand, is a symbol for goodness and humaneness. Just as it is possible to have a black person with a white mind, i.e., one who acts and thinks white—the proverbial ‘‘oreo’’ or ‘‘Uncle Tom’’—it is also possible to have a white person who thinks black— a ‘‘reverse oreo.’’ This view opened the possibility of accepting white members. ‘‘Man Means Mind’’ also shifted the great significance that members of the Nation put on skin color since knowledge of self often meant emphasizing blackness and black nationalism. The new slogan meant to stress the character and thought of a person. It opened up levels of differentiation between people. Race and skin color were not the primary factors. In making the transition to Sunni Islam, editions of Muhammad Speaks showed a photo of Wallace Muhammad pointing to his head. Ministers of the Nation were instructed to preach and teach on the new theme of ‘‘Man Means

Mind’’ (Muhammad Speaks, March and April 1975 editions; also Islamic History Group Project 2006, 148). Besides opening the Nation to a path of Islamic universalism, one of his first tasks was to deal with the situation of Minister Louis Farrakhan, who had been chosen as National Representative by Elijah Muhammad to replace Malcolm X in 1965. As the second in command, Farrakhan had expected to be chosen as Elijah’s successor. Popular and charismatic, Farrakhan had established a power base in Harlem as the minister of Temple No. 7. Wallace invited Farrakhan to join him in Chicago in order to monitor and control Farrakhan’s actions. He also sent Minister Jeremiah Shabazz (Jeremiah X Pugh) from Philadelphia to become the interim minister of No. 7. Shabazz had a notorious reputation within the Nation as one of their tough strong-armed enforcers. Coming from the streets, Shabazz disdainfully referred to him as ‘‘pretty boy,’’ instead of using Farrakhan’s stage name, ‘‘The Charmer.’’ Jeremiah Shabazz’s presence at No. 7 was to make sure that Farrakhan left peacefully (Interview with Alfred Mohammed, June 15, 1994). Although he was still confused by the turn of events, Minister Farrakhan accepted Wallace Muhammad’s invitation to move to Chicago. The ultimate goal for Wallace’s program of reconstruction and restructuring the Nation was to eradicate its black nationalist image completely. He has used allegory and symbolic reinterpretation of some basic doctrines and beliefs to reeducate his followers and has quietly dropped others. Ever since his prison years from 1960 to 1963 for refusing to register for the military draft, Wallace has had a great vision and desire for complete Islamic orthodoxy for

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WARITH DEEN MOHAMMAD (1933–2008) The son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, born Wallace, Warith Deen Moham mad (Wallace Delaney Muhammad) grew up holding various positions within the Nation of Islam. He served as a member of the Fruit of Islam (security force) and would also lead a mosque. However, his relationship to his father and the Nation was tense at times, and at one point he left the organization. It came as a surprise to many when he was appointed head of the organization after his father’s death. Under his leadership the Nation of Islam was pushed in the direction of Sunni Islam and some of the more ‘‘un orthodox’’ elements of its teachings and aesthetic were removed. Warith Deen Mohammad changed the name of the organization, eventually naming it the American Muslim Mission in 1978. He resigned leadership of the organization that same year, and in 1980 officially changed his name to Warith Deen Mohammad. Further pushing the organization toward the world community of Islam, Warith Deen Mohammad dis mantled its national structure in 1985. His stature in the Islamic world has continued to grow over the years and has increased his profile in the United States. For example, he was the first Muslim to give the invocation at the U.S. Senate.

the Nation. He has said that his three years in prison were a fruitful time in his spiritual life because he could study the Qur’an, learn some Arabic, and not be bothered by the constant and daily burdens of running the Philadelphia Temple. Wallace has felt that some of his father’s ideas had stifled the spiritual and moral growth of his people (Mamiya and Lincoln 1992). The task of reeducating and reconverting the members of the Nation of Islam to Sunni orthodoxy (or the ‘‘Second Resurrection’’ referred to by members of his movement) has been an enormous one, fraught with dangers given the past killings of members who defected such as Malcolm X. The difficulties of this change in direction cannot be underestimated. Wallace taught about the unity of Allah and that Allah was not a man like Master Fard. He debunked the view that his father, Elijah Muhammad, was the Messenger of Allah. Both Fard and Elijah were men like other men. He pointed to Muhammad ibn Abdullah of Arabia as the final prophet of Allah. He directed his

followers to study the Qur’an and the Sunna, as well as Islamic history. The meeting times of his movement also changed from Sunday afternoons, Wednesday evenings, and Friday evenings to the Friday noon Jum’ah prayer service and Sunday instructional classes on the Qur’an, Arabic, and Islamic history. The changes were unsettling and caused a great deal of confusion and debate. Talmadge X Hayer (now Mujahid Halim), who was imprisoned for the assassination of Malcolm X, said the following about Wallace’s attempts to change things: He (Wallace) began to explain to us that his father was only a man like any other man. He said something to the effect that the Hon. Elijah Muhammad did father some children. And hey, man, this was heavy. I was a ball of clay that was rolled up had to be put together again, man. Just broke down my whole concepts of things. It was like a birth coming about, a baby coming into the world he’s just got to come in man. (Goldman 1979, 427)

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Khalil Islam (Thomas 15X Johnson), who was wrongly imprisoned for Malcolm’s murder, said in his prison interview that he too had great difficulty coming to terms with the Elijah affair but that he finally accepted what Wallace said and chose to follow his leadership (Mamiya 1985). In his major reorganization of the movement, Wallace Muhammad, who in the transition years (1975 to 1978) changed his titles from Supreme Minister to Chief Minister then to Chief Imam and finally to his current name Imam Warith Deen (Warith ud-Din—inheritor of the faith) Mohammad (adopting the British spelling instead of the Arabic in order to distance himself from his father), completely dismantled the Fruit of Islam (F.O.I.) and its female counterpart the MGT (Muslim Girls in Training). Trained in martial arts and sometimes in the use of firearms, the Fruit was created by Master Fard Muhammad to act as the ‘‘moral right arm’’ of the Nation of Islam. They provided security, searched everyone who entered a mosque or major meeting, acted as ushers, and sometimes acted as enforcers of the strict code of discipline. The Fruit of Islam had become an ‘‘elite organization’’ within an organization, or a paramilitary group. Raymond Sharrieff, Elijah Muhammad’s brother-in-law, was the Supreme Captain of the F.O.I. Wallace claimed that this group had become a ‘‘political order,’’ a ‘‘hooligan outfit, a hoodlum outfit.’’ Men were ‘‘viciously beaten,’’ he said in an interview with Peter Goldman, ‘‘simply for asserting their rights or for failing to sell their quota of newspapers.’’ He was shocked to learn upon assuming leadership that more than ten believers were killed, ‘‘for no other reason than that they didn’t want the F.O.I.

completely dominating their lives’’ (Goldman 1979, 433). If any group within the internal structure of the Nation would provide organized opposition to Wallace’s ideas it was the Fruit; thus, along with its female counterpart, the MGT, it became the reason for dissolving them. Besides the killings, Imam Mohammed also discovered that some of the Nation’s ministers, especially those in Philadelphia, Newark, and Los Angeles, had used their temples as a cover to hide drug dealing and other criminal activity. Even Malcolm X had to suspend some members from Temple No. 7 for using drugs. Moreover, many of the Nation’s business enterprises, restaurants, grocery stores, and bakeries, either were bankrupt or had accumulated too much debt. In response, the Imam ordered the closing of these enterprises.

Beliefs and Practices In 1976 Wallace Muhammad changed the name of the Nation of Islam to the ‘‘World Community of Al-Islam in the West.’’ His followers also gave him the title ‘‘Mujeddid’’ or reviver of Islam. Like many newcomers to the religion, he and his followers insisted on referring to ‘‘Al-Islam,’’ including the Arabic article ‘‘al,’’ instead of just Islam. For example, the largest mosque in Imam Mohammed’s movement with some 3,000 members is called the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam. Besides changing the name of the Nation, he also introduced the name ‘‘Bilal’’ and made the term ‘‘Bilalian’’ the official replacement for other terms (Afro-American, Black, Negro, Colored, etc.) referring to all black people, believers and nonbelievers alike. Bilal Ibn Rabah, a tall, gaunt

American Muslim Mission Ethiopian, who had been brought to Arabia as a slave, became the first ‘‘muezzin’’ or caller to prayer in the Prophet Muhammad’s earliest Muslim community in Medina. Bilal had been ransomed and given his freedom by one of the Prophet’s companions, Abu Bakr. His strong melodic voice established the pattern of calling the faithful to prayer five times daily from the tops of minarets throughout Islamic history. The melodic chant in Arabic replaced earlier experiments in the fledgling Medina community that had used the wooden clapper of Christians or the ram’s horn of Jews to call people to worship. The significance and prominence of an African in the first Muslim community has not been lost by Imam Mohammed. Bilal is not only an important black hero but he is also relevant to the quest for identity among Bilalian people in America. Even the name of the Nation’s newspaper changed its name from Muhammad Speaks to Bilalian News in 1976. The use of Bilal and Bilalian fits into a long historical tradition of ‘‘Ethiopianism’’ in black religion. As St. Clair Drake has argued in his perceptive monograph, The Redemption of Africa and Black Religion, the theme and myth of Ethiopianism has persisted from slavery to the present. Ethiopia has symbolically stood for all of Africa. The selection of Bilal, the Ethiopian slave, by Imam Mohammed’s movement has struck deep chords of resonance in black religious and social history. In 1977 all Bilalians were instructed to drop the remnants of their Christian names that had been used in the Nation of Islam and to take on Islamic names (Islamic History Group Project 2006, 154). Thus Wallace Delaney became ‘‘Warith ud-Din’’ or ‘‘Warith Deen.’’

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Between 1978 and 1980, Warith Deen Mohammad’s movement changed its name from the ‘‘World Community of Al-Islam in the West’’ to the ‘‘American Muslim Mission.’’ The abrupt name change and internal organizational confusion led some key followers like Siraj Wahaj to leave the movement and to found his own independent masjid, Masjid Taqwa, in Brooklyn. The first decade from 1975 to 1985 was spent making the changes from the Nation of Islam to Sunni orthodoxy and stabilizing the movement. Since so much of the movement revolved around Imam Warith Deen Mohammad, he formed a Council of Imams in 1978 to help him guide the movement and direct its activities. In 1980 the name of World Community of Al Islam in the West was officially changed to the American Muslim Mission. The movement’s newspaper also changed its name several times from the Bilalian News to World Muslim News in 1982 to the American Muslim Journal and finally to the Muslim Journal in 1985. Two events stand out in this period: the first was the cooperative buying program (AMMCOP) and the second, the American Muslim Mission’s drive to remove/destroy all images of God by the Committee to Remove All Images of the Divine (C.R.A.I.D.). The Council of Imams endorsed a cooperative buying program, i.e., buying in bulk as a path to economic development in black communities. For example, buying washing machines or refrigerators in bulk would lessen their costs to the buyers. C.R.A.I.D. activities were carried out by Muslim groups within their communities. Their attempts to convince black churches and clergy to remove pictures of Jesus depicting him as the son of God were not successful.

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However, C.R.A.I.D.’s major point was to show the oneness of God in the monotheistic traditions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The American Muslim Mission also acquired properties in Sedalia, North Carolina, to establish a teacher’s college and high school and 4,600 acres in Terell County, Georgia, to establish Elijahville, a future Muslim city. However, both enterprises failed due to the lack of finances. The mid-1980s were also a period of protracted and drawn out legal struggles between the American Muslim Mission and the probate court of Chicago that was acting on behalf of the children that Elijah Muhammad had with his secretaries. Their suit targeted the Muhammad Mosque’s No. 2 Poor Fund, which the court contended was Elijah Muhammad’s personal funds but the Mission argued that the funds belonged to the Muslim community, contributed by local mosques. Judge Henry Budzinski also sought to have 56 Muslim properties attached to Elijah Muhammad’s estate. In 1987 Budzinski leveled a $12 million judgment against the Muslim community (Islamic History Project Group 2006, 167–171). As a result of these legal struggles and in an effort to prevent future suits, Imam Mohammed disbanded the American Muslim Mission in 1985, declaring that it was no longer an organized movement but that each imam and mosque were now on their own. He said to his followers: ‘‘You should put down the term [American Muslims] and never pick up any term again that lumps you all together in one community. You should be members of a Muslim community that’s international’’ (‘‘The Final Call,’’ March 30, 1994; March 2000, 124). On December 7,

1986, he formally resigned as the Imam of Masjid Elijah Muhammad saying, My concern is that we don’t allow our lives to be limited by organization . . . . I want reality to come to this masjid . . . . We don’t need all of the facilities and attention that we are asking for . . . . My purpose is to free myself so that I will be able to propagate, teach, and demon strate in my life the excellence of the Mus lim life. (Marsh 2000, 172)

Although the American Muslim Mission was formally disbanded, the movement continued informally and acquired a 64 acre farm in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which was called ‘‘New Medina.’’ This farm has been used for youth conferences and Muslim retreats. New Medina still exists and is the longest lasting of the rural properties acquired by the movement. With funds and land donated by the former boxer Muhammad Ali, Masjid Al-Faatir opened in Chicago in 1987, led by Imam Mohammed’s brother, Jabber (Herbert) Muhammad who had been Ali’s boxing manager. In the late 1990s a conflict arose in Masjid Al-Faatir, and Jabber’s son Omar with his support group of immigrant Muslims took over the leadership of the Masjid, ousting Jabber. In 1988 Imam Mohammed’s movement was forced into bankruptcy by the probate court. Mohammed also decided to sell the building and land of the headquarters Temple No. 2, the former Greek Orthodox church building, which Elijah Muhammad purchased after he received a $3 million gift from Muammar Qaddafi, negotiated by heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali, in 1972. After his father’s death, Imam Mohammed renamed the building Masjid Honorable

American Muslim Mission Elijah Muhammad. The Imam agreed to sell the property to Minister Louis Farrakhan’s revived Nation of Islam. Farrakhan had obtained a $5 million interest-free loan from Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi for the purchase. He renamed the building Mosque Maryam in honor of the Mother of Jesus in 1988. Another thrust of Imam Mohammed’s program that began in the mid-1980s and lasted into the 1990s was his desire to establish an American-based Islamic school of law or ‘‘madh’hab.’’ Throughout Islamic history there have been four Sunni orthodox schools of law established: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’I, and Hanbali. The schools are geographically distributed throughout the Muslim world and reflect different methodologies used by jurists in their interpretations of the sources of law. According to Imam Mohammed, every significant Islamic culture has produced a school of law. Thus, given its superpower status in the world, the Islamic community in the United States, immigrant and African American Muslims, should also produce an important school of law. He also emphasized the need to include immigrant Muslims in this endeavor. ‘‘If they [immigrant Muslims] share that interest in their life on this continent with us, I think we would have a much better school of thought developing with their participation. It can’t be without their participation, it won’t be good without their participation’’ (Mamiya and Lincoln 1992). Although Imam Mohammed has not completely given up his endeavor to establish an American school of Islamic law, he has not emphasized it beyond the mid-1990s. By breaking the racial barriers in 1975 in allowing whites to join his movement, Imam Mohammed has also moved into

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interfaith dialogue with Christians and Jews. He and some of his Imams have participated in the Muslim/Christian conferences held at the predominantly African American Protestant Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, for example. Imam Mohammed gave Islamic prayers at President Bill Clinton’s two Inaugural Interfaith Prayer Services. He also addressed the Muslim-Jewish Conference on March 6, 1995, with leaders of Islam and Reform Judaism in Glencoe, Illinois. He met with Pope John Paul II twice in 1996 and 1999. However, his most serious foray in the interfaith area occurred in 1997, one year after he led a delegation to the Vatican and had a personal audience with Pope John Paul II. On May 18, 1997, a historic meeting was held at the Malcolm Shabazz Masjid in Harlem between Imam Mohammed and Chiara Lubich, President of the Focolare Movement, an outreach organization consisting of lay Catholics. Started by Ms. Lubich in Trent, Italy, in 1943, the movement took the name ‘‘Focolare,’’ which means ‘‘hearth’’ or ‘‘family fireside.’’ Its major goal is the ‘‘spirituality of unity,’’ bringing together all forms of Christianity and other religions in interfaith dialogue. Since 1997 members of both movements have met either at the Malcolm Shabazz Masjid in Harlem or at the Mariapolis Luminosa center in Hyde Park, New York. The Focolare Movement presented Imam Mohammed with the ‘‘Luminosa Award’’ in 1997 for promoting Interfaith Dialogue, peace, and understanding in the United States. In April 2005, Imam Mohammed sent a delegation of Imams to Muslims-Christians in Dialogue, First Symposium sponsored by the Focolare Movement. Imam Izek Pasha of the Malcolm Shabazz Masjid in Harlem has led the

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way for masjids in the Mosque Cares Ministry movement in pioneering economic development projects, including mixed income housing in the neighborhood of the masjid. Imam Pasha has been able to get city, state, and federal housing grants to develop a building with 246 mixed income apartments diagonally across from the masjid on Malcolm X Boulevard and 116th Street and 20 town houses on 117th Street. A tower of luxury apartments with space allotted for the Clara Muhammad School has been built next door to the masjid. Malcolm Shabazz also helps with the development of small businesses in the area, including an African marketplace for African immigrant entrepreneurs. Pasha has been consulting with other masjids in the Mosque Cares Ministry movement to develop housing in Atlanta and a shopping mall in suburban Chicago. Since 1975, Imam Mohammed’s movement has changed its name a number of times from the ‘‘World Community of Al-Islam in the West’’ (1976 to 1980) to the ‘‘American Muslim Mission’’ (1980 to 1986) to the ‘‘Muslim American Society’’ (in the 1990s) to ‘‘American Society of Muslims’’ (ASM; 1996 to 2003). The movement has also been disbanded several times, most recently in 2003. As the members of the Islamic History Project Group have written, ‘‘The American Society of Muslims was ‘thunderstruck’ at its Islamic Convention in September 2003 when Imam W. Deen Mohammed resigned as leader of the organization’’ Islamic History Project Group 2006, 200). He bluntly stated that he did not believe that he had the majority support of the Imams of the community and would not preside over a set of affairs that ‘‘did not genuinely heed his advice and counsel.’’ In an interview with Nathaniel Omar, Imam Mohammed said:

(1) Many ASM imams have not given me (as their leader) their open and full sup port. They have a separate agenda. (2) Imams supporting me, if staying with the ASM, should want it to be better and I will be happy to see that. (3) They (Imams with separate agendas) will not support Muslim Journal because it brings my message to them. So the good leaders in the American Society of Muslims should really take up the slack and do for their members what these leaders won’t do, who won’t let people be free for G d. (Islamic History Project Group 2006, 202)

At a conference in Newark on December 21, 2003, Imam Mustafa ElAmin received Imam Mohammed’s blessings to attempt to hold the ASM together as an organization. However, since that time the majority of mosques and Imams have joined Imam Mohammed’s Mosque Cares Ministry, which is an office in Chicago that has an administrative staff, a media productions staff, a committee on education, a business group, and other entities that support his personal ministry. Mosque Cares Ministry does not handle the daily organizational affairs of mosques or the convening of Imams. Since 2000 Imam Mohammed and Minister Farrakhan have held joint Friday Jum’ah services over the Savior’s Day weekend. Mohammed has declared that he accepts Farrakhan as a Muslim because Farrakhan has adopted the Friday Jum’ah prayer and the orthodox form of prostration prayer. Although both leaders do not see their movements unifying into one movement, Mohammed has indicated some interest in taking over the Nation of Islam due to the complications from prostate cancer treatment that have forced Farrakhan to take a medical leave

American Muslim Mission in 2007. The question of who will succeed Imam Mohammed is highly uncertain since he has not designated any successors. Whether the Mosque Cares Ministry movement will disintegrate into independent masjids or continue in some form of a cohesive movement is not known. Imam Mohammed died of a heart attack on September 9, 2008. Lawrence A. Mamiya

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Curtis, Edward E., IV. Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Differ ence in African American Islamic Thought (Albany: State University Press of New York, 2002). Drake, St. Clair. The Redemption of Africa and Black Religion (Chicago: Third World Press, 1970). Evanzz, Karl. The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992). Evanzz, Karl. The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999). ‘‘Final Call,’’ March 30, 1994; March 2000, 124. Gans, Bruce M., and Walter L. Lowe. ‘‘The Islam Connection.’’ Playboy Magazine, May 1980. Gardell, Mattias. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996). Goldman, Peter. The Death and Life of Mal colm X (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979). Islamic History Group Project. Hanif, C.B., associate editor. A History of Muslim Africa Ameircans (Calumet City, IL: WDM Publications, 2006). Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960).

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Lincoln, C. Eric. ‘‘The American Muslim Mission in the Context of American Social History.’’ The Muslim Community in North America, ed. Earle H. Waugh, Baha Abu Laban, and Regula B. Qureshi (Edmonton, AB, Canada: University of Alberta Press, 1983). Malcolm X and Alex Haley. The Autobiog raphy of Malcolm X (New York: Grove Press, 1964; New York: Ballantine, 1999). Mamiya, Lawrence. ‘‘From Black Muslim to Bilalian: The Evolution of a Movement.’’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 21, no. 2 (1982): 138 152. Reprinted in Islam in North America: A Sourcebook, ed. Michael A. Koszegi and J. Gordon Melton (New York and London: Garland Publishing Co., 1992), 165 182. Mamiya, Lawrence. ‘‘Minister Louis Farra khan and the Final Call: Schism in the Muslim Movement.’’ The Muslim Com munity in North America, ed. Earle H. Waugh, Baha Abu Laban, and Regula B. Qureshi (Edmonton, AB, Canada: Uni versity of Alberta Press, 1983). Mamiya, Lawrence. Interview with Khalil Islam at the Green Haven maximum security prison, April 15, 1985. Islam was one of three men imprisoned for the assassination of Malcolm X. Mamiya, Lawrence. Interview with Alfred Mohammed, member of Temple No. 7 under Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, who chose to follow Imam Warith Deen Mohammad. Congregational Studies Institute at the Hartford Seminary, June 15, 1994. Mamiya, Lawrence. Interview with Imam Warith Deen Mohammad at an Islamic conference in Poughkeepsie, New York, May 15, 1998. Mamiya, Lawrence, and Ihsan Bagby. Inter view with Imam Talib Abdur Rashid at the Mosque of the Islamic Brotherood in Harlem, November 5, 1992. Mamiya, Lawrence, and C. Eric Lincoln. Interview with Imam Warith Deen

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Mohammad at Duke University, April 22, 1992. Marsh, Clifton. The Lost Found Nation of Islam in America (Lanham, MD: Scare crow Press, Inc., 2000). Mohammad, Imam Warith Deen. Mohammed Speaks (Calumet City, IL: WDM Publica tions, 1978). Mohammad, Imam Warith Deen. As the Light Shineth from the East (Chicago, IL: WDM Publishing, 1980). Mohammad, Imam Warith Deen. Black His tory Month Lecture at Vassar College, February 7, 1980. ‘‘Rule Switch Allows Whites as Muslims,’’ Nashville Tennessean, June 19, 1975. Walker, Dennis. Islam and the Search for African American Nationhood: Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2005).

NEWSPAPERS Muhammad Speaks. Bilalian News. Muslim Journal.

APOSTOLIC FAITH MISSION CHURCH OF GOD Historical Development Founded on July 10, 1906, in Mobile, Alabama, the Apostolic Faith Mission Church of God (AFM) was one of the earliest Pentecostal denominations established in the United States. Pentecostalism emerged as a distinct religious movement in America in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Early adherents came primarily out of Holiness, Baptist, and Methodist churches. Known for their exuberant worship style and embrace of the practice of speaking in tongues or

glossolalia, Pentecostals trace their heritage and their name to a passage in the Book of Acts that describes an event on the Day of Pentecost when a group of Christians ‘‘began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them’’ (Acts 2:4). Today the movement claims hundreds of millions of adherents around the world. Frank W. Williams was one of many who carried the Pentecostal brand of Christianity to the South after having been introduced to the movement at the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California. Recognized by many as American Pentecostalism’s birthplace, the revival is touted as one of the most influential events in American religious history as it attracted thousands of onlookers, critics, and new converts from all over the world. The Apostolic Faith Mission served as the revival’s central headquarters. A former Holiness minister named William Seymour presided over the mission where spontaneous preaching, miraculous healings, and all night prayer services were typical. The revival lasted until 1913. Seymour’s small, unassuming, interracial congregation on Azusa Street influenced the preaching careers of several itinerant evangelists including that of Williams. The experience at Azusa inspired the newly converted to carry the Pentecostal message to all corners of the country and around the globe. Armed with fervor for proselytizing, missionaries planted churches and missions to entice the unsaved and win over other Christians to the Pentecostal way of life. Williams was part of an early wave of missionaries and preachers who enthusiastically took the message of the new Pentecost to the Deep South.

Apostolic Faith Mission Church of God Continuing the legacy of itinerant preaching and church planting popular in Pentecostal circles, upon his return from Los Angeles Williams attempted to start a congregation in Mississippi but was unsuccessful. In a day when Pentecostal preachers needed little to no training to start their ministries, Williams tried again. He moved to Mobile, Alabama, and with few resources he conducted services under a tent until an entire Baptist church was converted to Pentecostalism. The church graciously offered their building as the first AFM sanctuary. In a brief report to the Apostolic Faith Mission Newsletter in 1907 the young pastor wrote of the challenges and successes of his new ministry: After a hard battle in this wicked place, the Lord gave me a tent in answer to prayer. We give God all the glory for vic tory. Five have been sanctified and three received Pentecost. One brother that has been crippled for years has been healed in his foot and can walk without a stick, and we are expecting a great work of the Lord here soon. (The Apostolic Faith 1907)

Williams named the congregation in Alabama Apostolic Faith Mission Church after Seymour’s Mission in Los Angeles. But unlike Seymour, Williams professed the Oneness doctrine, a theological position that rejects the traditional Christian teachings about the Trinity. Williams insisted on Baptism in ‘‘Jesus’ Name’’ (Acts 2:38) instead of immersion ‘‘in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost’’ (Matthew 28:19). This shift in understanding of the Godhead that gave rise to this baptismal formula became known as the ‘‘New Issue Controversy.’’ It would divide the Pentecostal communities around the world and was the impetus for Williams’s break

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with Seymour. On October 9, 1915, he incorporated a new denomination and renamed his congregation the Apostolic Faith Mission Church of God. Less than a decade later he would sever his ties with the original Apostolic Faith Mission and its founder, William Seymour. William’s ministry was successful in influencing several up-and-coming Pentecostal evangelists. William Thomas Phillips (1893–1973) converted to Pentecostalism after hearing Bishop Williams preach a tent revival in Birmingham, Alabama. Williams ordained Phillips in 1913 and just three years later Phillips established the Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God (formerly Ethiopian Overcoming Church of God) in Mobile, Alabama. Bishop Williams passed away in December 1932.

Beliefs and Practices Like other American Pentecostal denominations, the AFM Church of God adheres to social prohibitions. Members are forbidden to smoke, drink, or gamble. Church ordinances include foot washing and monthly communion. Members must be baptized in Jesus’ name and receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit to enjoy full membership. Unlike women in many Oneness and Trinitarian Pentecostal denominations who are not given space to preach, within the AFM women can be ordained. Today a Board of Bishops called the Executive Board governs the church. Bishop Donice Brown Sr. became pastor of Ward’s Temple in 1976 and presiding bishop of AFMCOG in 1993. Other members of the Board include: Bishop T. C. Tolbert Sr. (Anniston, AL), Bishop John Crum (Birmingham, AL), Bishop Samuel Darden (Hyde Park, MA),

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Bishop James Truss (Lincoln, AL), Bishop T. C. Tolbert Jr. (Ohatchee, AL), Bishop Thomas Brooks (Decatur, GA), Bishop Johnny Cunningham (Century, FL), and Bishop Wayne Smiley (Mary Ester, FL). Each district reports to a District Overseer. The National Departments of the church include the Sunday School under Superintendent Thomas Books (Decatur, GA), the Young People’s Christian Association directed by President Johnny Kennedy (Birmingham, AL), the Mothers Band led by Mother Bessie Davis (Pensacola, FL), and the Missionary Department under the direction of Rosa Tolbert (Anniston, AL). Bishop Beter T. Nelson heads up the International Division of the church in Monrovia, Liberia. AFM Church of God quarterly publishes a newsletter called The Three-Fold Vision. Apostolic Faith Mission’s headquarters are housed at Ward’s Temple in Cantonment, Florida. Ward’s Temple bears the name of the immediate past presiding bishop, Houston Ward. The church maintains a Bible school, Florida Apostolic Bible Institute, where students can earn Associate’s and Bachelor’s

degrees in biblical education. Most of the churches in the denomination are located in Alabama though the church maintains several congregations and schools in Florida, Ohio, Massachusetts, and West Africa, under the leadership of Bishop Mary Kolo. In 2004 the church reported 10,340 members. The connectional church meets annually in the third week of June. Anjulet Tucker

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY The Apostolic Faith 1, no. 6 (February March 1907). www.wardstemple.org Burgess, Stanley. The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charis matic Movements (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Press, 2003). Dupree, Sherry Sherrod. African American Holiness Pentecostal Movement: An Annotated Bibliography (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1996). Gordon, Melton. Encyclopedia of American Religions, 7th ed. (Detroit: Gale Research, 2003). Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007).

B BAHÁ’Í FAITH

Baha´ ’ı´ community (164,000 members in 2009) is about 10 percent African American. Among the blacks attracted to its ranks have been Robert Abbott, Elsie Austin, Nina Gomer DuBois, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Gregory, Robert Hayden, Alain Locke, and Harriet Gibbs Marshall. The Baha´’ı´ Faith arose in Iran from the Ba´bı´ Faith, which was established by ‘Alı´-Muhammad of Shiraz (1819– 1850). In 1844 he took on the title of the Ba´b (the gate) and declared himself to be the fulfillment of Islamic prophecies. The Ba´b penned mystic commentaries on the Qur’a´ n whose style and content signified a claim to divine revelation. The claim to be the successor of Muhammad created immediate controversy. Followers of the Ba´b were arrested and expelled from cities, later beaten, and eventually executed. The Iranian army besieged two neighborhoods in which the majority of the inhabitants had converted to the new religion and killed most of the inhabitants. The Ba´ b was

Historical Development The Baha´’ı´ Faith arose in Iran in the midnineteenth century and attracted African Americans to its membership starting in 1898. Its founder, Baha´ ’u’lla´ h (1817– 1892), declared himself a divine messenger and composed thousands of works defining the teachings, organization, and practices of the religion, which have as their purpose the creation of unity among all humankind. His successors, ‘Abdu’l-Baha (1844–1921) and Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957) continued to produce authoritative texts that clarified and amplified the Baha´’ı´ teachings and developed institutions to express and channel them. The successive leaders and the nine-member governing council, the Universal House of Justice (1963– present), which succeeded them, guided a systematic growth plan that brought over 5 million people into the Baha´ ’ı´ community, which is found in nearly every country of the world. The American 91

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ALAIN LOCKE (1885–1954) Locke, a Harvard trained philosopher and the first African American Rhodes Scholar, is perhaps best known for his intellectual work related to the changing culture of African Americans during the early twentieth century. One representation of this work is the book titled The New Negro. Locke also played a significant role in progressive activities toward the advancement of African Americans in the United States through community activism in addition to his scholarship. Locke became a follower of the Baha´’ı´ faith as a young man and maintained the basic principles of the faith as a way to frame his social activism and intellectual life.

placed under house arrest, then consigned to two remote prisons in the mountains of northwestern Iran. He was tried, found guilty of blasphemy, and in 1850 executed in Tabriz. Estimates of the numbers of Ba´ bı´s who were killed for their beliefs range as high as 20,000. Many of the Ba´ b’s extensive writings were lost; about 200 have survived. The Ba´ b’s teachings included new laws to replace Islamic shariah law and an emphasis on the coming of a successor, ‘‘He whom God would make manifest,’’ who would appear soon and be a far greater messiah. Among the early converts to the Ba´bı´ movement was Mı´rza´ Husayn-‘Alı´, a nobleman born in northern Iran. As the Ba´ bı´ leadership was killed, his role in the movement grew in importance. He took on the title of Baha´ ’u’lla´ h (the glory of God), which was endorsed by the Ba´ b. Before his execution, the Ba´b recognized Baha´ ’u’lla´ h’s teenage half-brother Yahya´ (1831–1912) as a figurehead leader of the Ba´bı´ community, but gave him no explicit authority. In August 1852 a group of Ba´ bı´s attempted to assassinate Iran’s king, resulting in a severe government-sponsored pogrom against the remaining Ba´ bı´s. Baha´’u’lla´h was arrested and imprisoned

for four months. While there he received a revelation: During the days I lay in the prison of Tih ra´n [Tehran], though the galling weight of the chains and the stench filled air allowed Me but little sleep, still in those infrequent moments of slumber I felt as if something flowed from the crown of My head over My breast, even as a mighty torrent that precipitateth itself upon the earth from the summit of a lofty mountain. Every limb of My body would, as a result, be set afire. At such moments My tongue recited what no man could bear to hear. (Baha´ ’u’lla´ h, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, 22)

The event marked the beginning of Baha´ ’u’lla´ h’s ministry, though he did not announce His status as ‘‘He whom God would make manifest,’’ the successor to the Ba´ b, for another decade. When the Iranian government released Baha´ ’u’lla´h from prison, they banished him. He departed for Baghdad. Over the next ten years Baha´ ’u’lla´ h penned several of his most important works: The Hidden Words (a collection of ethical and mystical aphorisms), The Seven Valleys and Four Valleys (two works about the mystic journey of the

Bahá’í Faith soul, in dialogue with Sufi concepts), and the Book of Certitude (a work delineating basic theological concepts and principles of personal spiritual development through commentary on passages from the Bible and Qur’a´ n). His efforts to revitalize the Iranian Ba´bı´ community were so successful that the Ottoman government exiled him to Istanbul. On the eve of his departure, in April 1863, Baha´ ’u’lla´ h publicly declared to his close associates that he was the divine messenger the Ba´b had prophesied. Baha´’u’lla´h spent the next five years in Istanbul and Edirne in European Turkey. Utilizing diplomatic contacts made in the Ottoman capital, he sent epistles to the heads of state of Iran, Turkey, and major European powers, as well as to Pope Pius IX, announcing his claim to be God’s messenger and Christ returned. He sent numerous tablets (a term for a writing of Baha´’u’lla´h, usually a letter to an individual) to Iran’s Ba´bı´s and sent teachers to explain his messianic claim. The vast majority of the Ba´ bı´s converted to the Baha´ ’ı´ Faith. Baha´ ’u’lla´ h’s half-brother Yahya´ , the figurehead leader of a now almost nonexistent community, broke with him and attempted to have Baha´’u’lla´h murdered. Because of the violence, the Ottoman authorities exiled Baha´’u’lla´h and most of his followers to the prison city of Acre, in what is today northern Israel, in the summer of 1868. Yahya´ and most of his handful of followers were sent to Cyprus. In Acre, Baha´’u’lla´h and his followers were confined in a prison under severe conditions for more than two years, then allowed to rent houses in the area. The flow of pilgrims resumed and they carried tablets to fellow Baha´ ’ı´s

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in Iran. Baha´ ’u’llah composed the Kita´b-i-Aqdas, or book of laws (a work that defines Baha´’ı´ worship practices such as obligatory prayer and fasting, its laws of marriage and inheritance, and miscellaneous prohibitions, such as drinking alcohol); a series of tablets produced after the Aqdas that outlines basic social reform teachings; the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, a major work of apologetics and a summary of many basic teachings; and The Book of the Covenant, Baha´’u’lla´h’s will. The latter work specified that upon Baha´ ’u’lla´ h’s passing, his eldest son, ‘Abba´ s, was to become his successor. Other tablets praised ‘Abba´ s as the exemplar of Baha´ ’u’lla´ h’s teachings and the official interpreter of Baha´’u’lla´ h’s revelation. Consequently, when Baha´’u’lla´h passed in 1892, at age 75, ‘Abba´s, age 48, was quickly acknowledged by all as the rightful head of the Baha´ ’ı´ Faith. He took the title of ‘Abdu’l-Baha´, meaning servant of Baha´, to underline his subservience to his father’s legacy. Although the Turks renewed ‘Abdu’lBaha´ ’s confinement within the city of Acre, he was able to receive visitors, letters, and cablegrams. The spread of the Baha´ ’ı´ Faith to the United States and subsequently to Europe, Hawaii, Australia, and Japan resulted in a diverse group of pilgrims entering Acre—still a prison city—to meet ‘Abdu’l-Baha´ and receive his wisdom. Among the visitors was Robert Turner, the first African American Baha´’ı´. In 1908 the Young Turk Revolution toppled the Ottoman sultan and released all political prisoners. ‘Abdu’l-Baha´ was now free to travel. In 1910 he visited Egypt; in 1911, Europe; in April 1912, North America. His nine-month sojourn

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extended as far south as Washington, as far north as Montreal, and as far west as Los Angeles. He spoke to thousands in churches, synagogues, theosophical lodges, university auditoriums, and the fourth annual conference of the NAACP. Hundreds of newspaper articles appeared. He made sure his public talks were held in places African Americans were welcome. In one case, he invited Louis Gregory, a prominent African American Baha´’ı´ who was an attorney, to attend a private luncheon for prominent members of Washington society and sat Gregory at his right hand near the head of the table. He made special efforts to meet African American staff at hotels and servants in private homes. He even encouraged Gregory to marry an English woman; when they were wed in 1912 it was the first interracial marriage in the Baha´ ’ı´ community. ‘Abdu’l-Baha´ left North America in December 1912 and visited Baha´’ı´s from London to Budapest before returning to Palestine months before the beginning of World War I. A contemplated trip to India was rendered impossible by the war and subsequent old age. He passed away in November 1921 at age 77. In his will ‘Abdu’l-Baha´ named his eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi

Rabbani, to be his successor and Guardian of the Faith. As a result, aside from a few small efforts to split the Baha´ ’ı´ community (none of which garnered more than a few hundred followers or lasted more than a generation), the Baha´ ’ı´s unitedly accepted Shoghi Effendi as their new head. ‘Abdu’l-Baha´’s will also specified the system whereby Baha´ ’ı´s would elect nine-member local spiritual assemblies (governing councils of local Baha´ ’ı´ communities) and delegates who would elect ninemember national spiritual assemblies. The will stated that the members of all national spiritual assemblies would serve as the delegates to elect the Universal House of Justice, the supreme worldwide Baha´ ’ı´ governing body. ‘Abdu’l-Baha´’s will asserted that while the Guardian had the power to interpret authoritative Baha´’ı´ texts, the Universal House of Justice had the authority to legislate on matters about which the texts were silent. Shoghi Effendi devoted much of his ministry to building local and national spiritual assemblies around the world. He utilized his Oxford education to translate major works of Baha´ ’u’lla´ h into masterful English of an elevated King Jamesian style that has become the

LOUIS G. GREGORY (1874–1951) Gregory received his academic training from Fisk University and Howard University, and he began practicing law in Washington, DC after completing his training at Howard. While showing all the signs of a stellar law career, Gregory became a follower of the Baha´’ı´ faith in 1909 and shortly after that he devoted the remainder of his life to lecturing across the country on the faith. During the years prior to his death, Gregory gained leadership positions in the Baha´’ı´ community, including election to the national administrative organization. His work on behalf of the faith is recognized through the numerous centers and schools named in his honor.

Bahá’í Faith model for subsequent translation of Baha´’ı´ sacred texts. Among the 17,500 letters he wrote were a dozen epistles of book length in which he defined basic Baha´’ı´ teachings and delineated the theoretical principles for the establishment of Baha´’ı´ institutions. He wrote extensively about racial unity, calling it the ‘‘most vital and challenging issue’’ (The Advent of Divine Justice, xx) and repeatedly urged American Baha´’ı´s to be in the forefront of peaceful, legal efforts to break down racial barriers. Shoghi Effendi’s sudden death, without a will, in November 1957 plunged the Baha´’ı´ world community into a crisis, because it deprived the community of its head and raised the specter of schism. But Shoghi Effendi had begun a tenyear plan for expansion of the Baha´ ’ı´ Faith in 1953 that provided the Baha´’ı´s with clear goals until April 1963. He had also appointed a series of individuals as Hands of the Cause of God (a position created by Baha´ ’u’lla´ h). In 1951, immediately after Louis Gregory’s death, he declared that African American the first of his race to be Hand of the Cause. In October 1957 he raised the number of living Hands of the Cause to 27, including Enoch Olinga, a Ugandan Baha´’ı´. He termed the Hands ‘‘the Chief Stewards of Baha’u’llah’s embryonic World Commonwealth, who have been invested by the unerring Pen of the Center of His Covenant with the dual function of guarding over the security, and of insuring the propagation, of His Father’s Faith’’ (Shoghi Effendi, Messages to the Baha´ ’ı´ World, 127). Consequently the Baha´’ı´s of the world turned to the Hands, who coordinated the Faith until the completion of Shoghi Effendi’s ten-year teaching plan.

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In April 1963 the Hands oversaw the election of the Universal House of Justice. One African American, Amos Gibson, was among the nine original members. Subsequently, the Universal House of Justice has been elected every five years by the members of all the national spiritual assemblies, who either send their ballots by mail or gather in Haifa, Israel, to cast their ballots in person. To date there has always been at least one African American among the nine members; there were two in 2000–2008. The Universal House of Justice has overseen continued expansion of the Baha´’ı´ community and coordinated translation of more Baha´’ı´ texts into English and other languages (including Baha´ ’u’lla´ h’s most important work, the Kita´b-i-Aqdas). It has overseen a great increase in the public visibility of the Baha´ ’ı´ Faith worldwide. The Baha´’ı´ Faith possesses authoritative written texts from the Ba´b, Baha´’u’lla´h, ‘Abdu’l-Baha´, Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice. A significant feature of them is their sheer volume: 15,000 documents by Baha´’u’lla´h, 27,000 by ‘Abdu’l-Baha´, and more than 17,500 by Shoghi Effendi. No official estimate of the quantity of writings of the Universal House of Justice is known, but they employ a large secretariat to research and draft responses, producing thousands of letters per year.

Beliefs and Practices Baha´’ı´ teachings are often summarized as the unity of God, the unity of religion, and the unity of humankind. If one adds teachings about the creation of a Baha´’ı´ community and about the personal

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H. ELSIE AUSTIN (1908–2004) Austin received her academic training at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she was the first African American woman to graduate from the Law School, and went on to have a highly distinguished career within the legal profession. This career included service as the first African American woman to serve as Assistant Attorney General of Ohio. Austin also spent time in Africa, using her training in a variety of organ izations as a Foreign Service Officer, and she also participated in numerous conferences sponsored by United Nations agencies. A long time follower of the faith, Austin served spiritual assemblies across the globe. In addition to her publications on the Baha´’ı´ faith, Austin chaired the Baha´’ı´ delegation to the International Women’s conference held in Mexico City in 1975.

spiritual life, one has a useful division of Baha´’ı´ teachings. Unity of God. Baha´’u’lla´h describes God as an unknowable essence—in other words, that ultimately God is beyond human ken and reckoning. Baha´’u’lla´h’s view, however, is not that humans can know nothing about God; on the contrary, even though the divine has an unknowable essence, it also has attributes such as mercy, justice, love, patience, selfsubsistence, might, and knowledge that we can experience and know. By developing these qualities in their own souls, humans guide and foster their personal spiritual development and prepare themselves for the next life, in which spiritual growth occurs continuously and primarily through God’s grace. Baha´ ’u’lla´h says that all created things reflect divine attributes, a concept that is fundamental to Baha´’ı´ environmental ethics. Baha´’u’lla´h notes, however, that the perfect reflector of divine attributes on this plane of existence is the Manifestation of God, a rare figure who receives divine revelation and guidance and manifests them in the language of his/her culture and through his/her own life and actions. In an epistemological sense the

manifestation is God, because in the mortal plane he/she is the only perfect source of knowledge of the divine. The Baha´ ’ı´ authoritative texts identify Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Zoroaster, the Ba´b, and Baha´’u’llah as Manifestations and suggest that Adam, Noah, the founder of the Sabaean religion, Salih, and Hud were also Manifestations (the last three are figures mentioned in the Qur’a´ n as well). The texts state that many Manifestations lived so long ago that their names have been lost and that humanity has always received divine guidance through Manifestations. Unity of Religion. The Baha´’ı´ recognition that the majority of the world’s major religions were established by Manifestations is the basis of the Baha´’ı´ concept of the unity of religion. All religions are ultimately based on divine revelation but, while they share certain basic ethical and metaphysical principles, they differ because revelation progressively unfolds from faith to faith and that it must be tailored to the social and cultural context in which it was expressed. The diversity of the world’s religions—especially in ritual and

Bahá’í Faith practice—is attributed to differing cultural contexts and mistaken interpretations. Baha´ ’u’lla´ h states that God will continue to send Manifestations to humanity, but the next one will come only after the lapse of a thousand years (which is the time given the Baha´’ı´ Faith to develop and mature). Unity of Humanity. Baha´ ’u’lla´ h emphasizes that human beings are the ‘‘waves of one sea,’’ ‘‘the leaves of one branch,’’ and ‘‘the flowers of one garden,’’ images that emphasize the overriding unity of all human beings. Shoghi Effendi notes that the oneness of humankind is the watchword and pivot of the Baha´ ’ı´ teachings. Baha´ ’u’lla´ h and ‘Abdu’l-Baha´ strongly emphasized the implications of oneness: all persons are equal before God and therefore must have basic equality in human society; men and women are equal; races are equal and must be reconciled and united. Baha´’u’lla´h stated that all people, including women, had the right to training so that they can pursue a trade or profession. He described Africans as black like the ‘‘pupil of the eye’’ through which ‘‘the light of the Spirit shines forth’’ (‘Abdu’l-Baha´ in London, 68). Consequently, the Baha´’ı´ principle of oneness has historically been particularly attractive to minorities, and the challenges of creating integrated local Baha´’ı´ communities is an important theme in Baha´’ı´ history. Women were first elected to Baha´’ı´ local and national governing bodies as early as 1907 (in 2009 they constitute the majority of the membership of American local spiritual assemblies and four-ninths of the membership of the national spiritual assembly). Louis Gregory was the first African American elected to a local Baha´’ı´ governing council (Washington, D.C., 1911) and to a

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national Baha´’ı´ coordinating body (the American Baha´’ı´ Temple Unity Executive Committee, 1912). The first African American woman elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha´’ı´s of the United States was Elsie Austin, in 1946. Two African Americans have served as Secretary-General of the American National Spiritual Assembly (Glenford Mitchell, 1968–1982, and Robert Henderson, 1984–2007). In 2009, three of the nine members were African American, one was American Indian, one was Iranian American, and four were of European American background. The chair was an American Indian woman, the treasurer an African American man. In addition to its implications of unity, the oneness of humanity implies the need to establish a global governing system. Baha´’u’lla´h called on all kings and rulers to end war, limit armaments, and meet in an international summit to establish common treaties and institutions. The Baha´ ’ı´ texts call for an international language and script to supplement local languages, an international system of weights and measures, a world currency, an elected world legislature, an international collective security arrangement, and global measures to ensure universal education and health care, to create equitable access to resources, and to diminish the extreme imbalances of wealth and poverty. The texts include a critique of existing social norms and a vision for creating a just, unified world. Building the Baha´’ı´ Community. The Baha´’ı´ community consists of all persons who have accepted Baha´’u’lla´h and have requested membership in the body of his followers. It is conceived of as an evolving entity destined to reflect Baha´ ’u’lla´h’s teachings ever more perfectly and to embrace an ever-larger segment of

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humanity. The chief goal of the Baha´’ı´ community is to achieve ever-greater unity. Baha´ ’u’lla´ h exhorts Baha´ ’ı´s to ‘‘be ye as the fingers of one hand, the members of one body’’ (Kita´b-i-Aqdas, para. 58), a utilitarian metaphor of working together that is reinforced by ‘Abdu’l-Baha´’s exhortation that ‘‘verily, God loveth those who are working in His path in groups, for they are a solid foundation’’ (Baha´’ı´ World Faith, 401). More important is an ideal, spiritual unity expressed in the metaphor that the Baha´ ’ı´s should be ‘‘one soul in many bodies’’ (‘Abdu’l-Baha´, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Light of Divine Guidance, vol. 2, p. 50). Baha´ ’ı´s strive for spiritual unity through various means. Baha´’ı´ gatherings begin with prayer. Discussion about any matter is conducted according to the principles of consultation, whereby individuals are encouraged to be frank but tactful in expressing themselves; where one should listen carefully and avoid offending or feeling offended by others; where ideas, once expressed, belong to the group and thus can be modified or rejected by all present, including the person first proposing the idea; where decisions ideally should be unanimous, but can be carried by a majority; and where the results of consultation must be trusted and not undermined by subsequent dissent, noncooperation, or backbiting. Consultation is simultaneously a set of principles of behavior, a collection of attitudes toward people and ideas, and a culture of discourse to model and perfect. Reinforcing the goal of spiritual unity and the means of consultation are the principles of Baha´’ı´ elections. The religion has no clergy; authority rests in ninemember elected bodies (local spiritual

assemblies, regional councils, national spiritual assemblies, and the Universal House of Justice). Elections are based on the right of the individual to free and unfettered choice in voting. Voters are urged to consider ‘‘without the least trace of passion and prejudice, and irrespective of any material consideration, the names of only those who can best combine the necessary qualities of unquestioned loyalty, of selfless devotion, of a well-trained mind, of recognized ability and mature experience’’ (Shoghi Effendi, Baha´’ı´ Administration, 88). When Baha´ ’ı´s gather to vote, they begin by praying. All discussion of names of possible candidates, nominations, campaigning, straw votes, and other forms of influence are forbidden. If evidence of efforts to influence voters comes to light, the election is invalidated. If the election produces a tie, it is automatically broken in favor of the minority member. Such a system of elections, where voting is a sacred, spiritual act and campaigning is banned, fosters the conditions for consultation, greatly reduces opportunities for strife in the Baha´ ’ı´ community, encourages involvement of minorities, and reinforces unity. Complementing the elected bodies is a second arm of the Baha´’ı´ administrative system, consisting of individuals who have no personal authority but who advise and encourage. Baha´ ’u’lla´ h appointed the first members of this arm, the Hands of the Cause of God, in the late nineteenth century. Shoghi Effendi appointed additional Hands and created a subsidiary institution under them, Auxiliary Board members, who were appointed by the Hands. He also said that Auxiliary Board members would appoint assistants. After the passing of

Bahá’í Faith Shoghi Effendi, the Universal House of Justice determined that the Baha´’ı´ scriptures did not authorize them to appoint Hands, so in 1968 they created a parallel institution, the Counselors, who would carry on their functions. In 2009 there were 81 Counselors worldwide; operating under them were 990 Auxiliary Board members; and under them were thousands of assistants. The Counselors meet with the Universal House of Justice annually; individual Counselors meet with national spiritual assemblies and regional councils several times per year; Auxiliary Board members and their assistants meet with local spiritual assemblies, and entire local Baha´ ’ı´ communities frequently. The Baha´ ’ı´ world is tied together in a series of face-to-face relationships and consultative gatherings. Baha´’ı´ communities do not regularly hold weekly worship services. Instead, community life centers on Feast, a gathering once every Baha´ ’ı´ month (which lasts 19 days) wherein the Baha´ ’ı´s worship together, consult on local community activities, and socialize. The Feast provides the principal opportunity for local spiritual assemblies to share their ideas and plans and receive feedback from the local members. Nine Baha´’ı´ holy days are observed throughout the year via events that are open to the public. Baha´’ı´s also participate in a series of core activities: children’s and youth classes (the equivalent of Sunday school, at the neighborhood level or more centralized), junior youth groups (which engage in service and other activities focused on moral empowerment), study circles (classes for youth and adults following the Ruhi curriculum, currently a series of seven books that teach

community building skills), and devotionals (prayer meetings held in homes and public places). Baha´’ı´s are encouraged to conduct one or more core activities in their home for friends and neighbors. They also participate in firesides (gatherings, usually in people’s homes, to introduce the Baha´’ı´ Faith to others) and deepenings (meetings to study Baha´ ’ı´ texts and principles together). Many Baha´’ı´ communities meet in the homes of the members, but rented and purchased Baha´’ı´ Centers are becoming increasingly common. The United States has one Baha´ ’ı´ House of Worship, located in Wilmette, Illinois, outside Chicago. It is a continental House of Worship (one of seven in the world) and does not serve a particular local Baha´’ı´ community. It hosts daily worship programs, holy day observances, and a variety of classes, special gatherings, and interfaith activities. The Spiritual Life. The Baha´’ı´ scriptures state that the purpose of life is ‘‘to know and worship’’ God and to ‘‘carry forward an ever-advancing civilization,’’ thus embracing both a vertical relationship with one’s Creator and a horizontal relationship with one’s fellow humans. Rather that stress instant achievement of personal salvation, like some Christian groups, or a moment of enlightenment, like some Buddhist groups, the Baha´ ’ı´ scriptures stress ongoing personal transformation based on internalization of the Baha´ ’ı´ revelation and its expression in service to others. Baha´’u’lla´h called on Baha´’ı´s to build their prayer life on the pillar of daily obligatory prayer; he gave three prayers among which Baha´ ’ı´s choose one to say daily. Baha´ ’ı´s also can choose among hundreds of prayers penned by

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Baha´’u’lla´h, the Ba´b, and ‘Abdu’l-Baha´ on a variety of subjects, such as forgiveness, assistance, healing, and grief; they may also pray spontaneously in their own words, but this is more typically done in private. Baha´ ’u’lla´ h ordained the repeating of the phrase Alla´h-u-Abha´ (God Is Most Glorious) 95 times each day as the basis for one’s meditative and contemplative life. He established a period of fasting, which lasts from sunrise to sunset for 19 days from March 2 through March 20. In that period Baha´’ı´s abstain from eating, drinking, and tobacco. He granted exceptions to those under age 15, over age 70, the ill, travelers, women who are pregnant, menstruating, or nursing, and anyone performing heavy labor. He enjoined the practice of reciting the Word of God twice daily in order to connect the believer to the revelation. The horizontal dimension of the devotional life has various aspects. Baha´’u’lla´h says Baha´’ı´s should be ‘‘anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements’’ (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha´ ’u’lla´h, selection CVI). Baha´’ı´s are thus encouraged, individually and collectively, to improve the world around them. Baha´’u’lla´ h requires all to ‘‘engage in some occupation’’ and exalts work performed in the spirit of service ‘‘to the rank of worship of the one true God’’ (Kita´ b-i-Aqdas, para. 33), thus potentially spiritualizing the life of the individual, while simultaneously forbidding ordained priesthood and monasticism. He describes marriage as ‘‘a fortress for well-being and salvation’’ (Baha´’ı´ Prayers, 105), thus sacralizing that institution and making it a vehicle for spiritual progress. Finally, the Baha´’ı´ scriptures

describe ‘Abdu’l-Baha´ as the personal exemplar Baha´’ı´s should emulate. His life of service to others serves as a model of behavior. The dissemination of the Baha´’ı´ Faith has been a systematic and active longterm goal of the Faith from the very beginning, which explains how it has achieved vast international spread (greater than Hinduism and Buddhism) even though it has far smaller numbers. A consistent effort to reach out to new ethnic groups is an important theme of its growth. The Ba´bı´ community, starting in 1844, was largely confined to Iran and Iraq and their Shi’ite populations. Virtually all Ba´ bı´s had become Baha´ ’ı´s by 1880. By the mid-1880s the Baha´’ı´s began to reach out to Iranian Jews and Zoroastrians, whose younger and more educated members soon became attracted to the religion’s modernistic ideas and its claim to fulfill scriptural prophecies. Commerce, flight from persecution, exile, and deliberate efforts to spread the Faith took the religion to India, Burma, Indonesia, the Ottoman realms, Sudan, and Central Asia during the years 1870–1892. Christians, Parsees, Sunni Muslims, and possibly Buddhists were attracted to the Faith. Iranian Baha´ ’ı´s fleeing persecution became one of the largest religious communities in Ashgabat (the modern capital of Turkmenistan) and constructed the first Baha´ ’ı´ House of Worship in the world (1902–1908). In the 1920s, Stalin ordered the House of Worship confiscated. The vast majority of the city’s 2,000 Baha´’ı´s were expelled to Iran, exiled to Siberia, or executed. In 1888 two Lebanese Christians became Baha´ ’ı´s in Egypt and in 1892 immigrated to the United States. One of them, Ibrahim George Kheiralla

Bahá’í Faith (1849–1929), brought the first Americans into the Faith in 1894. From a small group in Chicago, by 1900 the United States had four Baha´’ı´ communities of 50 or more believers, plus scattered Baha´’ı´s in 23 states. At least two were African American: Robert Turner in San Francisco and Olive Jackson in New York City. By 1899 the Faith also spread to Ontario, Canada; Paris, France; and London, England. A convert in Europe took the Baha´’ı´ Faith to Hawaii in 1901 and two Hawaiian Baha´ ’ı´s took it to Japan in 1914. In Shanghai, China, Occidental Baha´’ı´s met Persian Baha´’ı´ merchants who had settled; at that point the Baha´’ı´ religion had circled the globe from both directions. By 1921 American Baha´ ’ı´s had settled in Mexico, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, and Korea. Four American Baha´ ’ı´ women settled in Tehran, Iran, and helped the Baha´ ’ı´s build modern schools and clinics. ‘Abdu’l-Baha´ penned a series of 14 tablets to them in 1916 and 1917 entitled The Tablets of the Divine Plan, in which he enjoined them to spread the Baha´’ı´ religion to every nation and island on the globe. He enumerated hundreds of places where there should be Baha´ ’ı´ communities, all of which subsequently became goals. In the 1920s Shoghi Effendi gave the American Baha´’ı´s the chief responsibility for establishing Baha´’ı´ elected institutions, and he patterned such bodies in Europe, Asia, and Australasia on the American model. He used the elected institutions as instruments for implementing the missionary vision in The Tablets of the Divine Plan. Membership growth on the home front brought at least 21 African Americans into the Baha´ ’ı´ community by 1920, located in nine localities. The number

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exceeded 100 by 1934—about 5.5 percent of the community—located in 34 distinct localities. The most prominent were Louis Gregory, a Washington, D.C. attorney, who became an active traveling teacher for the Faith; Dr. Alain Locke, a Howard University philosopher; Robert Abbot, publisher of the Chicago Defender; Harriet Gibbs Marshall, founder of the National Negro Music Center in Washington; Nina Gomer Du Bois, first wife of W. E. B. Du Bois; and Elsie Austin, an attorney. Most of the prominent American Baha´’ı´s, in historical and cultural terms, were African American. In 1937, when the North American Baha´’ı´s had established a strong national spiritual assembly, Shoghi Effendi gave them a Seven Year Plan (1937–1944). It was followed by a second Seven Year Plan (1946–1953). In 1953 Shoghi Effendi launched the Ten Year Crusade (1953–1963), which gave plans to 12 National Spiritual Assemblies. The number of countries, islands, and significant territories in which the Baha´’ı´ Faith was established increased sevenfold compared to 1921 and the number of national spiritual assemblies rose to 56. The number of American Baha´ ’ı´s increased fourfold to 10,000. The next decade—1963–1973—saw the fruits of the effort to spread the Baha´ ’ı´ Faith widely but very thinly around the world. Latin American Baha´’ı´s settling in Bolivia reached out to the rural population, and tens of thousands became Baha´’ı´s. Similar efforts to reach entire villages brought thousands into the Baha´’ı´ Faith in Kenya, Uganda, Swaziland, and several Pacific archipelagoes. Hundreds of thousands became Baha´ ’ı´s in India. In the United States, door-to-door teaching brought 10,000 to

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15,000 rural African Americans into the Baha´ ’ı´ Faith in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia in the years 1969–1972. At the same time an unusual receptivity swept the college population, stimulated by the social unrest caused by the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement, which many Baha´’ı´s participated in. By 1974 the United States had 60,000 Baha´’ı´s. Subsequent conversion has been supplemented by immigration (some 12,000 Iranian Baha´ ’ı´s and perhaps 10,000 Southeast Asian Baha´’ı´s have settled in the United States since 1975), with the result that in 2009 the United States had 164,000 Baha´ ’ı´s and nearly 1,200 local spiritual assemblies. Notable is the presence of hundreds of native Baha´’ı´s on the Navajo and Lakota reservations, the involvement of several thousand Hispanic Baha´’ı´s (served by a quarterly Spanish-language Baha´’ı´ magazine), and countless multiracial or multiethnic marriages within the American Baha´’ı´ community. The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha´ ’ı´s of the

United States owns retreat and conference centers in five states; publishes a children’s magazine, a bimonthly newspaper, and a quarterly scholarly periodical; operates a radio station in South Carolina to reach the large African American Baha´’ı´ population there; runs two institutions for economic development and public health; and employs some 200 staff. Expansion of the American Baha´ ’ı´ community in the past 30 years has allowed resources to be channeled in new directions. The Baha´ ’ı´ community has been able to sustain much greater commitment to the abolition of racism, the establishment of world peace, and the development of society. One result has been greater media attention. The larger community produced an expanded book market that stimulated writers and scholars, so that Baha´’ı´ literature greatly expanded in scope and depth. Serious study of Baha´’i history, texts, teachings, and communities greatly expanded. Cultural expressions of the Faith became much more sophisticated. Robert Hayden,

DIZZY GILLESPIE (1917–1993) Born John Birks Gillespie, ‘‘Dizzy’’ Gillespie is known as one of the most important and innovative musicians ever produced in the United States. Born into a musical family, with his father leading a band in South Carolina, Gillespie began playing the piano before he was five years old. He began his career as a professional musician in 1935 working with prominent figure such as Roy Eldridge and Cab Calloway. Growing in stature as a musician, he played a major role in the development of bebop as a genre of jazz in the 1940s, as well as Afro Cuban music. In 1968, Gillespie embraced the Baha´’ı´ faith and served as an ambassador of the faith across the globe. Like so many other African Americans, Gillespie found the faith’s appeal to the oneness of humanity and the concept of relationship between the divine and humanity inspiring and transforma tive. He creates the Faith with helping him to move away from destructive behavior. Gilles pie’s commitment to the Faith is recognized and celebrated through the weekly jazz programs held at the New York City Baha´’ı´ Center in his honor.

Bahá’í Faith a prominent poet who was African American, stimulated interest in poetry among American Baha´’ı´s. Many musicians joined the Faith, including Dizzy Gillespie, the prominent jazz trumpeter. In 1992 Baha´’ı´ gospel music made its debut at a major international Baha´ ’ı´ conference and immediately became popular. Internationally, membership growth slowed throughout the 1980s and 1990s when no easy way was found to consolidate large numbers of converts. The advent of the core activities and the Ruhi curriculum, starting about 2000, offered a potential solution to the problem. The grouping of small local Baha´’ı´ communities into units called clusters, and the provisioning of clusters with committees and officers dedicated to spreading the religion systematically, has brought about a resumption in membership growth. Persecution has remained an important factor worldwide. The Iranian Baha´’ı´ community was severely restricted after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, with many members facing harassment, denial of business licenses and pensions, vandalism, arson, physical violence, imprisonment, and execution. Baha´’ı´ children are harassed in and occasionally expelled from the public schools. Baha´ ’ı´s are denied access to higher education, resulting in the creation of the Baha´’ı´ Institute for Higher Education, a Web-based private university operating on computers in the West for educating Iran’s Baha´’ı´ youth. Defense of the Iranian Baha´ ’ı´ community has become a stimulus for the development of external affairs and public information departments in many national Baha´’ı´ communities. In some countries, however, the situation improved. The Baha´ ’ı´ Faith has become legalized in Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Iraq. In Egypt, the Baha´’ı´s

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won a court case in 2009 that allowed them to obtain government identification cards, which are essential for obtaining driver’s licenses, opening bank accounts, attending universities, and holding a job. The spread of the Internet and satellite radio have made it much easier to disseminate accurate information in the Arabic and Persian languages and refute false accusations and stereotypes. Web sites, listservs, and blogs have knit the worldwide Baha´’ı´ community together in ways previously unimaginable. The Baha´’ı´ Faith’s international governing body, the Universal House of Justice, is based in Haifa, Israel, close to the burial places of Baha´ ’u’lla´ h, the Ba´b, and ‘Abdu’l-Baha´. Several official Internet sites are maintained at http:// www.bahai.org/, http://www.bahai.us/, and http:/news.bahai.org/. Robert H. Stockman

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Note: For a full listing of Baha´’ı´ sacred writ ings, see www.bahai.org/section5.html. ‘Abdu’l Baha´. Some Questions Answered (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’ı´ Distribution Service, 1981). ‘Abdu’l Baha´. ‘Abdu’l Baha´ in London (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’ı´ Publishing Trust, 1982 [reprint]), 68. The Ba´b. Selections from the Writings of the Ba´b (Haifa: Baha´’ı´ World Centre, 1978). Baha´’u’llah. Gleanings from the Writings of Baha´’u’llah, trans. Shoghi Effendi, 2nd ed. (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’ı´ Publishing Trust, 1976). Baha´’u’llah. Writings of Baha´’u’lla´h: A Com pilation (New Delhi: Baha´’ı´ Publishing Trust, 1986). Baha´’u’llah. Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, 3rd ed. (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’i Publishing Trust, 1988), 22.

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Baha´’u’llah. Kita´b i Aqdas (’Akka´ and Haifa, Israel: Baha´’ı´ World Centre, 1992) Baha´’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l Baha´. Baha´’ı´ World Faith: Selected Writings of Baha´’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l Baha´ (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’ı´ Publishing Trust, 1976). Baha´’u’llah, The Ba´b, and ‘Abdu’l Baha´. Baha´’ı´ Prayers, 2nd ed. (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’ı´ Publishing Trust, 1982). Collins, William P. Bibliography of English language Works on the Babi and Baha´’ı´ Faith, 1845 1985 (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’ı´ Publishing Trust, 1991). Hatcher, William S., and J. Douglas Martin. The Baha´’ı´ Faith: The Emerging Global Religion (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984). Shoghi Effendi. Baha´’ı´ Administration (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’ı´ Publishing Trust, 1968). Shoghi Effendi. The Light of Divine Guid ance: Letters from the Guardian of the Baha´’ı´ Faith to Individual Believers, Groups, and Baha´’ı´ Communities in Germany and Austria (Hofheim Langenhain, Germany: Baha´’ı´ Verlag GmbH, 1985). Shoghi Effendi. The Advent of Divine Justice (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’i Publishing Trust, 1990). Shoghi Effendi, Messages to the Baha´’ı´ World (Wilmette, IL: Baha´’i Publishing Trust, 1990), 127. Smith, Peter. An Introduction to the Baha´’ı´ Faith (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Universal House of Justice. The Promise of World Peace (Haifa, Israel: Baha´’ı´ World Centre, 1985).

BATUQUE Historical Development ‘‘Batuque’’ (also used colloquially to refer to Afro-Brazilian religion in the

Amazonian region) refers to AfroBrazilian religious practices in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, and, in some instances, beginning especially in the 1970s and 1980s, in Argentina and Uruguay. Batuque is practiced in groups that are each organized around a ma˜e de santo or a pai de santo (‘‘mother of saint’’ and ‘‘father of saint,’’ respectively) who presides over ritual, initiates new members, constitutes the ultimate authority in religious matters, and trains future ma˜es and pais de santo. The word ‘‘batuque’’ also, and originally, refers to Afro-Brazilian traditions of dance, both secular and sacred, accompanied by drumming. Relatively little is known of the early history of Batuque. (The following history is summarized mainly from Oro 2002 and Bastide 1978.) African religious traditions arrived in Rio Grande do Sul in the eighteenth century with the widespread introduction of slavery. By the early nineteenth century, persons of African ancestry, whether born in Africa or Brazil, accounted for about 40 percent of the population. While they comprised a number of different ‘‘nations,’’ or ethnicities, their religious traditions had a great deal in common, most importantly the belief in a number of deities responsible for the forces of nature and key domains of culture, and the practice of ritual possession of adepts by those deities. While we do not know precisely when or where the first terreiros, or places of worship, were established, the historian Marco Antoˆnio Lı´ro de Mello (1994) asserts that Batuque was present at the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the latter decades of the century, the prevalence of Batuque is attested to by newspaper reports of police raids and arrests of practitioners.

Batuque Following abolition in 1888, Batuque continued to grow in popularity; by 1952, the last year such records were kept, 211 terreiros were officially registered with the police in the capital city of Porto Alegre. In large part this growth was fueled by the increasing participation of nonAfro-Brazilians. (In fact, the percentage of persons identified as Black or of mixed ancestry in Rio Grande do Sul declined precipitously through the last century, now comprising approximately 13 percent.) While Batuque is strongly rooted in centuries-old traditions, it is dynamically engaged in the present. Marginalized and suppressed for much of its history, Batuque has not only survived but flourished. During the 1960s, increasing numbers of Batuque centers incorporated doctrine and ritual practices associated with Umbanda (introduced in the 1930s), producing the so-called ‘‘linha cruzada’’ (‘‘crossed line’’) that along with Umbanda now accounts for about 80 percent of Afro-Brazilian religion in Rio Grande do Sul. In recent decades Batuque has expanded beyond the borders of Brazil, attracting followers in Argentina and Uruguay. Batuque is a lively presence on the Internet, with blogs and homepages with links to discussions of the Orixa´s, the history of Batuque, and various aspects of ritual and belief. Recently, followers have used the Internet and other means of political mobilization to fight against discrimination from Evangelicals and legislation that would threaten their freedom to perform the ritual sacrifices required in their worship. It, along with Umbanda, is an important presence in local politics and culture. By 1996, the municipal government of Porto Alegre would

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sponsor an annual celebration of AfroBrazilian religion, while leaders in the Afro-Brazilian religious community would receive commendations from the municipal and state governments.

Beliefs and Practices Within Batuque, both historically and today, terreiros and practitioners identify with distinct ‘‘nations,’’ based on ancestral homelands in Africa. (The following description of beliefs and practices is summarized from Bastide 1978, Herskovits 1966, and Oro 2002.) This is not to say that a person belongs to a given terreiro due to his or her actual ancestry, but rather that there are a number of different strains of religious practice and belief. The relative prominence of the various nations has varied over time. The Oyo´, and Nagoˆ nations, most dominant in the early years and well into the twentieth century, have practically disappeared, largely overshadowed by Ijexa´. In any event, the various nations have far more similarities than differences. When compared with Candomble´ terreiros of Salvador, Bahia, Batuque terreiros display a somewhat simpler social structure. The leader, as elsewhere in Brazil, is the mae de santo (‘‘mother of saint’’) or, if a man, the pai de santo (‘‘father of saint’’), also known as the ialorixa´ or babalorixa´ , respectively. He or she is the unquestioned authority in matters of ritual and belief, and bears the responsibility for training and initiating the filhas de santo and filhos de santo (‘‘daughters of saint’’ and ‘‘sons of saint,’’ respectively, as the adepts are known). The ma˜e or pai de santo is also responsible for developing the future leaders who will eventually carry on the

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tradition, a process involving years of training. Unlike in the traditional Candomble´s of Bahia, where a special priest known as the babalaoˆ performs divination, in Batuque this is done by the ma˜e or pai de santo. In Batuque there is also no special office of sacrificer, though animal sacrifice is essential to ritual. Animals are sacrificed by the leader, or by a filho de santo. There are, of course, drummers, but there are no ogans, the prestigious and wellconnected patrons who hold honored places in Candomble´. This could reflect the fact that in Rio Grande do Sul, the Afro-Brazilian population during the twentieth century was much smaller proportionally than in Bahia, making the Batuques less attractive to elites who might seek the office as a way of culti vating politically advantageous relationships with the Afro-Brazilian community. The lengthy initiation process of Candomble´ is considerably shortened in Batuque, often to merely a week, although to qualify for the office of ma˜o or pai de santo requires at least seven years of apprenticeship, and thorough knowledge of all aspects of the tradition. Even the physical setting is simpler, generally lacking Candomble´’s separate outdoor shrines for deities such as Ijexoˆ. Most Batuque terreiros are located within the house of the ma˜ e or pai de santo. The stones and metal implements that represent the Orixa´ s are kept in a closet or small room, with a separate structure, outside the house, for Bara or Exu. Central to Batuque are the African deities known as Orixa´ s. In myth and practice, the Orixa´s embody the forces of nature and critical domains of culture. The Orixa´s worshipped in Batuque are the following: Bara (equivalent to Exu

in Candomble´) is the messenger or intermediary between humans and the deities; the Ibejı´ are twins, child deities, representing both duality and the irrepressible energy and growth of children; Ogum is the Orixa´ of war, agriculture, blacksmithing, and transportation; Oia´ (Iansa˜ in Candomble´) is the tempest, a warrior goddess; Xangoˆ , giver of law and justice, is manifest in thunder and lightening; Ode´ or Otim, the hunter, the Orixa´ of the forest, is equivalent to Oxossi in Candomble´; Xampana˜ (Omolu in Candomble´) is associated with disease and healing; Oxum, associated with fresh water and fertility, manifests in two forms—Oxum Panda´ and Oxum Docoˆ; Oba´ is the wife of Xangoˆ; Ossain is the master of sacred and medicinal plants; Iemanja´ is the sea goddess; Oxala´ is the creator of humankind; and Orunmila´ , one of the names of the Supreme Being according to some sources, second to Olorum, according to others, is the Orixa´ of divination. Besides their roles as forces of nature and principles of culture, the Orixa´s are believed to play a crucial role at the level of individual persons, in that every person is thought to be the child of a particular Orixa´. Ritual begins with an offering to Bara (Exu). This despacho ‘‘dispatches’’ Bara, the messenger who opens the way to the Orixa´ s. Each Orixa´ is saluted in turn, by songs accompanied by drumming and dancing, the exact order varying according to the ‘‘nation.’’ Three songs are performed for certain Orixa´ s, four for others. The dancing culminates in the descent of the Orixa´s, who take possession of their ‘‘children,’’ in effect bringing those in attendance into the presence of the deities. The ceremony ends with a ritual feast (Bastide 1978). Lindsay Hale

The Big Drum Ritual

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Inter penetration of Cultures (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). Herskovits, Melville. ‘‘The Southernmost Outposts of New World Africanisms.’’ The New World Negro, ed. Frances S. Herskovits (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1966). Krebs, Carlos Galva˜o. Estudos de Batuque (Porto Alegre, Brazil: Instituto Gau´cho de Tradic¸a˜o e Folclore, 1988). Oro, Ari. ‘‘Religio˜es Afro Brasileiras do Rio Grande do Sul: Passado e Presente.’’ Estudos Afro Asia´ticos 24, no. 2. Available at http:// www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci arttext&pid=S0101 546X2002000200006. Axe´ Mercosul: As Religio˜es Afro Brasileiras nos Paı´ses da Prata.

THE BIG DRUM RITUAL Historical Development The ancient Big Drum Ritual continues observances initiated two centuries ago on the Caribbean island, Carriacou. Carriacou is populated by African descendants who host the family ritual, formerly called the Nation Dance. The Big Drum comprises songs, dances, and drumming performed within an outdoor ring formed by the community of Carriacouans. The island, along with Petite Martinique, is administered by Grenada and is the largest of the Grenadines, lying 27 miles away from Grenada. ‘‘Carriacou is a simple, small island with about seven thousand people living on its arid soil, and, some say, with the majority of

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its population living in London and Brooklyn’’ (Hill 2003). An open invitation to a Big Drum is extended to all and food, drink, music, and dance are presented to lively neighbors. This danced religion was originally sponsored primarily to call African Ancestors and petition their pardon. The ceremony is also intended for a return of thanks and the communal sharing of food, but also for pleasurable, unaffected entertainment. It inherits major themes from its extended past in its expression of one’s relationship to another world and as a unified celebration of African memory. With remnants of African religious thought infused within the Christian culture (Anglican, Catholic, and Spiritual Baptist), messages merge to form a double religious consciousness. Big Drum participants have been heard to say, ‘‘what better way to remember the Ancestors, but by having to feed them.’’ They offer saltless food to Spirits who attend the Big Drum Ritual and extend to them a ‘‘free ring’’ to dance, which is reserved for them alone. Humans who enter the ring during the free ring may invite danger to themselves. During the opening phase of the ritual, the oldest male member of the family libates visiting Spirits by sprinkling jack iron (strong rum) on the earth. With the rum, he paints the paths of Spirit flight, east to west, and north to south. The fluid, imperceptible lines of rum (like the flour and meal veve’ configurations of Haitian Vodun) intersect to create the form of a cross.

Beliefs and Practices Anthropologist Donald Hill states: ‘‘Many people in Carriacou believe in

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Musicians and dancers at a Big Drum, Carriacou. (Dean Conger/Corbis)

the importance of dreams as a way the dead contact the living’’ (Hill 2009). A ‘‘dream message’’ or the vision of a departed family member elicits the planning of a Big Drum event. The Big Drum Ritual was most likely initiated slightly after the era of France’s colonial control of Carriacou (1650– 1763) and at the British introduction of an enslaved Cromanti population. England took possession in 1763, but during the administration the French retrieved Carriacou for a short period of time (1779–1783) until its final restoration to England through the Treaty of Versailles. Assembled from French and native languages, Patois survived the colonial exchange as a social language, but now it exists (with lost meanings) solely as an Ancestral ritual language. Despite the loss of language, the English-speaking

people of the island possess great love and respect for the historicity surrounding the French Patois lyrics of the songs. Following is the text of a Cromanti song, ‘‘Ena-o,’’ sung at a highly spiritual point in the ceremony, midnight. The original investigator of the Big Drum, Andrew Pearse (1956, 3), states that the figure in the song, which he spells as ‘‘Ina,’’ is also known as ‘‘mama nu’’ which is the Patois term for ‘‘Our Mother.’’ From this, Pearse argues that Ina is a Cromanti Ancestor/spirit (Pearse 1956, 3). ‘‘The Inna in the Hausa Bori religion is celebrated as the ‘mother of us all,’ and in a specifically Akan (Cromanti) context, Inna is a popular female kinship term which also means ‘mother,’ but spelled Ena’’ (McDaniel 2002, 133). The words of the song are as follows, with the translation underneath:

The Big Drum Ritual Ena oo, Ena o Ena o, Mama nu Salamani o Ena o, Ena o Ena o, Our Mother We greet thee

Each song of the Big Drum bears a name. In the oldest songs we discovered names of Goddesses, Gods, Ancestors, and Spirits forgotten by the population. Somehow, the holy names were kept and vocalized for two centuries: Sai Amba, Ena, and Oko (Cromanti Ancestresses or Goddesses), Anancy (the trickster deity), Cromanti Cudjo and Pa Beni (male Ancestors), and the Hausa spirit, Ahwusa. The deity found in Igbo songs, Ianman Igbo Le-le, a deity known to Haitian Vodun participants and the divinity discovered in a Manding song, Negesse Manding, whose name, similar to that of the Haitian Loa, Negesse Igbo, posits her as a Goddess. Music is controlled by a female leader, the chantwell, who directs and trains the dancer/singer chorus. At performances, she introduces the call and response songs, selects songs and dancers from the 6- to 12-member troop and spurs on drummers with her chac-chac (maraca). The female choristers/dancers wear multicolored dresses copied from the nineteenth-century French design. The trained skirt of the douette was split in front, and for Creole dances the performers would grasp the hem edges, opening the wide skirt to imitate wings. In former times the winged skirt exposed elaborate, luxurious, embroidered, white petticoats (MacDonald 1962, 48). Without costume, a few men participate in the dance, but do not, as in former times, enroll in choral activity.

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Drumming is exclusively performed by three dashiki-clad males. Two boula players perform a single significant rhythm and one kata (cutter, cut) player improvises a highly dramatic, improvised musical line. The chac-chac and iron (any hardware or bottle and spoon), which ring like an African bell gong, complete the instrumentation. The adoration of the specialized African-type drumming is related to a covert history-keeping device. The musical line played by boula drums holds a vital rhythmic memory of the past that survives as the most intriguing element of the Big Drum. Coded drum rhythms accompany each dance style. The short, reiterative, musical phrases enunciate ethnic origins of the people from nine West African nations. This musical information in boula drumming has been documented, classified, and notated by their rhythmic coding (McDaniel 1998, 87). Cromanti, Igbo, Manding, Arada, Congo, Banda, Chamba, Temne, and Moko are the nine West African nations defined by discrete rhythms. These rhythms support songs and dances of the democratic congress of Carriacou’s dance ring religion. And Carriacouans keep within themselves an ethnic/religious document, the Big Drum Ritual, and through it they ‘‘know their nation.’’ One speculates that the early stages of the ritual began with Cromanti dances in the late eighteenth century and later other nations attached their songs to complete the group called Nation Songs. Creole Songs were composed and borrowed during the late nineteenth century and, later, Frivolous Songs of the early twentieth century took root. Rather than dealing with spiritual matters of Ancestor veneration, calling, supplication, consolation,

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Table 1 The Carriacou Big Drum Dances—Andrew Pearse Nation

Creole

Frivolous

Cromanti Igbo Manding Arada Temne Congo Chamba Banda

Old Bongo Hallecord Bele’ Kawe’ Gwa Bele’ Old Kalenda Juba Man Bongo Trinidad Kalenda

Chattam Lora Cariso Chirrup Pike’ Chiffone’

and homeland longing (appropriate to the Nation Songs), the succeeding Creole group exhorts social control, relationships, migration, and protest. The final accreted group, Frivolous Songs, projects humor, derision, satire, protest, and issues concerning migration. Taken from Andrew Pearse (1956, 3), the Table I outlines the basic dances created during three eras (Nation, Creole, Frivolous) of Big Drum performance. The first three dances performed at every ritual are the Cromanti, Igbo, and Manding solo offerings, which display a lowered stance, expressing penitent demeanor. This is dramatically expressed especially in the Manding dance, where dancers move and bend at low angles to the earth (unlike the upright posture of all other dances) with palms turned upward in a gesture of supplication. The Nation dances, the earliest dances, express a humble spirit of contrition. We witness, from the nineteenth century, new Creole dances, many of which are borrowed types from Trinidad and neighboring islands. In the creation of an African dance repertoire, one questions the inclusion of dance styles with obvious European influence as seen in the dainty, mincing footwork of Creole dances. Couples dances (Bele Kawe’,

Juba) and the dance for two couples (Gwa Bele’) are reminiscent of the English quadrille (Macdonald 1962, 574) with movements seemingly incongruous to drum accompaniment. So, too, is the imitated colonial dress, the douette, an eighteenth century French fashion, a contradiction. With a frontal slit in skirt, opposite hems are held out by both hands (appearing much like the spreading of bird wings), exposing, in early styles, elaborate lacework of the white, flounced petticoat. The inclusion of European style, whether coerced by slave owners, commanded by priests and missionaries (Daniel 2008, 7), or pursued by choice, is a curious innovation in African danced religion. Plantation dances served as entertainment for owners whose threatening advice assured compliance. The effects of such influence from the age of slavery can be seen in today’s Big Drum, and even more clearly in the Quadrille and Lancers dancing of Carriacou, which are undiluted European dances performed with violin as the principal instrument. Big Drum dance innovation in the early twentieth century (Frivolous Dances) promotes mirth, fun, and winin’ (of the hips), The Frivolous group, as

Black Hebrew Israelite Tradition characterized by the Chirrup, Pike’, and Chiffone’, is danced near the end of the ritual and could be danced and enjoyed at any contemporary North American, swinging, urban club. In this way, through the Big Drum, family history and lineage come alive as the ancient religion revives duty in the community with generous sharing that instills memory of the past. Lorna A. McDaniel

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Daniel, Yvonne. ‘‘A Critical Analysis of Caribbean Contredanse’’ (Unpublished, 2008), 7. Herskovits, Melville J. ‘‘Drums and Drummers in Afro Brazilian Cult Life.’’ Musical Quarterly 30 (1944): 477 492. Hill, Donald. ‘‘ ‘England I Want to Go’: The Impact of Migration on a Caribbean Community’’ (PhD diss., Indiana Univer sity, 1973). Hill, Donald. The Impact of Migration on the Metropolitan and Folk Society of Carriacou, Grenada (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1977). Hill, Donald. Personal communication, 2003, 2009. Lomax, Alan. Carriacou Callaloo, produced by Anna Lomax Chairetakis and Jeffery A. Greenberg (Cambridge: Rounder Records Corporation, 1999). Macdonald, Annette. ‘‘The Big Drum Dance of Carriacou: Its Structure and Possible Origins’’ (Master’s thesis, University of California, 1962). McDaniel, Lorna. The Big Drum Ritual of Carriacou: Praisesongs in Rememory of Flight (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998). McDaniel, Lorna. ‘‘Musical Thoughts on Unresolved Questions and Recent Findings

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in Big Drum Research.’’ Black Music Re search Journal 22, no. 1 (2002): 127 139. Pearse, Andrew. ‘‘Aspects of Change in Caribbean Folk Culture.’’ Journal of the International Folk Music Council, no. 7 (1955): 29 36. Pearse, Andrew. ‘‘The Big Drum Dance of Carriacou.’’ Ethnic Folkways Library, recording includes insert (FE411). 1956. Pearse, Andrew. ‘‘Music in Caribbean Popu lar Culture.’’ Revista 1 Interamericana 8, no. 4 (1978 1979): 629 639. Smith, M. G. Kinship and Community in Carriacou (New Haven, CT: Yale Univer sity Press, 1962).

BLACK HEBREW ISRAELITE TRADITION Historical Development Since the mid-eighteenth century, African people in the United States have embraced the tradition of Judaism. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Denmark Vesey and Gabriel Prosser both identified with Israelites of the Old Testament in their respective rebellions. Identification with Israel at this time was identification through enslavement. African people read themselves into the Old Testament as a nation oppressed under the yoke of an evil empire. However, by the end of the century some began to claim to be the true descendants of the ancient Israel nation. In 1886, the first Black Hebrew organization was founded by F. S. Cherry in Chattanooga, Tennessee, called the Church of the Living God. This organization incorporated both Judaic and Christian beliefs within their philosophy. They used the Jewish Bible and the Talmud as holy text as well as observed

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Jewish practices and holidays. In 1915 the organization moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Cherry’s son. Prophet William Saunders Crowdy also established a Black Hebrew movement called the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1893 (see related entry on this organization). He started his tabernacles in Lawrence and Emporia, Kansas, and then moved to Philadelphia in 1899 where he established permanent residence. Both of these organizations still function to this day in the United States; however, the Black Hebrew Tradition has taken different forms as it has evolved. Legend has it that in 1966 Ben Carter received a vision from the archangel Gabriel for the true Black Hebrew Israelites, African Americans in the United States, to reestablish their nation in Israel. He then began preaching and teaching his vision in the streets of Chicago and amassed a small but loyal following. Ben Carter changed his name to Ben Ammi ben Israel, and he and 350 of his followers moved to Liberia to live and work on their way to Israel. The time spent in Liberia was important because it was taught that this new nation had to

learn how to be a nation before they entered the ‘‘promised land.’’ Therefore, Liberia was to be a place where Ben Ammi and his followers learn to produce, build for themselves, and function as a nation of people. Not everyone was up to the challenge of starting this new nation. Many people left and went back to the United States, and some died due to malaria, yellow fever, and other physical aliments. Still Ben Ammi was determined, and in 1969 he and 38 of his followers received permission to establish themselves within the nation of Israel. Although they were openly received at first as new immigrants, eventually the Israeli government saw them as a liability and began making their existence difficult within Israel. They were not entitled to health care or educational benefits as citizens, which forced them to establish their own institutions. There are now thousands of African Americans who have came into this organization and now live as a nation within Israel’s borders. Also there are functional satellite synagogues within the United States. Back in the United States, in the 1960s, Abba Bivens established the

BEN AMMI BEN ISRAEL (1939–) Ben Ammi ben Israel was born Ben Carter in 1939. He grew up in Chicago and worked at an airline factory early in his life. While working at the factory, he was exposed to Black Hebrew thought and beliefs by a co worker. Soon after, he joined a Black Israelites group in Chicago and, at the age of 22, he was ordained as Ben Ammi. In 1966, he claimed to have a vision from the archangel Gabriel to lead the true African Israelites back to the promised land. Later that year he and over 300 of his followers left for Liberia in preparation for their migration to the nation state Israel. The Ben Ammi movement has grown into the thousands and has received international recognition for their mission and migration to Israel. He remains the leader of this nation and currently resides in Jerusalem.

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HULEN MITCHELL JR. (1935–2007) Hulen Mitchell Jr. was born in 1935, the first of 15 children, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. His father was a Pentecostal preacher who focused his message on Old Testament teach ings. Mitchell grew up during the Jim Crow era. As a young adult, he did some military service and went to Oklahoma University for a short period. During the 1950s and 1960s, he began to get active in civil rights organizations. Feeling unsatisfied with the progress of the movement, he started studying other Black Nationalist groups such as the Nation of Islam. During the 1970s, he began organizing followers based on his ideas of Black people being the chosen people of God. Mitchell changed his name to Yahweh ben Yahweh, which means ‘‘Lord Son of the Lord.’’ As his organization grew during the 1980s, he was convicted on racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder charges in 1990 and was not released until 2001. While many members stayed loyal during ben Yahweh’s incarceration, such issues eventually stunted the growth of the organization. Yahweh ben Yahweh died May 7, 2007, but his organization is still active in Florida.

Israeli School of Universal Practical Knowledge (ISUPK) in Harlem, New York. This organization grew and sought tax-exempt status as a religious organization, which led it to change its moniker from the Israeli School to the Israeli Church of Universal Practical Knowledge. Further, the organization had to change its name again to the Israelite Church of GOD in Jesus Christ to differentiate it from its Israeli organizations. Like other Israelite organizations with very Christian sounding titles, this organization adheres closely to Jewish laws and practices. The Nation of Yahweh is a Black Hebrew movement, which began in Dade County in Miami, Florida. This movement began in the late 1970s by Hulen Mitchell Jr. who renamed himself Yahweh ben Yahweh. The primary focus of this group is to return the children of Israel (African people in the United States) to their homeland. Like most other Black Hebrew groups, they see European Jews as intruders on their original covenant.

In the later 1980s and early 1990s Yahweh ben Yahweh and several members of the movement were arrested and charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder. Yahweh was convicted of these charges and was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 1990. He was released in 2001, and many of his followers remained loyal in keeping the organization intact. Despite these problems, this organization has grown and branched out across the United States; however, it is still centrally located in Florida.

Beliefs and Practices Although there are many diverse movements that make up the tradition of Black Judaism within the United States, Black Hebrew Israelites share a lot of the same spiritual understandings and beliefs. Knowledge of self or racial pride is always a feature of the Black Judaic tradition. Theologically, Black Hebrews see themselves as holy and descendants of the ancient Judaic tradition. Most Black Jews claim they are the people of

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Nation of Yahweh service. The Nation of Yahweh moved to Miami in 1979 and set up the Nation of Yahweh under the leadership of Yahweh Ben Yahweh. (Ed Kashi/Corbis)

the original covenant with God. They argued that they come from Ethiopian Jews of Northeast Africa and that European Jews are religious converts, not the original people of the covenant. Further, many Black Jews believe that European Jews are not only misrepresenting themselves as God’s children but that the White race is evil and led by Satan, not the true living God. For them, White people are seen as thieves of the original covenant who have deceived the world and enslaved God’s people. With the belief in the right to the original covenant comes the necessity of Zionism. Without the promised land there is no covenant; there is no nation of Israel. This push for Zionism is relevant for all of the Black Israelite traditions, yet most organizations have not appealed to the current Israeli nationstate as have the African Hebrews.

As the Hebrew nation of the Old Testament, Black Hebrew Israelites observe many of the customs and cultural practices to solidify their connection to the divine. The Sabbath, for instance, is strictly observed and remains the holy day of the week. Beginning at sundown on Friday through sundown on Saturday, Black Hebrew Israelites are not to work. Circumcision is also a requirement of all Black Hebrew males eight days after birth. Women must adhere to the menstrual purity rites and customs. Jewish holidays such as Passover, Shavuout, Memorial Blowing of the Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and Succoth are also very important celebrations and are observed by the Black Hebrew movements. The observance of these rituals solidifies their connection to the divine as well as demonstrates their right to God’s covenant. Further, many of the Black Hebrew

Buddhism | 115 communities observe certain rites that are specific to their particular history, such as the founding day of their movement or the birthdays of their founders. For many of the Black Hebrew movements, strict adherence to a kosher diet is very important. The diet of the Hebrew nation is understood as being a divine mandate. African Hebrew movements, however, not only adhere to a kosher diet, they have gone further and made the vegan diet mandatory for all of God’s people. Believers are not to eat any animal products, including eggs and dairy. The vegan diet is considered a divine diet focused on the divine health of every person within the nation. Such a diet is how a community maintains and sustains itself. Paul Easterling

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Chireau, Yvonne, and Nathaniel Deutsch, eds. Black Zion: African American Reli gious Encounters with Judaism (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Fauset, Arthur Huff. Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults in the Urban North (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944). Lounds, Morris, Jr. Israel’s Black Hebrew: Black Americans in Search of Identity (Washington, DC: University Press of America Inc., 1981).

BUDDHISM Historical Development While the Buddhist Churches of America represents possibly the oldest institutional form of Buddhism in the United

States, it is unwise to assume that this organization sets the tone and determines the texture of Buddhism within this context. Buddhism, the name given by Westerners to the tradition associated with Siddhartha Gautama’s teachings, has grown to take numerous forms and presentations. Furthermore, it has grown to include Americans of various socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. This diverse and complex Buddhist community is composed of immigrants who establish the tradition in their new home as well as American converts. According to some accounts, there may be as many as 4 million Buddhists in the United States, more than in any other Western country. And, of that number, almost 1 million are American converts. What may surprise some readers is that, as of the late 1990s, of these converts a noteworthy number perhaps somewhere around 30,000 are African American, and they are typically affiliated with Soka Gakkai International-USA. A proper understanding of Soka Gakkai International-USA and its African American membership requires context, a general understanding of Buddhism’s development. The story of Buddhism begins with Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, born during the sixth century BCE in what is now known as Nepal. Siddhartha Gautama was born into an important warrior class responsible for protecting the people, and as a result of its responsibilities this class held great social importance. Based on the stature and social ranking of his clan, he would have experienced a comfortable life, free from most discomforts. At the age of 29, Siddhartha Gautama rejected this sheltered life and began a quest to understand and end human suffering. As part of this quest, he worked

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to control his body through extreme ascetic practices learned from various teachers encountered during his travels. These practices did not, however, serve to end suffering. It was not until seven years after he began this process that Siddhartha Gautama found the enlightenment he sought while meditating under a pipal tree. Engaged in deep meditation or dhyana, he worked through his various past lives, and from this rehearsing of his past he realized the manner in which karma influences the nature and contours of life. This awakening, the realization of suffering’s causes and the way to eliminate it, resulted in his becoming enlightened—the Buddha. Siddhartha Gautama not only recognized the nature of suffering and its causes, he also discovered the proper way to obtain liberation from suffering— nirvana—through the surrender of desires that produce suffering. This proper way is referred to as the ‘‘middle way.’’ It moves between surrender to the senses and the attempt to control oneself through harsh, ascetic practices. In order to help others, the Buddha began teaching this new path, the dharma or doctrine, as well as vinaya or discipline. He first announced this new way during a sermon given outside Varanasi. With time the Buddhist tradition grew throughout India, with written texts developing to form a canon of teachings and philosophy. Various schools emerged with the three dominant being Theravada (the most traditional and strictest form), Mahayana (the ‘‘Great Vehicle,’’ so called because it considered Theravada too narrow for most), and Vajirayana, which involves an embrace of esoteric scriptures (tantras). These traditions differ in numerous ways, including: (1) disagreement on the nature of connection

between nirvana (liberation) and samaara (this world); (2) the idea of the Bodhisattva (one who vows to assist others to become liberated from suffering) (Williams 2000, 83–84); and (3) the appeal to particular texts as vital on the path to liberation. Besides disagreements related to teachings, the complexity of this growing Buddhist tradition was also found in the formation of its ritual activities and the visual images associated with it. These differences would generate internal disagreements and spark various movements, but they did not stifle the religion’s growth. Although Islam would supplant Buddhism in India, the tradition continued to grow over the centuries, reaching the United States prior to the twentieth century. According to accounts by his followers, Nichiren, a Buddhist in Japan from the Mayahayana tradition, lamented what he considered the decline of dharma, and he attempted to correct this through emphasis on devotional practices geared toward laity who were not from the more socially elite groups. He emphasized chanting and the Lotus Sutra because he considered it the most complete Buddhist teachings. The supreme importance of the Lotus Sutra is expressed in the name change through which Zenshobo Rencho becomes Nichiren [Sun-Lotus] (Hurst, in Prebish and Tanaka 1998, 82). Missing from this approach was attention to the four noble truths and the eightfold path. Those involved in Nichiren Buddhism also participated in kosenrufu, or the push toward world peace. Nichiren was not content to address the needs of Japan alone as they relate to practice and the study of Buddhism. In fact, he desired to take his understanding of Buddhism, which he considered

Buddhism | 117 the only true form of Buddhism, across the globe. While one can debate Nichiren’s personal success as a missionary, it is quite evident that his movement eventually developed into various Nichiren Buddhism schools, including Soka Gakkai International, in various areas of the world. Some trace the presence of Buddhism in the United States back to the mid1800s through the rather superficial understanding promoted by transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau, who published in 1844 a translation of the Lotus Sutra (Prebish 1999, 3). With the arrival of immigrants, including some missionaries, as scholar Charles Prebish notes, Buddhism’s presence only increased. In addition to the early efforts of missionaries Shuei Sonoda and Kakuryo Nishimjimo, who came to the United States in 1899, D. T. Suzuki (a student of Buddhism from Japan) and Alan Watts (an Episcopal priest) aided the expansion of Buddhism’s influence. The writings of Suzuki reached a diverse audience across several decades as Angel Kyodo Williams’s, an African American Buddhist, experience suggests. She writes that her first acquaintance with Buddhism stems from an intense appreciation for the aesthetic of Japanese notions of home that led her in search of materials on Japanese culture. ‘‘What I found,’’ she writes, ‘‘was a classic Zen book called, what else, Zen and Japanese Culture, by a scholar named D. T. Suzuki who happened to also study Zen . . . . His writing did a lot to bring Zen to the West and to America, but I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that it wasn’t Japanese culture that I was having a love affair with . . . .it was the culture and sensibility that came from Zen’’ (Williams 2000, 4).

One of the Buddhist organizations that began to flourish during the 1960s was Nichiren Shoshu of America. This organization, composed of priests and laity, was associated with the Nichiren Buddhist movement of Japan mentioned earlier. Nichiren Shoshu of America experienced tremendous growth, with estimates as high as 7,500 new members each month in 1969. And by 1976, Nichiren Shoshu Temple claimed some 200,000 members, with branches in cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., and Seattle (Prebish 1999, 25). Internal conflict within this organization, however, eventually fueled a schism in 1991, resulting in the Nichiren Shoshu Temple led by priests and the laity-led Soka Gakkai International-USA. Soka Gakkai was founded by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, who became a teacher in Sapporo and eventually in Tokyo. In developing his ideas on Soka (or value creation), he drew on three fields of study—sociology, pragmatism, and geography. He was impressed by the manner in which these disciplines shed light on the nature of relationship and the reciprocal interaction between groups. Drawing on these disciplines and the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism, he set to work on the formation of an educational system bringing together individual improvement and social commitment—an effort to transform society through the practice of Buddhist teachings. By 1937, he had worked out the basic principles of value creation education and Buddhism, giving it institutional form as the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai (Value Creation Education Society). The society lasted only six years due to pressure from the Japanese government, with Makiguchi and other members of the Society’s

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leadership being imprisoned on charges of treason because of their rejection of Statesupported Shintoism. Makiguchi died in prison, but the movement he initiated continued under the leadership of Josei Toda, and with a new name—Soka Gakkai (Value Creation Society). In 1951 Toda worked to have Soka Gakkai recognized as a religious organization, under the authority of the Nichiren priesthood. Prior to his death in 1958, he used an aggressive approach to proselytizing to increase the organization’s size, and he gave Soka Gakkai a doctrinal base it lacked in its earlier years by appealing to the Lotus Sutra and the writings of Nichiren. Toda’s goal for Soka Gakkai was to increase individual happiness within the context of a world marked by harmony. Saisaku Ikeda became the next president of Soka Gakkai. Although aggressive proselytizing benefited Soka Gakkai, Ikeda diminished this aspect of spreading the organization’s teachings while transforming the movement from a regional, Japan-based, religion (with political involvements through its Komeito or ‘‘Clean Government Party’’ founded in 1964) into an international movement. This process of internationalization in regard to the United States began in 1960 with Ikeda’s first trip. This

trip resulted in the formation of Soka Gakkai of America (Nichiren Shoshu of America). Initially, its membership was primarily Japanese immigrants, with meetings conducted in Japanese. The first meeting in English took place three years later. Rather loosely organized, Soka Gakkai of America’s leadership structure grew through the appointment of George Williams as the American General Chapter Chief in 1968. Invitations were extended to strangers to attend meetings during which they were introduced to the practice of chanting. They also heard testimonies from group members concerning the spiritual and material benefits of chanting. On a larger scale, the organization hosted ‘‘culture festivals’’ during which neighborhoods were introduced to the activities and teachings of Soka Gakkai. By 1976, aggressive efforts to introduce Soka Gakkai to an American public were suspended because of the negative ramifications of the mass suicide/murder in Jonestown by followers of Jim Jones. In spite of this setback, the organization has paid attention to the racial and ethnic diversity of the United States and developed various initiatives (e.g., the Boston Research Center for the Twenty-first century in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and

HERBIE HANCOCK (1940–) Herbie Hancock is an internationally known and respected musician, and he has been a Buddhist for almost 30 years. His musical skills were noticed early, and over the course of his career he has worked with figures such as Miles Davis, and he has also led his own jazz groups. Hancock has recorded numerous albums, and many of his com positions have become jazz standards. Among his many awards is an Oscar for his work on the film Round Midnight. As Hancock notes, Buddhism has played an important role in his personal life and the direction and shape of his professional development.

Buddhism | 119 the Soka University of America in Southern California) to increase the diversity of its membership as well as to promote religious dialogue and understanding. For some, the recognition that African American Buddhists exist is linked to the movie about singer Tina Turner’s life in which she is shown chanting. Others might be aware of musician Herbie Hancock’s link to Buddhism. However, these are only a few of the African Americans who claim Buddhism as their religion. Soka Gakkai International-USA, a component of the larger Soka Gakkai International organization with members in over 100 countries, typically claims a membership of roughly 100,000 and maintains a headquarters in Santa Monica, California. Although actual membership is hard to calculate for this movement, what is significant is the fact that Soka Gakkai has a larger African American membership than any other Buddhist group in the United States. In fact, as Shelvia Dancy, notes in The News & Observer, African Americans constitute 20,000 of Soka Gakkai’s total membership. Although most Buddhist communities are rhetorically committed to diversity, only Soka Gakkia has lived this out in ways that are reflected in the makeup of the membership (Chappell in Queen 2000, 184). For example, regarding district leadership (one of the basic units within Soka Gakkai), African Americans by 1990 ‘‘represented 26.74 percent of the district leaders: Atlanta—43 out of 67; Boston—24 out of 180; Chicago—75 out of 160; Los Angeles—101 out of 458; Miami—5 out of 64, New York—141 out of 465; Philadelphia—60 out of 1120; San Francisco—103 out of 599; Washington, DC—103 out of 336. Whites make up

38.67 percent, Japanese 18.66 percent and Hispanics, for example, 5.69 percent’’ (Chappell in Queen 2000, 190). While the executive committee for Soka Gakkai traditionally had been Japanese and male, this began to change when African Americans gained prominent positions: Sheilah Edwards became a vice-general director in 1997 and Ronnie Smith in 1998 (Chappell in Queen 2000, 203). With such a long history of Christian church involvement, why have so many African Americans turned to Buddhism? This question is extremely pertinent when one considers that irrespective of conversation to the contrary, many American Buddhists have a difficult time actually applying notions of equality and ‘‘race-less’’ movement through the world that marks much of the Buddhist tradition. In an article titled ‘‘American Buddhism: What Does It Mean for People of Color?’’ frustration over this very issue is expressed in graphic terms: Separatism and mutuality are equally free to emerge in the splendor of freedom in America. For some Buddhists, this causes confusion. Some American Buddhists who believe in the mutuality of all beings conversely find themselves practicing racial, cultural, and economic segregation in their Dharma activities. Mere mention of this contradiction makes them very upset and can cause them to condemn, cold shoulder, reject, and even reject someone from their Dharma center. (http://www .Rainbowdharma.com/commentaries.html #Part1)

For Euro-American Buddhists, the article continues, this dilemma is at times dealt with in far from productive ways, through what the author refers to as a ‘‘loosely formed majority consensus’’

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by which selection for inclusion involves: 1) people of color are allowed in as long as they do not bring up the heritage issue; 2) people of color who have no connection to the heritage issue, such as Tibetans, are welcome because their preoccupation is with Chinese heritage rather than American heritage; anyone, regardless of race or culture who speaks of these issues must subject him/herself to a verbal caution from a dominant culture senior student. (http:// www.Rainbowdharma.com/commentaries .html#Part1)

Those who fail to adhere to the no-race-talk requirement after an initial reprimand are subject to dismissal for ‘‘non-Buddhist activity’’ (http://www.Rainbowdharma .com/commentaries.html#Part1). In another portion of the ‘‘American Buddhism: What Does It Mean For People of Color?’’ article, a rather troubling encounter based on American stereotypes was played out. The author notes that, ‘‘I had one newly arrived Asian Teacher tell me he was afraid of me when we first met. He said he had heard that, ‘black people were violent’, and challenged me to a battle of his Asian magic against my black magic’’ (http://www.Rainbowdharma.com/ commentaries.html#Part1). The extent of such problems and the precise manner in which issues of race and ethnicity are handled is not exactly clear. In spite of such problems, African Americans have found in Soka Gakkai a somewhat tolerant approach to multicultural religiosity, one that allows them to embrace both their African American heritage and the Buddhist teachings, fostering a synergy of sorts. In keeping with the more recent strategy of individual contact, word of mouth has been a primary way by which African

Americans have come to embrace Buddhism through Soka Gakkai—seeing and responding to members of their family and friends who claimed major life changes through the tradition. Some scholars claim that Soka Gakkai is attractive to African Americans because its social sensibilities are in line with the dominant mind-set of progress that emerged out of the Civil Rights Movement. Coming into contact with Buddhism during the struggles for equality in the United States, some African Americans found in the teachings and practices of Buddhism a more productive way to understand and address racial discrimination. Rather than simply talking in terms of legislation or social transformation, the external world, Buddhism offered opportunity for introspection. It offered a way of promoting the healing of oneself through a better understanding of what actually allows for happiness and fulfillment, by pushing beyond material acquisition to spiritual healing and health. The concerns of social existence were, through Buddhism, put in perspective and placed within the context of larger issues of cosmic existence. The leadership of Soka Gakkai supported the quest for civil rights, and this was meaningful to African Americans seeking both social improvement and spiritual health. While remaining important concerns, Buddhism, particularly as represented by Soka Gakkai’s contact with African Americans, recognized as priority the nature of desire as the root cause of social discrimination. Yet, there was an expressed way in which people can address both social and spiritual difficulties, and this dual approach had great promise for African Americans who embraced Buddhism. The proper life

Buddhism | 121 path advocated by Buddhism served to enhance one’s perception of life circumstances, and cut to the core of one’s relationship to self, others, and world. The mutuality of all beings championed by Buddhism has had great appeal to some African Americans who find patterns of discrimination in the United States hard to understand and address. African American members also at times speak of the ‘‘fit’’ between Buddhism and African American life in terms of Ikeda’s appreciation for the plight of African Americans and those in the African Diaspora. Hence, joining Soka Gakkai did not result in cultural disconnect, a surrender of black pride, nor an eclipsing of a desire for social transformation. Soka Gakkai understands race as a social construct lacking deep or fundamental merit. There is recognition of the impact this social construct has had on life in the United States, while struggling to live in ways that move beyond race and ethnicity.

Beliefs and Practices With time, the teachings of the Buddha were combined with various forms of devotion. While those who have achieved enlightenment provided texts or sutras that explain the Buddha’s teachings, the elemental nature of Buddhism that guides most Buddhists is often described in terms of the ‘‘Four Noble Truths’’: (1) life is marked by suffering or dukkha, and this reality should not be lamented but rather acknowledged simply as a reality to be addressed and overcome; (2) dukkha is caused by desire or tanha through which people misunderstandingly seek happiness through temporal

realities, and this attempt to secure happiness through those things that cannot in actuality produce lasting happiness causes suffering; (3) dukkha or suffering ends when desires are surrendered; (4) dukkha ends through the eightfold path, the ‘‘middle way’’ described by the Buddha. In addition to the four noble truths, there is the path that leads to the ending of suffering and nirvana through eight realizations: (1) right view—entails the understanding that our actions have felt consequences that shape our lives through the production of bad or good karma or action; (2) right resolve— involves a commitment to avoid all perceptions and actions that block movement toward complete liberation; (3) right speech—entails recognition that what we say has felt consequences in that it produces bad karma that harms us and others; (4) right action—avoid activities that harm ourselves and others; (5) right livelihood—undertake economic activities that are in keeping with the production of good karma; (6) right effort—consistent practice of right thinking; (7) right mindfulness— involves a recognition of the importance of the connection between the mind and the body highlighted in the process of meditation; (8) right concentration— proper focusing of the mind so as to achieve liberation. Followers of the Buddha’s teachings formed a community (sangha), based on various levels of engagements with the Buddha’s principles of proper living. Monks (bhikkhus) and nuns (bhikkunis), who are most deeply devoted to the ‘‘middle way’’—the path to liberation outlined by the Buddha—surrender all worldly attachments. While all followers of the ‘‘middle way’’ are expected to

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adhere to a particular life marked by a refusal to kill, steal, and so on, monks and nuns live an even more rigorous life involving many strict regulations concerning dress and so on. Those who maintained connections to family and the larger world express their devotion in part through efforts to care for monks and nuns. Monks, nuns, and laity play a role in the spread of the Buddha’s teachings, sharing the ‘‘middle way’’ with converts. This movement into Buddhism involves ‘‘taking refuge’’: ‘‘I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the dharma. I take refuge in the sangha.’’ Soka Gakkai embraces Nichiren’s teaching that there are three secret laws of Buddhism: (1) gohonzon—a small scroll (resembling the one written by Nichiren) containing the diamoku and embodying the dharma that is the primary object of devotion for Buddhists who follow the teachings of Nichiren; (2) kaidan—the sanctuary of Buddhism often associated with the temple, Taisekiji, founded by Nikko Shonin; (3) the true chant of the daimoku, at times said to be ‘‘hail to the wonderful dharma Lotus Sutra’’ or ‘‘homage to the Lotus Sutra.’’ It is chanted quickly and for roughly 30 minutes. According to those in Soka Gakkai, the meaning of the chant—Myohorenge-kyo —is as follows: Myoho is the mystic law of the universe, the underlying principle of duality which is the basis of human life. Renge is the lotus flower, which can be understood as a metaphor for the simultaniety of cause and effect (karma) and the pure flower which blooms in a swamp. Kyo is the sound or vibration one creates in chanting which attunes the individual to the law of the universe. (Hurst in Prebish and Tanaka 1998, 84)

Various individual and communal concerns play into the general guidelines of Soka Gakkai International: 1 To work for the prosperity of society by being good citizens who respect the culture, customs, and laws of each coun try; 2 to promote humanistic culture and education based on the fundamental, humane principles of Buddhism; 3 to join our efforts for world peace, for instance, with those of the United Nations by supporting the spirit of its charter, thereby helping achieve our ultimate goal of the abolition of nuclear arms and uni versal renouncement of war. (Prebish 1999, 120)

Buddhists in America define themselves in various ways and participate in various traditions all linked in some way to the initial teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Related to this, American Buddhists are involved in a diverse and complex community, one that at times is composed of an uneasy tension between various cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic positions, and political commitments. The participation of African Americans in Buddhism adds to the rich religious landscape that marks their religious history. Buddhism has become one of the religious orientations allowing African Americans to make sense of the world and forge a firm and healthy sense of self within the context of a larger community of living beings. In short, it promotes a deep sense of happiness and points toward a path by which the various modalities of suffering or the cycle of suffering—and Buddhism allows African Americans to acknowledge the various ways in which injustice has meant suffering—can be understood and ultimately overcome. Anthony B. Pinn

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Prebish, Charles. Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America (Berkeley: University of Califor nia Press, 1999). Prebish, Charles, and Kenneth Tanaka, eds. The Faces of Buddhism in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).

Queen, Christopher S., ed. Engaged Buddhism in the West (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000). Seager, Richard. Buddhism in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). Williams, Angel Kyodo. Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace (New York: Penguin Compass, 2000).

C CANDOMBLÉ

city of Salvador, now the capital of the northeastern state of Bahia, and once the capital of Brazil. While Candomble´ is rooted in African traditions, and developed through the agency of people of African descent both during and after slavery, people of all races and social classes participate in Candomble´. Further, in recent years it has become a potent symbol of Afro-Brazilian identity and resistance, as well as a symbol of Brazilian national identity. In a sense, the history of Candomble´ goes back to the beginnings of Brazil as a Portuguese colony. Almost from the start, African slaves played a crucial role in the economy, especially with the rapid demise of the native population. The Africans carried with them their own religious beliefs and practices, which were at odds with those of their Portuguese masters. As early as 1680, the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Brazil heard reports of animal sacrifices associated with funeral practices; a century later denunciations of decidedly non-Catholic rituals practiced by slaves

Historical Development Candomble´ is an Afro-Brazilian religion that is known for the beauty and energy of its rituals, its fidelity to African traditions, and the devotion of its followers. Candomble´ is centered around the African deities known in Brazil as orixa´s. (In the rest of Latin America, these are referred to as orishas; in this entry I will follow the Brazilian usage.) A recent study estimates there are approximately a million followers of Candomble´ and other Afro-Brazilian religions, but the actual number may be substantially higher, in that many adherents consider themselves to be Catholic, while countless others attend ceremonies but do not actively participate in rituals. Candomble´ churches, or terreiros, are found in most large cities throughout Brazil, but the religion is most strongly associated, both in history and in the popular imagination, with the 125

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were recorded (Verger 1992, 26). From the beginning, both church and state attempted—at times with brutal violence, even into the twentieth century—to suppress African religion. The degree of suppression varied widely from time to time, and from place to place, but the threat was never entirely absent. The survival of African religion in those times testifies to the courage and devotion of its practitioners, but there are historical and sociological factors to be considered as well. African religions survived in part because of the voracious appetite of the Brazilian economy for slave labor. There is always controversy regarding the numbers of slaves imported, but most estimates today are that somewhat over 3 million Africans were imported to Brazil, ending only in 1850. This meant that every year, tens of thousands of Africans arrived, their religion fresh in their minds and souls. Instead of dying out with the passing of time, traditions were continually renewed. Also, though we tend to think of plantations when we think of slavery, much of Brazilian slavery was urban. Africans and their descendants, slave and free (Brazilian owners not infrequently manumitted slaves—though often the slave actually had to purchase his or her freedom), were concentrated in large numbers in cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. This created an environment in which there were enough people available to carry out rituals, maintain religious specialists, and encourage the lively exchange of ideas and sentiment indispensable to religious vitality. Finally, and very importantly, Catholicism itself played an important role. Africans, slave or free, were allowed and even encouraged to

participate in their own irmandades, ‘‘brotherhoods,’’ ostensibly devoted to the worship of a saint or saints, but also concerned with mutual aid—providing for members’ funerals or purchasing a member’s freedom, for example. Beyond that, these brotherhoods provided a cover, and a framework, for the practice of African religion. As the brotherhoods often recruited members on the basis of their culture of origin (for example, Dahomey or Keˆto), this fostered AfroBrazilian religions remarkably faithful to African traditions. (See Bastide 1978 for a thorough discussion of these dynamics.) In or about 1830 (more than half a century before abolition in Brazil), in Salvador, three free members of such a brotherhood—actually, a sisterhood, the Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death of Barroquinha—founded the Iya´ Omi Ase Aira Intile´, a terreiro that continues to this day, though not in the same location, and is now known as Ile´ Nasso (after Iyanassoˆ, one of the three founders) or, more commonly, as the Casa Branca do Engenho Velho (The White House of the Old Mill). Iyanassoˆ, who may have been the first ma˜ e de santo (literally ‘‘mother of saint,’’ the colloquial term for a woman who leads a Candomble´ terreiro) is said to have visited the land of Keˆ to, in Africa, along with Marcelina-Obatossı´, who would be her successor. Upon Marcelina’s death, there was a dispute over who should succeed her, resulting in a schism. The losing faction opened a new terreiro, Gantois, in 1849, led by Maria Ju´lia da Conceic¸a˜o Nazare´ , whose great-granddaughter, Maria Escola´stica da Conceic¸a˜o Nazare´ (better known as Ma˜e Menininha), would lead Gantois from the 1920s until her death in 1986 and become among the

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ANINHA (EUGEˆNIA ANA DOS SANTOS) [1869–1938] Aninha was born Eugeˆnia Ana dos Santos on June 16, 1869. Her parents were Africans of the Grunci people, whose religious practices are related to those of Ketu ˆ ). Aninha was initiated at the relatively young age of 16 (in 1885) in the Casa (Nago ˆ Afonja´ in Branca do Engenho Velho (Ile´ Nasso). Aninha, who founded the Ile´ Axe´ Apo ˆ traditions in Candomble´ (portaldaco Hura 1910, was a guardian of the purity of Nago ˆ style of Candomble´ to Rio de Janeiro, where she negra). She spread her pure Nago founded a terreiro that continues to function. Aninha not only powerfully influenced the Candomble´ community from within, the profound impression she made on scholars, such as the ethnologists Edison Carneiro, Arthur Ramos, and the sociologist Donald Pierson through her appearance at the Second AfroBrazilian Conference in 1937 contributed immeasurably to the growing prestige of Candomble´ among intellectuals, artists, writers ˆ ’’ an and musicians that continues to this day. Aninha instituted the ‘‘Oba´s de Xango honorary society of powerful individuals who would support the terreiro in its dealings with the outside community. Eugeˆnia Ana dos Santos died on January 3, 1938.

most revered women in Brazilian history. In 1910, yet another terreiro, Axe´ Apoˆ Afonja´ , was founded by followers of Eugeˆnia Ana dos Santos (better known as Ma˜e Aninha), who, like Maria Ju´lia da Conceic¸a˜o Nazare´, left Engenho Velho following a dispute. (The preceding history is summarized from Carneiro 1954, 56–57, and Verger 1992, 28–31.) All three of these houses—Engenho Velho, Gantois, and Apoˆ Afonja´—not only continue to be active, but are internationally renowned. They also exercise tremendous influence on the thousands of Candomble´ terreiros in Brazil, directly because so many of their initiates have gone on to become Candomble´ leaders in Salvador and elsewhere, and indirectly through their position as prestigious models for the practice of Candomble´. Candomble´ continued to be the target of periodic repression by police and virulent criticism from Catholic authorities during the first decades of the twentieth century. This is no longer the case, for three major reasons. First, politicians found that by cultivating relationships

with terreiros, they could gain access to a mostly poor, Afro-Brazilian populace, otherwise marginalized from political participation. Second, the attitude of the Catholic Church changed with the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), which promoted much greater tolerance of other religious traditions, especially those associated with indigenous and formerly colonized people; indeed, the Church in many ways reached out to Candomble´ . Third, profound cultural and ideological shifts, including the rise of the Black consciousness movement, the work of writers such as Jorge Amado and musicians such as Gilberto Gil and Gaetano Veloso, and the attention of Brazilian and international scholars and intellectuals, all contributed to a profoundly positive reevaluation of Candomble´ as a symbol of Afro-Brazilian heritage and Brazilian national identity. In recent years, terreiros have become featured destinations for cultural tourism, promoted by state and private interests, and a number of terreiros have been declared sites of cultural and historical

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´ STICA DA CONCEIC¸A ˜ E MENININHA (MARIA ESCOLA ˜ O NAZARE´) MA [1894–1986] From 1922 until her death in 1986, Ma ˜ e Menininha was the ialorixa´ of the Terreiro of Gantois, which her great grandmother, Maria Ju´lia da Conceic¸a ˜ o Nazare´ , had founded in 1848 or 1849 following a dispute over who should succeed Marcelina Obatossı´, ialorixa´ of the Casa Branca of Engenho Velho (Verger 1992, 29). Like Aninha, Ma ˜ e Menininha was an effective diplomat for Candomble´, gaining the respect of civil authorities, Catholic leaders, and influential scholars. Over the years, Ma ˜ e Meni ninha became the public face of Candomble´, the popular image of the ma ˜ e de santo. Many of the most important figures in Brazilian popular culture, such as the great novelist Jorge Amado, and musicians such as Tom Jobim, Dorival Caymmi, Vinicius de Morais, ˆ nio Carlos Magalha and Gaetano Veloso, and powerful politicians such as Anto ˜ es were devoted followers and friends of Ma ˜ e Menininha. During her lifetime, Candomble´ moved from being stigmatized and marginalized, to assuming its present position as a respected and even revered part of Brazilian national culture. At the same time, Ma ˜e menininha and other Candomble´ leaders spoke out against the ‘‘folklorization’’ of Candomble´ and the exploitation of its symbols in tourism and Carnival performances.

significance by the state of Bahia (see Dantas 1988; Selka 2007; Prandi 1991 for discussions of the changing status of Candomble´). During the past 20 years, as well, Candomble´ has enjoyed increasing popularity, not only in its traditional strongholds in the Northeast, but even in areas, such as Sa˜o Paulo, where it had not been a major historical presence (Prandi 1991, 2004).

Beliefs and Practices Slaves were brought to Brazil from different regions of Africa, so it is not surprising that there are various forms of Candomble´ . These are referred to as ‘‘nations’’ and are named after the ancestral homeland. Major ones include Angola and Congo, from the Bantu regions; and Nagoˆ , Ketu, Ijexa´ , and Gegeˆ, from West Africa (Bastide 1978; Carneiro 1954, 1991). Differences between the West African traditions were largely superficial; the various deities are

called by different names due to the different languages; there are differences in songs, etc. Because of what the French sociologist Roger Bastide has called ‘‘Nagoˆ prestige’’—the ascendancy of the Yoruban traditions of Nagoˆ and Ketu (Engenho Velho, Gantois, and Opo Afonja´ are all in that line)—these West African traditions converged even more, so it is not misleading to describe Candomble´ in general by referring to the specifics of Nagoˆ ritual and belief, which I will do here. The Bantu traditions differ somewhat more, while in the Candomble´ de Caboclo the African deities are represented by Amerindian spirits. Nonetheless, the similarities outweigh the differences. (The following discussion draws on Augras 1983; Bastide 1978; Carneiro 1954 and 1991; Lima 2003; Moura 1981, 1982, and 1987; Nina Rodrigues 1935; Verger 1992; Wafer 1991.) Central to Candomble´ is the veneration of the orixa´ s, or African deities.

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Practitioners of Candomble´ sweep the steps of the Nosso Senhor de Bonfı´m in Salvador, Brazil. The ritual is part of the Festival of Iemanja and symbolizes the cleansing of the soul for a new spiritual year. (Stephanie Maze/Corbis)

(In Bantu traditions, these are referred to as inkices, and as voduns in Gegeˆ, but the broad concept is the same.) There is a supreme orixa´ , Olorun (Zambi in Angola; Zambiapongo in Congo), creator of the world. Olorun is not represented, not invoked; Olorun is distant, beyond the present affairs of humankind. Below Olorun is Oxala´, his son, creator of mankind and de facto supreme diety. In addition to Oxala´ , there is a pantheon of about a dozen orixa´ s (compared with hundreds in West Africa). Like the Greek, Roman, Hindu, and Norse deities, the orixa´s are imbedded in a rich mythology, in which they are portrayed in quasi-human form—they have personalities, they engage in adventures, rivalries, loves, and wars. They are associated with the forces of nature (and

are often called just that) and are culture heroes, inventing and patronizing key aspects of human social life. Xangoˆ, for example, brought law and justice to humankind; in nature, Xangoˆ is manifest in thunder. His sometimes lover, Iansa˜, is lightening, wind, and tempests; culturally, she is a warrior goddess, the archetype of the tempestuous, indomitable woman. She is also the psychopomp, the conductor of the souls of the dead in the afterlife. Other orixa´s include Oxum (fresh flowing waters, fertility, beauty, and luxury), Ogum (war, agriculture, ironworking), Oxossi (the forests, the hunter), Omolu (sickness, but especially smallpox, traditionally, and now HIV-AIDS; healing), Nana˜ (still waters, swamps; mother of Omolu and Oxumare´, old age), Oxumare´ (the rainbow, the

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serpent, always in motion; Oxumare´ is both male and female, spending six months of the year as each), the child twins known as the Ibejı´, Iemanja´ (the sea; a maternal goddess), Irokoˆ (his home is the sacred gameleiro branca tree; time), and Ossain (orixa´ of leaves, and the knowledge of their sacred and medicinal uses). And finally, there is Exu, a trickster, a being of enormous vitality, the messenger between humans and the orixa´s. In Brazil, the orixa´s came to be associated with particular Catholic saints, a practice that has recently generated considerable controversy. While it can be argued that in some cases there is a metaphorical logic linking a saint and an orixa´—for example, in Rio de Janeiro, Oxossi, the hunter and lord of the forest, is associated with Saint Sebastian, a martyr who is depicted tied to a tree and pierced with arrows, while Iansa˜ is everywhere associated with Saint Barbara, whose father, legend has it, was struck by lightening as he attempted to cut her head off for refusing to renounce her faith—the associations vary from region to region and often seem to be completely arbitrary. It is frequently said that the association, or syncretism,

arose during slave times, when AfroBrazilians were forbidden from freely practicing their religion. According to the story, slaves would set up altars, with images of the Catholic saints on top, in plain view. Underneath, hidden, were placed the assentamentos, the sacred objects in which the orixa´s reside. Ostensibly praying to the saints, the slaves were really worshipping the orixa´s. The story, apocryphal or not, suggests what many followers today explicitly state: orixa´s and saints have nothing to do with each other, and their association is a product of history, not spiritual truth. In recent years, there has been a movement by some Candomble´ leaders, most notably Ma˜ e Stella (Maria Stella de Azevedo Santos) of Ile´ Axe´ Apoˆ Afonja´, to purge Candomble´ of such syncretic practices (Prata 1983; Selka 2007, 76–79). The relationship between the orixa´s and followers of Candomble´ can be described as one of deep reciprocity, at both the communal and the personal levels. (The following discussion draws on Augras 1983; Bastide 1978; Carneiro 1954 and 1991; Lima 2003; Moura 1981, 1982, and 1987; Nina Rodrigues 1935; Verger 1992; Wafer 1991.) Every individual is said to be the

˜ E STELLA DE OXOSSI (MARIA STELLA DE AZEVEDO SANTOS) [1925–] MA ˆ Afonja ˆ . She was initiated in 1939, Ma ˜e Stella is currently the Ialorixa´ of Ile´ Axe´ Opo and assumed the leadership of the terreiro in 1976, following the death of Ma ˜ e Ondina. Ma ˜ e Stella is probably best known for her campaign against syncretism in Candomble´; her argument is that Catholicism and Candomble´ are separate religions, and that there is no basis to combine the two. She has spoken out against virulent attacks on Candom ble´ from Protestant Pentecostal ministers, which have grown more frequent in recent years. Ma ˜ e Stella came out against syncretism at the Second International Conference on the Traditions of the Orixa´s in 1983. At 82, Ma ˜ e Stella is modern and forward looking. She articulates an environmentalist consciousness implicit in Candomble´.

Candomblé ‘‘child’’ of a particular orixa´. The orixa´ gives life, protection, and sustenance; in return, the person who takes up Candomble´ has obligations to the orixa´ . These can include taking part in the annual celebration of the orixa´ (which occurs around the feast day of the Catholic saint associated with the orixa´ ), making appropriate offerings of sacred foods and observing food taboos, and, most demanding of all, becoming initiated as a ‘‘daughter’’ (or ‘‘son’’) of the ‘‘saint’’ in Candomble´. To be initiated is to take on a tremendous obligation. A iaoˆ—a woman who has undergone initiation, also called by the Portuguese phrase, filha de santo (‘‘daughter of saint’’)—serves the orixa´s in many ways, but perhaps the most important occurs during public rituals when the orixa´s are invited to descend and possess their daughters. That is to say, filhas de santo serve as the vehicles of the orixa´s, who dance and are otherwise manifested through their bodies. Initiation in itself involves considerable expense. The initiate must raise money for her orixa´ costume, as well as to purchase sacrificial animals and other items. Initiation practices vary and the process is not public, but the general outline is as follows. The ma˜ e de santo (also referred to by the Nagoˆ term, ‘‘ialorixa´’’) verifies the identity of the prospective initiate’s orixa´ s. This is crucial; to serve the wrong orixa´ would be to not serve the initiate’s real protector, with terrible consequences. The orixa´ determined, money raised, and costume sewn, the candidate is sequestered in the terreiro. Her (most initiates are women) regular clothing is taken away. In some terreiros, she is shaved completely; in others, just an area on the top of the head is shaved. She and her initiate colleagues

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(collectively known as a barco, ‘‘boat’’) will spend the next many days (according to the Brazilian scholar of Afro-Brazilian culture, Edison Carneiro, the period is 17 days, but this varies) isolated from the outside world. She sleeps with the group on mats laid out on the floor, maintaining silence and rising at dawn to bathe in cold water outdoors. Her time is taken up learning the beliefs, rituals, practices, and obligations, and otherwise preparing herself to become an instrument of the orixa´. When all is ready, the initiates emerge from their seclusion to a public celebration. They will be dressed in the costumes of their orixa´s (which cost the initiates considerable money); they will dance in the manner of the orixa´s, but most importantly, they will become the living vehicles through which the orixa´s become present to the community of believers. The social organization of Candomble´ is complex and hierarchical. (The following description is mainly based on Carneiro 1954, 103–123.) The unquestioned leader is the ma˜e de santo or the pai de santo (‘‘father of saint’’). To become a ma˜e de santo, at least seven years must have passed since her initiation as a iaoˆ. Either she must have been chosen as the successor to the previous ma˜e de santo or, as in the case of Gantois and Apoˆ Afonja´, she must start her own terreiro. While in Angola and Congo Candomble´ men are more likely to be the leaders, in Nagoˆ terreiros the leader will usually be a woman, a ma˜e de santo. Indeed, the anthropologist Ruth Landes, who did field research in Salvador in the 1940s, titled her monograph ‘‘The City of Women’’ and famously characterized Candomble´ as a matriarchy. Moral, spiritual, and executive authority resides in these women. Perhaps the most

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important duty of the ma˜e de santo is to initiate and supervise the filhas de santos, because it is through them that the orixa´s are celebrated and it is from among the filhas de santos that future leaders emerge to carry on the tradition. Assisting the ma˜e de santo is the ma˜e pequena, the ‘‘little mother.’’ She takes considerable responsibility for the dayto-day administration of the terreiro and directly supervises the filhas de santos and sees to the myriad details of ritual. She will usually be the successor to the ma˜e de santo, but in most terreiros this must be confirmed through divination. Of high prestige is the axogun, the sacrificer, sometimes called the ma˜o de faca, ‘‘knife hand.’’ His office is limited to carrying out the blood sacrifices to Exu and the Orixa´s. The sacrificial technique varies from species to species, and it is essential that it be done correctly. Another office of high prestige, limited to males, is that of oga˜. There are two kinds of oga˜. There are the oga˜s de atabaque, who play the sacred drums that call the Orixa´s, and the oga˜s honorı´ficos, the honorary oga˜s, men who have distinguished themselves through service to the terreiro. These can include wealthy patrons, politicians, and other public figures. Oga˜s honorı´ficos, in general, can be seen as a crucial, protective connection between the terreiro and the outside world. Lower on the hierarchy are the initiates, who treat both kinds of oga˜s with considerable respect and deference. There are two ranks. The ebomin are those who have been initiated for at least seven years. Until then, the filhas de santos occupy the rank of iaoˆ. Assisting the ebomin and iaoˆs are the ekedi. Like the iaoˆs and ebomin, an ekedi is consecrated to her orixa´, but the orixa´

does not descend and possess her. She instead serves by seeing to initiates’ costumes, arranging the altars, and attending to the details of ritual. Candomble´ terreiros periodically hold public rituals in celebration of the orixa´s. These are often referred to as festas (festivals), a word that well captures their energetic, communal, and celebratory dimensions. The festa is an event that renews and energizes the relationship of the terreiro with the orixa´s; it places the prestige and religious virtuosity of the terreiro on public display; and it constitutes a deeply moving and joyous encounter with the sacred (Bastide 1978; Carneiro 1954). A festa involves weeks or even months of planning and preparation, as well as substantial expenditures of human energy and economic resources. Festas are often held on a Saturday night coinciding with the feast day of the Catholic saint traditionally associated with particular orixa´s—for example, the first or second Saturday of December falls close to the feast days for Santa Barbara (Iansa˜ ) and Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (Oxum, in Rio de Janeiro and most Bahian terreiros). Fixing the date and details also involves divination. Various methods are employed to consult with Ifa´, the orixa´ of destiny and divination, most wellknown, perhaps, being the dilogun in which 16 cowry shells are cast repeatedly; the patterns in which they land are interpreted as a message from Ifa´. On the morning of the festa, in a ceremony closed to the public and all but the senior members of the terreiro, the matanc¸a, or sacrifice, is carried out. Different species of fowl and four-legged animals are specific to each of the various orixa´s. For example, Xangoˆ might

Candomblé be honored with a sheep and roosters, while a goat and roosters would be appropriate for Ogum. The sacrifices are carried out by the axogun, generally by cutting the animals’ throats. The blood is seen as a form of axe´ , the sacred energy on which life and spirit depend; shedding it gives energy to the ritual and to the terreiro and is a kind of reciprocity toward the orixa´s. The sacrifices are carried out with great respect, and death occurs quickly. The flesh of the animals is prepared in special dishes for the orixa´ s, who partake of the spiritual essence of the food, which at the end of the festa may be served to the participants and guests. Before the festa can go forward, an offering must be made to Exu, the intermediary between humankind and the orixa´ s. A sacrifice will have been made to Exu in the morning, but later in the evening, before the public arrives, another offering is made, called the padeˆ. A container of water and a clay bowl full of manioc flour and red palm oil is placed on the ground, above the spot where the sacred items said to be the ‘‘root’’ of the terreiro were planted. Hymns are sung asking that Exu provide protection and that he conduct the offerings and invitations to the Orixa´s. The offering is carried outside to the gate or to a crossroads. The public ritual begins in the evening. The public, seated on benches, watches and listens as the oga˜s de atabaque drum, and the filhas de santo dance in a circle. The three drums—rum, rumpi, and le´, from largest to smallest— are sacred and are themselves periodically honored and energized with the axe´ of sacrifice. To each orixa´ correspond a number of distinctive rhythms, or toques, which are used to summon them, and distinctive dances, suggestive

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of the mythology and character of the orixa´. There are also a number of hymns for each; in Nagoˆ terreiros, these are more likely to be in Yoruba, while in Angola or Congo Candomble´ , Portuguese is more common. These are sung in concert with the toques. Each orixa´ is in turn saluted with (usually) three toques. The exact order varies, but always begins with Exu and ends with oxala´ . As the toques for an orixa´ are played, those filhas de santo that are its children are likely to go into trance and become possessed as they dance. They are led away by ekedis, who assist them in changing into the costumes of the orixa´ s, after which they return to dance as the embodiments of the deities. There is enormous energy in the dancing, the music, the costumes, but it is all carefully controlled and channeled by the ma˜ e de santo, the ma˜ e pequena, and the sure hands of the drummers. After having summoned and celebrated each orixa´ in turn, the drummers play toques to send each away. When all have gone, the ma˜e de santo closes the ceremony. At some terreiros, this is followed by a meal, consisting of the ‘‘leftovers’’ of the dishes made for the orixa´s, served on big broad leaves, with ice cold beer, as the roosters began to crow in the hour before dawn. Lindsay Hale

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Augras, Monica. O Duplo e a Metamorfose: A Identidade Mıˆtica em Communidades Nagoˆ (Petro´polis, RJ, Brazil: Editora Vozes, Ltda., 1983). Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Inter penetration of Civilizations, trans. Helen Sebba (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).

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Blog metropolitano, Iya Stella. http:// blogmetropolitano.blogspot.com/2006/03/ iya stella.html. Carneiro, Edison. Candomble´s da Bahia (Rio de Janeiro: Editorial Andes, 1954). Carneiro, Edison. Religio˜es Negras e Negros Bantos (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizac¸a˜o Brasileira, 1991). Dantas, Beatriz Go´is. Vovo´ Nagoˆ e Papai Branco: Usos e Abusos da A´frica no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Edic¸o˜es Graal, Ltda., 1988). Jornal da Bahia. ‘‘Candomble´says no to Syncretism,’’ July 29, 1983. Available in English translation: http://74.125.47.132/ search?q=cache:CPVQt4 VX gJ: ifeaxejewelry.com/jornal%2520da% 2520bahia%2520 %2520candomble% 2520says%2520no%2520to%2520 syncretism.pdf+%22m%C3%A3e+stella %22&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Landes, Ruth. The City of Women (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947). Lima, Vivaldo da Costa. A Famı´lia de Santo nos Candomble´s Jejes Nagoˆs da Bahia (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil: Corrupio, 2003). Lima, Vivaldo da Costa. ‘‘O candomble´ da Bahia na de´cada de 1930.’’ Estudos Avan c¸ados 18, no. 52 (2004): 201 221. http:// www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci arttext&pid=S0103 40142004000300014. Matory, James Lorand. Black Atlantic Reli gion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afrobrazilian Candomble´ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). Moura, Carlos Eugeˆnio Marcondes de, ed. Escritos sobre as Religio˜es dos Orixa´s (Sa˜o Paulo: Agora, 1981). Moura, Carlos Eugeˆnio Marcondes de, ed. Bandeira de Alaira: Outros Escritos sobre as Religio˜es dos Orixa´s (Sa˜o Paulo: Noble, 1982). Moura, Carlos Eugeˆnio Marcondes de, ed. Candomble´, Desvendando Identidades: Novos Escritos sobre as Religio˜es dos Orixa´s (Sa˜o Paulo: EMW Editores, 1987).

Nina Rodrigues, Raimundo. O Animiso Fetichista dos Negros Bahianos (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizac¸a˜o Brasileira, 1935). Portadeculturnegra. (n.d.) http://portal daculturanegra.wordpress.com/2008/11/ 26/mae aninha ialorixa do ile axe opo afonja Prandi, J. Reginaldo. Os Candomble´s de Sa˜o Paulo: A Velha magia na metropole Nova (Sa˜o Paulo: Editora Huicitec; Editora da Universidade de Sa˜o Paulo, 1991). Prandi, J. Reginaldo. ‘‘O Brasil com Axe´: Candomble´ e Umbanda no Mercado Religiosa.’’ Estudos Avanc¸ados 18, no. 52 (2004). http://209.85.165.104/search?q =cache:A4yEWL681d8J:www.scielo.br/ pdf/ea/v18n52/a15v1852.pdf+umbanda +candombl%C3%A9+%22reginaldo +prandi%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7 &gl=us. Prata, Vander. ‘‘Iyalorixa´s assumen a crenc¸a como religia˜o independente da Cato´lica.’’ Salvador, Bahia, Brazil: Jornal da Bahia, July 29, 1983. Santos, Maria Stella de Azevedo. Interview by Max, Cle´cio. Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, May 2, 2007. Selka, Stephen. Religion and the Politics of Ethnic Identity in Bahia Brazil (Gaines ville: The University of Florida Press, 2007). Uniafro. ‘‘Ma˜e Menininha de Gantois.’’ http://www.uniafro.com.br/biografia mae menininha.htm. Vensencher, Semira Adler. Ma˜e Stella de Oxossi. Fundac¸a˜o Getu´lio Vargas. 2008. http://www.fundaj.gov.br/notitia/servlet/ newstorm.ns.presentation.Navigation Servlet?publicationCode=16&pageCode =309&textCode=11744&date=current Date. Verger, Pierre Fatumbi. Orixa´s: Deuses Ioru ba´s na A´frica e no Novo Mundo (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil: Corrupios Edic¸o˜es, 1992). Wafer, Jim. The Taste of Blood: Spirit Posses sion in Brazilian Candomble´ (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991).

Catimbó

CATIMBÓ Historical Development Catimbo´ is a religious and healing tradition of Amerindian origin found mainly in Northern Brazil. In addition to Amerindian traditions, Catimbo´ also draws on Catholicism and European traditions of witchcraft and magic. While many participants are Afro-Brazilian, Catimbo´ borrows relatively little from Afro-Brazilian religion and is quite distinct in terms of ritual, theology, and social organization. On the other hand, some symbols from Catimbo´ have found their way into Afro-Brazilian religion, especially Umbanda, where one finds frequent usage of the word jurema, a tree whose bark and roots are used in Catimbo´ to brew a psychotropic tea1 that facilitates visions of the seven (in some versions, five) enchanted kingdoms. The Catimbo´ religious specialist is often called mestre (‘‘master’’ or ‘‘maestro’’). The main function of the master is to serve as the vehicle whereby various spirits (also called mestres) from the enchanted realms appear to heal and in other ways help those who attend Catimbo´ rituals. (To avoid confusion, in this article the religious specialist will be referred to as ‘‘master’’ and the spiritual entities ‘‘mestres.’’) The master learns his craft through apprenticeship; proof of his qualifications comes not only through his performance but also from the presence of a small, soft cyst, often on the hand, that is said to be the seed of the jurema tree, granted him by a mestre. Although

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Catimbo´ draws on Catholic imagery, it is not a moralistic religion; mestres can be called on to do good or evil (Cascudo 1979, 1988).

Beliefs and Practices Ritual is relatively simple and informal. In contrast to Afro-Brazilian religions, with their numerous initiates or mediums, the master works more or less alone. As described by Cascudo (1988), ceremonies take place in a simple room, the main feature of which is a table that serves as an altar. On it are arranged statues of Catholic saints, bottles of cachac¸a,2 cigars, candles, a large metal key to ‘‘unlock the door’’ for the mestres to arrive, a maraca that the master uses to accompany his singing, a white ceramic bowl called the princesa (‘‘princess’’), used in the preparation of the jurema, and a pipe. The pipe, or cachimbo (the word from which Catimbo´ derives its name), and tobacco, play a central role in ritual. At the opening of the session, the master blows smoke from his pipe over the altar and around the room. Some masters achieve an altered state of consciousness by drawing deeply on the pipe and swallowing the smoke, and smoke is blown over injured or diseased bodies as a medicine; both practices are rooted in Amerindian tradition. As the ritual unfolds, the audience drinks cachac¸ a and smokes, but refrains from talking. The master begins with a hymn declaring the session open, followed by another asking the permission of the mestres to work ‘‘with the power of Jesus Christ,’’

1 The psychotropic tea is not used in Umbanda, but ‘‘Jurema’’ is a frequent name for spirits of caboclas, that is, spirits of Amerindian women. 2 Cachac¸a, distilled from sugarcane, is approximately 80 proof.

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and then another invoking several Catholic saints, as candles are lit in their honor. The master ‘‘opens the [invisible] door’’ with the key and then receives a series of mestres, each announcing his or her presence through a song, often accompanied by the maraca from the altar. The songs are simple and usually short—several lines of verse—but vivid, evoking images of the forests, the ocean, animals, tropical birds, villages, and cities of the enchanted kingdoms, along with the characteristics of the mestres. The mestres represent a diverse panoply of spiritual beings. There are Indians, AfroBrazilian slaves, cowboys, princesses, caboclos, and even Orixa´ s from the Afro-Brazilian Candomble´ (see ‘‘Candomble´ ,’’ in this volume), and many other varieties of mestres. The various mestres specialize in curing particular illnesses and dealing with particular kinds of problems. As each appears, he or she tends to those thus afflicted, giving advice, blowing smoke, and prescribing any number of herbs, teas, and other remedies. This can go on for hours. The work of the mestres finally done, the session draws to an end. There may be drinking of the jurema, or not3; in any case, the master sings a hymn declaring the session closed, and, taking up his key once again, closes and locks the door to the enchanted realms (Cascudo 1988; Bastide 1978 gives a somewhat different description of ritual). While Catimbo´ is not an AfroBrazilian religion in the sense of having significant roots in African traditions, historically it has played an important role in the lives of many Afro-Brazilians

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in the northern regions of Brazil, and many of its masters and mestres share an Afro-Brazilian identity. Lindsay Hale

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations, trans. Helen Sebba (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). Cascudo, Luis da Camara. Diciona´rio do Folclore Brasileiro (Sa˜o Paulo: Edico˜es Melhoramentos, 1979). Cascudo, Luis da Camara. ‘‘Notas sobre o catimbo´.’’ Novos Estudos Afro brasileiros, ed. Gilberto Freyre et al. (Recife: Editora Massangana, 1988). Gates, Louis Henry, and Kwame Anthony Appiah, eds. ‘‘Religions, African, in Brazil.’’ Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), 1605 1606.

CHRISTIAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH Historical Development Originally established as the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME) is a historically African American denomination founded in Jackson, Tennessee, on December 16, 1870. Its polity and doctrines follow the pattern of other

Bastide reports this from his observations in Paraı´ba; Camara Cascudo, reporting from Natal, does not.

Christian Methodist Episcopal Church organizations within the Methodist traditions. Initiated by black people during Reconstruction, the denomination came into being through the efforts of members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS). The black leaders of this effort were former slaves, and many of the whites who joined with them were former slave owners. Other white participants had defended the rights of their church peers to own slaves. Today, churches in the denomination are spread throughout the United States, as well as in the Caribbean and Africa. Historically, African Americans have practiced Methodism through four denominations: the United Methodist Church (UMC), the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church, and the Colored or Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church. The first of these, the UMC, is the current iteration of the spiritual renewal movement within the Anglican Church transported to America from England in the eighteenth century. It is a predominantly white organization with congregations of various ethnic groups among its churches in the United States. The AME Church and the AMEZ Church were formed out of a predecessor denomination of the UMC, the Methodist Episcopal Church. These two Methodist bodies were formed from protests against second-class treatment, such as separate and unequal seating, in antebellum northern congregations in Philadelphia and New York. Black congregants left these fellowships and formed their own autonomous religious groups. Finally, the formation of the CME Church came through a concerted, cooperative, social, and political effort between the MECS and the members of

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the nascent CME Church. The MECS had been established in 1844 from Methodist congregations located in the southern United States. These congregations had split from the American derivative of John Wesley’s religious movement within the Church of England, which was known as Methodism. Methodism had been organized in America at the popularly named Christmas Conference of 1784. The MECS had become a denomination that formed in dispute with its northern sister churches over the matter of conference delegate privileges for slavery owners. CME historians are intentional in noting the distinction that the Colored Methodists were ‘‘set up’’ by the MECS and not ‘‘set off.’’ For them, this meant that the white Methodists were not attempting to get rid of them but rather were extending to them the opportunity for a limited autonomy, while still maintaining its relationship to the governing body or General Conference. This distinction also implied that the move toward independence had the full support of the MECS, including the property and financial and political resources to make the denomination a lasting reality. This was also important for the CMEs, who wanted to emphasize their relationship to white Methodists whose religious roots were linked to Methodist founder, John Wesley. Accordingly, they never seceded from the Methodist Episcopal Church, unlike their African Methodist rivals. The CME made many gestures to its white Methodist antecedent in its founding, one of which was to codify in its General Conference a prohibition against using churches and church property for political purposes. Before the end of the Civil War, the MECS had as many as 207,000 black

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members, the majority of whom had been added to the membership rolls through mission outreach to the slaves. Slave owners often allowed—or even requested—missionaries to preach and teach the Christian message to their slaves with the expectation that the slaves would learn a message that would cause them to become more docile and more productive. In short, the belief was that Christian preaching would serve to make African Americans better slaves. By the end of the Civil War, congregations of the MECS reported that as few as 78,000 black members had retained their membership throughout the war and after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Regular church membership for many congregants, black and white, became difficult, if not impossible, due to the general disruption of daily life during war time. Furthermore, through the missionary efforts of northern Methodists from black and white denominations, large numbers of black people affiliated themselves with other churches in

response to the new sense of choice that emancipation from slavery offered them. The 1866 MECS-wide national meeting, also known as the General Conference, was the first postwar opportunity for denominational leaders to discuss the matter of the ‘‘colored’’ people who remained members. As they had before the war, white leadership played a role in developing plans for the religious concerns of the black people among them. By the 1870 MECS General Conference, 26 black preachers from six geographic districts had been reportedly ordained and available for placement to the pastorates in black congregations and movement through the Methodist system of pastoral itinerant appointment. In December of that year, an organizing conference in the movement toward a black Methodist body settled on the name ‘‘Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America.’’ The nomenclature ‘‘in America’’ was distinct from its parent group, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The new

WILLIAM H. MILES (1828–1892) William H. Miles was born a slave in Kentucky in 1828. As an adult, he confessed his belief in Jesus Christ and was admitted to membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Later he was licensed as a local preacher and two years after that, in 1859, he was ordained by Bishop James Osgood Andrew. Miles moved to Ohio with his family, and he transferred with the approval of the Methodist Episcopal Church South (MECS) to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ). Miles returned to Kentucky and remained with the AMEZ Church after having been appointed to a pastorate. In 1868, Miles resigned his post and joined a colored conference that had been organized. Miles is credited with being the senior bishop of the church for 20 years. During his tenure, the new church grew to record 118,000 adult members. Miles’s goal was to create a church as independent as possible from excessive control by former slave owners in the MECS as well as the northern Methodists who included the independent African Methodist churches. This desire for independence may be the reason for Miles’s failed attempt to open the first CME (Colored Methodist Episcopal, later the Christian Methodist Episcopal) school without funding support from the MECS. Miles died in Louisville in 1892.

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RICHARD H. VANDERHORST (1813–1872) Richard H. Vanderhorst was elected bishop in 1870, along with William H. Miles. He was considered the more impressive of the two original bishops in terms of his physi cal presence and his oratorical abilities. Born in Georgetown, South Carolina, on December 15, 1813, his surname reflects the Vanderhorst clan who owned him and his family as slaves. Vanderhorst was industrious as a carpenter, and by the beginning of the Civil War, he had earned and saved enough money from his trade to purchase his own freedom. A former member of the AME Church, he had been introduced to the MECS by Betsy and Judith Wragg, two young women who owned him until his late teens. His Sunday duties included carrying the hymn books and Bibles of his young own ers and taking his place on the slave bench at their side during the worship services. In addition, Samson Dunmore, a black carpenter who trained Vanderhorst, was a class leader and exhorter in the MECS. Vanderhorst, like Miles, was a key leader in the Organizing General Conference. Vanderhorst’s legacy was curtailed due to the limited time he served as bishop. He died of pneumonia in July 1872.

organization later showed its interest in becoming a church body beyond the United States and dropped the ‘‘in America’’ in 1930, having moved into the western and northern United States. Furthermore, when the ex-slave organizers met in 1870 to transition to a separate Methodist organization, ‘‘colored’’ was the prevailing term used in America to refer to people of African descent. By 1954, CMEs were ready to discuss the elimination of the racial designation from their official name. In all likelihood, discussions of integration had become widespread in national black agendas. That year, the denomination adopted a resolution that embraced ‘‘inclusiveness in membership’’ and changed the name to ‘‘Christian’’ from ‘‘Colored. At their official founding in 1870, the CME Church conferences were concentrated in the southern United States, primarily in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, with unofficial and semiorganized delegations in East Texas, Arkansas, and South

Carolina. Likewise, the first two elected bishops were from two states with larger constituencies—William Henry Miles, born and formerly enslaved in Kentucky, and Richard H. Vanderhorst, an ex-slave of South Carolina and Georgia. Miles and Vanderhorst had been influential African Americans in the MECS, and, in addition, they may have been elected bishops because of their prior affiliation with the African Methodist churches. This was strategic, since confrontation between the CME churches and AME churches was inevitable. Therefore, the CME leadership believed that these men would be the most capable men to manage such issues. Finally, because these men represented large southern Kentucky and Georgia contingencies, the leadership believed them to be in a position to expand north into predominantly white areas and south into areas dominated by other black Methodists. The CME development was swift and steady. In the first 20 years of its independence, for instance, the CME Church tripled its membership and added three

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LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY (1842–1920) Lucius Henry Holsey was born in 1842 near Columbus, Georgia. His slave mother was the daughter of a ‘‘pure’’ African. His father, James Holsey, was also his owner. Lucius Holsey had an unusually close relationship with Bishop George Pierce of the MECS. Pierce performed the wedding ceremony between Holsey and one of Pierce’s slaves, and he was the church official who granted Holsey a license to preach and subsequently ordained him and assigned him to his first pastorate. He was elected a bishop of the CME Church in 1873. Among his many activities, Holsey made an appeal to the General Conference of the MECS, in 1882, requesting funds for the education of colored youth and preachers. The MECS Conference responded by establishing an Education Commission, members of which had previously worked on issues of interests to African Americans. When Holsey, Bishops William Miles, Isaac Lane, and Joseph Beebe met with the Commission in August 1882, their work led to the founding of Paine Institute in Augusta, Georgia. Holsey is credited with having had a vision for a CME educational system for primary through college. He served as the Secretary of the College of Bishops for 40 years. Holsey died in 1920.

bishops—Joseph A. Beebe, Lucius H. Holsey, and Isaac Lane, for whom Lane College in Jackson, Mississippi, was named. As a church organized in the Reconstruction Era, the CME Church wanted to exercise their newfound freedom in a variety of ways. The establishment of a self-governed ecclesial body was important as was their setting an agenda for the uplift of the African American people. A vital strategy for such improvement of the lives of emancipated former slaves was development of educational opportunities—something that had been legally denied to most of them prior to Emancipation. To address the literacy needs of black communities and to train preachers, the CME Church made education a primary thrust of their denominational work. Nearly from its beginning, church leaders began raising funds to begin a school to educate its ministers and laity. The 1874 General Conference approved one to be opened in Louisville, Kentucky. It was to be a ‘‘Central University.’’ Bishop William

Miles was the primary fundraiser. By 1876, the effort was defeated—no students had been enrolled. This attempt was a failure due to insufficient funding. In 1882, Bishop Lucius Holsey, who envisioned an entire CME school system, from primary grades to college, made an appearance at the MECS General Conference. He felt strongly that whites had a moral obligation to their former slaves and that education was the key to fulfilling that obligation. The MECS named representatives to help the CMEs start a college. Shortly afterward, Holsey and the other CME bishops met with MECS representatives in Atlanta. They determined to open the first MECSsupported school in Augusta, Georgia. The subsequent school was named Paine Institute after Dr. Uriah Paine, who gave $25,000 to the effort. From its inception, Paine was touted as the flagship college of the CME educational endeavors. It survived, in large part, due to ongoing MECS financial support. Another factor in Paine’s ability to

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ISAAC LANE (1834–1936) Born near Jackson, Tennessee, on March 3 or 4, 1834, Isaac Lane was elected the fifth bishop of the CME Church. Lane was 20 years of age when he was converted to the Chris tian religion, and he was licensed to preach in the same year. Prior to this, he had been ordained a deacon by Bishop Robert Paine in 1866 and ordained an elder the following year. He has the distinction of being the first ‘‘Presiding Elder’’ of what was to become the CME Church, when in 1867 he was appointed to that position over the Jackson District of the Memphis Colored Conference. Lane was responsible for the first expansion of the church in the northern United States, and he was the moving force behind the founding and maintenance of Lane College, which continues to exist as a historically black college. When the school became a college, Bishop Lane chose a white minister, Thomas F. Saunders, to serve as its first president. In 1907, Lane’s son, James Franklin Lane, who had completed his PhD, became president of the college. A World War II Merchant Marine Victory ship was named the USS Lane in honor of his commitment to education. Lane died in 1936.

flourish as a school was the 1968 reconciliation of several Methodist traditions into the United Methodist Church. Paine continued to receive financial support from that body. The cooperative nature of the work that helped to establish the institution became known as the ‘‘Paine College Ideal’’ or the ‘‘Paine Principle,’’ a model for progress through interracial partnership. In 2007,

the CME Church claimed a total of five surviving institutions: Paine College, Miles College, Texas College, Lane College and its seminary, and Phillips School of Theology of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to the work across the United States, the denomination currently maintains missions and churches in Haiti, Jamaica, Nigeria, and Liberia.

CHARLES HENRY PHILLIPS (1858–1951) Born in 1858 in Georgia, Charles Henry Phillips later took courses at Atlanta University before being turned away from the school. Phillips enrolled at Central Tennessee College in Nashville, earning a bachelor’s degree. In 1882, he earned a medical degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville. Phillips converted to Christianity in 1874, and he was ordained an elder in 1883. After some time as an educator, he was appointed to sev eral pastorates, and he served congregations in Washington, D.C., Kentucky, and Georgia before becoming a presiding elder. Before becoming a bishop, Phillips served for eight years as editor of the denomination’s official publication, The Christian Index, and he was a bishop of the church for 44 years from 1902 to 1946. Bishop Phillips wrote the first defini tive history of the CME Church, published as The History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America in 1925. Because he was an educated man and scholar, Phillips School of Theology, the denomination’s seminary in Atlanta, Georgia, is named in his honor.

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Beliefs and Practices Members of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church ascribe to doctrines as set out by John Wesley in his sermons and treatises. These are interpreted in the Articles of Religion. Members believe in a supreme God, who created the world including human beings. This God is spoken of in the masculine and ‘‘he’’ has three manifestations known as the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These are three persons, but they are one being. Humans are believed to have been born defiant against God. Accordingly, God the Father rejects humans in this natural state. For this reason, the son is believed to have offered himself in sacrifice to the father as a substitutionary atonement for their salvation. He is said to have done so in order to ‘‘redeem’’ humans so that they can be in relationship with God and live forever in a life after death, in a world that God inhabits. So, according to members, each human who accepts that the son has acted sacrificially can be restored in relationship to God. In Wesleyan theology, this sacrifice becomes efficacious once one accepts it. It exists before such acceptance—humans do not need to seek it or perform particular deeds—only to evidence acceptance of it by confessing a belief in their own sinfulness and in the restoring act of Jesus, the Son. Finally, the Spirit of God is said to be everpresent, communicating between the father and the son as well as communicating the will of the father to human beings. At the point that a person accepts the son, he or she has attained ‘‘salvation.’’ In other words, one has established a reconciled relationship with God and will

have an eternal afterlife. Furthermore, members believe this act of salvation means that humans are literally changed so that their nature will now be more like God’s, that is, more apt to agree with the tenets of the Christian faith and to live a life of holiness. Children or infants of Methodist families, on the other hand, pose some special circumstances. Generally, a child born into a family that practices Methodism will normally be baptized, that is, ritually immersed in or sprinkled by water, during infancy. As the child matures, the child will be taught the matters of the faith then enter a class to specifically teach Methodism and the tenets of the Christian faith. At the end of the time of the class, the child—usually a teenager—will have an opportunity to acknowledge verbally his or her belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God. The CME Church is a system of congregations linked together by a series of local, regional, and church-wide meetings on a quarterly, annual, and quadrennial schedule each known by the name of ‘‘Conference.’’ A pastor and the local governing body are the officials of each local congregation. These representatives establish the regular times—generally at least one Sunday per month—for the worship ritual. This ‘‘worship service’’ is a gathering of all members of the congregation who choose to come. Members may also invite guests. The service includes prayers for the sick and grieving or otherwise troubled members of the congregation, as well as collection of any financial offerings that support the church and the General Conference. Services also include singing of songs to instruct or retell hearers the tenets of the faith, to encourage doubters and the discouraged, to highlight the faith of the

Christian Methodist Episcopal Church community, and to adore, revere, and worship the Deity. The pastor or another speaker delivers a sermon or lesson with a similar theme often in a rhetorical fashion. Members of the audience who are not professed believers of the faith or who do not regularly worship with that congregation are usually invited to become confessors or to unite with the local body. The ritual known as Communion or the Lord’s Supper is a reenactment of the final meal that Jesus Christ shared with a group of his followers, known as ‘‘the Twelve’’ or ‘‘the disciples,’’ before his death by crucifixion. The ritual includes broken pieces of ‘‘bread’’ or a bread substitute (such as crackers or wafers) and ‘‘wine’’ or a wine substitute, sometimes grape juice. Members also maintain that a Christian can reach perfection, in the sense that one can attain a sinless lifestyle. The CME Church also promulgates what they call a Social Creed, meant as a public statement of the relevance of their belief to human conditions of existence including the physical, intellectual, and social needs of human beings. The Social Creed asserts that all human beings are part of the human family and as such all represent the creation of God. The Creed addresses crime, war, military service, unemployment, human rights, poverty, gambling, sex, and health. The church locates this commitment to social concerns in the life of Jesus, in which, they maintain, can be seen a focus on the everyday needs of communities and individuals. Furthermore, members locate authority for such social practice in their own history, and they point to their own bishops, laity, and leaders as evidence of a CME heritage of social and racial justice. They

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believe that whatever is in the interest of human beings and their well-being should also be in the interest of the Church. Finally, they assert that the Social Creed is just as significant as a religious statement of concern, and any other official theological statements and creeds. Stephen C. Finley and Terri Laws

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Gilmore, Marshall. The Larger Catechism: A Catechism for Members of the C.M.E. Church (Nashville: The CME Publishing House, 1995). Keller, Rosemary Skinner, and Rosemary Radford Ruether, eds. Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006). Lakey, Othal Hawthorne. The History of the CME Church, rev. ed. (Memphis: The CME Publishing House, 1996). Melton, Gordon J. A Will to Choose: The Origins of African American Methodism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2007). Phillips, Charles H. The History of the Col ored Methodist Episcopal Church in America: Comprising Its Organization, Subsequent Development and Present Status, 3rd ed. (Jackson, TN: Publishing House of the C.M.E. Church, 1925). Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. History of the Organiza tion of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South with the Journal of its First General Conference (Nashville: Publishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1925). Richardson, Harry V. Dark Salvation: The Story of Methodism as It Developed Among Blacks in America. C. Eric Lincoln Series on Black Religion (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976).

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Sommerville, Raymond R. An Ex Colored Church: Social Activism in the CME Church, 1870 1970 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004). Tribble, Jeffery L. Transformative Pastoral Leadership in the Black Church. Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice Series, eds. Dwight N. Hopkins and Linda Thomas (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Whelchel, Love Henry, Jr. Hell without Fire: Conversion in Slave Religion (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002).

CHURCH OF CHRIST HOLINESS USA Historical Development The Church of Christ Holiness USA (COCHUSA) represents an ecclesiastical body whose historical birth and maturation results from both rifts and alliances along theological and doctrinal lines. The presence of concurring schisms within

Baptist and Methodist denominations and the development of new ecclesiastical alliances around ‘‘fresh’’ theological sensibilities created an ideal environment for the genesis of COCHUSA. COCHUSA was not formally incorporated until 1907; however, its foundation extends back to the last decade of the nineteenth century. In 1894, Charles Price Jones, while serving as pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama, maintained that he experienced a personal encounter with the presence of God. Jones utilized these revelations of truth concerning the Trinity, especially with regard to the Holy Spirit, to formulate a holiness doctrine. Personal/social empowerment concerning both sin and physical illnesses through the process of sanctification was the primary tenet of this new truth revealed to Jones. After one year of pastoring in Alabama, Jones relocated to Jackson, Mississippi, where he began sharing these teachings with the congregation of Mt. Helm Baptist Church.

CHARLES PRICE JONES (1865–1949) Charles Price Jones was born on December 9, 1865, in the northwestern portion of Georgia where the Weiss Lake and Oostanaula River converge. He moved to Arkansas in 1882 due to his mother’s death. In Arkansas Jones converted to Christianity, which led to his ordination in 1887. In 1891 he graduated from Arkansas Baptist College. Although Jones served as a pastor in Arkansas, Alabama, and California, Mt. Helm Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, would serve as the fertile ground in which Jones planted holiness doctrine. It is here that he taught Christ centered theology, specifically stressing the importance of the Holy Spirit in the role of sanctification and personal/ social empowerment. This notion led Jones beyond the walls of Mt. Helm to co establish the Church of God and Christ and establish, after 1907, the Church of Christ Holiness USA in which he served as Senior Bishop until his death in 1949. Jones’s theo logical perspectives concerning holiness can be attested to in the periodical entitled, Truth; within both of his primary works, The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Churches and An Appeal to the Sons of Africa; and lastly, in the over 1000 hymns he wrote and arranged.

Church of Christ Holiness USA | 145 The doctrine of holiness grew like a wildfire cutting across denominational and geographical boundaries. In response to this growth, Jones sent out a call to all ministers and laypersons who were interested in the promotion of holiness doctrine. The first holiness convocation occurred at Mt. Helm Baptist Church in 1897. Not only did this event serve as the first official attempt to nationally identify and organize various ecclesiastical bodies—many with established Baptist and Methodist denominational ties—but it also brought to the forefront of the movement other important figures like Charles Harrison Mason and J. E. Jeter who would participate in the spread of the holiness doctrine. Since most of these pastors, specifically Jones and Mason, were clergy within the Baptist denomination, their promotion of holiness doctrine was deemed unacceptable. In 1899, various Baptist Associations, in Jones’s case the Jackson Baptist Association, began the process of expelling clergy who taught the holiness doctrine within churches that were Baptist. Despite their expulsion from the Baptist denomination, Mason in 1899 and Jones in 1902 established nondenominational churches that solely promoted holiness doctrine. Christ Temple Church, built in 1903 under the leadership of Jones, served as the official meeting place for the annual holiness convocation that attracted churches from across the United States. This site also contained a printing shop that produced doctrinal material, hymnals, and the group’s official periodical entitled, The Truth. Between the years of 1903 and 1906, the various churches in attendance at the holiness convocation were organized into a single coalition known as the Church of God in Christ. Because of rapid growth

within this alliance, the installation of a governing body soon followed with Jones serving as the presiding superintendent. Also, within this structural system Mason became the presiding officer over Tennessee, while Jeter was placed over churches located in Arkansas. Growth in membership, an increase in ministerial workshops, and constant educational training for laypersons concerning the holiness doctrine blossomed as a result of this coalition of holiness bodies. Although this holiness alliance produced much fruit, it came to an end in 1907 when both Mason and Jeter attended the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. After spending five weeks in Los Angeles, Mason returned to Tennessee armed with a holiness doctrine laced with Pentecostalism. It was his acceptance of glossolalia (i.e., ‘‘speaking in tongues’’) as the sole sign of receiving the Holy Spirit that caused the Church of God in Christ to split into two separate groups in August 1907. The first group, headed by Mason, adopted a Pentecostal orientation and retained the name Church of God in Christ, while the second group, which Jones led, maintained a non-Pentecostal orientation and adopted the name the Church of Christ Holiness USA. Under the leadership of Jones, COCHUSA membership increased from 96 in 1907 to over 4,000 in 1936. An Episcopal framework was adopted in 1927 formally decreeing Jones as the Senior Bishop and creating seven dioceses, Northern, Southwestern, Eastern, South Central, Western/Pacific Northwest, Southeastern, and North Central. Each diocese has a presiding bishop, and these men along with the Senior Bishop make up the Board of Bishops. Women are not allowed to hold positions within this structure. It is important to

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note that some women were instrumental in starting the local churches, like Christ Temple Church of Christ Holiness USA founded over 80 years ago in Kansas City, Missouri. Major Rudd Conic, after the death of Jones in 1949, served as the Senior Bishop of COCHUSA until 1992. With over 200 local churches and well over 11,000 adherents, the association flourished under the leadership of Bishop Conic. He stressed the importance of empowerment through land ownership, facility buildings, as well as personal financial stability. For example, he implemented the Master Plan Project in which the church purchased 340 acres of land. Bishop Conic’s passion for the empowerment of COCHUSA served as a catalyst in the formation of the M. R. Conic Foundation. With land already purchased in Jackson, Mississippi, this nonprofit organization, initiated by the United Christian Women’s Ministries of COCHUSA, plans to build a housing complex that would provide shelter,

fitness programs, educational resources, and technological training for senior citizens. Presently, under the leadership of Bishop Emery Lindsay, COCHUSA continues to hold biennial national conventions and promote their system of core values, WHEAT—an acronym for Worship, Training, Evangelism, Administration, and Training. COCHUSA continues to stress the importance of education by financially supporting the Christ Missionary Industrial College in Jackson. The small printing shop built by C. P. Jones has now matured into the National Publishing House, which is located in Chicago and headed by church elder Dr. Dale Cudjoe. It is still responsible for publishing and disseminating projects, such as the Truth and The Manual periodicals. An organized system of governing, property ownership, maturation in doctrinal practices, and the extension of COCHUSA into Africa, serve as fruit to attest to this group’s historical solidarity.

BISHOP MAJOR RUDD CONIC (1909–) The union of Bishop J. L. O. and Louise Virginia Crawford Conic yielded the birth of Major Rudd Conic on December 22, 1909. Although Jackson, Mississippi, was his birthplace, Arkansas and Alabama served as instrumental locations in the childhood of M. R. Conic. He finished his secondary education at Dunbar High School in 1928; a year later he matriculated at C.M. and I. College. He received ordination in 1937 and became the pastor of Christ Temple Church in Jackson, Tennessee, three years later. In 1947 he served as both pastor of Christ Temple Church in Jackson, Mississippi (mother church of COCHUSA), and executive Secretary of the Trustee Board of C.M. and I. College. That same year a special National Convention was called during which M. R. Conic accepted the bishopric office overseeing the South Central Diocese. Follow ing the death of Bishop Jones in 1949, he became the National President and Senior Bishop of COCHUSA, which lasted until 1992. Empowerment through the reduction of financial debt and initiation of massive building projects via land ownership stood as pillars within the 43 year tenure of Bishop M. R. Conic.

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Beliefs and Practices The 28 ‘‘Articles of Faith’’ housed in COCHUSA’s manual illustrates the primary tenets of the group’s belief system as well as its adherences to certain rituals. Although opening articles, especially as seen in 1–3, maintain belief in one God and the holy Trinity, Christ represents the focal point within their theological discourse. For instance, this body supports that only the birth, ministry, and death of Christ can lift man from a fallen state caused by the sin of Adam and grant restoration of this same body to its former, sinless state; therefore, Christ is the catalyst of atonement. Justification, the eighth article, is thought to be God’s domain with absolution depending upon the individual’s participation in repentance and reception of the incarnated Christ. Repentance composes only a portion of the first of the three parts found in COCHUSA’s ‘‘3-stage way of salvation.’’ Conversion, including repentance and a confession of faith, represents the first stage. The second stage is characterized by eradication and is known as the ‘‘second blessing.’’ It is within this stage that original sin transmitted through Adam undergoes eradication via the entrance of the Holy Spirit. Freedom from moral demise, transference from original sin to holiness, apprehensions of freedom through holiness, and empowerment to conquer sin are the fruits produced within this second stage of salvation. The power to conquer sin also gives one the ability to participate in divine healing, the final stage. Divine healing is believed to be a gift from God meant to be utilized by the ecclesiastical body. Each stage of salvation is supported by the Bible. Since the Bible itself for this group is viewed as

the infallible words of God, the doctrinal belief system of COCHUSA maintains that the 66 books of the Bible contain all the knowledge needed to live as Christians. The theological doctrine of this group also places emphasis of the role of the Holy Spirit in both the process of salvation and the daily existence of each individual. The Holy Spirit is an initiated gift of God and represents Christ in operation. Therefore, the two cannot be separated. The movement of the Holy Spirit within the lived experiences of individual members creates an environment of resistance to sin through holiness, producing a well-structured moral system. Accordingly, this doctrine upholds the ability of holiness to defeat both personal and collective oppression within society. Spiritual gifts, the twenty-seventh article of faith, are present only after the reception of the Holy Spirit. Although each gift, like ‘‘speaking in tongues,’’ receives recognition within COCHUSA, it is doctrinally unacceptable to single out one specific gift to represent the reception of the Holy Spirit. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper represent the two major sacraments found within COCHUSA. Baptism is reserved for those who are considered to be of age. Infants are not baptized. Full immersion and the verbal proscription ‘‘In the name of Jesus’’ complete this sacrament. The Lord’s Supper contains two Eucharistic elements: bread and unfermented wine. Foot washing is not an official mandate, but symbolizes an act of humility in which members of the local congregation submit and wash the feet of his/her neighbor. Each diocese decides whether to include foot washing as a local mandate. Also, 40 days of praying, usually during September and October,

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is not an official mandate, but can be seen on the national calendar of COCHUSA every year. Margarita Simon Guillory

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ‘‘The ARDA: Association of Religion Data Archives’’ (2006). Available from ARDA, http://thearda.com (accessed June 15, 2007). Cobbins, Otho B., ed. History of Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A. 1895 1965 (New York and Washington: Vantage Press, 1966). ‘‘COCHUSA: Church of Christ (Holiness) USA.’’ Available from faithHighway, http://www.cochusa.com (accessed July 2, 2007). Goff, James R., and Grant Wacker, eds. Por traits of a Generation: Early Pentecostal Leaders (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2002). MacRobert, Iain. White Racism of Early Pentecostalism in the USA (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988). Sidwell, Mark. Free Indeed: Heroes of Black Christian History (Greenville: Bob Jones University Press, 1995). Simpson, George Eaton. ‘‘Black Pentecostal ism in the United States.’’ Phylon 35, no. 2 (1974): 203 211. Sparks, Randy J. Religion in Mississippi (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001).

CHURCH OF GOD (CLEVELAND) Historical Development With a worldwide membership of over 4 million and affiliated churches located

in 150 countries, the Church of God (Cleveland) is one of the largest Pentecostal denominations in the world behind the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and the Assemblies of God. Like COGIC and the Assemblies of God, the roots of the Church of God (Cleveland) are found in the ‘‘holiness movement’’ of the nineteenth century, a movement begun among Methodists that called for spiritual renewal and church reform. And also like COGIC, the Church of God (Cleveland) became a Pentecostal denomination after its founder had an encounter with the Azusa Street Revival of 1906. Having been established in 1886, the Church of God (Cleveland) is the oldest Pentecostal group with holiness roots. In that year, R. G. Spurling Sr. left the Baptist church, gravely dissatisfied with Baptist worship, culture, and polity and desiring a way of Christian life that more closely reflected the first-century church and New Testament teachings. He was also particularly keen to be free of denominational organization and official church creeds. With his son, R. G. Spurling Jr. and six other people, five of whom were women, Spurling Sr. gathered at the Barney Creek Meeting House on the Tennessee/North Carolina border to form what they called ‘‘Christian Union.’’ As separatists, the group had no intention of forming a new church or denomination but nevertheless chose Spurling Jr. as its pastor. Spurling Sr. died not long after his son’s ordination. In 1896, the members of Christian Union participated in one of the most significant revivals in American history and became fully aligned with holiness teachings. The revival at Schearer Schoolhouse in Cherokee County, North Carolina, was significant for the way it

Church of God (Cleveland) anticipated many of the doctrines and worship practices that would characterize the Azusa Street Revival a full decade later. It started when three area evangelists, William Martin, Joe M. Tipton, and Milton McNabb, opened a series of meetings focusing their preaching on the doctrine of ‘‘sanctification’’ and holy living. The doctrine of sanctification held that a one-time, often dramatic, experience subsequent to conversion cleansed believers from all known sin and freed them from the willful desire to commit sin. Impressed by this message, the members of Christian Union moved to North Carolina and combined with the group to which the three evangelists belonged. The revival was enormously successful, garnering mass conversations and many demonstrations of the Spirit. The ministers placed an emphasis on ‘‘the Baptism of the Holy Spirit’’ and incidences of people ‘‘speaking in tongues’’ were noted. The success of the revival, the growth in membership, and the spread of ‘‘fanaticism’’ challenged Christian Union’s commitment to no governance, official creeds, or record keeping. Under the direction of William F. Bryant, whom Spurling chose to pastor in his absence, they began to move toward denominational formation after the revival, adopting some forms of organization to ward off interlopers and to bring some structure and governance. Clearly a church in the traditional sense by 1902, they dropped the name ‘‘Christian Union’’ for ‘‘The Holiness Church,’’ the final step in becoming fully aligned with the holiness movement. Spurling was chosen as head pastor. Further changes ensued when A. J. (Ambrose Jessup) Tomlinson joined the group in 1903. A former Quaker and amateur actor, Tomlinson had been born

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to a well-to-do family in Westfield, Indiana, and had attended Westfield Academy. After his conversion to holiness teaching, he made it to North Carolina and the newly formed ‘‘The Holiness Church’’ by way of an itinerant ministry that took him throughout the South and Midwest. Church of God legend has it that Tomlinson paid a visit to Spurling and Bryant at Bryant’s home in June 1903. The morning after the meeting, Tomlinson is said to have ascended the mountain behind Bryant’s home and in the ‘‘fields of wood’’ on the mountain received a vision about the church, which he was instructed by God to call ‘‘the Church of God of the Bible.’’ Several months later Tomlinson joined the church and was ordained as its minister. He began immediately to put the church on the path to doctrinal coherency, denominational formation, and organizational structure. The church also began to grow and spread throughout other regions in the South. By 1906 it held its first General Assembly as a holiness congregation and moved to Tennessee. Two of the most significant events in the denomination’s history happened in 1907. The group agreed to drop the name ‘‘The Holiness Church’’ and adopted the name ‘‘Church of God,’’ and Tomlinson began to preach the Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit Baptism. Like other HolinessPentecostal churches, the Church of God (Cleveland) is intricately connected to occurrences at the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. The revival had been launched in 1906 through the efforts of an itinerant preacher, William J. Seymour. Seymour had been born in Centerville, Louisiana, in 1870 to parents who were members of the Missionary Baptist Church. After having traveled to the Midwest and converting to holiness

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teachings, he landed in Houston, Texas, where he was introduced to Charles Fox Parham, who had developed a notion of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit that necessitated ‘‘speaking in tongues’’ as ‘‘initial evidence.’’ Tongue speaking, the ability to speak in a language not of one’s origin or an ‘‘unknown’’ tongue, had been a feature of holiness teaching since the 1890s, but Parham formalized the practice into a central feature of the Christian experience. While in Texas, Seymour embraced this new teaching and upon invitation took the Pentecostal message to Los Angles, where he started a three-year revival in an old AME church and livery stable on Azusa Street. In addition to speaking in tongues, a range of ecstatic and demonstrative practices developed at Azusa, including prophecy and divine healing. The church Seymour founded, the Apostolic Faith Mission, is widely viewed as the birthplace of worldwide Pentecostalism. In 1908, a year after he had begun preaching Pentecostalism, Tomlinson invited G. B. Cashwell to conduct a revival at the church. Cashwell had been to Azusa, received the baptism, and began traveling across the country spreading the message. Although Tomlinson had been preaching Spirit baptism for a year, he had not received the experience himself. During the revival, however, he had the experience and converted the church from a Holiness to a Pentecostal denomination. In 1909 he was elected ‘‘General Overseer’’ of the new Pentecostal church. The years 1909 to 1920 were productive and prosperous ones for the Church of God (Cleveland). It was a time of great denominational growth throughout the country and across racial lines. Seven black congregations formed between

1909 and 1915. The first blacks to join the group were Edmond and Rebecca Barr, who evangelized parts of Florida as members of the church. From the start women have constituted the majority membership and have been allowed to preach and to pastor churches. The church began printing its own literature beginning with the Church of God Evangel in 1911. In 1918 Lee University, the first of many Church of God (Cleveland)–affiliated schools, was founded and named after the man who would become the denomination’s second General Overseer, F. J. Lee. The Assembly Auditorium was erected in Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1920 and Cleveland became the denominational headquarters. The prosperous years were immediately followed by crisis. Having gone through what some observers considered a great change in his personality, A. J. Tomlinson became autocratic and antidemocratic in his leadership style. Also, whether through carelessness or oversight, his handling of church finances incurred large debts. In 1922, an investigative committee found that over $14,000 was missing from the church’s treasury and over $31,000 had been misappropriated. These and other findings led to a yearlong battle between Tomlinson and the other church leaders that resulted in his impeachment as General Overseer in 1923. The church split into two opposing factions of the Church of God, the name the Tomlinson group continued to use after his impeachment. When the original group asked him to stop using the name to avoid confusion, Tomlinson refused. So, in 1924 under the leadership of its new General Overseer, F. J. Lee, the group brought suit, and the Chancery Court of Bradley County, Tennessee, granted them the

Church of God (Cleveland) exclusive use of the name. Tomlinson’s group continued to use ‘‘Church of God’’ in modified forms throughout the 1920s, prompting other suits. Not until 1953 when the supreme court of Tennessee finally settled the issue did Tomlinson change the name of his church to ‘‘The Church of God of Prophecy.’’ Although they were given exclusive right to the name ‘‘Church of God,’’ since the 1953 decision the church has identified itself as Church of God (Cleveland) to be distinguished from other churches that have some form of ‘‘Church of God’’ in their names, including the Church of God of Prophecy, the Church of God (Holiness), and COGIC.

Beliefs and Practices The ‘‘Doctrinal Commitments’’ of the Church of God (Cleveland) show all the hallmarks of Pentecostal belief and practice. Typically, however, the church is also decidedly Weslyan/Armenian and fundamentalist. In keeping with tenets promoted by John Wesley, the Church of God (Cleveland) believes ‘‘sanctification’’ to be a dramatic experience subsequent to conversion or ‘‘justification’’ where the believer enters a state of Christian perfection and is removed from the desire to sin. Unlike other Pentecostal denominations, Church of God (Cleveland) uses the terminology ‘‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’’ to describe this experience. It is considered an ‘‘enduement’’ or special enabling with power to serve and to live a holy life. ‘‘Holiness,’’ it is maintained, is the only way of life for all believers. In Armenian terms, salvation or ‘‘justification’’ is a free gift of grace—an act of God— available to all, not simply to the elect.

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The Fundamentalist aspects of the Church of God (Cleveland) principally have to do with their beliefs about the Bible, the personhood of God, and eschatology. Church of God (Cleveland) holds that the Bible is completely without error. It is the divinely inspired Word of God and supreme rule of life. Additionally, they are Trinitarian, asserting that God exits in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Water baptism is performed in the Trinitarian form as apposed to ‘‘Oneness’’ Pentecostals who deny the Trinity and baptize in Jesus’ name only. They expect the premillennial second coming of Christ to resurrect dead saints and to ‘‘rapture’’ living saints before a seven-year period of tribulation, followed by a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth. Church of God (Cleveland) theology has changed little over the years and is affirmed at its biannual conventions. In addition to its Pentecostal theology, the Church of God (Cleveland) is known for its strictly conservative cultural aesthetic. The church has long adhered to a set of ‘‘practical commitments’’ that were designed to be Scriptural guidelines for practical Christian living (Crews, 63). The categories seemingly cover all aspects of life and potential behavior: spiritual example; moral purity; personal integrity; family responsibility; behavioral temperance; modest appearance; and social obligation. It is in the areas of moral purity and modesty that the church has made its distinctive mark. Over much of the twentieth century, the church has eschewed all ‘‘ungodly amusements,’’ including watching TV, dancing, attending movies, and using tobacco. Men and women have been expected to dress modestly, and women are disallowed to wear makeup or sexually suggestive clothing.

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Since the 1960s the Church of God (Cleveland) has attempted to relax some of its strident behavioral expectations as a way to deal with the modern world. For example, latter versions of the ‘‘practical commitments’’ regarding modest appearance simply urged members to demonstrate modesty by dressing in such a way as to enhance one’s testimony and to de-emphasize personal pride and sexuality. Formerly, it had forcefully charged members to dress according to the principles of the Bible, a charge that had particular implications for women, who were to refrain from wearing, according to Deuteronomy 22: 5, ‘‘that which pertaineth unto a man’’ (Crews, 60). In 1964 the denomination passed a ‘‘Resolution on Human Rights’’ followed by a resolution on the ‘‘AIDS Crisis’’ in 1990 and a ‘‘Resolution Against Racism’’ in 1991. The ‘‘Resolution on Human Rights’’ was passed in recognition of racial tension within the denomination that emerged in 1958 when a decades-old ruling granting African American Church of God (Cleveland) members relative autonomy and the ability to chose their own Overseer was overturned. Since 1926 there had been black and white divisions of the denomination with separate supervision, governance, and national assembly, largely through the initiative of blacks. A. J. Tomlinson conceded to the split in order to stop the flow of African American members of the church into COGIC, which was predominately African American. In recent years the denomination has attempted to heal its divisions. Selfgovernance was reinstated for African Americans and cooperation with the Church of God of Prophecy was initiated. With continued growth and extensive

outreach, the Church of God (Cleveland) is poised to make a major contribution to Pentecostalism worldwide. Wallace Best

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Conn, Charles W. Like a Mighty Army: A History of the Church of God, 1886 1976 (Cleveland, TN: Pathway Press, 1977). Crews, Mickey. The Church of God: A Social History (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990). Duggar, Lillie. A. J. Tomlinson: Former General Overseer of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN: White Wing Publishing House, 1964). Michel, David. Telling the Story: Black Pen tecostals in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN: Pathway Press, 2000). Robins, R. G. A. J. Tomlinson: Plainfolk Modernist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). Simmons, E. L. History of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN: Church of God Publish ing House, 1938).

CHURCH OF GOD AND SAINTS OF CHRIST Historical Development Shortly after Prophet F. S. Cherry began his work in Philadelphia (see ‘‘Church of the Living God’’ entry), William Saunders Crowdy’s life changed. He began a path of religious awakening similar to Cherry’s. Born in 1847, in Charlotte Hall, Maryland, Crowdy spent the first 15 years of his life as a slave. Once an opportunity presented itself in 1863 to leave his position of servitude, he journeyed to the

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WILLIAM SAUNDERS CROWDY (1847–1908) Prophet William Saunders Crowdy was born on a Maryland plantation called Charlotte Hall in 1847. Crowdy prayed to be liberated from his captors and at the age of 17 was set free; he immediately joined the army. Working as a cook for 20 years until 1892, Crowdy claimed to have received a vision from God that he should lead his peo ple to the true religion. In 1895, he received another vision, much more intense than the first, which pushed him to begin preaching in order to lead God’s people. He began preaching in Guthrie, Oklahoma, then moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where he opened his first tabernacle. He migrated to New York, establishing tabernacles in small cities before he set up permanent residence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1899. In 1903, the organization bought land in Suffolk County, Virginia, that he named Canaan Land. The movement also showed international aspirations by sending mission aries to South Africa in 1905. In 1906 he named himself Chief Joseph William Crowdy and declared the future leaders of his movement to be Bishop William H. Plummer and Elder Calvin S. Skinner. On August 4, 1908, Crowdy died.

north and became a cook for the Union Army. With the conclusion of the war, he held various jobs in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and Kansas City, Missouri. Accounts of his life indicate that it was while living in Guthrie for the second time that his religious life took a turn from a rather uneventful connection to the Baptist Church to contact with the divine that changed his behavior. In 1893 he began having visions. The first occurred while he was farming: ‘‘He heard a loud sound that was similar to that produced by a large flock of birds. Amidst this noise he thought he heard a voice saying ‘run for your life.’ On hearing this he dropped his axe and cleared a trail into the forest . . . . There he fell into a deep slumber during which the vision came to him as a dream.’’ This dream, the account continues, involved him being ‘‘in a large room and that tables were descending from above. The tables were covered with filthy vomit . . . . Each table was labeled with the name of a church . . . . At one point in the vision a small, clean white table came down with the name

Church of God and Saints of Christ on it’’ (Wynia 1994, 21). Crowdy understood the vision to mean a divine mission to start a tabernacle, as he called his congregations, rejecting the problems of the other denominations. His tabernacle would be true to the teachings of God, as provided in Scripture and through subsequent visions experienced by Crowdy. In a manner meant to resemble the ministry of biblical prophets, Crowdy took to the streets and began sharing his vision for a new tabernacle with anyone who would listen. This ministry was based on the demands placed on him during that first vision. The organization’s Web site describes the command to preach felt by Crowdy: When afterwards I heard a voice speaking unto me; saying, as he had so said unto Ezekiel, ‘‘Son of Man, I send thee to the children of Israel, and to all nations of the earth that hath rebelled against me. They and their Fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day; for they are imprudent children and stiff hearted. I do send thee unto them and thou shalt say unto

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Church of God and Saints of Christ them, thus saith the Lord God; not Elder Crowdy, or any other man or minister, but thus saith the Lord God who is Supreme above all, an in all; whether they will hear or whether they forbear, yet shall they know there has been a Prophet among them.’’ The Lord let me know that I should look for trouble and tribulation, but be not afraid of them; neither be afraid of their words; though briars and thorns be with thee. And thou dost dwell among scor pions, be not afraid of their words or be dis mayed at their looks and thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. (http:// www.churchofgod1896.org/founder.html)

From 1893 through 1895, he spread the teachings he received in the visions to his family and receptive members of the community. Feeling a need to spread these teachings beyond Guthrie, Crowdy made his way to Chicago and stayed there a short time teaching both African Americans and Whites. Wanting to give his converts and the doctrine they embraced an institutional framework, he moved to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1896 and established his first organization. By 1898, he had more than 20 fellowships throughout Kansas. These somewhat loosely arranged fellowships took the form of a church in 1899 during the second general assembly organized by Crowdy. From this point until his death in 1908, the organization maintained a presence in various cities and established its headquarters in Belleville, Virginia, in 1917. The tabernacles varied in size, but it has been suggested that some, including one in New York City established in 1899 had roughly 1,000 members. Beyond efforts to reach potential converts in the United States, the church also established missionary outposts in the Caribbean and in South Africa.

To foster the smooth functioning of these various congregations, Crowdy arranged them into regional districts, each headed by one of his ministers. The elders, or ministers, who supervised these districts formed a group referred to as the Presbytery. These elders played an important role, but the organization clearly revolved around Crowdy who, in addition to being called the ‘‘Black Elijah’’ because of the prophecy and healing he offered his followers, was understood as the primary teacher. In order to manage the affairs of the organization, Crowdy was assisted by C. S. Skinner and W. H. Plummer, who served as counselor for and business manager of the organization, respectively. (Wynia 1994, 32–33). While the total membership is uncertain, the Church of God and Saints of Christ Web site indicates a network of 32 tabernacles in cities in the United States such as Buffalo, New York; Detroit, Michigan; Newark, New Jersey; as well as in the Caribbean, South Africa, and England. In an effort to continue to advance its work, the Church of God and Saints of Christ argues that its ‘‘vision is presently focused on community development. The Church of God and Saints of Christ had embarked upon a multi-million dollar project, a multifaceted building on 110 acres of land owned by the church in Galestown, Maryland. This project will include worship edifice, recreational and educational facilities’’ (http://www.churcho fgod1896.org/mission&vision.htm).

Beliefs and Practices Crowdy, who was understood to be one of God’s prophets, taught his followers that African Americans were members of the lost tribes of Israel. Based on this,

Church of God and Saints of Christ | 155 he pushed for strong adherence to various elements of Judaism. For example, Crowdy’s churches followed the Jewish Sabbath by centering activities around Friday evening and Saturday. On Friday evening, the service began with the rabbi (teacher), assisted by the cantor, leading the congregation in silent meditation and prayer. Afterwards, the rabbi led the congregation in various readings, some of them from Scripture. Songs were sung throughout the service, and the service concluded with a sermon by the rabbi. On Saturday, members of the various tabernacles gathered early, and after a time of fellowship during which songs were sung, people divided into Sabbath school classes. These classes provided information concerning the church’s distinctive doctrine taught and significant scriptural stories. After Sabbath school, the main service began. As with the Friday service, singing was an important dimension of worship. However, the focus of the Saturday service was the presentation of the Torah and the rabbi, and this was followed by the sermon that outlined the origin and teachings of the organization. After the sermon, those present were given an opportunity to either join the tabernacle (if they were visitors) or renew their relationship with God if they were current members. Additional singing and a benediction brought the service to an end, but those gathered did not go to their homes until after a communal meal was eaten (Wynia 1994, 60–64). Crowdy’s organization recognized various rituals as central to church life, including Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and Passover. Within this church, the Passover celebrations were

distinguished by color. There was a purple Passover during which members of the church wore that particular color. There was also a black Passover, so called for the same reason. Members of the various local congregations were encouraged to travel to the headquarters for the denomination and there celebrate the Lord’s safekeeping of the children of Israel when the angel of death killed the firstborn of the Egyptians (Exodus 11:4–6). Furthermore, the Passover allows for a recounting of the Exodus story in which the Jews were freed from bondage in Egypt. During the week of celebration, members of the organization attended services consisting of singing and sermons. Food consumed during this period centered around unleavened bread, and the week of activities culminated in a communal meal of bread and lamb. While Crowdy’s followers understood themselves to stand within the tradition of Judaism, their practices were not pure in that he sought to blend Judaism with Christianity. He gave a great deal of attention to Jesus Christ as the model of conduct. He does not refer to Jesus as the messiah, but the perception of Jesus seems to extend beyond traditional Jewish understandings of him: The scripture says when you are converted old things passed away. Now if you are converted, leave lying, whoremongering, idolatry, witchcraft, hoodooing, and all manner if isms, you want to leave that behind and take up the new things of Jesus Christ which by no means will suffer to do any of those things. I want members to stop evil speaking of one another, and don’t care to undermine on another and let me know it, if you can’t speak a good word for your neighbor, even if he is a sinner, hold your peace [sic]. (Wynia 1994, 52)

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In addition to the life of Jesus Christ and an appreciation for other dimensions of the prophetic tradition as expressed in Judaism, Crowdy developed rituals unique to the church including Re-establishment Day that honors Crowdy and recounts the church’s history. These activities were practiced within the context of established doctrine, drawn loosely from the Bible, by which tabernacle members lived. Central amongst these innovations was the ‘‘Seven Keys’’: 1. The Church of God and the Saints of Christ. 2. Wine forbidden to be drunk in the Church of God forever. 3. Unleavened bread and water for Christ’s body and blood. 4. Foot washing is a commandment. 5. The Disciples’ prayer. 6. You must be breathed upon with a Holy Kiss. 7. The Ten Commandments. (http://www .cogsoc.org/our doctrine/keys commandments/)

The first key speaks to the significance of Crowdy’s work by highlighting the truthfulness of the Church of God and the Saints of Christ. It, unlike traditional churches, and based on the revelations received by Crowdy, is in line with the will of God and is teaching the truth about God and God’s relationship to African Americans. The Christian undertones of this religious organization are apparent in the centrality given to Jesus Christ. The third key speaks to this by describing the appropriate items to be used in celebration of what Christians refer to as communion—the ritual enactment of Jesus Christ’s blood and body sacrificed

on the cross. Most Christian churches celebrate communion using some type of bread to represent the body and wine (or grape juice) to represent the blood of Jesus Christ. However, as the second key stipulates, wine is not consumed by members of this community—not even as part of the communion ritual. Other important components of the organization’s code include the ritual of foot washing through which members show their sense of humility and community by washing the feet of other members of the group. It is meant to represent the biblical tradition of cleaning the feet of guests as they entered the home. Jesus Christ does this for his disciples as a sign of humility in that the proclaimed ‘‘Son of God’’ lowers himself and provides this service. Also of symbolic importance is the ‘‘Holy Kiss’’ given to members as a sign of community and proper relationship. The final two elements of this code are the Disciples’ prayer that plays a role in the worship experience of members of the church, and the Ten Commandments drawn from the Old Testament. Even after his death, the principles outlined by Crowdy hold sway over the Church of God and Saints of Christ. Anthony B. Pinn

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Brotz, Howard M. The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership (New York: Schocken Books, 1970). Chireau, Yvonne, and Nathaniel Deutsch, eds. Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Fauset, Arthur Huff. Black God of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the

Church of God in Christ | 157 Urban North (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). Wynia, Elly M. The Church of God and Saints of Christ: The Rise of Black Jews (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994).

CHURCH OF GOD IN CHRIST Historical Development The Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the first African American Pentecostal denomination in the United States, experienced phenomenal growth during the twentieth century. From a mere ten congregations in 1907 it has become the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States and claims over 6 million members worldwide. The origins of COGIC are inextricably linked to the two most significant movements in American Christendom, the ‘‘holiness movement’’ of the late nineteenth century and the Pentecostal movement of the early twentieth century. It is from these movements that COGIC has drawn its worship patterns, system of belief, social philosophies, cultural traditions, and organizational structure. Over the past century, the denomination has consistently maintained these aspects of its tradition, forged, as they were, in a time of great crisis and opportunity in American society. The early development of COGIC took shape in light of the spiritual journeys of its two founders, Charles Harrison Mason and Charles Price Jones. Mason and Jones founded the denomination as a ‘‘holiness’’ body in 1897. Although they would part

company over a doctrinal dispute just ten years after establishing COGIC, both men played significant roles in setting the theological and cultural framework for the denomination. Charles Mason was born to former slaves Jerry and Eliza Mason on the Prior farm just north of Memphis, Tennessee, on September 8, 1866. The devout couple belonged to the Missionary Baptist Church and prayed fervently for their son’s dedication to God. Those prayers were seemingly answered in 1880 when just shy of his fourteenth birthday Charles was healed of yellow fever. The family had left Memphis for Plumerville, Arkansas, in the wake of the yellow fever epidemic only to have Jerry Mason succumb to the disease in 1879 and Charles to fall ill within months. After his recovery, Charles’s mother took him to the Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Plumerville, where he was baptized and dedicated to a life of Christian service. Having been licensed and ordained to preach in 1891 and after a failed marriage to Alice Sexton, Charles Mason entered Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock on November 1, 1893. The experience was not a good one, but it prompted the first stirrings of Mason’s desire for personal and ecclesiastical holiness reform. Established by Elias C. Morris, Arkansas Baptist College had come under the influence of new ‘‘higher criticism’’ in biblical interpretation, largely through the influence of one of the school’s professors, Charles Lewis Fisher. Exponents of higher criticism such as Fisher investigated the origins of the biblical text and the sociocultural context in which it was written as a means to decipher original meanings and author’s intent. Developed in Europe

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CHARLES HARRISON MASON (1866–1961) The union of two former slaves, Jerry and Eliza Mason, resulted in the birth of Charles Harrison Mason on September 8, 1866, in a rural area that graces the outskirts of present day Memphis. At the age of 12, his family moved to Plumerville, Arkansas. It is within this city’s confines that Mason would receive baptism at Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church. In 1893, Mason matriculated into Arkansas Baptist College. In this same year, he received ordination under Baptist auspices in the small town of Preston, Arkansas. Although Mason entered into C. P. Jones’s alma mater, he transferred and completed his educational and ministerial training at the Minister’s Institute of Arkansas Baptist Church. Mason, also in 1893, experienced the ‘‘second blessing.’’ This personal encounter with God transformed Mason into an espouser of holiness doctrine. His new theological perspective stressed the importance of the Holy Spirit in the process of sanctification, which yields both spiritual free dom and personal/social empowerment over sin. Mason’s teaching of holiness doctrine led to the formation of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) with C. P. Jones; however, in 1907 the alliance was severed, resulting in Mason’s incorporation of COGIC. Until his death on November 17, 1961, he served as the Presiding Bishop over COGIC.

in the mid-eighteenth century, higher criticism was built on the work and assumptions of Enlightenment thinkers. While it was at times used to confirm traditional biblical teachings, higher criticism most often disputed them, and exponents employed a notion of the Bible as human and not Divine in origin as their hermeneutical starting point. Deeply suspicious of these new methods and philosophies, Mason left the college after only three months. When Mason and Charles Price Jones met in 1895, the two men discovered that they had much in common, including having both attended Arkansas Baptist College. Jones was born near Rome, Georgia, to a slave mother on December 9, 1865. After his mother’s death in 1882, Jones traveled throughout the South and the Midwest working menial jobs. Returning to Tennessee in 1884, he was converted, started teaching Sunday school, and began a preaching ministry. His desire to expand his ministry to Africa took him to Arkansas Baptist

College in 1888, and although he presumably experienced similar frustration with the college’s liberal hermeneutical bent, he graduated in 1891. Even while completing his course of study, Jones was busy in Christian ministry, shepherding three congregations, Pople Creek, Mt. Zion, and St. Paul Baptist churches. It was after graduation and a move first to Alabama and then to Mississippi, however, that Jones expressed a need for a deeper Christian experience. Mason and Jones encountered one another at a meeting in Mississippi that had been organized by Jones and fellow pastors J. E. Jeter and W. S. Pleasant to study the Scriptures regarding the doctrine of ‘‘sanctification.’’ Mason and Jones became convinced of the doctrine and the necessity of the experience for every believer. They saw it as key to a deeper Christian life. Sanctification was the theological bedrock and the experiential core of the ‘‘holiness movement.’’ The holiness movement began among Methodists

Church of God in Christ | 159 who in the mid-nineteenth century began to call for spiritual renewal for the members of their denomination and all Christians. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism had taught that salvation was a two-part process. Conversion or ‘‘justification’’ should lead to ‘‘entire sanctification’’ or full salvation, which freed believers from conscious acts of sin and flaws of character. This one-time, dramatic experience enabled believers to enter into a ‘‘perfect’’ state despite dwelling in corruptible bodies. Christian perfection had to be sustained, however, by a daily commitment to holy living, which involved abstinence from all ‘‘worldly pleasures’’ and ‘‘desires of the flesh.’’ By the 1840s, followers of Wesley sought to revive his notion of sanctification as the only way to reform individuals and the church as a whole. Their efforts were greatly assisted by a series of revivals that happened to coincide with them. Often called ‘‘the Second Great Awakening,’’ the revivals of the 1830s and 1840s cascaded across many sections of the United States, prompting many conversions to Christianity as well as conversions to Wesley’s notion of ‘‘entire sanctification.’’ By the 1880s what had been a movement that spread out from Methodists to nearly all Protestant groups was formed into independent denominations. This road to denominationalization was precipitated by the withdrawal of several Methodist churches from the denomination in the 1840s and by the formation of the National Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness in 1867. By the time this organization was reestablished as the National Holiness Association in 1893, there were hundreds of holiness churches teaching the doctrine of sanctification throughout the United States.

Mason and Jones began to preach the holiness doctrine of sanctification widely, becoming the major purveyors of the teaching among black Baptists throughout Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. By the mid-1890s both men were making direct challenges to Baptist authorities, calling for ‘‘holiness conventions’’ and the outright espousal of Christian perfection within the Baptist Church. Jones assumed the pastorate at the historic Mt. Helm Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1895 and immediately set out to place the church on the path to what he considered ‘‘deeper spiritual labors’’ (Clemmons 1996). His first sermon there was from Matthew 5:48, ‘‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’’ It caused a division among the congregation and incited even more troubles with the National Baptist Convention. A revival staged by Mason and Jones in 1896 drew them deeper into the holiness fold and further alienated them from black Baptist officials. Mason, who at the time was an itinerant preacher, found the doors of most Baptist churches in Jackson closed to him because of the enthusiastic response to the revival. But the response seemingly convinced both men to formalize their relationship with the holiness movement by establishing a holiness church. In 1897, Mason, Jones, W. S. Pleasant, and about 60 other charter members gathered to establish what they called the ‘‘Church of God,’’ the first African American holiness congregation in the United States. The name was later changed to ‘‘Church of God in Christ’’ after a vision Mason experienced while walking down a street in Little Rock, Arkansas. He had wanted a way to distinguish his church from others in the holiness fold.

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In an unprecedented move, Jones allowed the first conventional meeting of the nascent denomination to be held at Mt. Helm. He even attempted to change the denominational affiliation of the church to COGIC. That attempt failed but it was apparently the last straw for the National Baptist Convention. In 1899 Mason and Jones were expelled from the Convention for their actions. Mason had already been disfellowshipped from the Leavenworth Baptist Association. But by that time, however, the two men and a growing number of followers were fully ensconced in COGIC and its holiness teaching. The group organized themselves into an episcopal structure, electing Jones as General Overseer, Mason as Overseer of Tennessee, and J. A. Jeter as Overseer of Kansas. In the same way that the history of COGIC is intricately bound up with the holiness movement, COGIC and Pentecostalism in America share a history. Indeed, the history of COGIC is a significant part of Pentecostal history. COGIC was transformed from a Holiness denomination into a Pentecostal one through events that Charles Price Jones set in motion. In 1906 Jones sent Mason, Jeter, and D. J. Young to Los Angeles, California, to investigate reports of a great revival taking place in a former African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church and old livery stable on Azusa Street under the leadership of an itinerant preacher, William J. Seymour. Mason and Jones had met Seymour in Mississippi the year before. In its early stages in 1906 (it would last for three years), the revival at Azusa was radically reshaping Christian worship and defying social convention at the height of Jim Crow segregation. Seymour had been a prote´ge´ of Charles Fox Parham, a holiness

teacher and former Methodist minister, who in 1901 developed Pentecostal doctrine, what he called the ‘‘third work of grace’’ or the ‘‘baptism of the Holy Spirit.’’ Parham came to believe that there existed an experience beyond Wesley’s notion of sanctification that completed a believer’s salvific experience. When he posed this question to the students of his Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, they concluded that the experience was ‘‘speaking in tongues.’’ Tongue speaking harkened back to a first-century episode found in the book of Acts, when on the day of Pentecost a gathering of Christians spoke in languages they had not learned. Followers of holiness teachings had long developed a notion of ‘‘spirit baptism’’ but understood it as a spiritual unction that allowed one to live a holy life—in effect, sanctification. Parham began to teach that the ‘‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’’ should always be accompanied by speaking in tongues and that tongues were the ‘‘initial evidence’’ that one had indeed been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Convinced that speaking in tongues had an evangelistic purpose, Parham at first espoused a notion of ‘‘Zenoglossy’’—the ability to speak in a ‘‘known tongue’’ not of one’s ethnic origin. This was, in fact, in keeping with the account in the book of Acts. However, early Pentecostalists soon embraced the notion of ‘‘glossolalia’’—the ability to speak in an ‘‘unknown tongue’’ or a ‘‘heavenly language’’ as the sign of Spirit baptism. Parham systematized the notion of Spirit baptism as a third experience that was as essential for salvation as conversion and sanctification. The new teaching began to take root among vast crosssections of American Christians, but particularly among those from Methodist

Church of God in Christ | 161 and Holiness denominations. Drawn to Parham and the Pentecostal experience, Seymour arrived at another school Parham had founded in Houston, Texas, in 1905, wanting to sit under Parham’s tutelage. Seymour had been born to freed slaves in Centerville, Louisiana, in 1870. His parents were members of the Baptist church, but due in part to the religious diversity of the region Seymour’s early religious influences included Baptists, Methodists, and Catholicism. As a young man he traveled to the Midwest, converted to Methodism, and joined the Church of God, Indiana, also called ‘‘The Evening Light Saints,’’ a radically conservative wing of the holiness movement. While he was with this group, Seymour experienced sanctification and a call to preach. Following his call he moved on to Ohio where he caught smallpox and became blind in one eye, a characteristic by which he would be known for the rest of his life. It was in Ohio that Seymour heard of Parham’s new teaching regarding the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Traveling to Texas, he found Parham and enrolled in his school. Conceding to Jim Crow practices in American education at the time, however, Parham only allowed Seymour to sit outside the classroom. Despite this dehumanizing arrangement, his experience at the school and the new Pentecostal teaching had a profound effect on Seymour’s life, and it was not long before he had his own Pentecostal experience. Seymour’s move from Texas to California—as well as the birth of the Azusa Street Revival—was initiated by the efforts of three women he came to know. During his time in Texas he attended a small African American holiness congregation that was shepherded by Lucy

Farrow, a former slave and niece of Frederick Douglass. She had also been a household worker of Parham’s. Neely Terry, a member of the congregation, persuaded Seymour that a man of his talents and spiritual vision was needed in her home state of California. She contacted Julia W. Hutchinson, her former pastor, who extended an invitation to Seymour requesting that he pastor a small holiness congregation she had formed. He set out for California with financial help from Parham and immediately began preaching the new doctrine. Although his initial efforts were rebuffed, primarily by those within the holiness movement who disavowed tongue speaking, and his meetings moved to various locations before settling at 312 Azusa Street, word of the meetings soon spread throughout Los Angeles and to many places throughout the world. The Azusa Street Revival and the Apostolic Faith Mission, as it came to be called, quickly became a phenomenon and was one of the most significant events in American religious history. Scholars have long debated whether Parham or Seymour can rightfully be heralded as the founder of American Pentecostalism. Both men unquestionably played significant roles in the birth of the movement. Yet, while Parham is certainly to be credited for initiating the wave of interest in Holy Spirit baptism at the dawn of the twentieth century and for constructing the basis for Pentecostal theology, it was Seymour who development the liturgical and social practices that came to characterize Pentecostalism. Pentecostal worship at Azusa was lively, was exuberant, and allowed for the full expression of all the ‘‘spiritual gifts,’’ including speaking in tongues, prophecy, and divine healing.

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Early chroniclers of the revival also left written accounts of spontaneous testimony or preaching, ‘‘singing in the spirit,’’ ‘‘writing in the spirit,’’ and holy dancing. The regular church music, which was strongly influenced by African traditions, was sung without instrumental accompaniment or hymnbooks. The vivacious worship services generated constant complaints from the surrounding community and some pithy critique from the local press, who often called the attendees at Azusa ‘‘holy rollers,’’ ‘‘holy jumpers,’’ or ‘‘tangled tonguers.’’ On April 6, 1906, the Los Angles Daily Times published a now-famous account of the revival with the headline, ‘‘Weird Babel of Tongues: New Sect of Fanatics Is Breaking Loose.’’ It was not only the worship practices at Azusa that caught the attention of the press and the general public. The interracial mixing and physical contact among blacks, whites, and an array of other ethnic minorities during the services defied social convention at the height of Jim Crow segregation. Unlike Charles Parham, who was rumored to be a racist and a Klan sympathizer, Seymour preached a gospel of social equality. Blacks and ethnic minorities were on equal footing with their white counterparts and shared equally in the power structure of the Azusa Street mission. Women were also equal to men and given broad sanction to preach, to lead worship, and to practice divine healing. Women such as Jennie Evans Moore, who later married Seymour, and Florence Crawford held prominent positions at the mission, and Clara Lum was chiefly responsible for editing the church’s periodical, Apostolic Faith. Charles Price Jones likely did not anticipate the crisis that would ensue within COGIC because of Mason’s visit

to Azusa. He merely wanted to investigate a revival that was greatly reshaping Christianity across the globe, as emissaries from around the world were coming to Azusa and taking the Pentecostal message back to their home countries. But his visit to Azusa had a profound impact on Mason’s life and precipitated a break from Jones and the Holiness denomination similar to the break he had experienced from black Baptists a few years earlier. While at Azusa Mason became a disciple of William Seymour and was convinced of the necessity of Pentecostal Baptism for all believers. On March 19, 1907, he, Jeter, and Young all experienced Pentecostal Spirit Baptism under Seymour’s guidance. Mason described his own baptism this way: ‘‘The Lord stood me up one day and I began to speak in tongues and interpret the same. He soon gave me all kinds of spiritual utterances’’ (Clemmons 1996, 62). Upon his return to Memphis, Mason began to preach the Pentecostal message in COGIC churches. Jones, however, rejected the new teaching, principally because of the centrality of speaking in tongues to Pentecostal practice. He did not believe tongues to be the ‘‘initial evidence’’ of Spirit Baptism, and this became the central issue that generated tension between the two leaders and would eventually split the church. At the annual COGIC convocation in August 1907, the issue reached its crisis point. As General Overseer, Jones had urged Mason to reject the new teaching and to stop preaching its message. He requested that the elders of the denomination decide if speaking in tongues was, indeed, a scriptural practice. After three days of deliberation, they decided that it was not a scriptural practice and again requested Mason to

Church of God in Christ | 163 reject Pentecostalism. He did not. Rather, Mason affirmed his belief in tongues, and the elders of COGIC withdrew the ‘‘right hand of fellowship’’ from him. It was the second time within a decade that Mason had been disfellowshipped from a denomination because of his embrace of a new spiritual practice. When Mason parted ways with Jones, a reported half of the denomination left with him. These ministers and laity became the basis upon which COGIC was restructured as a Pentecostal denomination. In September 1907, Mason called a meeting in Memphis to discuss among his followers the formation of a new church. The church was agreed upon and Mason was elected ‘‘General Overseer’’ and ‘‘Chief Apostle.’’ He was given complete authority over church doctrine, organizational structure, and discipline. The annual convocation was set for November 25 to December 14. A tradition with nineteenth-century revival, camp meeting, and holiness roots, the three-weeklong annual convocation allowed time for COGIC members to fellowship and to transact church business. As the name ‘‘Church of God in Christ’’ had appeared

Members listen to a sermon in the Church of God in Christ, Washington, D.C., November 1942. (Corbis)

to Mason in a vision, the new church believed that it rightly belonged to them and not to the Jones faction. The court in Shelby County, Tennessee, agreed. In 1909, after a two-year battle between Mason and Jones, Mason was awarded the exclusive use of the name COGIC, and his church became the first major Pentecostal denomination generated from the Azusa Street Revival. Charles P. Jones and his followers restructured themselves in 1915 as the Church of Christ Holiness USA. As a newly minted Pentecostal denomination, COGIC possessed legal authority to ordain ministers. So, in addition to rapid growth throughout many regions of the United States in the first decade of the twentieth century— particularly in the South—COGIC also gathered a significant number of white ministers into its fold. This apparent racial unity reflected the deepest values of Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival. White COGIC ministers soon bristled under Mason’s leadership, however, and bowed to the pressures of societal racism. A delegation left in April 1914 to form the Assemblies of God in Hot Springs, Arkansas, citing a need for better organization and doctrinal stability. The move effectively ended the interracial experiment in American religion that began at Azusa, and Pentecostalism in America has been divided between black and white ever since. From the start, Mason developed a distinct cultural aesthetic within COGIC. While black Methodists were known to emphasize the importance of education and many black Baptists concentrated efforts on social activism, COGIC churches strictly enforced the rules of personal piety. Modesty in dress was insisted upon in men and women, but

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COGIC women in particular became identifiable by their austere clothing. COGIC members where forbidden to indulge in any of the pleasures of the body such as tobacco, alcohol, and, in some cases, caffeine. Premarital sex was taboo, as was divorce, remarriage, and most ‘‘worldly amusements.’’ Throughout her long career, guitar great Sister Rosetta Tharpe found herself at odds with COGIC for her attempts to bridge the worlds of the sacred and secular in her music and the venues in which she played (Wald 2007). Members still address one another as ‘‘brother’’ and ‘‘sister’’ and collectively consider themselves ‘‘Saints.’’ As women have always constituted the majority membership in COGIC, women ‘‘Saints’’ have always been the most visible. Mason, however, did not follow Seymour’s example of gender equality in his church. Rather, men have always constituted the 12-member general board of bishops (often considered ‘‘apostles’’), and COGIC has never ordained a woman bishop, pastor, or preacher. COGIC pastor and gospel singer Andrae Crouch famously defied the denomination to ordain his twin sister, Sandra, in 1998, but she serves outside the COGIC fold. Undoubtedly recognizing the important roles women would play in COGIC, Mason established the ‘‘Women’s Department’’ in 1911 and appointed Elizabeth ‘‘Lizzie’’ Woods Robinson as its first ‘‘General Overseer’’ and head ‘‘Mother’’ of the church. Robinson was born to slave parents in Phillips County, Arkansas, on April 5, 1860. A Baptist until she was Spirit filled and joined COGIC, Robinson was known to prize ‘‘motherhood’’ and oppose women preachers (Butler 2007). The Women’s

Department in COGIC has wielded enormous influence in the denomination in what is effectively a ‘‘dual-sex,’’ parallel power structure. In addition, despite the prohibition on women’s ordination, throughout the church’s history COGIC women have served informally as pastors, teachers, and ministers.

Beliefs and Practices The cultural aesthetic within COGIC develops from its system of belief, which bears all the hallmarks of its Holiness and Pentecostal roots. The denomination’s ‘‘Statement of Faith’’ affirms the Trinity, the infallibility of the Bible, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and the necessity of Sanctification and the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. The principle beliefs of COGIC can be stated as follows: The Bible is the inspired, written Word of God, infallible and without error; there is One God, who exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; repentance and regeneration are the only ways to be cleansed of sin, which is accomplished through the Blood of Jesus and water baptism; and Christ’s work of redemption on the cross and the believer’s prayer have power to heal body and mind. The sanctifying and indwelling power of the Holy Spirit allows the believer to live a holy life separate from the sins and corruptions of the world; the Baptism of the Holy Ghost is given to every believer who asks for it and is essential for salvation; and the Rapture of the church will occur at the Second Coming of Christ, when believers will be ‘‘caught up to meet Him in the air.’’ In accordance with Wesleyan notions, COGIC understands sanctification as a

Church of God in Christ | 165 one-time, dramatic experience that leads to a life free from sin and the desire to commit sin. The COGIC official manual calls it ‘‘that gracious and continuous operation of the Holy Ghost, by which He delivers the justified sinner from the pollution of sin, renews his whole nature in the image of God and enables him to perform good works’’ (Official Manual of the Church of God in Christ 1973). In keeping with Pentecostalism, COGIC believes that the Baptism of the Holy Ghost is an experience subsequent to conversion and sanctification, and that speaking in tongues is the sign that one has been filled by the Spirit. In addition, the church observes three ordinances: The Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion); Feet Washing (Ordinance of Humility); and water baptism (total immersion). The death of Charles H. Mason in 1961 ended the early period of COGIC history and ushered the church into the modern era. Since the 1960s, the church has extended its reach into many places across the globe, including Africa, Haiti, Latin America, and Great Britain. It operates two schools, the C. H. Mason Bible College and Theological Seminary, and its leaders have become some of the most powerful men in Christendom. In the first decade of the twentieth century, G. E. Patterson, only the sixth Presiding Bishop since Mason, transformed COGIC into a global media empire, securing spots on radio and television and expanding the church’s publishing enterprises. His death in 2007 marked COGIC’s centennial year. Charles E. Blake of Los Angeles, California, succeeded him. Blake’s church, the West Angeles COGIC, boasts a membership of 24,000. Since 1940, the ‘‘world headquarters’’ of COGIC has been Mason Temple in Memphis,

Tennessee. Often called ‘‘the Holy Mecca of the Saints of God,’’ it was the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘‘Mountain Top’’ speech delivered the night before he was killed on April 4, 1968. With stalwart leadership, over 6 million members, vast media exposure, hundreds of auxiliaries, business enterprises, and charitable organizations, the church founded in 1907 seems poised to continue as a major force in American Christianity and global Pentecostalism. In recent years the church has reaffirmed its espousal of fundamentalist biblical doctrine and Christian conservatism, most notably in 2004 with a statement confirming its belief in marriage as exclusively between ‘‘a man and a woman.’’ Although COGIC has experienced many changes throughout its history, primarily due to its tremendous growth, the leadership and laity seem committed to sustaining the ideals of a sanctified and Spirit-filled life as espoused by its original founder, Charles H. Mason. Wallace Best

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bartleman, Frank. Azusa Street (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2000). Borlase, Craig. William Seymour: A Biography (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2006). Butler, Anthea D. The Women of the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). Clemmons, Ithiel C. Bishop C. H. Mason and the Roots of the Church of God in Christ (Lanham, MD: Pneuma Life Publishing House, 1996). Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend. If It Wasn’t for the Women: Black Women’s Experience and

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Womanist Culture in Church and Commu nity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000). Official Manual of the Church of God in Christ (Memphis: COGIC, 1973). Sanders, Cheryl J. Saints in Exile: The Holiness Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Synan, Vinson. The Holiness Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997). Wacker, Grant. Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). Wald, Gayle. Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock and Roll Trailblazer Sister Rose (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007).

CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD, PILLAR OF TRUTH FOR ALL NATIONS Historical Development African American history is peppered with conversation concerning the connections between African Americans and Jews. In large part this connection is described in terms of a common understanding of suffering based on the atrocities of the slave trade, the Holocaust, and continued racially and ethnically based discrimination. This general understanding of commonality based oppression is given more specific expression by African American Christians throughout history who speak in terms of a religious connection: Both groups have a profound connection to God based on what both perceive as a ‘‘special’’ relationship to God, a type of

chosen status. That is to say, ‘‘the Jewish components of American Christianity were appealing to slaves and to postabolition blacks. They identified with the stories of the embondaged children of Israel and had hopes of God’s leading them out of their state of slavery in a similar manner’’ (Wynia 1994, 13). For the descendants of slaves in the United States, the story of bondage and freedom outlined in the Old Testament provided hope for a better time to come; and so, African Americans gravitated toward these stories and saw in their experience commonalities with the protagonists of the Old Testament stories—the Jews. Most African Americans have expressed this sense of kinship within the context of the Christian faith by giving great attention to the biblical story of the Exodus, the Psalms, and Proverbs, and by appealing to the biblical prophets for ways to understand the demands of a proper relationship with God. Others have expressed this connection through involvement in predominantly white Jewish synagogues. As early as the Civil War, some Blacks participated in white Jewish synagogues in southern states (Singer in Chireau 2000, 57). Still others such as Arnold Ford, who was associated with Marcus Garvey’s UNIA, have gone further to argue not only a general religious connection to Jews but also a claim on Judaism. In other words, ‘‘after 1900 a plethora of groups who characterized themselves as black Jews, black Hebrews, and black Israelites expanded the metaphorical kinship between black religion and Judaism’’ (Chireau 2000, 21). Many of these early, separate communities developed in New York City—Harlem— and in large part this was the case because Harlem, early in the twentieth century,

Church of the Living God, Pillar of Truth for All Nations was a heavily Jewish area. This made for ideal contact between African Americans, who worked in Harlem’s neighborhoods, and Jews, who lived and worshipped in those areas. Questions can be raised concerning the strength of their adherence to Judaism, in that for instance most of these African American groups walked a line between the Old Testament’s laws and customs and the New Testament’s celebration of Jesus Christ. Few of these congregations extended their appreciation for Judaism beyond the Bible to the oral law and commentaries (Talmudic Tradition) that inform traditional Jewry (Brotz 1970, 10). The dating of these various communities is difficult, but it is often suggested that Prophet F. S. Cherry was one of the first to institute this appeal to Judaism when, in 1866, he organized the Church of the Living God, Pillar of Truth for All Nations. Originating in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Cherry moved his organization to Philadelphia sometime in the 1940s. Concerning the development of the Church of the Living God, Prophet Cherry told his followers that: ‘‘years ago, when he was far from his native land, the Lord approached him in a vision and touched him, thereby appointing him His

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prophet. Thereafter he was led back to America and to Philadelphia, where he was directed to establish the Church of God’’ (Fauset 2001, 32). With this story of origin, it becomes clear that Prophet Cherry is the final authority in all matters within the church; but, like other charismatic leaders mentioned in this book, he has developed a hierarchy of assistants— including deacons, elders, secretaries, and preachers—who help him manage the church. Prophet Cherry’s work as leader of this organization continued until his death in 1965. After his death, Prophet Cherry’s son, Benjamin Cherry, led the organization. Information concerning the church after Prophet Cherry’s death is unavailable, but what is more certain is the manner in which Prophet’s Cherry’s ministry served to buttress the work of those who came after him.

Beliefs and Practices Cherry proclaimed that divine visions instructed him to undertake the work of bringing African Americans to a proper understanding of themselves as the true Jews. Cherry’s message was aggressive and nationalistic in that he argued God and biblical figures, such as Adam, Eve,

FRANK S. CHERRY (PROPHET CHERRY) (?–1965) Documentation concerning the location of Prophet Cherry’s birth and his years prior to his adult life is unavailable. However, it is known that as an adult he held various jobs as a daily laborer and as a sailor he traveled outside the United States. It was while abroad that Cherry says he was spoken to by God and instructed to work with African Americans in the United States. In the vision, God called him a prophet and told him to provide African Americans with proper information concerning their true religion Judaism. In 1866 he organized the Church of the Living God, Pillar of Truth for All Nations. In the 1940s, the organization moved to Philadelphia. He led this congregation until his death.

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and Jesus, were physically black. Furthermore, he argued whites, including white Jews, altered this information concerning the blackness of biblical figures to fit their purposes. African Americans are representative of the true people of God. His teachings are premised on his reading of the Hebrew Bible, which is the ultimate source of knowledge for his church. Much of this doctrine is explored and explained within the context of worship. Prophet Cherry’s services took place on Saturday—the Sabbath. Members of the church also gathered on Fridays and Wednesdays. But the most important was the Sabbath, Saturday, service. Those gathered started the service with songs, and after a few selections had been sung, Prophet Cherry took the pulpit and called the service to order. After the congregation sang another song and prayed, he read from the Bible and provided commentary on the meaning of the biblical passage. Members of the congregation did not simply listen and absorb the Prophet’s teachings. To the contrary, members of the congregation were invited to raise questions concerning the Prophet’s teachings or to provide their insights concerning the biblical passages under study. After this portion of the service was completed, another song was sung, and this was followed by a sermon from the Prophet during which he expounded on the organization’s teachings—including the status of his followers as the true people of God. He criticized Christian churches for embracing the incorrect teachings of white Christians and Jews, first by accepting the idea that Jesus is white. Also exposed to critique were white Jews, who, according to Prophet Cherry, are guilty of not understanding the true significance of Jesus Christ.

Clearly, Prophet Cherry combined elements of Judaism such as the Passover with Christian commitments such as the centrality of Jesus Christ. After the sermon, another song was sung and the congregation was dismissed. These weekly teachings were supplemented on a daily basis by moral and ethical guidelines heavily dependent on the Ten Commandments. Requirements were strict, including no dancing, no heavy drinking of alcohol, avoidance of pork, and a prohibition on photographs of church members or pictures on the walls of their homes (Fauset 2001, 37–39). Members argue that Judaism is a tradition associated with Africa and that African Americans are connected to the original Children of Israel discussed in the Old Testament. They are the descendants of the Children of Israel, whether they live in the United States or Israel. Such a position, however, requires rigorous discipline and attention to laws that included the Ten Commandments, but that also extended beyond these commandments. An effort is made to separate its membership through attire and ritual. For example, members dressed in modest clothing that was often based on a combination of Jewish aesthetics and African American culture. Members find in the aesthetics and rituals of the faith a language and pattern of behavior that helps make sense of the world. Anthony B. Pinn

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Brotz, Howard M. The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership (New York: Schocken Books, 1970).

Commandment Keepers of Harlem Chireau, Yvonne, and Nathaniel Deutsch, eds. Black Zion: African American Reli gious Encounters with Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Fauset, Arthur Huff. Black God of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). Wynia, Elly M. The Church of God and Saints of Christ: The Rise of Black Jews (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994).

COMMANDMENT KEEPERS OF HARLEM Historical Development The Commandment Keepers of Harlem is the most well-known congregation of Black Jews in New York and arguably the largest and most influential community of Black Jews in the United States. Established in 1919 by Rabbi Wentworth A. Matthew, this religious community evolved and developed significantly for nearly a century in response to both historical events, such as the Depression,

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World War II, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the emigration of the Hebrew Israelites to Israel in 1969, and the changing cultural movements that carried currency over the years: Garveyism, Ethiopianism, Civil Rights, and Black Power. Although many Black Jewish communities existed in New York and other large urban centers in the United States throughout this period, the Commandment Keepers was responsible for the form of Black Judaism that most closely resembled Jewish practices, rituals, and traditions associated with the recognized (and in the United States) mostly white Jewish community. They established the Ethiopian Hebrew Rabbinical College in 1925, and through this institution trained many rabbis and spiritual leaders who went on to found affiliate synagogues in other parts of New York, the United States, and the Caribbean. The Commandment Keepers’ relationships with other communities evolved and changed in response to their treatment of and by those communities, yet their status as one of the foremost, respected, and influential Black Jewish groups is undeniable.

WENTWORTH ARTHUR MATTHEW (1892–1973) Born in West Africa and raised in the Caribbean, Matthew moved to New York City in 1913. He was eventually attracted to the teachings of Marcus Garvey, and he joined the Universal Negro Improvement Association, where he met Arnold Josiah Ford. In spite of his earlier attention to Pentecostalism, Matthew found Ford’s teachings concerning Judaism compelling. Although he initially worked with Ford, Matthew started his own community in 1919, and called it the Commandment Keepers, Holy Church of the Living God. Taking over Ford’s congregation when Ford departed for Ethiopia, Matthew would incorporate his members and use the name Commandment Keepers Congregation of the Living God. While this church started as a blend of Christianity and Judaism, Matthew would eventually remove the Christian elements. He would lead the organization until his death in 1973. At that point, his grandson, David Dore, took charge.

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It is impossible to discuss the development of the Commandment Keepers without putting them in the context of the larger Black Judaic movement in the United States. Since the nineteenth century, some Black groups in the United States had been identifying with and as Jews, Hebrews, and Israelites as evidenced in many of the slave spirituals’ lyrics. The terms ‘‘Black Jew, Hebrew, and Israelite’’ have been used to describe a continuum of identities and practice. At one end are Black Jews who would be ‘‘accepted’’ by members of the recognized Jewish community as Jews either because they were born to an authenticated Jewish mother or because they had converted according to halacha (Jewish law). On the other end are Blacks who identify as either Hebrews or Israelites through race and/or nationality, but who may share very little if any ritual practice with the recognized Jewish community. Moreover, some of these groups may actively argue that they and not the recognized Jewish community are the ‘‘true Jews.’’ In the middle are a variety of other groups who may use any of the terms: Jew, Hebrew, or Israelite, and who may perform rituals and practices that incorporate elements of recognized Judaism, Christianity, or both. In Black Judaism: Story of an American Movement, James Landing traces the development of Black Judaism as a social and religious movement and uses the term to account for all varieties along the continuum. Although these groups differ as to how they define and trace their biblical ancestors (through Moses, King Solomon, Queen of Sheba) and whether or not they see themselves as one of the Lost Tribes, they all trace some kind of biblical lineage descended from the ancient Hebrews or Israelites depicted in the Pentateuch.

Moreover, these groups share a belief that their biblical descendants were Black and spent time in Africa, because they emphasize that Ancient Israel was part of the African continent, they believe that they are descendents of Ethiopians, or they believe their descendants lived in exile in Africa after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Some groups also trace Judaic heritage to descendants from Africa who practiced Jewish rituals such as circumcision or refraining from pork and were later brought to the United States or the Caribbean as slaves. Other groups claim Judaic heritage through ancestors who were the offspring of unions between Jewish slave owners and slaves living in the Caribbean. Terminology is a sensitive issue and each group’s choice of terms for selfidentification is affected by a variety of cultural beliefs. Some groups eschew the use of the term ‘‘Jew’’ because it has come to be associated with whiteness in the U.S. context, and instead prefer the terms ‘‘Hebrew’’ and ‘‘Israelite’’ because they are associated with ancient, African roots, and have become a way to assert racial pride and affiliation with African customs, cultures, and traditions. For many Black Judaic groups, Hebrewism or Israelitism, and thus also identifying as Black Jews, is a way of reclaiming African heritage. The various names associated with the Commandment Keepers reflect this preference for emphasizing their African heritage; their leader Rabbi Matthew stressed the connection with Ethiopian descent and connections with Africa. They and their affiliated organizations were known by the following titles over the years: Commandment Keepers: Congregation of the Living God, Pillar and Ground of the Truth, Inc. (1934), a

Commandment Keepers of Harlem secular arm called the Royal Order of Ethiopian Hebrew Sons and Daughters of Culture was formed in either 1926 or 1930 and was often described by observers as a Masonic organization, and the religious group later was known as the Commandment Keepers Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation (1962). The community also moved as congregational wealth and donations ebbed and flowed in consonance with the larger U.S. economy. Although their original worship place is unknown, in 1934 they were worshipping in Antillean Hall at 30 West 129th Street in Harlem, though in 1935 they had difficulty making ends meet and relocated the congregation to 87 West 128th Street on the corner of Lenox above a drugstore, where the congregation remained until 1962. In 1962, they moved to what would become their most recognized and historic building at 1 West 123rd Street in Harlem or 31 Mount Morris Park West on the northwest corner of West 123rd Street (photos available at http://www.nyc-architecture. com/HAR/HAR025.htm). The congregation’s final home was a brownstone residence, originally designed by architect Frank H. Smith in the neo-Renaissance style for the John Dwight family of Arm and Hammer fame and converted into a synagogue in 1962 by the Commandment Keepers. Especially noted for its entrance, the building is listed as one of New York’s historic landmarks. This building became the source of great controversy in the early twenty-first century, however, due to internal conflicts over the community’s leadership that began after Rabbi Matthew’s death in 1973. Since Rabbi Matthew established the Ethiopian Hebrew Rabbinical College in 1925, many Black Jewish Rabbis and spiritual leaders were trained under his

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influence and beliefs. These spiritual leaders went on to found affiliate synagogues in other parts of New York, the United States, and the Caribbean. According to the official Web site of the Israelite Board of Rabbis, in 1970, the school’s name was changed to the Israelite Rabbinical Academy by its chief Rabbi Levi Ben Levy. In 2001, the members of the Israelite Board of Rabbis voted at their International Convention to open the gates of this educational institute to train not only rabbis for the Israelite community, but also interested laypeople and members of the public, including women. Rabbi Matthew, an immigrant from St. Kitts, was the Commandment Keeper’s founder and respected leader for more than half a century. He was a charismatic leader strongly influenced by Garveyism and Ethiopianism, and the tenets of his congregation’s beliefs reflect both. Although sources often differ about Rabbi Matthew’s origins—some say Nigeria—Rabbi Matthew came to the United States in 1913 from St. Christopher (St. Kitts) in the Leeward Islands of the West Indies. According to Rabbi Sholomo Ben Levy, Matthew was born in 1892 and died in New York in 1973. Over the years, many observers came to worship with his community and often remarked upon his distinctive voice. He had close ties with Rabbi Arnold Josiah Ford, who was the founder and leader of the Beth B’nai Abraham Ethiopian Congregation and Hebrew School and who also directed the musical arm of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Although Rabbi Ford was quite influential in his own right, he eventually left the New York community to live in Ethiopia where he later died in 1935. Before his death, Rabbi Ford sent

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ordination papers written in English, Hebrew, and Amharic, from Ethiopia to Rabbi Matthew in 1929, thus intending to certify Matthew’s legitimacy as a rabbi of the Black Jews. While Rabbi Matthew and those inside his community accepted Rabbi Ford’s certification, unfortunately this recognition was never granted legitimacy by those outside the community. Rabbi Matthew reported the community’s membership to number over 400 or 500 at its height in the 1920s and 1930s, though by 2004 official membership had dwindled to eight. Under Rabbi Matthew’s leadership, the community sought a range of interactions with the recognized Jewish community and attracted the attention of several scholars interested in Black Jews including Ruth Landes, Arthur Dobrin, Harold Brotz, Graenum Berger, and later James Landing, Roberta Gold, Marlaine Glicksman, and Rabbi Sholomo Ben Levy. On several occasions, Rabbi Matthew attempted to become an accepted member of the New York Board of Rabbis, first in 1931 and then again in 1952, and later he attempted to join the B’nai B’rith Lodge.

On all occasions his requests for membership and recognition from the mainstream Jewish community were denied. Although the rationale varied, in most cases the recognized Jewish community did not accept Rabbi Matthew’s ordination by Rabbi Ford as legitimate according to Jewish legal standards, and consequently, Rabbi Matthew’s congregation eventually had little to do with the recognized Jewish community. Rabbi Matthew married and had two sons and one daughter, Florence; only his daughter and her son, Matthew’s grandson, David, remained with the faith. Before his death in 1973, Rabbi Matthew ordained his grandson David Dore before he was 18 years old as a recognized rabbi of the Commandment Keepers congregration. Dore, then a student at Yeshiva High School, went on to study at Yeshiva University and become a practicing lawyer. Unfortunately, after Matthew’s death, an internal dispute erupted over who would become his legitimate successor and the congregation’s recognized leader. In 1975, the synagogue board members elected Rabbi Willie ‘‘Chaim’’ White,

ARNOLD JOSIAH FORD (1890–1935) Ford was born in Barbados and migrated to the United States in 1912. Having musical talent, he spent almost a decade in New York as the leader of the New Amsterdam Musical Association of New York. This work was in addition to his membership in Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, a connection Ford developed in 1917. As a member of Garvey’s organization he put his musical talents to use by creating much of the music utilized during its activities. Upon leaving Barbados, Ford dismissed much of the religious training he had received from his minister father. However, it is believed that in New York Ford encountered Judaism. In 1924, Ford organized Beth B’nai Abraham Congregation, and he began to teach African Americans that they were the true Hebrews. Six years after he founded this congregation, Ford left for Ethiopia because he was convinced the existence of the Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) proved his point concerning the African origin of the true Hebrews. He died in Ethiopia in 1935.

Commandment Keepers of Harlem also ordained by Rabbi Matthew, to be the congregation’s leader. Reportedly, Rabbi White and Rabbi Dore jointly led services until the 1980s, when Rabbi White began to exclude Rabbi Dore and others from services and participation. Rabbi White then led the services with Rabbi Bezzalel Ben Yehudah, though White was clearly the leader. Conflict continued throughout the 1990s and the beginning of the twenty-first century. In 2000 Rabbi Zechariah Ben Lewi was ordained, and a few years later, in 2004, he was appointed as the new leader. Although the Israelite Board of Rabbis suggested that the congregation resolve their internal disputes through a traditional, religious court known as a bet din, the congregants did not pursue this path and instead brought their grievances to the civil courts of New York. In April 2007, the synagogue board sold the historic building on Mt. Morris and 123rd Street for $1.6 million, and the loss of the building received widespread media coverage in the New York and Jewish presses. Rabbi Dore has legally contested the board’s right to sell the building, and the issue remains unresolved. While Rabbi Matthew’s community does not continue to meet in its most recognized home, his teachings and beliefs live on in the successful sister congregations that grew out of his movement. Black Jews influenced by the Commandment Keepers continue to practice at Mt. Horeb Congregation in the Bronx; Beth Sholom in Bedstuyvesant, Brooklyn; B’nai Adat in Brooklyn; Beth Elohim in Queens; and B’nai Zaken in Chicago.

Beliefs and Practices Although terminology varied over the years, members of the Commandment

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Keepers explicitly saw themselves as Black Jews, believed that they had direct lineage from the ancient Hebrews and Israelites depicted in the Pentateuch, and believed that ancient, biblical figures were Black. Specifically, Rabbi Matthew emphasized the story of Moses, who came from Egypt and therefore Africa, and also the story of King Solomon and Queen Sheba, who Matthew believed to have hailed from Ethiopia. Rabbi Matthew taught that all of these figures were Black, and though these ‘‘original Jews’’ were non-Europeans, he did not deny white Jews’ legitimacy. Rather, he believed that white Jews had helped to preserve Judaism over the years. He also reasoned that since the original Jews were Blacks, those Blacks who returned to the faith did not need to undergo conversion procedures, because they were originally and ancestrally Jewish. The community followed many traditional, orthodox Jewish practices. Seating was separated by gender, prayer services were conducted from a recognized Jewish siddur (prayerbook) in a combination of Hebrew and English, and male members wore head coverings known as kippot or yarmulkes as well as traditional prayer shawls called tallitim. Rabbi Matthew also introduced African and Caribbean customs by carrying an African cane to services. Additionally, many female members were reported to wear traditional African dress to worship. The group observed all major Jewish holidays, including Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), tashlich (the symbolic ceremony of casting one’s sins into a river during Rosh Hashanah festivities), Yom Kippur (a day of atonement and fasting), Sukkot, Passover (Pesach in Hebrew), Hannukah, and traditional practices such as hanging mezzuzot on doorways, observing the laws of kashruth

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(abstaining from pork, shellfish, and not eating dairy and meat products at the same meal), and performing a Bar Mitzvah for male members at the age of 13. (A forthcoming hour-long, feature documentary film by Marlaine Glicksman about the community, The Commandment Keepers, includes original footage of many of the community’s ritual practices and lifecycle events, including a Bar Mitzvah, a wedding, a Rabbi’s retirement, as well as holiday celebrations for tashlich, Sukkot, Hannukah, and Passover, and original interviews with community members.) The community also held regular Sabbath services on Friday evening and Saturday, with congregants reading from a Torah Scroll during the Saturday service. In 1942, Rabbi Matthew collected many of the group’s beliefs and spiritual teachings into a document called the Minute Book, which also included his memoir. In the Minute Book, Rabbi Matthew included a summary of the community’s early history and guide about their practices, a copy of the Rabbinical College’s curriculum, ‘‘The Twelve Principles of the Doctrine of Israel’’ that he compiled, and the ‘‘Anthropology of the Ethiopian Hebrews and their Relationship to the Fairer Jews.’’ A copy of the Minute Book is appended to scholar Howard Brotz’s 1947 thesis about the Congregation, and its contents are also reproduced in Brotz’s 1964 popular and oft-cited book The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership and summarized in Landing’s text Black Judaism. Janice W. Fernheimer

Israelite Rabbis.’’ http://www .blackjews.org (accessed October 11, 2008). Brotz, Howard. ‘‘The Black Jews of Harlem’’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Chicago, Chicago, 1947). Brotz, H. The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964). Dorman, Jacob S. ‘‘I Saw You Disappear with My Own Eyes: Hidden Transcripts of New York Black Israelite Bricolage.’’ Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, no. 1: 61 83. Glicksman, Marlaine. ‘‘The Commandment Keepers.’’ http://thecommandmentkeepers .net/synopsis.htm (accessed October 11, 2008). Landing, James E. Black Judaism: Story of an American Movement (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2001). ‘‘Matthew, Wentworth Arthur.’’ In African American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). ‘‘New York Architecture Images: Command ment Keepers Ethiopian Hebrew Congre gation.’’ http://www.nyc architecture. com/HAR/HAR025.htm (accessed October 11, 2008). West, Cornel, and Jack Salzman (eds.). ‘‘Judaism: Black Jews in America.’’ In Encyclopedia of African American History and Culture, Vol. III (New York: Macmillan Publications, 1996).

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conjure is the name for an African American magical system. Also known as tricking, goopher, mojo, and, since the late nineteenth century, hoodoo,

Ben Levy, Sholomo. ‘‘Blackjews.org: A Project of the International Board of

CONJURE Historical Development

Conjure it has long been a living link between black Americans and their African roots. Though most often found in the South, it has existed throughout the United States wherever a significant black population has settled. Conjure began its history during the seventeenth century, with the rise of the British North American slave trade into the Atlantic Coast colonies. The African regions from which the unwilling laborers came were to influence its development enormously. In the Chesapeake, the African population was quite mixed, though by far the largest single ethnicity were the Igbo of the Bight of Biafra region of West Africa. Like most Africans and many Europeans of the day, the Igbo were firm believers in charms

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and spells. In Virginia, poisons were the most common weapon of the conjurer. Conceived of as spiritual instead of simply toxic substances, they were an integral part of Igbo beliefs as well. The Igbos’ American descendants turned to poisons to punish enemies and even cruel masters. The term mojo, used either as a synonym for conjure or as a designation of a type of charm, may be another Africanism introduced by the Igbo. Though Igbos were an early and persistent presence in the Chesapeake, the contributions of people of West Central African descent cannot be overlooked. Slaves of Kongo, Angolan, and related ethnicities were a numerical majority of South Carolina and Georgia’s black population. One of their most obvious

The interior of Robinson Hall of Micanopy, Florida. This small town example of a conjure shop carried the usual oils, candles, and herbal curios. Note the wall hangings, which represent from left to right Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. (Jef frey Elton Anderson)

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contributions was the heavy use of graveyard dirt, sometimes known as goopher dust, in their charms. Goopher appears to derive from the Kongo word kufwa, meaning ‘‘to die.’’ This focus on the dead arose from West Central Africans’ religious veneration for ancestral spirits, which was considerably stronger among the Kongo and related peoples than with most other Africans. Another West Central African import was the widespread use of roots in conjure charms, a practice in keeping with the beliefs of the slaves’ homeland. Though the preceding practices and terms are but a few of the African features of conjure, one thing that sets it apart from hoodoo, its Mississippi River Valley cousin, is the absence of many of the latter’s overtly African features. Hoodoo, as the magical and ceremonial aspect of Voodoo, relied on a variety of African deities and specific spirits of the dead. Such practices were rare in the rest of the South, at least by the nineteenth century. Even African words, though present, were far less common in conjure than in hoodoo. By the nineteenth century, the most common names for the practice, including conjure itself, were English. Goopher doctor was an exception to the general rule. In place of the missing Africanisms were Europeanisms. Practitioners were sometimes known as cunning men and women and high men and women, English terms for magic workers. Likewise, Bibles had become powerful conjure tools well before the end of slavery, and prayers to the Christian God had supplanted the deities. Though English terms and concepts strongly influenced conjure, it had in no way ceased to be African. On the contrary, it had become African American.

Beliefs and Practices Historically, conjure men and women were vital components of this magical system. These were supernatural specialists who worked for paying clients, selling charms and spells tailored to meet their clients’ needs for love, luck, money, revenge, or virtually anything else they might request. During the antebellum era, some of the conjurers’ most popular products were designed to help slaves avoid punishment or successfully run away. The nature of conjurers’ practice has changed significantly over time. Prior to the first half of the twentieth century, practitioners gathered most of their magical materials from nature. Their best-known curios were John the Conqueror roots, five finger grass, black cat bones, devil’s shoe string, and Chewing John roots. Today, these items remain available, though few now collect them by hand. Instead, spiritual supply shops have largely supplanted the historical conjurers. These shops purchase their herbal and zoological products from supply houses. Alongside these traditional items now appear magical candles, oils, aerosol sprays, and other goods originating not in the wild but in a manufacturing company. Whatever era they have inhabited, conjurers have been important people. Antebellum conjure men promised—and reportedly delivered—relief from the lash. After emancipation, African Americans needed money in addition to protection. Conjurers offered their magical assistance. Their versatility, coupled with a widespread belief in their powers, made many famous. Conjure men and women like Aunt Caroline Dye, Dr. Buzzard, and Dr. Jim Jordan are still talked about

Conjure

‘‘AUNT’’ CAROLINE DYE By the time of her death in 1918, this well known fortune teller and conjurer had become a household name for hundreds of miles around her Newport, Arkansas, home. Her fame was such that she found her way into popular blues songs. Unlike many practi tioners, Caroline Dye reportedly never used her powers to harm.

today. Some of them succeeded in doing more than building name recognition. Jim Jordan, for instance, used his conjure trade to build a large fortune, charging some customers thousands of dollars for his services. By the time he died in 1962, he had used his earnings to purchase several other businesses and to support a community of many dozens that grew up around his rural North Carolina shop. Scholars and popular authors, black and white alike, have often dismissed conjurers as mere superstitious charlatans. Clearly, they have been wrong. Jeffrey Elton Anderson

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Jeffrey E. Conjure in African American Society (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005). Chambers, Douglas B. Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia (Jackson: Uni versity Press of Mississippi, 2005). Chireau, Yvonne. Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). Georgia Writer’s Project, Savannah Unit. Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Coastal Negroes. With an Introduction by Charles Joyner and pho tographs by Muriel and Malcolm Bell, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986). Hyatt, Harry Middleton. Hoodoo Conjuration Witchcraft Rootwork. 5 vols. Memoirs of the Alma Egan Hyatt Foun dation (Hannibal: Western Publishing Company, 1970 1978). Long, Carolyn Morrow. Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and Commerce (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001). McTeer, James Edwin. Fifty Years as a Low Country Witch Doctor (Beaufort, SC: Beaufort Book Company, 1976). Yronwode, Catherine. Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African American Conjure and Traditional Formulary Giving the Spiritual Uses of Natural Herbs, Roots, Minerals, and Zoological Curios

JAMES SPURGEON JORDAN Dr. Jim Jordan of Como, North Carolina, was one of the most successful conjurers of the twentieth century. His practice earned him enough money to purchase a variety of other businesses, including a sandlot baseball team. Jordan’s fame was such that a small community grew up around his country store, coming to be known as Jordansville. He died in 1962 at the age of 91.

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‘‘AUNT ZIPPY’’ TULL Tull was a mid to late nineteenth century conjure woman who lived on the Delmarva Peninsula. She was so well regarded that stories were still being told about her during the 1930s, approximately two generations after her death.

(Forestville, CA: Lucky Mojo Curio Company, 2002).

CONVINCE (JAMAICA) Historical Development ‘‘Convince’’ is the name given to an ancestral cult of obeah men found in the parishes falling within the county of Surrey in Jamaica—St. Mary, St. Catherine, St. Andrew, St. Thomas, and Portland.1 Donald Hogg (1964), the only scholar so far to have written about the cult, does not explain the name, but says that it is also known as ‘‘Bongo’’ in St. Mary where he conducted research. WarnerLewis (2003, 17) gives ‘‘Bongo’’ a Central African derivation, thus validating popular perception of the cult’s African provenance, and its similarity with Kumina. A more appropriate name for the cultists, therefore, is ‘‘science specialists’’ (Warner-Lewis 2003, 146), given the pejorative connotation of the word ‘‘obeah.’’ The cult has no organized structure, except the Bongo man and one or two ‘‘grooms,’’ apprentices who will eventually become Bongo men themselves. Their main function is to attend to their charge when possessed. Each Bongo man is autonomous and organizes his

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secret rituals and occasional public ceremonies as the needs demand, and to them he will invite other Bongo men.

Beliefs and Practices Like Kumina, the possessing powers are the spirits of the once living, whether in Africa, under slavery, or more recently. They, therefore, have personalities and even names, such as Old Johnson, who ‘‘had been killed by a white planter and hated all white men’’; Needles, ‘‘a sad, defensive spirit’’; Kill-and-Cure, ‘‘an ill tempered, ugly old Maroon who delighted in frightening children’’; and Fire Key Master, ‘‘a former boiler in a sugar factory who loved to dance on burning coals’’ (Hogg 1964, 271). Spirits become the familiars of the persons they choose to possess, thus initiating a relationship of mutual obligations. The Bongo man allows his body to be used to dance, smoke cigars, drink rum, insult people, simulate sex, curse profanities, climb trees and perform other dangerous feats, not without injury sometimes, and express anger and aggression. He is also expected to perform annual sacrificial feasts. For its part the spirit becomes his guardian and must comply with the Bongo man’s requests when summoned. Multiple spirits may possess the same person, but not all at the same time.

This account is based on the doctoral research of Donald Hogg (1964) and on this writer’s visit to two ceremonies in the Bog Walk region of St. Catherine in 1997.

Convince (Jamaica) Hogg found three types of ceremonies: simple meetings, memorial services, and annual sacrifices. In the one he describes (1964, 267), the first stage incorporates the revival equivalent— hymns, choruses, and prayers—around such sacred icons as candles, flowers, and the Bible. The second stage begins with the entry of the Bongo man, at which point the spirits are summoned ‘‘by singing hymns in a slow, dirge-like tempo called ‘long meter.’ ’’ It culminates in spirit possession, which comes with a sudden, headlong pitch to the ground. The groom struggles to secure a firm grip at the nape of the neck, a position he endeavors to maintain during this phase of the possession, as the nowstiffened body of the Bongo man is raised face-up from the ground and propelled backwards by the heels wherever he wants to go. The groom tries to steer him away from physical harm. As the spirit gains control, the Bongo man grows calm and assumes the physical characteristics and personality of the spirit. Hogg (1964, 269) observed one ‘‘who had a paralyzed left arm, crossed eyes, and a limp.’’ The Bongo man will remain in this state, smoking constantly, consuming rum liberally, using obscene language, and making lewd passes at young women, until satisfied the spirit departs, and the final stage is reached as people leave one by one. Bongo spirits, which often require of their mounted hosts extraordinary feats of climbing trees or buildings, have a reputation of aggressiveness. According to Hogg, they seemed terrified of dogs. In one ceremony witnessed by this writer, the Bongo man seized hold of a dog that wandered too near the yard and hurled it squealing in terror 20 meters outside.

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Spectators immediately retreated a safe distance from the circle. Sacrificial ceremonies usually take three days, with the sacrifice of a goat performed on the second. The Bongo man blesses it with rum, before the groom beheads it with a single stroke. A portion of the meat is cooked without salt and set aside for the spirit, while the rest is consumed first by the Bongo man and groom, and then by the spectators. Dancing and possession will resume and continue into the third day, when the whole event is brought to a close ‘‘with a final Christian prayer and a solemn, ritual good-bye to the spirits’’ (Hogg 1964, 273). Convince seems to have had an influence on the Rastafari movement, which appropriated and valorized the title ‘‘Bongo,’’ as in Bongo Sam, or Bongo Jerry. In the 1960s and 1970s in Jamaica, ‘‘Bongo man’’ became a popular name for a dreadlocked Rastafarian. A noticeable feature of Rastafari nyabinghi celebrations is the sacred bonfire at the entrance of the sacred grounds that remains alive for the duration of the nyabinghi, which have been known to last as long as two weeks. Hogg makes no mention of a fire, but one was observed at each of the two ceremonies witnessed by this writer in St. Catherine. The ritual presence of fire serves as a source of spiritual power (Warner-Lewis 2003, 220–223). Rastafari abstention from salt may have derived from a more generalized tradition brought from Africa and strengthened in the post-Emancipation years by liberated Africans from the Kongo, but the movement’s neutral attitude toward the use of expletives seems temptingly reminiscent of Bongo men’s practice. Alston Barrington Chevannes

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Hogg, Donald William. ‘‘Jamaican Reli gions: A Study in Variations’’ (PhD thesis, Yale University, 1964).

Warner Lewis, Maureen. Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Time, Transforming Cultures (Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Tobago: University of the West Indies Press, 2003).

E ESPIRITISMO

some of the spirits, several books including Le Livre des Esprits (The Book of the Spirits), which served as the recognized textbook of Spiritism in France. Kardec’s form of communication with the dead was soon exported to the islands of the Caribbean and to South America where it became especially well established in Puerto Rico and Brazil. Originally a middle and upper-middle class phenomenon in France, in the Americas Espiritismo (Spiritism) quickly spread throughout these societies. Although the worldwide movement Kardec established did not survive his death, the forms of Espiritismo that developed in the Americas have continued to grow and develop. In the mid-twentieth century, Puerto Rican immigrants brought Espiritismo to the United States. Their Espiritismo centros (communities) attract not only other Puerto Ricans but also Spanish-speaking peoples from throughout the Americas as well as some non-Hispanic Black and White Americans. In addition, many nonHispanics have been introduced to the

Historical Development The early nineteenth century was a vibrant time for religious sentiment in both Europe and the United States. On both continents there was a renewed interest in the afterlife and methods for speaking with the dead. In the 1850s the young teacher and mathematician H. Leon Denizard Rivail began exploring the phenomenon of table turning. During the se´ances held in middle-class parlors, mediums attempted to contact the ‘‘other side.’’ One evidence of such communication was when the table they were sitting around rose up and began to spin. Rivail began his investigation as a skeptic, but soon he was convinced of the veracity of these phenomena. He was especially convinced by the sophisticated responses to his questions given by the illiterate young female mediums. He began a systemic exploration of these ideas. Working under the pseudonym Allan Kardec, he wrote, under the direction of 181

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beliefs and practices of Espiritismo by practitioners of other Caribbean religious traditions, including Santerı´a. In New York City where members of vibrant Espiritismo and Santerı´a communities often intermingle, a uniquely American form of Espiritismo, known as Santerismo, has developed (see entry ‘‘Santerismo’’).

Beliefs and Practices Spiritist beliefs are based on eighteenthand nineteenth-century Christian Catholicism, Hindu ideas that were circulating in Europe at the time, and the newly discovered ideas of electricity and fluid mechanics. The soul was understood to be an immaterial fluid that animates the human body. When a person dies, this fluid separates from the body and becomes a disembodied spirit that may roam the material and immaterial realms until it is reincarnated into a new human being in either this world or another. In the cosmology of Hinduism, one could be reborn as a person in any of the many castes or as an animal. One’s rebirth depended on one actions in this life. If one is good and moral, one could expect to have an auspicious rebirth or perhaps even a release from the material world entirely; but if one is not good and moral, one might expect to be reborn into a lower level of existence, even as low as a dog or a pig or an insect. According to the laws of Karma as understood by spiritists, a spirit belongs to one of three categories and becomes more and more purified with each incarnation. Spiritists believe that among the disembodied spirits there are the impure spirits who roam the earth causing trouble and confusion and the pure spirits who work

with human beings sharing their wisdom and spiritual knowledge. Between these two types of spirits are the embodied spirits we call human beings. As embodied spirits humans are struggling to improve themselves so they may join the pure spirits upon their deaths. Important to Kardec’s original followers were the scientific proofs it provided of continued existence. Although God stands behind the work of the spirits, He plays a minor role in the ritual activities of espiritistas (spiritists). Instead, it is the pure spirits that they look to for help and guidance. Although Kerdac’s principle concerns were theological and philosophical, in the Americas, Espiritismo provides spiritual, emotional, and physical healing. Professor Armand Andres Bermudez has identified four types of Spiritism practice. He calls these Scientific Spiritism (Espirismo del Mesa), Spiritualism of Charity (Espiritismo de Caridad), Spiritism of the Chain (Espiritismo de Cordon), and Mixed or Crossed Spiritism (Espiritismo Cruzado). The most common types of Espiritismo in the United States are Scientific Spiritism and the Mixed or Crossed Spiritism.

Table set for Misa Espiritual in Houston, Texas. (Mary Ann Clark)

Espiritismo In Scientific Spiritism, trained mediums led by the head medium gather at a table placed in the front of the meeting room. From there they communicate with the spirits associated with the community, providing practical and spiritual advice to the congregation that sit on the pews or chairs that fill the room. Only pure spirits are invoked, and if lower spirits manifest they are either driven away or provided with the light they need to continue their own spiritual evolution. Although some congregations use recorded music, in general, singing, dancing, drumming, and the like are considered inappropriate. Instead, prayers and simple chants are used to encourage the mediumistic trances. Mixed Spiritism engages in a more free-flowing ritual known as Misa Espiritual (Spiritual Mass). Here the table is pushed to one end of the room and both the mediums and other participants sit in a semicircle. Singing, dancing, drumming, and even drinking along with prayers may be used. These sessions are known for mixing elements of traditional Espiritismo with Christian and African, particularly Yoruba and Bantu, practices. Prayers from Kardec’s Collection of Selected Prayers in English or Spanish are common, but Protestant hymns, Black spirituals, and Catholic prayers may also be included. Although the experienced mediums provide most of the interactions with the spirits, all participants may exhibit forms

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of spirit communications. Whereas the Scientific Spiritism mediums generally work for the health and well-being of those nonmediums in attendance, in the Misa Espiritual all participants are encouraged to share in the spirit communications and all share in the benefits of these communications. Mary Ann Clark

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bermundez, Armando Andres. ‘‘Notas para la historia del Espiritismo en Cuba.’’ Etnologia y folklore 4 (1967): 5 22. Gual, Candita C. Collection of Selected Prayers: Devotion Manual A Spiritualist Prayer Guide (New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2006). Kardec, Allan. Book on Mediums; Guide for Mediums and Invocators, trans. E. A. Wood (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1970). Kardec, Allan. The Spirit’s Book (Sa˜o Paulo, Brazil: Lake Livraria Allan Kardec Editıˆra Ltda., 1972). Kardec, Allan. Collection of Selected Prayers (Bronx, NY: De Pablo International Inc., 1989). Kardec, Allan. Coleccion de Oraciones Escogidas (Bronx, NY: De Pablo International Inc., 1990). ´ Perez y Mena, Andre´s Isidoro. Speaking with the Dead: Development of Afro Latin Religion Among Puerto Ricans in the United States (New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1991).

F FIRE BAPTIZED HOLINESS CHURCH OF GOD OF THE AMERICAS

opportunity to create the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas, an association that has grown from one church in South Carolina to over 1,000, extending into Canada, England, and the Caribbean. In 1908, because of increasing discrimination within the organization and a growth in the viciousness of segregation, the interracial element that once promoted the growth of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church (Association) became terminus. Fuller, in this same year, along with 500 black members, agreed with the racialization of the group. Consequently, they left the group and formed a new ecclesiastical group called the Colored Fire Baptized Holiness Church. By the end of 1908, this new group, whose membership exceeded 900, under the leadership of Fuller, held its first Council Meeting in Greer, South Carolina, and formally appointed G. W. Gleen as its ruling elder and Fuller as General Overseer. The Sunday School Convention along with the formation of the Fuller Normal Industrial Institute in Atlanta,

Historical Development On August 1, 1898, William Edward Fuller Sr. mounted a mule and traveled more than 40 miles to attend the first nationally based organizing meeting of the Fire Baptized Holiness Association, an association that within three years (1895–1898) had grown from a locally based group located in a small rural area in Nebraska under the initiative of Benjamin Irwin to a nationally recognized force within the holiness movement. Fuller, the only black in attendance, embraced the theological principles of this newly formed association, and ten days later his zeal led to his appointment as overseer of all the ‘‘Negro Churches’’ within this group. Although racial tension disrupted interracial unity within the association, Fuller utilized this 185

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WILLIAM EDWARD FULLER SR. (1875–1958) On January 29, 1875, in Mountville, South Carolina, George and Martha Fuller became the proud parents of William Edward Fuller. Orphaned at the age of four, he was raised by his aunt Ida Fuller Vance. In 1892 Fuller joined New Hope Methodist Church and one year later received ministerial ordination. After attending the first meet ing of the Fire Baptized Holiness Association in 1898, Fuller left Methodism, became the overseer of the black churches within the FBH Association, and by 1905 was appointed to the executive board of the group. In 1908, he departed this association to form the Colored Fire Baptized Church. Establishment of The True Witness, the first periodical of the association, the founding of Fuller Normal Industrial Institute, the adoption of a formal politico religious framework, and a steady increase in membership numbers are key hallmarks of Fuller’s leadership over the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas, which ended with his death in 1958.

Georgia, in 1910 and 1912, respectively, represented this group’s early focus on education. The Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God became the official name of the group in 1922. However, as a result of a General Council Meeting held at Mount Moriah Fire Baptized Holiness Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1926, Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas became the adopted name and still remains the official name of the organization. Between the 1930s and 1940s the association continued its expansion beyond South Carolina into the territories of Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. A structural system of governance began in 1958, the same year in which Bishop Fuller died, with the instillation of C. C. Chiles, G. G. Gary, C. A. Mills, E. Z. Bowman, and W. E. Fuller Jr. into the bishopric. Although men held the top-tiered positions within the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas, it is important to note the involvement of women within this ecclesiastical body. Women were not just members of the

laity, they were also allowed to hold positions in the clergy. They were not only candidates of ministerial ordination, but they were also founding and acting pastors of local churches. For example, Mother Hazel L. Lindsay held a 34-year tenure at Antioch Fire Baptized Holiness Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Women also served in positions of national capacity. For instance, Sister Caroline Williams Phelps and Mother L. E. Chiles were instrumental in the formation of the Sisters of Charity, the first service and mission organ of this association, in 1946. In the same year Sister Johnnie E. Fuller created the Young People’s Institute. Under the leadership of Bishop William Edward Fuller Jr., who received headship over the association in 1958 after the death of his father, organizational restructuring occurred in 1970 due to the growth in membership numbers. Remaining faithful to an Episcopal structure, there was an establishment of two additional dioceses in which Elder Abraham L. McCracken became bishop over the Second Episcopal Diocese and Elder Frank C. Canty began to oversee

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MOTHER HAZEL L. LYNCH LINDSAY (1932–2003) Hazel L. Lynch Lindsay was born on August 17, 1932. Mother Lindsay received her formal ministerial training from the Fuller Normal School of Religion. Armed with a Doctor of Divinity, she founded the Faith Chapel Fire Baptized Holiness Church of Gastonia in North Carolina where she remained pastor for ten years. Mother Lindsay would go on to serve as pastor of Mt. Sinai Fire Baptized Holiness Church located in South Carolina. She was not limited to only pastoral duties but diligently served as a regional supervisor in the Young People’s Institute for eight years. In 1969, Mother Lindsay accepted a pas toral position at Antioch Fire Baptized Holiness Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. She became an advocate of community service, as seen in her reception of the Bishop N. T. Scott Service Award in 1992. The 34 year tenure of Mother Lindsay came to an end upon her death on May 30, 2003.

the Third Episcopal Diocese. Elders, pastors, evangelists, missionaries, deacons, and teachers are recognized as offices of ordination. A continual increase in membership yielded not only organizational structuring, but it also led to the manifestation of organizations and additional schools focused on both missionary and educational pursuits. In 1974, the Junior Missionary Department was initiated in order to provide basic theological training for children and young adults in

the church; however, this group became responsible for the expansion of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas into international territories. For example, in 1977, the youth group built a local church in Jamaica, West Indies, and then in 1988 established the W. E. Fuller Jr. Headquarters and Mission Home in the same country. A continued commitment to youth can be attested to in the opening of the Fuller Normal Advanced Technology Charter School (FNATCS) in 2006. Nestled on

BISHOP WILLIAM EDWARD FULLER JR. (1921–2007) William Edward Fuller Jr. was born in 1921 to Bishop William Edward Fuller Sr., founder of the association, and Mother Emma Fuller. Five months after the death of his father in 1958, Fuller, upon reception into the bishopric, became the new leader of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas. With the addition of two dio ceses to the association’s governing body, the creation of the Junior Mission Arm, and the documenting of official church doctrine through two primary works, Work of a Deacon: A Handbook and Introducing the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas, both written by Bishop Patrick L. Frazier, the association continued to grow under the leadership of Bishop Fuller. He was also instrumental in expanding the Fuller Normal Industrial Institute’s campus and the passing of Bill 731, a legislative bill passed in order to rename the highway that runs in front of the association’s headquarters in Greenville, South Carolina, to the ‘‘Bishop William Edward Fuller, Sr., Highway.’’

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75 acres of land in Greenville, South Carolina, FNATCS, with its small teacher-to-student ratio, well-established board of directors, and technically equipped building that can house 500 students, has made a commitment to equip those students labeled ‘‘at-risk’’ with literacy, technological proficiency, and a sense of community.

Beliefs and Practices The ‘‘Basis of Union’’ contained within the ‘‘Discipline’’ symbolizes the written theological disposition of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas. Redemption, justification, sanctification, and eschatology—a doctrine that deals with matters of finality like the afterlife—form the major theological categories utilized to organize this belief system. For this group the blood of Jesus serves as a catalyst in the propagation of redemption and absolution of past sins, yielding total restoration or regeneration. Although redemption from sin maintains a place in the ‘‘Basis of Union,’’ it does not include an explicit statement about the origin of the sin, i.e., original sin. Not only does Jesus’ blood hold a significant place within this value system, but the faith of believers also maintains an important position in the aforementioned ideology. For example, justification results from faith in the redemptive power of Jesus’ blood. Accordingly, faith serves as a precursor to grace, and this unmerited favor precedes the process of sanctification. Faith places believers into a posture of receptivity toward the ‘‘baptism of fire,’’ in which glossolalia, i.e., ‘‘speaking in tongues,’’ scripturally supported in Acts 8:14–17, emblematizes the initial sign of this reception. In summation, this group believes in the following

experiences: conversion, sanctification, and baptism of the Holy Spirit. Concerning eschatology, the group highlights the second coming of Christ with emphasis on his judgment yielding both rewards and punishments. Spiritualism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Roman Catholicism are rejected in the ‘‘Basis of Union.’’ It is important to note these rejections are not a simple one line theological denial, but instead the ‘‘Basis of Union’’ meticulously presents each group in light of its documented history and theological dispositions in order to offer rejections. For example, the church denies Catholicism’s acceptance of transubstantiation elements of communion actually becoming the blood and body of Jesus, and purgatory. Specific practices such as witchcraft and sorcery are also rejected. The church also rejects certain theological teachings like reincarnation. Outside of the value system presented in the ‘‘Basis of Union,’’ this body also maintains general rules generated to assist with the functionality of the group. Rejection of members joining secret societies and entering casinos or movie theatres signifies only 2 of the 15 ordinances. Considering that women are able to hold clergy positions within the group, it is important to note ordinance five in the system of general rules. Women are mandated to refrain from wearing pants and dresses with short sleeves. This dress code extends beyond an ecclesiastical setting; therefore, even if pants are required for work, women must wear a skirt/dress to work, change into pants, and then change back into the skirt/dress before leaving the employment location. Women are the only members who are subjected to an explicit dress code.

Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas | 189 The Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas professes two sacraments. The first is the Lord’s Supper. Baptism, specifically ‘‘water baptism,’’ is the second sacrament of this group. In order for members to progress toward perfected obedience and receive regeneration, baptism by full immersion must be completed. Cleansing the feet of saints (members) and marriage represent other rites within this ecclesiastical body. Margarita Simon Guillory

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas. Discipline of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas (Atlanta: Fuller Press, 1994). Available from the Fire Baptized Holiness Church at

http://www.fbhchurch.org (accessed July 10, 2007). Frazier, Patrick L. Introducing the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas: A Study Manual (Wilmington: Fire Baptized Holiness Church, 1990). http://www.fbhchurch.org (accessed July 10, 2007). ‘‘Fuller Normal Advanced Technology Charter School’’ (2006). Available from FNTACS at http://fullernormalcharter school.org/home.aspx . Hogan, Howard B. Tongues and the Baptism of Holy Spirit: Their Place in the Fire Bap tized Holiness Church of God in the Americas (Chicago: Professional Paper, Chicago Theological Seminary, 1976). Sanders, Cheryl J. Saints in Exile: The Holiness Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

G GAGA

Gaga or Rara—as it is called in Haiti— is an exuberant carnival-like spring festival associated with a certain cluster of Haitian Vodou spirits. Its highly popular ceremonies culminate during Holy Week with the Easter holidays. It is this celebration of Rara, hispanicized into the term ‘‘Gaga,’’ that gave the name to this religious and cultural movement.

Historical Development Gaga is a widespread African-based religious tradition in the Dominican Republic, formerly known as the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo, but it also exists on a much smaller scale in Eastern Cuba. The followers of this tradition consist primarily of poor Haitian immigrants who reside in rural areas. They and their ancestors fled from neighboring Haiti in several waves of migration to escape the endless economical hardship and violence in their home country. Unfortunately, many of these Haitians ended up living under equally impoverished if not worse conditions in the Dominican Republic, their hardship being compounded by the fact that large numbers of them do not have Dominican citizenship and suffer marginalization. In Eastern Cuba, the servants of the Gaga spirits usually do not have to carry this additional burden of political disenfranchisement.

Beliefs and Practices Gaga is a complex and intricate religion consisting of Haitian-derived beliefs and practices adapted and assimilated into their new Dominican diaspora environment. It is found mainly in rural areas and is widely practiced by Haitian contract laborers (i.e., recent noncitizen migrants), but Gaga has also attracted followers among Dominicanos of Haitian descent and has even spread into the wider Dominican population of any ethnic descent. Hence, Gaga is a highly adaptive social and political movement that serves primarily the needs of these Haitian immigrants. The religion offers its followers an elaborate system of 191

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magical beliefs and practices that enable them to cope with the problems and uncertainties of everyday life. Moreover, it provides them with a welcome escape from persistent patterns of political oppression, degradation, and abuse. Gaga processions and street parades allow them to transform their often harsh reality into a festive and entertaining mystical journey. While the followers of Gaga serve a multitude of Haitian spirits, they have a particular affinity with the Rara spirits. The origin of these spirits has been associated with the Arada region of the former Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa, but has also synthesized other West and especially Central African traditions from the former Kingdom of the Kongo. In addition, like many African diaspora religions in the Caribbean, Gaga reflects the influence of both French and Spanish Catholicism. Like in Haitian Vodou, the sacred cosmology of the religion of Gaga, includes an almighty supreme being, the spiritual presence of the ancestors, and most significantly a pantheon of intermediary spirits grouped into distinct families. It is the intermediary spirit entities that are the focus of most religious activity. They have their own characteristic attributes, food offerings, color preferences, rhythms, songs, dances, places of power in the natural world, and location in the cosmos that are individually allocated to them. Depending on the context, these spirits can be seen as either malevolent or beneficial. Dominican followers of Gaga maintain that proper ritual behavior and appropriate offerings appease all spirits, Rada, and Petwo, and ensure balance, happiness, good luck, and success in life. The spiritual forces are understood as just acting as they are (according to

whatever their nature is, regardless of whether wild and ferocious or tame and sweet), and it is how the human serviteurs relate to these spirits that determines ultimately the nature of their behavior and their relationship with the individuals who serve them. Bad luck and unfortunate events are thus explained by enraged and unhappy spirit entities that have been offended or neglected in some form or another. Nevertheless, when properly addressed and satisfied through offerings or animal sacrifices, all spirits can turn around and become supportive spiritual allies. Overall, Gaga rituals are similar to those rituals performed in Haitian Vodou. However, given the circumstances over time, some differences between Dominican and Haitian ritual traditions have evolved. These differences become most evident in the Dominican emphasis on Amerindian spirits and shamanic practices (Alegria-Pons 1993) as well as differing patterns of influence between Vodou practitioners in Haiti and the Roman Catholic Church (Deive 1988). Most of these differences can be traced to historical dissimilarities. Following the Haitian Revolution, the Roman Catholic Church withdrew all priests from Haiti for a period of about 50 years. This complete absence of Catholic clergy allowed Haitian Vodou to develop independently from the Church. By contrast, African diaspora religions in the Dominican Republic remained continuously under the watchful surveillance of the Catholic Church. The most important public ceremony of Dominican (and Cuban) Gaga is the annual rite that marks the celebration of the end of the sugarcane harvest and the beginning of spring. The rituals begin with the washing of hands and feet on Holy

Garífuna Religion Thursday, followed by a blessing of clothing. On the next day, Good Friday, pilgrimages to other villages take place. The week-long festivities are marked by keeping a perpetual flame, and include also spectacular performances of secular and religious music as well as mock battles between villages. According to Alegria-Pons (1993, 61), these harvest rites are simultaneously rituals of reconciliation and rituals of rebellion and hence serve a variety of spiritual, social, and political functions. The priesthood of the Gaga religion includes powerful reinas de Gaga (Gaga queens) and priests who assume complex roles of leadership during the annual rites of Holy Week. They also assist their community all year round as spiritual advisors in every aspect of life. Similar to Haitian manbos and oungans they function—always for a small fee—as the physicians, legal advisors, psychologists, and personal counselors for the marginalized and impoverished people they serve. These religious leaders often have an enormous influence on their constituency because of their profound magical and esoteric knowledge, their vast ritual and healing expertise, and their magnetic and charismatic personalities. For instance, baseball superstar Sammy Sosa, a native Dominican, is alleged to have sought the spiritual assistance of a Gaga priest who enabled him to reach fame and fortune in the United States. Ina J. Fandrich

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alegria Pons, Jose Francisco. Gaga y Vudu en la Republica Dominicana (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Editorial Chango Prieto, 1993).

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Deive, Carlos Esteban. Vodu y Magie en Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo: Museo del Hombre Dominicana, 1988). Interviews with Marily Gallardo De La Rosa, performing artist, community activist, and Reina de Gaga (Gaga Queen) from the Dominican Republic. (July 2007) [trans lation provided by Mara Rivera]. Levinson, David, and Stephen Glazier. ‘‘Gaga (Rara cult) in the Dominican Republic.’’ Encyclopedia of African and African American Religions, ed. Stephen Glazier (New York: Routledge, 2001), 127 128. McAlister, Elizabeth. Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Dias pora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Rosenberg, June. El Gaga: Religion y Socie dad de un Culto Dominicana (Santo Domingo: Editoria de la UASD, 1979).

GARÍFUNA RELIGION Historical Development The ethnic group known as the Garı´funa, or Black Caribs, live today in Central America, the Caribbean, and various cities in the United States, Canada, and England (a total population of about 100,000–150,000) and can be distinguished by their unique cultural patterns: language, religion, crafts, music, dance, and lifestyle. The history of the Garı´funa (cassavaeating people) begins on the island of St. Vincent in the eastern Caribbean, which was originally inhabited by a mixture of Carib and Arawak tribes (linguistically Maipuran and Arawakan, or Island Carib) from mainland South America prior to the period of Spanish colonization that began in 1492. Soon after their initial contact with Europeans, the Island Caribs began to absorb

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individual Europeans (from Spain, France, and England) and West Africans (mainly from shipwrecked Spanish slave ships) by means of capture or rescue. By 1700, a new ethnic group emerged on St. Vincent that was racially and culturally distinct from that of the Island Caribs: the Garı´funa. In terms of their language and cultural patterns, the Garı´funa are an AfroAmerindian people (called Zambos by the Spanish) who have blended various traits of their ancestors to create a unique social system with a strong emphasis on music, dance, and storytelling and with its own unique brand of religion, which consists of a mixture of Indian, African, and Catholic beliefs. Another distinction is that the Garı´funa are matrifocal, which means that the women are the center of the household and that people trace their bloodlines through their mother’s family. In November 1997, the Garı´funa celebrated the 200th anniversary of their arrival on the shores of Central America, after being forcibly removed by the British from the island of St. Vincent in 1797. After conquering many of the Spanish-held islands in the Caribbean, the British decided to take control of the French-held island of St. Vincent during the 1770s. By 1783, the British had dominated the French inhabitants and their slaves and attempted to subjugate about 7,000–8,000 Garı´funas. However, many Garı´funas were killed in battles with the British or died from European diseases during this period. During 1795–1797, the British hunted down, killed, or captured the remaining Garı´funa population, destroyed their homes, and deported on eight or nine ships about 2,250 survivors to the island of Roatan in the Bay Islands, off the coast of Honduras. However, the Garı´funa leaders considered

Roatan to be unsuitable for such a large population and requested help from the Spanish authorities at Trujillo, on the mainland of Honduras. By the end of September 1797, about 1,700 Garı´funa had been resettled near Trujillo by the Spanish, who hoped that the Garı´funa would provide them with needed manpower for the development of farming communities on the north coast of Honduras. By 1900, the Garı´funa had established their own settlements along the Caribbean coast of Central America, predominantly in Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize (known at that time as British Honduras), but also at Sandy Bay in Nicaragua. The principal settlements were at Stann Creek and Punta Gorda in Belize; at Livingston, near Puerto Barrios, in Guatemala; and at scores of locations along the northern coast of Honduras, near the major cities of Puerto Corte´ s, Tela, La Ceiba, and Trujillo. In 1974, it was estimated that the Garı´funa population in Honduras was about 60,900, with about 10,600 in Belize, 5,500 in Guatemala, and 800 in Nicaragua. With few exceptions, most of these settlements were located within 200 yards of the sea, near river mouths, freshwater lagoons, and protected bays. Also during the 1970s, thousands of Garı´funa were reported to have migrated to U.S. cities (New York, Boston, New Orleans, and Los Angeles), where the men typically served in the U.S. merchant fleet. More recently, Garı´funa families have been reported in port cities of Canada and Great Britain.

Beliefs and Practices Soon after their arrival in Central America in 1797, the Garı´funa were considered by the Spanish and British settlers to be ‘‘devil-worshippers,

Garífuna Religion polygamists and speakers of a secret language,’’ which strengthened the Garı´funas’ resolve to live apart in their own settlements, maintain their independence, and preserve their culture. Garı´funa songs and dances display a wide range of subject matter; for example, there are work songs, social dances, and ancestral ceremonies centered on traditions. One of the most popular dances is called ‘‘La Punta,’’ which is performed at wakes, holidays, parties, and other social events. Some of these traditional dances and ceremonies have to do with the Garı´funas’ respect for the dead: the Amuyadahani (bathing the spirit of the dead), the Chuga (feeding the dead), and the Dugu (feasting of the dead). The Garı´funa perform these religious rites and ceremonies because, like many Amerindian and African societies, they believe that the spirits of their dead ancestors, which are both good and evil and have a direct impact on the lives of people in the living world, must be respected, worshipped, and appeased. This religious tradition bears some resemblance to Spiritism (see ‘‘Spiritualism’’). Although some Garı´funas adopted Catholicism on the island of St. Vincent during the French occupation or after arriving on the Spanish-controlled mainland of Central America, this was rather a ‘‘political decision’’ than an authentic conversion to Christianity. After migrating to the south coast of Belize and establishing permanent settlements, some Garı´funas accepted the presence of Anglican, Methodist, and Baptist missionaries in their villages and eventually the establishment of English-speaking Protestant churches and schools, beginning in the early 1800s. Later, the Seventh-day Adventists and the Church of the Nazarene developed churches and

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schools in Garı´funa villages in Belize. In Honduras, there are a few Baptist churches among the Garı´funa, near Tela. However, the core of Garı´funa culture consists of their traditional AfroAmerindian rites and rituals, which are practiced in every Garı´funa settlement, and the buwiye (shaman [male or female]) is the direct psychological link between the ancestors and the souls of the living. An important part of their religious ceremonies involves the use of songs, drinking, and dance, accompanied by drums and other musical instruments, a combination that sometimes induces a trance-like state of consciousness (called ‘‘spirit-possession’’) during which time a person is believed to enter the spirit world and communicate with the ancestors, according to practitioners (see ‘‘Spirit Possession’’). These ceremonies, which are similar in some respects to Vodou, Santerı´a, and obeah (see entries on these three traditions) practices in Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, respectively, are used to mourn the dead, heal the sick, protect family members from harm, do harm to one’s enemies, discern the future, assure good fishing and harvests, find a mate, help the dead achieve peace and happiness in the next world, appease alienated spirits, and so on. Rum is often administered ritually to begin a ceremony or induce a trance; it is thrown out of the doors and windows to attract the spirits; it is sprinkled upon the dancers, drummers, and the possessed to cool and sooth; it is used to cure those seeking relief from physical and psychological ills; and it is used to anoint the sacred table at the end of the ceremony. Food, flowers, and candles are normally used in these ceremonies as well, but there is no mention of animal sacrifices being used as in Vodou,

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Santerı´a, and obeah rituals. Although many Garı´funa today speak Creole English and/or Spanish, most continue to use their traditional language, which is a unique blend of Arawak, Carib, French, Yuroba, Bantu, and Swahili. Clifton L. Holland

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Davidson, William V. ‘‘Black Carib (Garı´funa) Habitats in Central America.’’ Frontier Adaptations in Lower Central America, ed.

Mary W. Helms and Franklin O. Loveland (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1976). ‘‘The Garı´funa of Belize and St. Vincent.’’ http://www.centrelink.org/Belize.html (accessed October 15, 2001). Gonzalez, Nancie L. Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohis tory of the Garı´funa (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988). Olmos, Margarite Ferna´ndez, and Lizabeth Paravisini Gebert, eds. Sacred Posses sions: Vodou, Santerı´a, Obeah and the Caribbean (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997).

H HOODOO

understood as the ritual and magical aspects of Voodoo. According to one Voodoo practitioner interviewed by the Federal Writers’ Project in the late 1930s, ‘‘Voodoo means the worker, hoodoo the things they do.’’ This distinction is in keeping with West African practice, which defines ‘‘Vodu’’ as a religion and ‘‘hudu’’ as working with the spirits of that religion. Scholars frequently use hoodoo as a synonym for a related magical system known as conjure. Though this terminology reflects modern usage among practitioners and believers, it obscures some of the historical differences in the two magical systems, which arose because of the distinctive religions of the Mississippi Valley’s African slaves and their French masters. Hoodoo has roots stretching back to peoples of the Senegambian region of West Africa, as reflected in its name for charms, gris-gris, a Mande term of the same meaning. Contributions from the Bight of Benin and West Central Africa had also entered the practice by the late eighteenth century. Conjure, in contrast,

Historical Development Hoodoo is an African American magical tradition that developed in the Mississippi River Valley. Practitioners, who could equally be male or female, have been known by a variety of names, including but not limited to hoodoo doctors and two heads. Their art consists of making magical charms and casting spells for paying clients and has historically also included the performance of ceremonies, including ritual initiations for new hoodoo doctors. Hoodoo is closely related to Voodoo. Most researchers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Zora Neale Hurston, treated them as synonyms. Recently, however, scholars and a growing number of popular authors have drawn a sharp distinction between them, describing Voodoo as a religion and hoodoo as supernaturalism. Historical evidence indicates that hoodoo is best 197

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has incorporated few elements from Senegambia or the Bight of Benin. Instead, it originated primarily among peoples from the Bight of Biafra and West Central Africa. In addition, hoodoo has long included such Roman Catholic paraphernalia as altars, candles, and saint images. These items were virtually unknown outside of the Mississippi River Valley until the twentieth century, largely because of the paucity of Catholics in the Anglo South.

Beliefs and Practices Prior to the twentieth century, hoodoo doctors’ chief duties were the manufacture of charms and casting of spells for paying clients. They obtained most of their supernatural materials from nature, and these consisted of a wide range of botanical and zoological items as well as some minerals. Though charms took many forms, a particularly popular type were bags containing bundles of magical objects. The uses of these magical items varied enormously. During the era of slavery, protective powders and root charms were common. Items promising to bring luck, money, and love to their owners were likewise prominent.

Modern practitioners obtain most of their materials from spiritual supply shops, which are also known as candle shops and sometimes hoodoo stores. Today, spiritual supply shops are common across the nation, but the somewhat scant evidence for their origins indicates that they arose out of pharmacies in the Mississippi Valley. George Washington Cable, who demonstrated substantial knowledge of hoodoo in his 1891 novel, The Grandissimes, hints at this possibility. At one point in the book, an African American attempts to purchase hoodoo supplies from a New Orleans pharmacy. The implication was that pharmacies were appropriate places to purchase such items, at least in the lower Mississippi Valley. Though Cable wrote near the end of the century, his tale is set in the years just after 1800. If the author was accurate in his depictions, then the spiritual supply industry of New Orleans was almost certainly the oldest in the nation. In addition to making charms and casting spells, hoodoo doctors were ritual leaders. Some of the best-documented ceremonies were initiations. Many practitioners considered these necessary to become adepts. There were several types of initiations, likely reflecting a progressive hierarchy of spiritual power.

JAMES ALEXANDER Little is known about the particulars of his life, including information related to his birth, childhood, and training. What is known tends to be rather sketchy. A late nineteenth century hoodoo practitioner, generally known as Dr. Jim Alexander, he was best known for his curing ceremonies. One eyewitness described the ritual as including dancing, distribution of fruit covered in burning brandy, and head washings with the same brandy. This particular ceremony, which was probably similar to the others of his repertoire, ended with a collection. A later hoodoo practitioner, Oscar Felix, performed ceremonies that were in many ways reminiscent of Alexander’s.

Hoodoo Though initiations were small affairs, including only the aspiring practitioners and one to a few hoodoo doctors, largescale ceremonies also existed. Some of the most popular supposedly cured attendees of illness. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century authors reported many others as well. When one bears in mind that Voodoo and hoodoo were not distinct systems prior to the mid-twentieth century, any Voodoo ceremony could be equally defined as a hoodoo ritual. The rise of spiritual supply shops has significantly affected the practice of hoodoo. Most continue to stock a selection of traditional herbal and zoological curios. Their primary business, however,

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consists of selling manufactured items of recent vintage. These include a wide selection of candles, oils, incenses, bath salts, aerosol sprays, and other items. Those who in earlier days would have become clients of supernatural specialists today patronize spiritual supply shops. In place of hoodoo doctors are salespeople who determine consumers’ problems and recommend items to aid them in their magical endeavors. Much of the knowledge and repertoire of the historical hoodoo practitioner is now embodied in the advice of shop clerks and an array of do-it-yourself books, spell kits, and other magical items. The decline of the hoodoo doctor also

F. and F. Botanica and Candle Shop in New Orleans. It is the largest hoodoo shop in the city and caters to traditional hoodoo practitioners, members of Spiritual churches, and adherents of a variety of Afro Caribbean faiths. (Jeffrey Elton Anderson)

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saw the disappearance of the ritual aspect of their roles. Though it is tempting to disparage the transformation of the practitioner-client relationships of the past into the business-consumer transactions of the present, it must be remembered that hoodoo’s ability to evolve has kept it a vital part of black life from Africa to twenty-first-century America. Jeffrey Elton Anderson

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Jeffrey E. Conjure in African American Society (Baton Rouge: Louisi ana State University Press, 2005). Cable, George Washington. The Grandi ssimes: A Story of Creole Life (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891). Hyatt, Harry Middleton. Hoodoo Conjuration Witchcraft Rootwork.

5 vols. Memoirs of the Alma Egan Hyatt Foundation (Hannibal, MO: Western Publishing Company, 1970 1978). Jacobs, Claude F., and Andrew J. Kaslow. The Spiritual Churches of New Orleans: Origins, Beliefs, and Rituals of an African American Religion (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991). Long, Carolyn Morrow. Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and Commerce (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001). Long, Carolyn Morrow. A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006). Rosenthal, Judy. Possession, Ecstasy, and Law in Ewe Voodoo (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1998).

J JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES

Society, the group has been called by various names. Part of the challenge with respect to what to call itself was the movement’s desire simply to be known as ‘‘Christian,’’ but given the numbers of groups that call themselves Christian and the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses perceive themselves as a distinctive and separate body of people who are exclusively God’s (‘‘Jehovah’s’’) chosen religious assembly, not having a name with which to identify the group became an obvious problem. Prior to adopting the name Jehovah’s Witnesses, the group was called many different names, including Russellites, Dawnites, Dawn Bible Students, Watch Tower Bible people, and Rutherfordites, after Joseph Franklin ‘‘Judge’’ Rutherford. It was Rutherford, in fact, who proposed that the group accept ‘‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’’ as its official designation. The resolution, made at its Washington, D.C., international convention in 1931, passed at the annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

Historical Development Almost from its very inception, African Americans have been involved with or become subjects of attention and controversy within the Jehovah’s Witness movement. Many famous African Americans have been associated with the religious group, including the late Michael Jackson and the Jackson family, actors Lark Voorhies and Terrence Howard, tennis sensations Venus and Serena Williams, musical artists such as Prince, Jill Scott, Ja Rule, Wilton Felder, Wayne Henderson Sr., and Larry Graham, and notables like Evelyn Mandela and former Witness Gloria Naylor, a literary scholar whose novel The Women of Brewster Place was made into a highly lauded television movie. Founded in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, by Charles Taze Russell in 1872 (at the age of 20) and incorporated in Pennsylvania in 1884 as the Zion’s Watch Tower Tract

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As God’s visible, earthly organization, the argument went, it has existed for thousands of years from the time of Adam and Eve, but especially since Abel, God’s first faithful Witness. Because of this, Rutherford suggested that the organization had actually been on earth for more than 5,000 years (Stroup 1945, 3). And, thus, the name ‘‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’’ was considered appropriate. With respect to African American members in the history of the group, like many religious traditions, the development of the Watch Tower organization is neither neat nor clear-cut. While the group taught that racial distinctions were not significant, some black Jehovah’s Witnesses had negative experiences due to intentionally segregated Kingdom Halls (Jehovah’s Witness ‘‘churches’’) and little or no opportunity for leadership, albeit the organization, according to some scholars, is more than 50 percent people of color and as much as one-third African American. (This was even more challenging for black women, given that the organization did not allow women to hold leadership positions based on a strict

understanding of gender roles. Men were the leaders in the group and in the home.) Because of Jim Crow and anti-integration laws down South, for example, black and white Jehovah’s Witnesses had to meet separately. While distasteful, the Society did not fight these laws with vigor. Russell perhaps did not agitate for change regarding such discrimination because his perspective was that the preaching of the good news was more worthy of the Society’s attention than racial justice issues. Also, from the late 1920s to the early- to mid-1930s there was a ‘‘Colored Branch’’ within the headquarters of the Watch Tower Society in Brooklyn, New York. (By 1934 this branch was merged into one branch to serve the U.S. territory.) African Americans were members of the group from the early years of its history. Thomas E. Banks joined the ‘‘Bible Students’’ in 1901, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known. He is thought to be the first African American Witness official when, in the early 1920s, the President of Watch Tower Society, Joseph F. Rutherford, asked him to represent the Society to the ‘‘colored’’ Brethren

WILLIAM K. ‘‘BILL’’ JACKSON Bill Jackson is argued by scholar Firpo Carr to have been the first leader of African descent on the Governing Body (not to be confused with the Watch Tower Society, a legal apparatus), the Bible based legislative entity of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The issue is controversial, since Jackson was believed by his colleagues to be white, and his birth cer tificate (first made public by Carr himself) ostensibly indicates this. According to Carr, strong evidence suggests that he lived his life ‘‘passing,’’ a term in African American ver nacular that implies that a black person who is lighter in color and lives as ‘‘white’’ in order to avoid the challenges of being black and conversely to share in the privileges of being white in America. Jackson served on the Governing Body from 1971 until his death in 1981. Headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, the members of this group of leaders are considered elders, and they make all the major decisions, both legal and theological, of the group.

Jehovah’s Witnesses | 203 throughout various parts of the United States, as well as in Panama, Costa Rica, and Jamaica. Banks eventually worked part-time out of Witness headquarters in New York until 1938 when he was permanently assigned to Jamaica. Though details are scant, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, it is thought that James Otis Boone emerged as the next prominent African American traveling overseer of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He was in his early twenties at the time. Furthermore, the first African Americans to attend the newly opened prestigious school for missionaries called Gilead were George Richardson and Charles Fitzpatrick. In the early 1950s William J. Douglas of New York City was one of the youngest traveling overseers at age 21. African American participation and visibility would increase over the decades, with many gaining key leadership positions.

Beliefs and Practices Among the more public practices is the refusal to allow members to undergo blood transfusions and organ transplants, which, for this community amounts to a form of cannibalism. Moreover, members of the group do not celebrate birthdays,

since the practice would amount to aggrandizement, and no Witness is considered better than another. Furthermore, the community considers saluting or pledging allegiance to the American flag to be a form of idolatry. Finally, typical American holidays such as Easter and Christmas are considered pagan celebrations and not Christian ones. Jehovah’s Witnesses assert that their beliefs are based exclusively on the Bible, the unerring Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16, 17). While they have their own version of the Bible, The New World Translation of the Scriptures, members are not forbidden to read other versions. The following is a synopsis of their major beliefs drawn from information made available by the Jehovah’s Witnesses (see http:// www.watchtower.org/e/jt/article 03.htm): ‘‘God’s name is Jehovah.’’ Jesus Christ, God’s Son, ‘‘was the first to be created and is inferior to God,’’ understood in male terms. ‘‘Christ died on a stake, not a cross, and his human life was paid as a ransom’’ to redeem humanity. Having been raised to ‘‘immortal spirit’’ life in heaven, ‘‘Jesus’ one sacrifice is sufficient.’’ His ‘‘presence is in spirit’’ rather than in body, and the earth will be a paradise of peace under his righteous Kingdom rule. ‘‘Earth will never be destroyed nor depopulated.’’ Instead,

SAMUEL HERD Presently, Samuel Herd is a member of the Governing Body. And, as a member of this Body, Samuel Herd is the highest ranking African American within the Jehovah’s Witness Governing Body. Prior to this, he was the first African American ‘‘circuit servant.’’ In this capacity he was a traveling overseer with authority of a number of congregations and was assigned to the Watts section of Los Angeles after the ‘‘Watts Riots’’ of 1965. Having served in that capacity in the Southern United States among African American congregations, he was eventually given greater responsibilities as a District Overseer, serving numerous circuits in the process.

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J. RICHARD BROWN J. Richard Brown is the official spokesman for the entire worldwide organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He heads the Office of Public Information located at Witness head quarters in Brooklyn, New York. Fluent in French, Brown has served as both circuit and district overseer for both French and English speaking congregations, circuits, and dis tricts. When summoned to headquarters (‘‘Bethel’’) in 1980, Brown initially was assigned to the Service Department, which is responsible for coordinating the Witness preaching work. However, realizing that his talents were underutilized, he was reas signed to the Writing Department, generally thought of as being more prestigious than the Service Department. He then became a member of the Public Affairs Office, now the Office of Public Information.

‘‘God will destroy the present system of things in the battle at Har-Magedon’’ (Armageddon). The incorrigibly wicked will be ‘‘eternally destroyed.’’ ‘‘People who God approves will receive eternal life.’’ ‘‘We are now in the time of the end. Human death is due to Adam’s sin. The human soul ceases to exist at death. Hell is humankind’s common grave, where the majority of people will end up. The hope for the dead is resurrection, but only a little flock of 144,000, all born again, will go to heaven and rule with Christ.’’ (Available at http://www.watchtower.org /e/jt/article 03.htm.) A version of this doctrine as well as Jehovah’s Witness practices of predicting the end of the age and many other tenets of Watch Tower religion influenced Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, who reportedly listened to early radio broadcasts of Judge Rutherford. Jehovah’s Witnesses are always politically neutral and ideally do not exalt one race above another. All their religious gatherings are integrated. They ritualistically meet together in local congregations of approximately 100 on a weekly basis at the local Kingdom Hall, their place of worship. Several times a year a number

of congregations forming a circuit meet at Circuit Assemblies and Special Assembly Days. A number of circuits form a district and meet at annual district conventions. There are also national and international gatherings. African American traveling circuit and district elders sometimes oversee predominantly white congregations, circuits, and districts. Both African American Witnesses and their white American counterparts believe the earth will soon be restored to a plush, African-like paradise where people of all races will live together in peace and harmony. While emphasizing racial harmony, Jehovah’s Witnesses rarely, if ever, acknowledge racist ideology that was part of its early history. Borrowing from Mormons (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), for example, the Watch Tower (c. 1902), including its founder Pastor Russell, taught that African Americans’ skin would eventually turn white in order for them to gain salvation. They claimed to have documented evidence that this process of skin whitening had occurred for Rev. William H. Draper (an African Methodist Episcopal minister rather than a Witness), who turned white in response to his earnest desire and prayer to be so (Carr 1993, 92–95).

Jehovah’s Witnesses | 205 Following the death of Charles Taze Russell, the ‘‘cult of personality’’ (or ‘‘creature worship’’ according to the Bible Students) manifested itself when certain ones attached themselves reverentially to him. Because of this, the organization strongly discouraged unnecessarily ‘‘drawing attention to oneself.’’ Those in responsible positions frowned on or cast a suspicious eye on anyone who began to gain prominence. For this reason, there were no real ‘‘official’’ African American ‘‘leaders’’ among Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, there were de facto ones. Stephen C. Finley and Firpo Carr

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Carr, Firpo W. A History of Jehovah’s Wit nesses: From a Black American Perspective (Lakewood, CA: Scholar Technological Institute of Research, Inc., 1993).

Carr, Firpo W. Jehovah’s Witnesses: The African American Enigma A Contempo rary Study, Vol. 1 (Lakewood, CA: Scholar Technological Institute of Research, Inc., 2001). Maesen, William A. ‘‘Watchtower Influences on Black Muslim Eschatology: An Exploratory Study.’’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 9.4 (Winter 1970): 321 325. Pike, Royston. Jehovah’s Witnesses: Who They Are, What They Teach, What They Do (New York: Philosophical Library, 1954). Stroup, Herbert Hewitt. The Jehovah’s Wit nesses (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945). Watch Tower Society. Jehovah’s Witnesses Who Are They? What Do They Believe? (Brooklyn, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 2000). ‘‘What Jehovah’s Witnesses Believe.’’ http:// www.watchtower.org/e/jt/article 03.htm.

K KUMINA

who ‘‘go inna [into] mayal,’’ that is, spiritual possession, by acquiring rigid facial features, trembling, threatening to fall to the ground, or climbing along rafters until they are ministered to by other celebrants who remove all constricting items of clothes from them and generally support them physically in their convulsions. Kumina seems to have been introduced by West Central African indentured laborers initially captured as slaves and brought to Jamaica after the British had outlawed the slave trade in 1807. Their religious traditions emerged particularly in the southeastern parishes of Jamaica, some Kongo in the northwestern Trelawny parish having established the tambu song-and-dance ancestral rite there. The parishes of St. Thomas and Portland are considered the seats of Kumina, but rural-urban migration in the early twentieth century accounts for its presence now also in the adjacent parishes of St. Andrew (Kingston) and St. Catherine. Apart from maracas and a metal scraper along a grater, the instrumental

Historical Development Kumina is a Jamaican ritual in which communities remember their past members. The word kumina derives from the Kongo verb kamama, meaning ‘‘to feel an obligation to carry out an act or keep a promise.’’ The promise or act takes the form of a ceremony during which participants dance clockwise in a ring, singing songs in the Kongo language or in Jamaican Creole to drum accompaniment. The ceremony climaxes with the slaying of a goat as a sacrificial offering to those for whom the occasion has been held. The goat is then prepared for cooking, and goat mutton and rice are served to participants and onlookers in attendance. The meal is cooked without salt, out of reverence for the spirits of the departed whose spirit essence is incompatible with salt. It is these spirits, the kuyu, for whom the ceremony is held. The ceremony allows the kuyu to return and possess the bodies of living community members 207

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accompaniment to the short repetitive choruses of Kumina are two skin-headed wooden drums, the bandu or kibandu, and the playin’ kyas [cask]. The drums are laid along the ground and the drummers are seated on them, each facing the other. The drums are played with the palms and cupped fingers, and tonal variation is achieved by tightening and loosening the drum-skin with one heel on the drum-face. The bandu beats a pulsating 2/2 rhythm, the same rhythm of the inching step made by the dancers as they bend forward their torsos, horizontally waggle their rears and their shoulders while either dropping their hands loosely at their sides or keeping their elbows pointed outwards. The cask supplies accentuating counter-rhythms and rolls.

Beliefs and Practices No deity is worshipped within Kumina, but adherents recognize the Supreme God or Creator whose element is thunder. As happens among western Kongo ethnic groups, this Creator’s name is Zaambi, Zaambi Ampungo (God Almighty), Kinzaambi (God as abstraction). The latter word is often anglicized as ‘‘King Zaambi.’’ Kumina adapts use of a number of fossilized Kongo phrases intercalated with Jamaican Creole as instructions to the spirits, among themselves, and in explanations. Ancestors may appear in dreams and make requests of their dreamers for commemoration. The dreamer would then arrange a Kumina ceremony, and the English term used for such an event is ‘‘a duty.’’ Kamama is used as an exclamation during the ceremony, but seems not otherwise used. Kumina ceremonies are

also put on to celebrate birthdays, to mark the anniversary of a death, or to accompany the ‘‘tombing’’ of graves, that is, the cementing over of a grave a year or two after burial. Kumina feasting also takes place to mark the New Year and the anniversary of the declaration of emancipation of slaves in British colonies on August 1, 1838. Ceremonies may also be a means of enlisting ancestral help in the face of physical and mental illness, and for favor in pending legal matters. Kumina ceremonies are held in temporary sheds decorated with streamers in colors appropriate to the mood of the event. For mourning, black and white ribbons are wound around the poles supporting the roof. Red signifies that ‘‘judgment’’ (a decision for justice; vengeance) is the main purpose for the ceremony. The shed is called a ‘‘bood’’ (booth). Offerings of alcohol are sprayed toward the four corners of the enclosure from the mouth of the ‘‘king’’ or ‘‘queen’’ who leads the ceremony and dances in the ring. The participants wear normal Western dress, but some may wear head wraps. The head tie of the ‘‘king’’ or ‘‘queen’’ may be more elaborate than the wear of other members and may consist of one or two thick swathes of cloth. Food offerings to the spirits are laid on the ground in front of the drums and at the booth corners. In cross-fertilization with Revival (Afro-Christian) practice, the paraphernalia of some Kumina ceremonies include a rectangular table on which are placed sodas, fruits, cakes, and loaves of bread, interlaced with lit candles. As with other African-derived religious occasions in the Caribbean, Kumina ceremonies are held during the night. Maureen Warner-Lewis

Kumina

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bilby, Kenneth, and Fu Kiau kia Bunseki. Kumina: A Kongo Based Tradition in the New World (Brussels: Centre d’e´tude et de documentation africaines, 1983). Carter, Hazel. ‘‘Annotated Kumina Lexicon.’’ African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica Research Review 3 (1996): 84 129. Lewin, Olive. Rock It Come Over: The Folk Music of Jamaica (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2000). Ryman, Cheryl. ‘‘Kumina: Stability and Change.’’ African Caribbean Institute of

Jamaica Research Review 1 (1984): 81 128. Warner Lewis, Maureen. Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Time, Transforming Cultures (Kingston: Uni versity of the West Indies Press, 2003), 146 48. Warner Lewis, Maureen. ‘‘The Nkuyu: Spirit Messengers of the Kumina.’’ Caribbean Women: An Anthology of Non Fiction Writing, 1890 1980, ed. Veronica Gregg (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 415 446.

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M MACUMBA

understanding of Afro-Brazilian religion during that epoch, but because it is from Macumba that the highly popular Umbanda religion would develop. (I make use of Barreto 1976; Bastide 1978; Brown 1994; Hale 2004, 2009; Ortiz 1978; Ramos 1939.) According to the French sociologist and renowned scholar of Afro-Brazilian religion, Roger Bastide, Macumba was the product of ‘‘disintegration’’ at several levels. Sociologically, turn of the century Rio de Janeiro, with its rapid growth and industrialization, represented a chaotic environment for the urban poor, themselves a mosaic of recent migrants from the postslavery rural economy; longerterm Afro-Brazilian residents, either recently freed or freedmen and their descendants; and an influx of immigrants from Portugal, of course, but also from other Mediterranean countries. Culturally, a diverse array of traditional patterns of belief and behavior were brought into proximity within the context of a new and difficult urban reality. While Bastide is no doubt correct in

Historical Development ‘‘Macumba’’ is used to refer to the highly syncretic blends of Afro-Brazilian, Catholic, and Spiritualist traditions prevalent in Rio de Janeiro in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Recent scholars and practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religion tend to avoid the term, mainly because of its history: for many decades, ‘‘Macumba’’ was the word used by those who attacked AfroBrazilian religion and attempted to equate it with ignorance, evil, and charlatanism. The fact that in its generic sense the word lumps all Afro-Brazilian religions within one category is equally problematic; there are real differences between the various forms of Candomble´ and Umbanda. Nonetheless, it is important to discuss Macumba, in the specific sense of the word, that is, as it refers to the syncretic blend of traditions in Rio de Janeiro in the decades around the turn of the century, not only for our 211

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emphasizing the disintegrative forces, Macumba can also be seen as an attempt at a new, integrative synthesis.

Beliefs and Practices Afro-Brazilian religion was the main source for Macumba, but even here Macumbeiros, as practitioners were often called, drew from a range of sources. Mainly because of the demographics of the slave trade, the Bantu traditions of Angola and Congo predominated in Rio, but there was also a strong West African (often referred to as ‘‘Nagoˆ’’) influence, evidenced by the existence of Nagoˆ terreiros, or religious centers. Indeed, in Macumba the Bantu deities or inkices generally took on the names of the West African orishas (in Brazilian Portuguese, these are referred to as orixa´s, a convention followed in this article), reflecting this strong influence. To this mixture of African traditions were added Catholic influences. Orixa´ s or inkices were syncretically associated with Catholic saints (e.g., the orixa´ Iansa˜ , equivalent to the Angolan inkice Matamba, is represented as Santa Barbara). The Roman Catholic devil, Satan, enters Macumba, where he is associated with the orixa´ Exu/inkice Bombongira—bringing with him a whole complex of symbols and concepts foreign to the African traditions. Macumbeiros also reached out to a new source of beliefs and symbols in Espiritismo (see ‘‘Espiritismo’’ entry), or Spiritism. Inspired by the writings of a former French schoolteacher who went by the name of ‘‘Allan Kardec’’ (actually, Hyppolite Leon Denizard Rivail, 1804–1869), Spiritism spoke to key issues such as the nature of spiritual beings, reincarnation, and ethics;

perhaps most importantly, Spiritist practice included communication with ‘‘disembodied’’ (i.e., deceased) spirits through se´ ances in which the spirits would speak through mediums. By the turn of the century, Spiritism was quite popular in Brazil, and especially in Rio, among the more privileged classes. Macumba incorporated elements of Spiritist metaphysics, while communication with the spirits, through spirit possession, was a major focus of ritual. Detailed accounts of Macumba are lacking, largely due to a bias against Macumba by anthropologists and sociologists working in the first half of the twentieth century. Researchers were much more interested in Candomble´ , which was seen as an ‘‘authentic’’ representation of African religion in the New World. Nonetheless, there is enough to sketch the broad outlines of ritual, belief, and organization, and these largely overlap the better known facts about Candomble´ and Umbanda. Macumba groups were hierarchically organized. The group leader, known as the Embanda or Umbanda, was equivalent to the ma˜e de santo or pai de santo (literally, ‘‘mother of saint’’ and ‘‘father of saint,’’ respectively) of Candomble´ and Umbanda. He or she directed the ritual, and initiated the mediuns (Bastide 1978, 296; Ramos 1939, 89–93). (These are ‘‘mediums,’’ a term borrowed from Kardec’s Spiritism, equivalent to iaoˆs or filhas de santo in Candomble´. Initiation of mediuns seems to have taken the general form of initiation in Candomble´ .) The mediums in turn were ranked. Bastide tells us that the ‘‘top category’’ was known as sambas, the highest ranked samba apparently functioning as would ‘‘the ma˜e pequena of the Candomble´’’—

Macumba | 213 that is, presumably, as the direct supervisor of the mediuns. In addition to the mediums, there were drummers whose rhythms invoked the various spirits; and cambones, who assisted with ritual (Bastide 1978, 296; Ramos 1939, 89–93). While the orixa´ s of Candomble´ — identified with various Catholic saints —were invoked during ritual, the main focus was on the spirits of Indians, known as caboclos, and those of old Africans or Afro-Brazilian slaves. Arthur Ramos identifies this practice with the ‘‘worship of ancestors and family gods among the Bantu peoples’’ whose descendants made up the majority of Afro-Brazilians in Rio. (The caboclo and Afro-Brazilian spirits would come to be the main focus of Umbanda ritual as well.) Ramos tells us that ritual begins by invoking the

‘‘patron saint’’ (in his example, the Afro-Brazilian spirit Father Joaquim), followed by drumming to call the other spirits. As in contemporary Umbanda, much of the ritual was devoted to consultations between these spirits (embodied in the mediums) and persons who would come seeking their help for various problems such as illness, romantic entanglements, etc. As in contemporary Umbanda, the sessions closed with a Catholic hymn and/or prayer. While ‘‘Macumba’’ became a pejorative term in popular discourse, and despite the bias against Macumba by scholars more interested in ‘‘pure’’ Afro-Brazilian religions, such as the Nagoˆ Candomble´s associated with Bahia, a more objective reading suggests both the religious value and historical importance of Macumba. Like Candomble´ , it kept alive the

Macumba practitioners prepare food for the orixas before a ceremony begins honoring a novice being inducted into the temple, Rio de Janeiro. (Stephanie Maze/Corbis)

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veneration of the orixa´s and transmitted tradition through the rigors of initiation. The combining of African, Catholic, Spiritist, and Indigenous traditions, derided by ‘‘purists’’ can be read not as ‘‘disintegration’’ but as an active, imaginative search of new religious synthesis and meaning. And finally, it was from Macumba that the popular religion of Umbanda (which shares many of its characteristics), would emerge. While individual embandas no doubt exercised strong leadership within their groups, no leaders of major national or regional importance emerged in Macumba, in contrast to the situation in Candomble´. Lindsay Hale

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Barreto, Paulo. As Religio˜es no Rio (Rio de Janeiro: Novo Aguilar, 1976). Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Inter penetration of Civilizations, trans. Helen Sebba (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). Brown, Diana. Umbanda: Religion and Poli tics in Urban Brazil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). Hale, Lindsay. ‘‘The House of Father John, the House of Saint Benedict: Umbanda Aes thetics and a Politics of the Senses.’’ Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas, ed. Henry Goldschmidt and Elizabeth McAlis ter (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2004). Hale, Lindsay. Hearing the Mermaid’s Song: The Umbanda Religion in Rio de Janeiro (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 2009). Ortiz, Renato. A Morte Branca do Feiticeiro Negro (Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Vozes, 1978).

Ramos, Arthur. The Negro in Brazil (Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, 1939).

MAROONS ‘‘Maroon’’ is the name applied to escaped slaves in the wider Caribbean region, and ‘‘marronage’’ is the term given to the practice of running away from plantations. ‘‘Maroon’’ is an anglicized form of the Spanish term ‘‘cimarro´n,’’ which was itself based on a Taı´no (Arawak) word. Originally, ‘‘cimarro´n’’ was the name given to cattle that had turned feral and escaped to the hill country of Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic). It was soon applied also to the Taı´no Amerindians who had similarly fled the depredations of their new Spanish masters. It quickly took on the meanings of ‘‘fierce’’ and ‘‘wild,’’ and by the 1540s was mainly being applied to African-Caribbean slaves who had run away from their owners. Slaves escaped their bondage also in mainland South America (from the Guianas to Brazil, Colombia, and Peru) as well as in Mexico and parts of the United States. In these countries, Maroons were variously known as palenques, mocambos, or ladeiras. Today, the descendants of the first Maroons still live in Jamaica, Suriname, French Guiana, and Belize. Maroons settled in their own communities either on the fringes of the plantations from which they had escaped or in isolated areas that protected them from raids. These communities forged their own cultural traditions in opposition to the European society that had enslaved them. In some places, such as Haiti, marronage was responsible for preserving enclaves of African religious beliefs such

Maroons as Vodoun, as well as facilitating the mixing of new hybrid spiritualities where individuals belonging to different African tribes came together. The first Jamaican Maroons may well have been the surviving remnants of the island’s Taı´no population escaping from Spanish servitude. Nevertheless, marronage in Jamaica is most commonly associated with some 1,500 slaves of African descent who took the opportunity of freedom offered by their former Spanish masters when the British took the island in 1655. As the Spanish departed for Cuba, the newly freed slaves took to the hills and soon began engaging in guerrilla attacks on the British. Organizing themselves into small bands, the Maroons began raiding the plantations of their former masters, stealing and killing cattle, carrying off slaves, and sowing fear and resentment among the white settlers. In 1690 in the area of Clarendon, one such group belonging to the African Coromantee tribe fled their plantation and joined their comrades in the isolated heart of Jamaica. Further localized slave uprisings occurred in 1694 and 1702, and after a crackdown by the planters and militia, more slaves escaped to swell the numbers of the Maroons. Jamaican planters increasingly resented the fact that Maroon communities remained unpunished and acted as a magnet and refuge for runaway slaves. When the British authorities responded to the threat, the small groups of Maroons operating in the western-central part of Jamaica came together and appointed an overall chief called Cudjoe (also spelled Kojo) to lead them, along with his brothers Accompong and Johnny. Cudjoe was a brave and resourceful warrior of whom it was said that he never lost a battle

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against the British. His success and fame soon attracted other scattered groups of Maroons—many with their own languages and ethnic traditions. These events led to the so-called First Maroon War that lasted from 1720 until 1739. The British suffered militarily against the cleverly camouflaged Maroon fighters and their guerrilla tactics and could never achieve a decisive victory. After Cudjoe’s ambush and massacre of British soldiers at Peace Cave in 1738, the British signed a peace treaty, ending hostilities and granting these western or Leeward Maroons their freedom, land, and limited self-governance. Cudjoe was appointed chief commander of Trelawney Town. In return, the Maroons had to agree to help defend Jamaica against foreign invasion and return any future runaway slaves to their owners. In 1739, a similar treaty was signed with Chief Quao of the eastern or Windward Maroons and with this the First Maroon War came to an end. Today in Jamaica, the two main Maroon communities of the Leewards and Windwards still survive and flourish. The Windward Maroons occupy the villages of Moore Town and Charles Town in the Blue Mountains of eastern Jamaica. Moore Town is said to have been founded by the renowned female Maroon warrior, Nanny, who is now a Jamaican national hero. Granny Nanny, as she was known, was a skilled and cunning guerrilla fighter whose exploits and character have been embroidered over the centuries to such an extent that history and legend are hopelessly intertwined. Nanny is said to have practiced obeah and to have had such supernatural power that she could spirit away slaves from plantations. She is also alleged to have caught the white man’s bullets in

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mid-flight and returned them at speed to their owners. Nanny played an important role during the First Maroon War and is believed to have opposed the peace treaty signed by Cudjoe. She was finally killed in 1734 when the British Captain Stoddart, accompanied by Amerindians brought from Central America’s Mosquito Coast and tracker dogs, attacked and destroyed the village of Nanny Town. Archaeological investigations at the site have revealed not only Maroon objects but items belonging to Taı´no Amerindians as well, thus raising new questions about the relations between the two groups. Nowadays, every October, celebrations take place in Moore Town that honor the redoubtable Granny Nanny. In the western part of the island, the Leeward Maroons live in and around the settlement of Accompong in the remote area known as the Cockpit Country. Accompong New Town today is relatively new, having been moved from the ancestral location of Cudjoe’s time that is now sacred ground. Every January, celebrations in honor of Cudjoe are held in Accompong and the festivities attract thousands of visitors to watch the singing of the so-called Treaty Songs, the dancing of ancestral Maroon War dances, and the telling of folk tales. Daily life in Jamaican Maroon communities was simple and hard but free. People lived in small houses with thatched roofs and earth floors. Maroons practiced a basic form of agriculture with the women cultivating such staples as maize and yams. These foods were supplemented by the men, who concentrated on hunting wild boar and, in the early days, anything they could plunder from the white man’s plantations. They also bred cattle and raised pigs and chickens. After the peace treaty of 1739, Maroons

would also ransom escaped slaves they had captured. As Maroon communities were often made up of different African societies, their languages also varied. European accounts of everyday Maroon life noted the mix of African languages together with the use of broken Spanish and English. The Maroons appear to have devised a unique way of communicating that did not depend on dialect or language. This was the cow’s horn, or abeng, with which each Maroon could be summoned by his own individual call. It is said that in the Cockpit Country the blast of the abeng could be heard up to 15 kilometers away and it is still used in festivals and funerals. Aside from Jamaica, Hispaniola, and elsewhere in the Island Caribbean, Maroon communities also existed in mainland areas of North and particularly South America. One of the most unusual of these groups is the so-called Seminole Maroons. This group originated with slaves who escaped their masters in South Carolina and Georgia and made their way to Spanish Florida during the eighteenth century. Here, they associated themselves with the local Seminole Amerindians but kept their own distinctive cultural traditions. In 1842, after the Seminole War, they were forcibly removed, along with their Amerindian allies, to Oklahoma, and subsequently many ended up in Mexico, Texas, and the Bahamas. In those parts of South America that fringe the Caribbean, Maroon societies also survive today. In Suriname and French Guiana, six communities have a combined population of around 60,000. Apart from being politically distinct, these groups also differ in their basic ways of life, such as language, dress, marriage customs, and diet. These differences are most marked between the

Maroons groups of Saramaka, Matawi, and Kwinti who live in central Suriname and those of the Ndyuka, Aluku, and Paramaka who occupy an area that spans eastern Suriname and western French Guiana. The Saramaka’s ancestors began escaping from Dutch plantations in Suriname during the seventeenth century, fought their previous owners for almost 100 years, and then signed a peace treaty in 1762. The Aluku crossed from Suriname to French Guiana between 1776 and 1777 and eventually signed a treaty jointly with the French and Dutch in 1860. As with other Caribbean Maroons, their society is strongly matrilineal. Religious practices vary and can focus on spirit possession, the interpretation of visionary dreams, and the consultation of objects known as oracle bundles. The religious life of these Maroon communities is full of elaborate participatory ritual and includes special languages such as Pu´ mbu and Papa´ , drumming rhythms, and invocations to ancestors. Snake gods (vodu) and warrior gods (komanti) are often at the heart of religious beliefs and prayers. Misfortune, childbirth, and illness are all considered the consequences of antisocial behavior that can be alleviated by talking to spirits. The most elaborate ritual expressions focus on funeral ceremonies that can last for several months and involve hundreds of people. Dancing, singing, and the carrying of the coffin as part of divinatory rites are all practiced during such events. Although some inroads have been made by Christianity among the Maroons of Suriname, in general the ever-changing nature of their religious and ritual life makes their beliefs the most rooted of all in their African origins. The artistic and material life of mainland South American Maroons—

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especially those in Suriname—is particularly rich and creative, especially in relation to rituals associated with birth, reaching adulthood, and death. As anthropologists Richard and Sally Price have observed, Maroon art is not a static leftover from seventeenth-century Africa but a creative and innovative adaptation and development of an African heritage to the new social and environmental conditions of the Americas. For example, where the first Maroons possessed basic clothing and rustic wood carvings, the twentieth century saw an explosion of stunning and seemingly African wooden sculptures, multicolored textiles, and calabashes elaborately carved inside and out by men and women with newly created tools. Stringed musical instruments made from wood and stingray tails, elaborately carved-wood attache´ cases, and artfully designed and decorated folding stools are all new forms ingeniously made and for sale to tourists and museums. Throughout the twentieth century, it is African ideas about aesthetics, color, and the place of art in everyday life that has survived and not a simple fossilized adherence to African objects and forms. While many consider contemporary Maroon societies and their material culture to be totally African and displaced to the Americas as a consequence of slavery, the situation is more complex. Maroon people themselves, their beliefs, practices, values, and the cultural world of objects they make undoubtedly originate in the varied tribes of Africa. Yet, as with African-Caribbean peoples more generally, they are remarkably open and inventive, and elements of their religious beliefs and material culture are dynamic, creating new hybrid forms that are neither purely African nor American but

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truly African American. Some Maroons, like the Aluku of French Guiana, have funerary customs influenced by the local Amerindians, and, more widely, the creole languages they speak are a mix of primarily European words with African and Amerindian additions. The place of the Maroons in the contemporary cultural and political life of the Caribbean and adjacent areas of South America is ambiguous. The colonial realities that created marronage are long gone and the once isolated Maroon communities are increasingly accessible. The attitude of modern postcolonial governments (for whom eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury peace treaties are an embarrassing and anachronistic legacy of colonial rule) and the pressures of tourism and the global economy are all impinging on Maroon culture and identity, whether in Jamaica or Suriname. The younger generation, as the carriers of Maroon culture into the future, is increasingly attracted to the westernized towns and cities of their own countries and beyond, and consequently their connections to their ancestral homelands and traditions are weakened. In response, groups of Maroon elders and representatives are actively promoting links to pan-Amerindian networks of indigenous peoples, documenting their own cultural patrimony and promoting educational programs in efforts to secure the survival of their remarkable heritage. Nicholas J. Saunders

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Agorsah, E. K., ed. Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic and His torical Perspectives. Kingston: Canoe Press, 1994. Barker, D., and S. Balfour. ‘‘Afro Caribbean Agriculture: A Jamaican Maroon Community in Transition.’’ The Geographical Journal 154, no. 2 (1988): 98 208. Bilby, K. ‘‘Jamaica’s Maroons at the Cross roads: Losing Touch with Tradition.’’ Caribbean Review 9, no. 4 (1980): 18 21, 49. Campbell, M. C. The Maroons of Jamaica 1655 1796. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press Inc., 1990. de Groot, S. W. ‘‘A Comparison between the History of Maroon Communities in Suri nam and Jamaica.’’ Slavery and Abolition 6, no. 3 (1985): 173 184. Heuman, G., ed. Out of the House of Bond age: Runaways, Resistance, and Maroon age in Africa and the New World. London: Frank Cass, 1982. Kopytoff, B. K. ‘‘The Development of Jamaican Maroon Ethnicity.’’ Caribbean Quarterly 22, no. 2 3 (1976): 33 50. Weik, T. ‘‘The Archaeology of Maroon Soci eties in the Americas: Resistance, Cultural Continuity, and Transformation in the African Disapora.’’ Historical Archaeology 31, no. 2 (1997): 81 92.

METROPOLITAN SPIRITUAL CHURCHES OF CHRIST, INC. Historical Development

Agorsah, E. K. ‘‘Archaeology and the Maroon Heritage in Jamaica.’’ Jamaica Journal 24, no. 2 (1992): 2 9. Agorsah, E. K. ‘‘Archaeology and Resistance History in the Caribbean.’’ The African Archaeology Review 11 (1993): 175 196.

Chicago, Detroit, and New Orleans have been historically identified as instrumental locations in the birth and maturation of Spiritual associations and independent churches. Nevertheless, this historical

Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Inc. excavation of the ‘‘Spiritualist Movement’’ must include Kansas City, the birthplace of the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Incorporated. The one seed, Metropolitan Spiritual Church of Christ (mother church), planted by Bishop William F. Taylor and Elder Leviticus L. Boswell has grown both domestically, as one of the largest Spiritual associations in the United States, and internationally with local churches in Jamaica, Liberia, and Ghana. With 22 members, including Cora Murray whose residence served as the initial sanctuary, the ‘‘mother church’’ of the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Incorporated (MSCC) was born under the leadership of Bishop William F. Taylor and Elder Leviticus L. Boswell in Kansas City, Missouri. The group, in 1926, due to the spike in membership, acquired a new location for services, which had a 1,500 seating capacity, and held its First Congress Meeting in Kansas City. Also, in this same year, women were formally seen as candidates for ordination within the MSCC’s clergy.

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One such figure is Mattye B. Thornton who served as assistant pastor to the Reverend Clarence H. Cobbs, founder of First Church of Deliverance. By 1939, Taylor was ordained as overseeing bishop and the MSCC represented an association on the rise with 13 local churches, including First Church of Deliverance in Chicago and other churches in Tulsa and Los Angeles; female pastors headed 39 percent of these churches. A significant shift occurred in 1942 when the MSCC merged with the Divine Spiritual Churches of the Southwest (‘‘Southwest Association’’) to create the United Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ. However, Bishop Taylor’s appointment of Cobbs as president of the association following his death initiated a schism in 1945, dividing the association into two segments: The United Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ under the leadership of Bishop Thomas B. Watson and the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Incorporated led by Cobbs. Since the geographical

BISHOP WILLIAM F. TAYLOR (1886–1942) On May 14, 1886, in Jacksonville, Texas, James and Mattie Taylor became the proud parents of William F. Taylor. It is in the lone star state that he became an evangelist in the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. Taylor would leave Texas to explore oppor tunities in Chicago, initially becoming a member of St. Paul Baptist Church, but soon joined the Metropolitan Community Church. By the age of 39, not only had he changed his location to Kansas City, but also, with the partnership of Leviticus Boswell, he co established the ‘‘mother church’’ of the MSCC. Since Taylor operated under the belief of egalitarian methods, ordination into the association’s clergy became available one year later in 1926. Taylor, in 1934, accepted the bishopric overseeing the MSCC, which had grown to 11 churches. From 1934 to 1942, under the leadership of Bishop Taylor, the MSCC ecclesiastical network grew to include 29 local churches that span across the United States. In 1942, Taylor moved to Los Angeles and in this same year he died in the home of the Reverend Mother Pearl C. Woods.

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ELDER LEVITICUS L. BOSWELL (1891–?) On the last day of 1891, December 31, Leviticus L. Boswell was born to the union of Major and Roseline Boswell in Selma, Alabama. Boswell’s childhood and early adult hood were spent between Selma and Birmingham, Alabama. Leaving behind a house man job in Birmingham, he moved to Chicago. While in Chicago he became a member of the Metropolitan Community Church, where he both met William F. Taylor and became assistant director of the choir due partly to his classical musical training from teachers like Julia Mae Kennedy during his formative years in Alabama. Boswell stepped down from his position as elder within the Church of God in Christ to co establish the MSCC with William F. Taylor in 1925. Although Boswell was ordained overseeing elder of MSCC, he was best known for his musical abilities and accomplishments within the association. For example, while serving as musical director of the ‘‘mother church’’ of MSCC, the choir became nationally recognized. His voice penetrated the airwaves of Kansas City with the MSCC’s weekly program yielding testimonies of healing due to the music ministry. After the death of Taylor, Boswell was appointed overseer of the ‘‘mother church.’’ Ten years after this appointment, Elder Boswell also made his transi tion and was buried in Highland Memorial Gardens, the same resting place as his friend and co laborer William F. Taylor.

location of the president determines the headquarters location, the MSCC moved from Kansas City to Chicago where Cobbs presided over First Church of Deliverance. Through continued utilization of radio ministry and Cobbs’s unique appeal to the poor and working class, MSCC’s composition, by 1968, included 125 local

churches. Cobbs became the first international president of the association with the induction of the Reverend James Vos’s congregation located in Jamaica. The international initiative surpassed the boundaries of Jamaica and stretched into both Liberia and Ghana by 1975. The Reverend Lucretia L. Smith served as interim international president for only

REVEREND CLARENCE H. COBBS (1907–1979) Although little is known about the Reverend Clarence H. Cobbs’s early life, his legacy in the MSCC is not a secret. Cobbs began his ecclesiastical quest in 1929 with the founding of First Church of Deliverance in Chicago, Illinois. In this same year not only would he appoint Mattye B. Thornton as assistant pastor but his church also became a part of the MSCC. Cobbs, known as ‘‘preacher’’ by the masses, possessed a universal appeal, impressing the older generation with his spiritual knowledge while attracting the support of the working class and poor with his message of hope and prosperity. In 1942, Cobbs became the president of the MSCC. By 1968, the MSCC flourished to include 130 churches. At the time of his death in 1979, the MSCC’s membership had expanded beyond domestic boundaries due to Cobbs initiating visits to Jamaica, Liberia, and Ghana, making him the first to serve as ‘‘International President’’ of the association.

Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Inc. one year following the death of Cobbs in 1979. The movement of the national headquarters to Baltimore due to the appointment of Dr. Logan Kearse as the second international president led to further secession within the MSCC. For example, from the period of 1980 to 1984 groups such as the United Evangelical Churches of Christ resulted from this schism. As a result of the cleavage of the internal lattice of the association, Indianapolis, a more neutral locality, became the new headquarters location. Structural organization and modernization were the primary tenets of the Reverend Arthur L. Posey, third president of the MSCC. The College of Bishops, Board of Directors, National Officers, and Officers in Aeterna became the solidified structure of the church with the ordination of the Reverend Posey as Archbishop. Although one-half of the National Board is composed of women, there are no women serving in the bishopric. Current National Offices include the Healer’s Board, Prophets Board, Home/Foreign Missions, and Mother’s Board. With the expansion of its radio ministry, development of both a national and an international headquarters and the continuation of outreach programs such as ‘‘Operation Reach Out,’’ a program committed to the evangelization of youth, the MSCC has matured into a major heavyweight among Spiritual associations in the United States.

Beliefs and Practices The Catechism of the Metropolitan Spiritual Church of Christ contains the guiding principles of the MSCC. Serving as an official doctrinal organ of the

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association, this textual work displays these principles in the form of the ‘‘Declaration of Truths’’ and ‘‘Declaration of Principles.’’ The foundation of the MSCC’s belief system involves the promotion of a triune doctrine in which God, in the form of Spirit, is Creator; Jesus symbolizes the womb of creation and maintains sole lordship; and the Holy Spirit emblematizes and embodies the Spirit of God and Christ. Thus, the Trinity—a representation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is the foundational element of this group’s belief system. The catechism also reveals the presence of four primary cornerstones—healing, prophesy, preaching, and teaching—operating in the belief system of the MSCC known as the ‘‘four square gospel.’’ Healing and prophesy, which are two primary tenants found embedded in the beliefs of most Spiritual churches, along with preaching and teaching compose this quadrilateral belief system. The vibrant colors of this ‘‘four square gospel’’ becomes a visible reality on the canvas of rituals. For instance, in ‘‘bless services’’ a medium or pastor/medium serves as a vessel in which the Spirit manifests itself in the form of either spoken prophecies or healings. It is important to note that se´ances, a vital element found in the association’s earlier history, have been slowly displaced with ‘‘bless or deliverance services.’’ The MSCC does not negate the occurrence of spiritual communication, as seen in its ‘‘Declaration of Truths’’ and the continuation of private consultation by mediums, but in an attempt to set up definitive differences between itself and such religions as Voodooism and Spiritualism se´ances have been discontinued. Margarita Simon Guillory

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Baer, Hans A. ‘‘The Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ: The Socio Religious Evolution of the Largest Black Spiritual Associations.’’ Review of Religious Research 30, no. 2 (December 1988): 144 150. Baer, Hans A. ‘‘The Limited Empowerment of Women in Black Spiritual Churches: An Alternative Vehicle to Religious Leadership.’’ Religion and Gender Relationships 54, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 65 82. Baer, Hans A. The Black Spiritual Movement: A Religious Response to Racism (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2001). Baer, Hans A., and Merrill Singer. African American Religion: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2002). Houston, Otto T. ‘‘History of the Metropoli tan Spiritual Churches of Christ Inc. 1925 1942’’ (2003). Available from Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Inc. athttp://www.metrospiritualchurch .com (accessed July 30, 2007).

MOORISH SCIENCE TEMPLE OF AMERICA, INC. Historical Development Initially known as the Canaanite Temple, the Moorish Science Temple was founded by Timothy Drew (aka Noble Drew Ali) in 1913 in Newark, New Jersey. It claims to have been the first organized Muslim community in the United States. Within the first ten years of the organization’s history it had roughly 30,000 members scattered throughout many cities of the

Midwest and Northeast, such as Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Lansing, Cleveland, Richmond, and Baltimore. The organization was renamed the Moorish Holy Temple of Science when Ali established the organization’s headquarters in Chicago in 1923. This move was caused by a split in the organization that took place in 1921. The other group remained in Newark and renamed itself the ‘‘Holy Moabite Temple of Science.’’ However, folklore related to Noble Drew Ali suggests he did not arrive in Chicago until 1925. Legend has it that he showed up on the streets of Chicago bearing a ‘‘flaming red fez’’ proclaiming the word of Allah. Regardless of the particular date of his arrival, it is clear that he moved the organization from Newark to Chicago and this allowed the organization to grow. Finally, one year before his death in 1928, Ali again renamed the organization the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA). There is mystery surrounding Noble Drew Ali’s death. Some say he died a natural death; however, it is reported that he may have been murdered by a member of a rival religious group. (The problem with this theory is that Ali was not in Chicago at the time of the murder.) Nevertheless, almost immediately after his passing two of his associates— John Givens-El and Wallace D. Fard— proclaimed themselves his reincarnation. John Givens El, who was the chauffeur for Ali, is said to have fainted shortly after the death of Ali and upon awakening he bore the sign of the star and crescent in his eyes, which was a sign for some that he was the reincarnation of Ali. While it is not clear if Wallace D. Fard was a paying member of the MSTA, it is

Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc. clear that certain ministers went from door to door in Detroit selling herbs and charms and proclaiming the Moorish doctrine. It is argued by some that W. D. Fard was one of these ministers. Some followers understand Fard as a crook and a false prophet who purposely took advantage of the people to destroy Ali’s legacy and damage the movement. Others argue Fard was merely attempting to fill a spiritual void left after the passing of Ali and the deportation of Marcus Garvey. As a peddler in Detroit Wallace D. Fard, who would take the name Master Fard Muhammad, gained access to many homes through his business and thereby was able to spread the message of the Asiatic Black Nation in America, which would eventually lead to the development of an organization called the Lost-Found Nation of Islam (see ‘‘Nation of Islam’’ entry). It is estimated that upwards of 8,000 were recruited between the time Fard proclaimed himself to be the reincarnation of Ali and the time of his disappearance, roughly 1930–1933. One of

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the people he recruited was an outof-work auto mechanic named Elijah Poole who would later be renamed Elijah Karriem and then Elijah Muhammad. After the passing of Ali and after Fard’s proclamation of divinity, the Moorish Science Temple reorganized under the leadership of C. Kirkman Bey as president and John Givens-El as the reincarnation of the prophet. Kirkman Bey remained president for roughly 30 years, and during that time the organization maintained and grew despite attacks and harassment from the state and local law enforcement agencies. During the 1960s and 1970s investigation of the temple began to wane as the FBI started to investigate other Muslim organizations. During the 1980s and 1990s Moorish Americans (a label given to organization members by Ali) began pushing for more outreach in the community as well as within the prison system. Moorish publications circulated during the last part of the twentieth century, allowing the organization

TIMOTHY DREW (NOBLE DREW ALI—1886–1929) Noble Drew Ali was born Timothy Drew on a Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina in 1886. Legend states that Ali, from 1902 until about 1910, traveled back and forth between the United States, Morocco, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia as a merchant seaman receiving education and training from prophets, sages, and sheikhs of Islam. It was at this time that he claims to have been endowed with the title ‘‘Noble Drew Ali’’ and given a charter to teach Islam in the United States. In 1910, Ali returned to the states for good to join the Prince Hall Freemasons, and he also worked as an ‘‘expressman’’ on a train. The year before he founded his organization in Newark, New Jersey, it is reported that Ali contacted Woodrow Wilson in order to ask him for permission to teach Islam to his people in the United States, and that his people would be given a new iden tity as Moorish Americans. Upon his death several members of the organization claimed to be the reincarnation of Ali that sustained the organization and allowed it to develop into a diverse Muslim movement in the United States.

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to reach a large base of constituents. In 2006 the University of the Moorish Science Temple of America was founded, offering more in-depth studies into Islam.

Beliefs and Practices Moorish beliefs and rituals are centered on five ethical values of righteousness and moral living: Truth, Love, Peace, Freedom, and Justice. Although Moorish Americans recognize the evil of the U.S. government through its treatment of Black people, the organization teaches all Moors (members of the Moorish Science Temple of America) to respect the United States because they are citizens of the country. The Moorish Flag includes key symbolism that also addresses the moral posture of the organization. The flag is set against a red background with a circle split into four quadrants, which represent Love, Truth, Peace, and Freedom. Within the circle the letters ‘‘L.T.P.F.’’ line the top with a curved Arabian sword called a Scimitar Shamshir, and the word ‘‘Justice’’ written across the blade. Underneath there is a five-point star, which is representative of the five points of moral living. For Ali ‘‘Moslem’’ is not simply a designation given to those followers of Mohammed, but for all those who believe in Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom, and Justice. So in that spirit the MSTA is not to be understood as simply a Muslim or Christian organization nor a fraternal order; however, all of those elements combined speak to the organization’s structure and understandings. Ali taught that Islam was a very simple faith, which centers on obligations and duties to Allah. The supreme duty of living is to be at peace and to find

harmony with one’s surroundings. The object of the person’s life is goodness and peace. Ali taught that humans are born with unlimited potential for growth and progress, and without ‘‘original sin.’’ While Islam is a very important element of the MSTA, at times Christianity seems to be the more prominent religious element, as represented by the sources for its holy book the Circle Seven Koran: the Quran, the Bible, The Aquarian Gospels of Jesus Christ, and a Masonic text entitled Unto Thee I Grant. In the Circle Seven Koran Ali narrates Jesus’ travels to India, Europe, and Africa. According to Ali, before there was a word for religion, Jesus broke bread and shared ideas with the early founding priests of what are now considered major world religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Moorish education requires memorization of the sacred catechism written by Ali. This catechism consists of 102 question and answer lessons that outline the basic beliefs of the organization. For instance, the Moorish catechism asks members, ‘‘Who is Allah?’’ which requires the answer ‘‘Allah is father of the universe.’’ The subsequent organizations branching off from the Moorish Science Temple (the Nation of Islam and the Nation of Gods and Earths) also have similar methods of educating their members with catechisms of 154 and 120, respectively. Furthermore, naming is also very important for the respective organizations. In particular, Moorish Americans all add a suffix to their surname, Bey or El, to indicate their ancestry as Moors. Ali is also a suffix that is used at times but not as consistently as Bey or El. Moorish Americans retain their identity as Americans through the retention of their birth names and designating

Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc. themselves as Moors by adding a suffix, thus cementing their identity as Moors born in America. Likewise the dress of the Moors demonstrates a keen understanding of national identity. Robes and Fezzes are worn by most men much like the dress of Arabic Shriners, and women also always keep their bodies and heads covered when in public. Prince Hall from Barbados organized what would become the first African Lodges of Freemasonry in the United States. Black Freemasonry provides the esoteric underpinning of the MSTA. The Moorish Science Temple has a twofold relationship with the Freemasons. On one hand, Masonry is a part of Moorish culture in that its signs and symbols are used as part of the overall structure of the organization. Ali, in the Holy Koran, uses Masonic symbolism to illustrate his understanding of humanity and human freedom. As in masonry he used the tools of building: the square, compass, the axe, hammer, etc., to draw out his understanding of Truth, Peace, Love, Freedom, and Justice. Although the Moorish Science Temple is not a Masonic organization, it makes use of Masonic symbolism and folklore, which begs the question: was Noble Drew Ali a mason? There is no evidence to concretely suggest that he was a mason. However, Ali does claim to be the keeper of sacred knowledge about Jesus Christ and other ancient sages. For Ali, Islam was not to be understood as it is by modern definitions, that is, an adherence to the 5 Pillars of Islam and/or qualified by ‘‘Sunni,’’ ‘‘Sufi,’’ or ‘‘Shi’ite.’’ There is a clear distinction between al-Islam and what the MSTA understands as Islam or Islamism. For example, the MSTA is not bound by the ritual of five prayers, nor are members

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of the MST required to visit Mecca at least once. Once again, ancient lineage is critical for Ali’s understanding of Islam. The Moors teach that al-Islam is the translation of the wisdom of the Egyptian (Kemetic) Mystery System into the Arabic language by the Prophet Mohammad. For the Moors, al-Islam is a piece of the true understanding of Allah in Arabic form. What Ali taught, he called Islamism. Islamism was to be understood as much older than al-Islam, the ‘‘Old Time Religion’’ that descends from the ancient mystery systems of Kemet (Egypt). The mysteries of Kemet represent humanity’s earliest recorded understanding of God or the Divine, and as such it is the foundation for all the world’s religions. Despite the fact that Ali held Marcus Garvey’s UNIA movement in high esteem, he actually disagreed with Garvey’s ideas on emigration to Africa. However, Garvey’s ideology and organization were credited with being the divine ‘‘front runner’’ to the Moorish Science Temple of America. Instead of advocating a physical return to Africa, Ali argued for a spiritual return that was based more on theological mythology than on cultural continuity. For Ali, the Moors are an Asiatic Nation descended from the ancient peoples of the Bible. Further, the Hindus, Japanese, Chinese, and the indigenous North, Central, and South Americans are all descended from the lineage of Hagar and can be identified in the Bible as Moabites, Canaanites, Hittites, Cushites, and Hamites. These peoples are considered Moslem or Moorish by Ali because of their perceived lineage or connection to the ancient peoples of Quranic and Biblical Scripture. Paul Easterling

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Clegg, Claude Andrew. An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997). Dannin, Robert. Black Pilgrimage to Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Evanzz, Karl. The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad (New York: Vintage Books, 1999). Gomez, Michael. Black Crescent: The Expe rience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Marsh, Clifton E. From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Resurrection, Transforma tion and Change of the Lost Found Nation of Islam in America 1930 1995, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996). Moses, Wilson Jeremiah, ed. Classical Black Nationalism: From the American Revolu tion to Marcus Garvey (New York and London: New York University Press, 1996). Turner, Richard B. Islam in the African American Experience (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997). Walker, Dennis. Islam and the Search for African American Nationhood: Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, Inc., 2005).

MORAVIAN CHURCH Historical Development The Moravian Church continues the attempts at reformation of the Roman Catholic Church that were made by Jan Hus (c. 1373–1415). Because of his

oratorical skills as the preacher at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, Hus gained a popular following. His calls for reform came just as the papacy was divided between two claimants to Peter’s chair, and Prague was divided between its German-speaking and Bohemianspeaking populations. After his excommunication in 1410, Hus became a popular hero among the populace. He attacked corruption in the Church and its granting of indulgences as a means of raising money, and he upheld the authority of the Bible as a standard by which the Church and its leadership could be judged. In 1414 Hus was invited to present his views at the Council of Constance, called by the Roman Catholic Church to deal with issues of reform. Though he was granted safe passage, when he arrived the protection was withdrawn, and he was condemned and executed. Hus was condemned in part for his belief that the Eucharist, the sacrament recalling the sacrificial death of Jesus, should be served to the people in both kinds, that is, bread and wine, rather than just as bread, the common practice at the time. After Hus’s death, the serving of the Eucharist in both kinds became characteristic of his followers, known as Hussites, and the Roman Catholics were unable to suppress the revolt immediately. A temporary compromise was worked out in 1436. Amid the spectrum of opinion in Bohemia and neighboring Moravia arose a new mediating group, the Unitas Fratrum. During the sixteenth century, the Reformed Church (with teachings based on John Calvin’s [1509–1564] theology) emerged in Bohemia and Moravia and held sway until the beginning of the seventeenth century. Then after the Thirty

Moravian Church Years’ War, Protestant leaders in Prague encountered Catholic leadership in the Holy Roman Empire bent on CounterReformation. In 1620 a Catholic army defeated the Bohemian forces and began to impose Catholicism anew throughout the land. In 1652 the expulsion of all Protestants from Catholic-controlled lands was implemented. Many members of the Unitas Fratrum went underground, and others fled their land. They settled first in Poland, and then, after 1722, they found refuge on the Prussian estate of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760), where they founded the village of Herrnhut. Here they developed an order to rule both their spiritual and secular lives. The acceptance of this new order in 1727 by the Czech brethren marks the beginning of the reorganized Moravian Church. Within the church, new ministerial leadership soon developed. Zinzendorf wanted the church to remain as an ordered community within the Lutheran Church, while many of the community’s leaders looked for the development of a revived separate Moravian church. In 1835 the ancient episcopal lineage was passed to the community by Daniel Ernst Jablonski (1660–1741), a German Calvinist who had been consecrated by the Polish Moravians. Zinzendorf was consecrated in 1837. In 1845 the Moravian Church was more formally organized as a new episcopal body. It was recognized by the Church of England and the British Parliament in 1749. The Moravian Church would develop two important emphases. First, the church developed in Germany just as a scholastic approach to Protestantism was becoming dominant, and in reaction the Moravians absorbed the lively spirituality of the Pietist movement, which

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had spread through Germany in the seventeenth century from the University of Halle. Thus, Moravians would become known for their heartfelt religion, which would have a significant effect upon a youthful John Wesley (1703–1791), the founder of Methodism. Second, beginning with Zinzendorf’s encounter with natives of the Danish West Indies and Greenland in 1731, the movement became enthusiastic proponents of a missionary enterprise. The Moravians sent the first missionaries to the West Indies in 1732 and to Greenland the next year. Through the rest of the century, the work would spread to England and the American colonies. Within the first generation, missions would follow to Labrador, South America, and Egypt. Stemming from this effort, the Methodists and then the Baptists would begin their own mission programs, and from this new venture would come the world-changing missionary enterprise of the nineteenth century, which would carry Protestantism around the globe. During the mid-1700s, Zinzendorf assumed both temporal and spiritual powers as the leader of the Moravian Church. After his passing in 1760, the church organized its General Synod as the highest legislative body and appointed an executive board to administer the affairs of the synod. The executive board would in time evolve into the Unity Elders’ Conference. Doctrinally, the church saw itself in general agreement with the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran), though there was no attempt to enforce assent to every sentence of this lengthy statement. A brief statement of essential beliefs was accepted in 1775. In practice, the church made or confirmed many of its practical decisions, especially concerning the

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deployment of personnel, by the casting of lots. Through the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Moravian Church continued to expand globally. Partly because of the slowness of response from Europe, the church faced an increasing number of requests for grants of self-government from mission centers abroad. In 1857 the church established four provincial synods—one in Continental Europe, one in England, and two in the United States, one in the north and one in the south. These provinces were given limited autonomy. In 1879 the mission in Jamaica organized a governing board with a protoprovincial organization, indicating that in the future, missions would grow to become discrete provinces. The twentieth-century problems of continuing financial support for the ever-growing world membership, the transformation of Europe in the wake of two world wars, and the changing perspective on missions within ecumenical Christianity led the Moravians in 1957 to extend the process of dividing the church’s membership geographically into autonomous provinces. Meanwhile, in Europe, the work was divided into two independent provinces, setting off the work in what was then the German Democratic Republic of Germany, including the headquarters church at Halle. The European work was again combined after the reunification of Germany in 1990. The Continental Province continues to have responsibility for Moravian life in Europe apart from the British Isles. The Moravian Church in the United States maintains an Internet site with links to Moravians around the world. The church has been active ecumenically and is a member of the European Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.

Moravian Church in America The Moravian movement was brought to North America in 1735, when a group under the leadership of Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg (1704–1792) moved to the new colony of Georgia. Because of the group’s pacifism and refusal to serve in the militia, they left Georgia for Pennsylvania, where they initially settled on land owned by Methodist evangelist George Whitefield (1717–1770). They purchased 500 acres for the original settlement of what became Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1741, and shortly thereafter obtained another 5,000 acres for the settlement they called Nazareth. Later, other settlements were created in neighboring New Jersey and Maryland, all positioned to carry out the primary goal of the movement from Germany, the evangelization of the Native Americans. Spangenberg then led a group to North Carolina, where a large tract of land became the sight of three settlements—Bethabara, Bethania, and, most importantly, Salem (now known as Winston-Salem). Over the next century, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and WinstonSalem, North Carolina, emerged as the centers for the spread of the movement throughout North America and the headquarters of what would later become the two provinces (Northern and Southern) of the American Church. The Moravian Church in America became autonomous following the international Unity Synod of Moravian leaders in 1848. The church found its best response in communities of German immigrants, especially in the Midwest. Then at the end of the nineteenth century, the movement spread into Canada. During its earlier years, the church adopted a communal organization that

Moravian Church had been proposed by Spangenburg. The pooling of economic resources, which lasted for about two decades, allowed the church and its members to prosper quickly and led to a close communal life that persisted for several generations after the communal living experiment ended. The Moravians retain the essentials of Protestant Christianity, but they have adopted a motto to govern their approach to theology: ‘‘In essentials unity; in nonessentials liberty; in all things love.’’ They accept the Bible as the source of Christian doctrine. Central to the Moravian life is what is termed ‘‘heart religion,’’ a personal relationship with Jesus being more important than doctrinal purity. They continue to hold simple communal meals called love feasts and developed an early emphasis on music. The Moravian Church in America has two headquarters: one for the Northern Province and one for the Southern Province. The Northern Province is divided into an Eastern District, Western District, and Canadian District. Of the church’s 50,000 members, approximately half live in the states of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The church regularly participates in the meeting of the Unity (the international Moravian movement), which is held every seven years. The Moravian Church supports the Moravian College and Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It is a member of the World Council of Churches.

Moravian Church, Eastern West Indies Province Interest in the plight of Africans in the West Indies launched the entire Moravian missionary enterprise. In 1731 in Copenhagen, Moravian leader August Gottlieb Spangenburg (1704–1792) encountered

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an African man named Anthony, who told him of the deplorable conditions faced by Africans in the West Indies. Spangenburg’s decision to respond to these conditions led Leonhard Dober (1706–1760) to offer his services as a missionary to the Dutch West Indies, thus becoming the first Protestant missionary of the modern era. Dober began his work on Saint Thomas. It was soon extended to Saint Croix (the site of a bloody slave revolt in 1833) and Saint John, the Virgin Islands then being in Danish hands. In 1734 a team of 18 missionaries arrived on Saint Thomas, and Dober turned the work over to them and returned to Germany with his first convert, an orphan boy named Carmel Oly whose freedom Dober had purchased. The work grew in spite of opposition from most of the plantation owners and the high toll of lives among the Moravians unable to cope with the climate. When Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760), the Moravian bishop, visited the islands in 1739, he found the missionaries in prison as a result of a conflict with the local Dutch Reformed Church minister. On a more positive note, he also found some 800 African converts. In 1772 the islands were hit by a major hurricane that destroyed much property; indeed, bad weather would periodically produce temporary setbacks throughout the history of the mission. However, as the work was established in the Danish East Indies, it built up enough momentum to carry the mission to the neighboring islands of Barbados (1765), Antigua (1771), Saint Kitts (1777), and Tobago (1790). The effort on Tobago, then a French possession, was halted almost as soon as it began by the unrest at news of the French Revolution. The revolution also stimulated efforts that grew in

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England for the abolition of slavery. With the abolition of slavery on Haiti in 1793, hope for freedom spread throughout the Caribbean. Through the nineteenth century, one by one, the islands would become free states. In 1830 the centennial of the mission was marked when the Danish king recognized the Moravians and granted them equal status with the state church (Lutheran). The next step in the mission’s growth would be its maturation into an autonomous church, a process that began in 1879 when the West Indies work was organized as a province, accepted the challenge to become self-supporting, and established a semiautonomous governing board. The Europeans continued to provide some financial support, but

they set a schedule to gradually decrease it. In 1886 the theological seminary was established at Nisky on Saint Thomas. In 1899 the Moravians moved to restructure their international fellowship as a federation. This restructuring brought a new level of independence to the island church. In 1922 the Moravian British Province assumed responsibility for the work in the West Indies. In 1931 the International Missions Board was abolished. Finally, in 1967, the work in the Eastern West Indies was set apart as a fully autonomous province. The Moravian Church, Eastern West Indies Province is at one with the beliefs and practices of Moravians worldwide. It now includes work in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Saint Kitts, Barbados, Antigua,

Nisky Moravian Mission house on St. Thomas, British Virgin Islands. The mission was established in about 1755 by missionaries who came to minister mainly to the slave population. (Library of Congress)

Moravian Church and Trinidad and Tobago. It is a member of the World Council of Churches.

Moravian Church in Jamaica The impetus for Moravian work in the West Indies came in the eighteenth century directly out of the church’s international center in Germany. The West Indian effort had spread through the easternmost islands but had not opened a station on Jamaica. Then in 1754, two plantation owners, John Foster Barham and William Foster, who resided in England and also happened to be Moravians, asked for missionaries to minister to the Africans residing on their lands in Jamaica. Zacharias George Caries and two companions pioneered the work, and with the initial support of Foster and Barham they soon gained the support of other plantation owners. The work got off to a slow start; there were frequent changes of personnel, disease took its toll, and on occasion the converts returned to the religions they had brought from Africa. Then in 1834, slavery was ended in all British colonies. The church had taken special efforts to prepare its members for the new era. Some 26 schools had been opened. Membership shot upward in the years immediately after emancipation. In 1847 a conference structure replaced the rule of the mission’s superintendent. Representatives from Jamaica attended the 1863 conference on Saint Thomas (Virgin Islands), where the process of transformation in the Caribbean toward more indigenous leadership and eventual self-support was discussed. The Jamaicans agreed to move toward selfsupport if the European church would continue to supply financial support for building and the travel of missionaries.

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As a first step, in 1876 a seminary was opened at Fairfield. In 1879 the work was reorganized as a separate province with semiautonomous status. The first bishop, Peter Larsen, was consecrated in 1901. Most of the congregations were located in the western and especially the southwestern parts of the island. The church developed under the most trying of conditions, including epidemics, hurricanes, and a devastating earthquake in Kingston in 1907. The bad times drew together the various denominations represented on the island, and in the 1920s union negotiations began between the Moravians and the Methodists, Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, and Congregationalists. Though they did not bring union, these discussions did bring closer relations and a new commonly supported seminary. Soon the work had grown enough to enable Jamaican Moravians to give more systematic attention to their responsibility for the church’s world mission. In 1925 the Moravian Missionary Society held its initial gathering and focused concern for the missions in West Africa and Egypt. The independent province of the Moravian Church in Jamaica was set apart in 1967. It is at one with the beliefs and practices of Moravians worldwide. It is a member of the World Council of Churches.

Beliefs and Practices The Moravian Church holds much in common with other Protestant denominations. The various providences that compose the Unitas Fratrum (‘‘Unity of Brethren’’) or worldwide Moravian Church abide by creeds such as the

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Apostles’ Creed. The Moravian Church holds to a conception of the Trinity— defined as ‘‘God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’’ It is held that the Christ Event—the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—serves to provide salvation for all humans who will accept Christ. As part of this Christian process, the Moravian Church believes in infant baptism. The truth of this Christ Event, according to the Church, is located in the Bible—Old and New Testaments. Furthermore, we are assisted in understanding the Bible, the Word of God, through the Holy Spirit. The Moravian Church also argues that the Church is unified through Christ and should not accept divisions based on race, gender, and so on. Rather, a unity of origin and purpose should mark the Christian church and the various denominations that compose it. Holding to these beliefs, the Moravian Church understands service to humanity as the primary purpose of Christian fellowship. And this in part involves missionary activity, which would come to include the Americas. J. Gordon Melton

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Fogleman, Aaron Spencer. Jesus Is Female: Moravians and the Challenge of Radical Religion in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). Gillespie, Michele, and Robert Beachy, eds. Pious Pursuits: German Moravians in the Atlantic World (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007). Hamilton, J. Taylor, and Kenneth G. Hamilton. History of the Moravian Church: The Renewed Unitas Fratrum, 1722 1957 (Bethlehem, PA, and Winston Salem, NC: Interprovincial Board of Christian Educa tion, Moravian Church in America, 1967).

Maynard, G. O. A History of the Moravian Church: Eastern West Indies Province (Port of Spain, Trinidad: Yuille’s Printerie, 1968).

MORMON CHURCH Historical Development African Americans in the Mormon Church have had a long and tumultuous history, and, simultaneously, African Americans have been central figures in the history of the church. Among prominent African Americans in the Mormon Church’s history are R&B singer Gladys Knight, well known Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, former Utah Jazz basketball player Thurl Bailey, and professional football players Burgess Owens and Jamal Willis (who played for the Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers, respectively). Efforts to proselytize African Americans have been limited by the history, theology, and politics of the church, in particular the at times blatant white supremacy in its mythology and historic practices. Conservative estimates suggest, however, that the African American membership in the church is less than 200,000, and the majority of them live in Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, throughout South America, and the Caribbean, with a smaller number of them residing in North America. Also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), the church had its genesis in 1830 when founder, 24- or 26-year-old (his age is disputed), Joseph Smith reported having a revelation that claimed to restore true and authentic Christianity to its primitive state—as it was practiced and lived by

Mormon Church the biblical apostles. According to Smith, this revelation was given to him directly by God the Father and God the Son, who counseled him not to unite with any of the established Christian denominations, for they had fallen away and erred regarding true Christianity. Several reported revelations followed the initial disclosure that led to the founding of the church. For example, Smith maintained that he encountered an angel known as Moroni, the son of Mormon, who directed him to the location of a set of inscribed gold plates that Mormon had written. As the story goes, Moroni revealed the translation of the plates to Smith, and after a four-year period of probation in which he was ‘‘tried and tested,’’ this translation became the Book of Mormon, the sacred text of the Mormon Church that serves as a companion text to the Bible. The Smith family had migrated to New York State, where the church was founded west of the Catskills and the Adirondacks, in particular, in the city of Palmyra. At the time influenced by the Second Great Awakening, Western New York was the scene of fervent and intense religious activity. The area of Western New York in which Mormonism arose was increasingly middle class and cosmopolitan, albeit it was agrarian and rural. It was precisely in this middle-class and religiously enthusiastic context, wherein children were educated and people were seen as sophisticated and prosperous, that the church began. Another important dimension of life in the region, which would become a contributing factor in Mormon ritual, was the strong presence of Masonic lodges. In fact, it was in this area of the country that Captain William Morgan was allegedly killed in 1826 to prevent him from revealing Masonic secrets.

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(His book, Exposition of Freemasonry, was published in 1827.) Apparently, Captain Morgan’s widow later became one of Smith’s numerous wives as Mormonism flourished. The Mormon movement proselytized primarily in New York in its early years and expanded into Kirtland, Ohio, where they converted people in well-settled communities. From there, the church headed westward and settled outside Independence, Missouri (in what is now a part of Kansas City). Smith would continue to travel to Kirtland and to Mentor, Ohio, where he worked on a ‘‘translation’’ of the Bible. It was in Mentor in 1832 that he was tarred and feathered by a mob led by a former Mormon who had turned against him. Smith returned to Missouri. The church in Missouri grew tremendously in the subsequent years, but it was in Kirtland that Smith established what records suggest was the first Mormon Temple and the headquarters of the church. Missouri, on the other hand, posed some challenges that would lead to significant developments or clarifications of Mormon doctrine regarding African Americans. The most important theological development that emerged, in part, in response to the Mormon presence in Missouri is called the Missouri Thesis. Mormons faced great threats from the residents of Missouri, who believed that their land and property might be in jeopardy from the Mormons who were seen as interlopers. Though the conflicts eventually led to the expulsion of Mormons from the state (c. 1838), Smith initially promoted an ideology, in support of African American slavery, that was meant to ingratiate them to their new neighbors. According to proponents of the Missouri

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ELIJAH ABEL Born in Maryland in 1810, Elijah Abel was the first known person of African descent to be a member of the LDS church and to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. From Maryland, he migrated to Kirtland, Ohio, a Mormon stronghold. There, he embraced Mormon teaching, and he was subsequently baptized in 1832 only two years after Smith’s initiated the movement. Abel assumed an active role in church, and he was ordained an elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood in 1836. He advanced in authority within the priesthood, moving up to the Third Quorum of the Seventy leadership and serving at least three missions. Abel’s mission fields included New York, Ohio, and Canada. Abel moved from Kirtland to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1836, where he became a mortician in the church, an official LDS ‘‘calling.’’ One interesting note is that people who were ordained to the priesthood by the LDS church were issued a license by the state of Ohio. Brigham Young, who assumed leadership after Smith, tried to take the priest hood away from him, and it was the Ohio issued license that prevented Young from being successful. Young’s successor, John Taylor, also refused to recognize Abel’s his tory and credentials. Abel died in the Utah Territory.

Thesis, Mormon racism against African Americans and their exclusion from holding the Mormon priesthood begins here. The first scholar to articulate this Thesis was Fawn McKay Brodie, author of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (1945). Brodie argues that Mormons who immigrated to the slaveholding state of Missouri in the 1830s were anxious to deflect criticism and misunderstanding about their religion, so they adopted a position that denied the priesthood to African Americans, linking this practice with extant discriminatory ideology against African Americans in their Book of Abraham (i.e., Pearl of Great Price), albeit some still suggest that Smith was an advocate of African American rights and freedom. Unsuccessfully navigating the slave culture of Missouri, the Mormons’ excursions would lead them to Illinois and eventually to Utah in 1847 under Brigham Young’s leadership, where their headquarters remains in Salt Lake City to this day.

Smith was killed on June 27, 1844 (some suggest for revealing Masonic secrets and reproducing them in and as the Mormon temple ceremony), when a group overran the Carthage, Illinois, jail where he was being held on charges of ordering the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper that had published an edition that was extremely critical of Smith, Mormonism, and polygamy (several founders of the paper were former Mormons who claimed that Smith tried to take their wives). The mob that had broken into the jail ran up the stairs, first killing Smith’s brother Hyrum, then shooting Smith, who was heard to give the Masonic signal of distress as he tried to elude his pursuers. Brigham Young, who had joined the movement in 1832, succeeded him as president of the group, although Hyrum, who was killed with Smith, would have been the most likely successor. Young’s most inflammatory contribution to Mormon doctrine that affected African Americans was his forceful iteration and codification that

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WALKER LEWIS Born Quack Walker Lewis in Lowell, Massachusetts, on August 7, 1798, he was the second known African American to hold the Mormon priesthood during the time of Joseph Smith. He was an abolitionist, and he came from a prominent family of abolition ists. Lewis was a founding member of the Massachusetts General Colored Association in 1826, one of the first all black abolitionist groups. A middle class Freemason leader and barber, Lewis appears to have joined the LDS church in 1842. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1843 by Smith’s younger brother, William Smith. Lewis’s son, Enoch Lovejoy Lewis, was also a Mormon, who married a white Mormon woman by the name of Mary Matilda Webster in 1846. Sources suggest that this event may have inflamed forces that sought to restrict African Americans from the priesthood, given that the priest hood is the entrance to the afterlife in which men will be able to practice polygamy. Moreover, it may follow that such cases, and this one in particular, led the first governor of the Utah Territory to make interracial marriage illegal, after being pressured by Young to do so in 1852.

they were subhuman, inferior in intelligence, and unfit for the priesthood, and that ‘‘Negroid’’ features were the result of a curse in the preexistent realm. Young based many of his interdictions and pronouncements on the idea that black people were the ‘‘seed of Cain,’’ a people said to be cursed in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament. Notwithstanding,

some scholars argue that it was not Smith, but Young, who codified racism and exclusion within the LDS church. One of the most significant developments for African Americans in LDS history occurred on June 8, 1978, when President Spencer Kimball announced that he had received a revelation that the priesthood would be open to ‘‘all worthy

JANE ELIZABETH MANNING JAMES Born Jane Elizabeth Manning in southwestern Connecticut between 1813 and 1822, Jane joined the LDS Church in 1842, after hearing the proclamation of LDS missionary Charles Wesley Wandell. Jane and her family, also members of the Mormon Church, relocated to Nauvoo, Illinois, which was the LDS headquarters at the time. On their jour ney by boat to Nauvoo, the family ran out of money in Buffalo, New York, and walked the subsequent 800 miles. The family arrived in Nauvoo in November 1843 and was directed to the home Joseph Smith and his wife Emma, where shortly thereafter, Jane lived and worked. While in Nauvoo, Jane met and married Isaac James, a free black man and LDS convert from New Jersey. The couple divorced in 1869 or 1870, and Isaac apparently left the church for 20 years, returning briefly before his death in 1890. Two of Jane’s children would die within three years of Isaac. By 1884, Jane had begun contact ing LDS leaders in order to challenge the barriers in the Church for African Americans and for women. She died in 1908 at the age of 95.

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male members of the Church . . . without regard for race or color’’ (Bringhurst and Smith 2004, 1). This was viewed as a significant event, though the announcement of the revelation included neither an explanation for racism in Mormonism’s history nor an apology for such ideals and behavior. The Genesis Group, a collective of African American Mormons, had been founded unofficially on June 8, 1971. The group considered it prophetic that their organization began, as an instrument to address African American LDS cultural and social issues, exactly seven years to the date of the purported revelation. In 2008, the group led the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the change in LDS policy in a Salt Lake City ceremony, in which the central event was a video commemorating the occurrence. African Americans, including those in the Genesis Group, continue to challenge the Church on its race relations and its apparent reluctance to evangelize in black communities in America. Yet, African American Mormons insist that they are black in healthy and positive ways, and that the LDS church does not

inhibit them from developing such an identity. In fact, some of them deny that the Church was ever racist, suggesting that it was misunderstanding and antiMormon propaganda that resulted in the notion that the religion was ever white supremacist in its values, beliefs, and rituals.

Beliefs and Practices Mormon beliefs and rituals are far too many and detailed to present here, but a few are imperative to mention because of their importance. To that end, at the core of Mormon belief is the idea that the LDS Church is the reinstitution of true Christianity, since, according to Joseph Smith’s report, the Christian denominations (e.g., Baptists, Methodists) had all ‘‘apostatized’’ or fallen away from the faith as it was originally intended by God. As such, the LDS church is the ‘‘true’’ Christian Church. Closely tied to this notion is the idea that God called the prophet Joseph Smith to develop authentic Christianity. As the Mormon narrative goes, God and Jesus warned Smith to avoid the denominations, which had been

RUFFIN BRIDGEFORTH One of the most important modern black Mormons, Ruffin Bridgeforth was one of the founding members and the first president of the Genesis Group, an officially sanctioned African American LDS auxiliary that serves as a cultural, social, and outreach unit for its members. Originally from Louisiana, Bridgeforth arrived in Salt Lake City in 1946 with his wife, a Latina Mormon. In 1953, Bridgeforth joined the LDS church and remained a Mormon until his death in 1997. He also served as president of the Genesis Group from 1971 until 1997. Furthermore, Bridgeforth was the first African American to be ordained a high priest in the LDS church. Bridgeforth was such a prominent member of the church that he was eulogized by LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley. Darius Gray, a colleague, friend, and important African American Mormon, succeeded Bridgeforth as president of the Genesis Group.

Mormon Church corrupted. The key to the original religion of God, then, is contained in what was to be called the Book of Mormon—books that were reportedly translated from ancient gold plates to which Smith was directed in a divine visitation by the angel Moroni. The Book of Mormon is understood as the companion Scripture to the Christian Bible. It gives further details of the visitations of God and Jesus to North America as well as the story of the original inhabitants of North America. Therefore, the book participates in locating America and race as the center of divine activity. Mormons have complex and intricate beliefs and rituals, some of which are directly and indirectly related to African Americans and race relations in America. Substantial beliefs and rituals revolve around their mythology of preexistence. In short, Mormons believe that human spirits preexist in a spiritual world that is prior to bodily existence. As the mythology goes Jehovah, the preincarnate Jesus, and Lucifer (later Satan) were spirit brothers in this world, whose father was the God Elohim, who had millions of children with his celestial wives. Jehovah and Lucifer were chosen to present plans for salvation for God’s children who would advance to mortal life. Lucifer presented his plan first. It was rejected. Lucifer then rebelled against his brother, and war broke out in heaven. One-third of the spirit brothers sided with and fought on the side of Lucifer. Likewise, one-third sided with Jehovah. The onethird who did not take sides in the fight, who were not ‘‘valiant,’’ was cursed as a result. The mark of the curse was

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‘‘blackness’’—the sign of inferiority. According to Mormon records, the lineage of this curse runs through Cain, a biblical character who Mormon sources suggests was the father of the Negroid races. The result of the curse, of which black skin was the marker, entailed African Americans not being allowed to progress to godhood and procreate eternally. Through a great deal of effort, African Americans have pushed the Church to expand its thinking in ways that produced greater opportunity for involvement by African American members. Stephen C. Finley

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bringhurst, Newell G. Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981). Bringhurst, Newell G., and Darron T. Smith, eds. Black and Mormon (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004). Brodie, Fawn McKay. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945). Mauss, Armand L. All Abraham’s Children: Changing Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003). Morgan, William, Capt. Morgan’s Freemasonry Exposed and Explained (Pomeroy, WA: Health Research Books, 1993). O’Dea, Thomas F. The Mormons (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957). Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Mormonism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005).

N NATION OF ISLAM

In spreading his message in people’s living rooms and kitchens, he used both the Bible and the Qur’an. Soon the popularity of these meetings outgrew individual homes and a hall was rented and christened ‘‘Temple of Islam,’’ which was later given the numeric designation ‘‘1’’ to signify its foundational character in a growing movement. This mysterious stranger who referred to himself as Mr. Farrad Muhammad, or sometimes as Mr. Wali Fard or W. D. Fard or Wallace D. Fard or Mr. Ford, was considered to be a prophet by some of his followers. He later came to be recognized as the ‘‘Great Mahdi,’’ or ‘‘Savior,’’ who had come to bring a special message to the suffering blacks in the teeming ghettos of America. Master Fard taught his followers about the deceptive character and temporary domination of ‘‘blue-eyed devils,’’ or white overlords. He also stressed the importance of attaining ‘‘knowledge of self’’ and ‘‘doing for self’’ as a prerequisite for achieving black liberation. He told the story of Yakub, a black mad

Historical Development The Nation of Islam is an American religious movement, consisting largely of African American members. Its history has been divided into several phases: Master Wali Fard Muhammad led the Nation of Islam from 1930 to 1934; the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was the leader from 1934 to 1975; and the Honorable Louis Farrakhan has led from 1977 to the present. The Nation was a ‘‘proto-Islamic’’ movement, using some of the symbols, rituals, and beliefs of Islam mixed with a core ideology of black nationalism. On July 4, 1930, an amiable but faintly mysterious peddler suddenly appeared in a black ghetto of Detroit called Paradise Valley. At first he came to sell raincoats, silks, and other sundries to the poor residents of the area, but later he also began teaching them about their ‘‘true religion’’—not Christianity, but the religion of the ‘‘Asiatic black man.’’ 239

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scientist who rebelled against Allah by creating the white race, a weak hybrid people who were permitted temporary dominance of the world for a period of 6,000 years. Whites had achieved their power and position through devious means and ‘‘tricknology.’’ They had perpetuated ‘‘devilish acts’’ against black people through slavery, brutality, and lynching, and even by using alcohol and narcotics. He instructed his followers that they were not Americans and therefore owed no allegiance to the American flag and to refuse being drafted into the American military. He wrote two manuals for the movement, The Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam, which is transmitted orally to members, and Teaching for the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way, which is written in symbolic language and requires special interpretation. Within three years, Fard had founded an effective organization with a Temple of Islam that had its own worship style and rituals and a ‘‘University of Islam’’ with a special curriculum made up largely of Fard’s teaching. The ‘‘university’’ was essentially a combined elementary and secondary school, but for his followers, it was the first step toward cultural and psychological freedom. He also established the Muslim Girls’ Training (MGT) Class to teach young women the principles of home economics and their proper role in the Nation of Islam. Finally, in 1933 he created the Fruit of Islam (FOI), a paramilitary organization of male Muslims who served as honor guards, ushers, and enforcers of internal discipline within the temples, as well as security agents for the Minister of Islam and other leaders. Members of the Fruit and the MGT

learned how to frisk and search everyone entering a temple. One of the earliest officers of the movement who became Master Fard’s most trusted lieutenant was Elijah Poole who had to drop his slave name Poole and was first given the Muslim name Elijah Karriem and then Elijah Muhammad. Born on October 7, 1897, Poole was the son of a rural Baptist minister and sharecropper and his wife, Willie and Marie Poole, from Sandersville, Georgia. The family moved to Cordele, Georgia, where as a teenager Elijah witnessed the public lynching of his good friend Albert Hamilton. The lynching of Hamilton deeply affected Elijah so that he ordered a picture of a black man lynched from a tree be placed in the front of every Nation of Islam Temple when he became the head of the movement. The lynching also made him open to the racial doctrines of Master Fard’s teaching, which he encountered later in Detroit, especially the view that the ‘‘white man is the devil’’ who dominates the world through devious tricks or ‘‘tricknology.’’ Elijah married Clara Evans in the town of Cordele in 1919. Faced with continued racial discrimination and job loss in Georgia, the couple took their two young children and other family members to join the black migration to Detroit in 1923. The Pooles eventually settled in one of the poorest black ghettos in Detroit, aptly named ‘‘Paradise Valley.’’ After a dinner meeting with Master Fard at his home, Elijah Poole converted to the Nation of Islam in 1931. Despite his third-grade education, Elijah’s shrewd native intelligence and devotion to Fard enabled him to rise rapidly through the ranks, and he was eventually chosen by Fard in 1933 to be the Chief Minister of

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HONORABLE ELIJAH MUHAMMAD (1897–1975) Born in Georgia, and given the name Elijah Poole, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad followed the Great Migration north and settled in Detroit with his family. During this time, a gentleman who would come to be called Master Fard Muhammad moved through the African American communities of Detroit spreading word concerning the glorious past of African Americans and their great future if they return to the original religion. Poole even tually met Master Fard Muhammad and became a member of his following. Poole became a key figure with a new name Elijah Muhammad. Upon the disappearance of Fard Muhammad in 1934, Elijah Muhammad gained control of the organization. With time the organization grew and entered the popular imagination of the nation through charismatic figures such as convert Malcolm X. Among the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s more controversial teachings was the notion that African Americans were the original people of the earth, created for good, and whites were a demonic race cre ated by Mr. Yakub, a mad scientist. (Under the leadership of Farrakhan this teaching was softened.) In 1975, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad passed away, leaving his teachings in texts such as Message to the Black Man.

Islam, to preside over the organization. In a short period of time, Fard’s Temple of Islam had attracted more than 8,000 members. After Master Fard mysteriously disappeared in 1934, rivalries and factions within the Nation of Islam broke into open hostilities in the struggle for the power to

Elijah Muhammad, spiritual leader of the Nation of Islam in the United States, established a religious organization that gave poor urban African Americans a sense of racial pride and economic and political self sufficiency. (Library of Congress)

command the organization. Part of the controversy involved Elijah Muhammad’s bold proclamation that Master Fard was Allah and that he himself was Allah’s prophet or messenger. As a result of the factional rivalries and death threats, Muhammad fled Detroit, moving constantly back and forth by himself between Washington, D.C., and Chicago, while his wife Clara Muhammad and their children stayed in the family’s residence in the South Side of Chicago. Besides trying to build his movement by preaching and recruiting in the late 1930s and early 1940s, another reason for Elijah’s constant evasive tactics was to elude the FBI agents who were searching for him for failing to register for the military draft. Eventually, Elijah was arrested on May 8, 1942 ,for nonregistration and sentenced to serve three years at the Federal Correctional Institute in Milan, Michigan. While Elijah was in prison, his wife, Clara, ran the affairs of the Nation of Islam. He was released from Milan on August 24, 1946.

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In the same year that Elijah Muhammad was released from prison, Malcolm Little, a small time petty thief, pimp, alcohol and drug addict, and street hustler was entering the prison system in Massachusetts. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 19, 1925, to the Reverend Earl Little and his wife, Louise. The loss of both parents led to an unstable childhood and teenage years. Tired of shuttling between foster parents, Malcolm moved to Boston to live with an older half sister named Ella. As an unemployed street hustler and leader of an interracial gang of thieves in Harlem and Roxbury, he was known as ‘‘Big Red’’ and ‘‘Detroit Red’’ for the reddish tinge in his hair. Sentenced to 8 to 10 years in prison for armed robbery and larceny, Malcolm was first introduced to the Nation of Islam in 1948 at the Norfolk Prison Colony by his favorite younger brother Reginald who had joined the Nation earlier in Detroit along with other siblings (Wilfred, Philbert, Wesley, and Hilda).

Malcolm described the powerful, jarring impact that the revelation of religious truth had upon him when Reginald told him during his visit, ‘‘The white man is the Devil’’ (Malcolm X and Haley 1999, 162). This doctrine along with the myth of Yakub and other creedal beliefs of the Nation have functioned as a theodicy for Malcolm and for thousands of black men in a similar predicament, as an explanation and rationalization for all of the pain and suffering inflicted upon black people in America. It all began to make sense: the chaos of the world behind prison bars became a cosmos, an ordered reality. ‘‘The white man is the Devil’’ explained his father’s death at the hands of whites and the extreme poverty suffered by his mother and nine children. It gave him a reason for his mother’s being taken away to an insane asylum by white social workers, it rationalized his dropping out of school in the eighth grade when a white teacher told him ‘‘niggers can’t be lawyers’’

MALCOLM X (1925–1965) Born Malcolm Little, in Nebraska, Malcolm X was early influenced by his father’s Baptist preaching and the allegiance of his father to Marcus Garvey. Family tragedy, including the murder of his father and his mother’s nervous breakdown, resulted in the disruption of life for Malcolm X. Disillusionment with his life options resulted in rebellion, particular in Boston where he moved to live with his eldest sister. Malcolm’s criminal activities resulted eventually in his arrest and a ten year sentence in state prison. It was in prison that Malcolm X became aware of the Nation of Islam. He joined in 1952. Malcolm became the organization’s first national spokesperson in 1963. Friction within the organization concerning Malcolm’s growing popularity would eventually become the pretext for his silencing. Malcolm X left the Nation in 1964. That same year he would found the Muslim Mosque, Inc., and would travel abroad to go on pilgrimage to Mecca. In Mecca he took a new name: El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. Upon his return to the United States, he founded the Organization of Afro American Unity and began to address issues related to human rights abuses within the United States. He was assassinated on February 21, 1965.

Nation of Islam (Malcolm X and Haley 1999, 38), and it made sense of all the years of hustling and pimping on the streets of Roxbury and Harlem as Detroit Red. Elijah Muhammad began the practice of each new member of the Nation dropping their slave surname and substituting an ‘‘X,’’ which became an outward symbol for inward changes. The ‘‘X’’ carried a number of meanings for members. It meant ‘‘undetermined’’ or an unknown quantity as in mathematics, as well as ex-slave, ex-Christian, ex-smoker, ex-drinker, or ex-mainstream American. After a period of time and demonstrating one’s faithfulness, a Muslim name chosen by Muhammad is given to a member. For example, Malcolm X became ‘‘Malik Shabazz’’ and Louis X was named Louis ‘‘Abdul Haleem Farrakhan.’’ The years between Malcolm X’s release from prison and his assassination, 1952–1965, mark the period of the greatest growth and influence of the Nation

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of Islam under Elijah Muhammad’s leadership. Minister Malcolm X was a man of enormous physical and intellectual energy. He added 27 more Muslim temples across the country to the seven already in existence in 1952. He established the Nation’s newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, by printing the first issues in the basement of his home until it was taken over by Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm also made it mandatory for every male Muslim to sell a set number of newspapers. This gave members of the Nation an opportunity to recruit new members, while also raising funds for the organization’s work. Failure to do so often led to physical punishment. In his outreach to the black community, Malcolm preached on street corners of Boston and Harlem and often participated in ‘‘fishing’’ for lost souls in the bars and cafes and even in front of Christian churches as their Sunday services let out (Malcolm X and Haley 1999, 222–223). In recognition of

LOUIS FARRAKHAN (1933–) Farrakhan entered the Nation of Islam under the tutelage of Malcolm X. His energy and abilities resulted in his moving through the ranks rather quickly, ultimately becoming the head of the most important mosque in the organization. He also became the organi zation’s national spokesperson. After the death of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Warith Deen Muhammed became head of the Nation of Islam, and the changes he imposed eventually resulted in Farrakhan’s breaking with the organization in 1978 and developing the Nation of Islam under the original teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Under Farrakhan’s leadership, the Nation has evolved to include a mem bership extending beyond African Americans. Also, members of the organization are encouraged to participate in the political process, something the Honorable Elijah Muhammad rejected. Farrakhan has become a controversial figure, whose statements concerning Jews and whose relationship with Islamic leaders rejected by the United States have resulted in heavy critique. However, his appeal is represented in events such as the Million Man March sponsored during the late twentieth century. This event, held in Washington, D.C., brought together a reported million black men for the purpose of atonement for their lack of leadership within their families and communities.

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his energetic preaching and organizing, Elijah Muhammad made him the minister of Boston Temple No. 11 in 1953, and in 1954 he rewarded Malcolm with the post of minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem, the Nation’s largest temple outside of Chicago. Despite his constant travels and busy speaking schedule, in 1958 Malcolm briefly courted and married Betty Sanders, a nursing student from Detroit. Within seven years of marriage, Malcolm and Betty had six daughters.

Beliefs and Practices The Honorable Elijah Muhammad recognized his organizational talents and his enormous charismatic appeal and forensic abilities by naming Malcolm his national representative of the Nation of Islam, second in rank to the Messenger himself. Inspired by his work, the Nation of Islam achieved a membership estimated to have ranged from 20,000 to 500,000. But like other movements of this kind, the numbers involved were quite fluid and the influence of the Nation of Islam refracted through the charisma of Malcolm X greatly exceeded its actual membership. As a leading media personality, Malcolm became one of the most important critics of the Civil Rights Movement. He challenged the strategy of ‘‘integration’’ and the nonviolent Christian ethic upon which it depended. More than anyone else, Malcolm predicted that even if King’s movement succeeded, the black subculture and its vital contributions to the American experience would be submerged in a sea of whiteness, leaving blacks with no history and no identity. Malcolm X believed more important than integration was the integrity of black

selfhood and its independence. Malcolm’s challenge to the ‘‘so-called Negro’’ (Malcolm X, ‘‘Africa and Self Hate,’’ in Breitman 1969, 184–185) and his emphasis upon the recovery of black selfidentity and independence shaped the ‘‘Black Power’’ and Black Consciousness movement that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s in American society. Malcolm’s alternative to King’s nonviolent stance was clearly enunciated in the time-honored right to self-defense he found in the prevailing Hebraic, Islamic, and American social and political credos. While Malcolm and the Black Muslims never advocated a violent revolution or overthrow of the American government, members were instructed to defend themselves, their families, and their homes ‘‘by any means possible’’ (Breitman 1970, 119). He made an enormous contribution to Americans by helping them to come face to face with the consequences of racial paranoia. He articulated the pent-up anger, the frustration, the bitterness, and the rage felt by the dispossessed black masses, the ‘‘grass roots.’’ Perhaps more clearly than other leaders of his time, he foresaw the violent consequences of the repressed anger and bitterness that exploded in large-scale urban rebellions in Harlem, Watts, Newark, and Detroit after his death. While he often paid tribute to his teacher and mentor, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Minister Malcolm X felt personally constrained from his own desire to participate actively in the politics and struggles of the Civil Rights Movement. After President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Malcolm was suspended for 90 days for making a controversial statement in the press that the assassination was comparable to ‘‘chickens coming home to roost,’’ implying

Nation of Islam that a violent nation produced this kind of violence directed toward its leaders (Malcolm X and Haley 1999, 307). For Malcolm, the suspension was a pretext to cover up a deeper moral problem and conflict within the Nation of Islam, namely, Elijah Muhammad’s consorting with and fathering 13 other children with seven of his secretaries. He received confirmation of these alleged affairs from one of Elijah’s sons, Wallace Muhammad. He said that he was close to Wallace and trusted him. Malcolm also told Minister Louis X (Farrakhan) of Boston and Captain Joseph who headed the FOI in his Temple No. 7 in Harlem. Both Louis X and Captain Joseph informed the authorities in Chicago that Malcolm was spreading false rumors about Elijah Muhammad. After resigning from the Nation in March 1964, Malcolm supported the paternity lawsuits of two of the secretaries against Elijah Muhammad. His support ended any chances of reconciliation with the Messenger. Malcolm also made the Hajj (Pilgrimage) to Mecca where he underwent another conversion to Sunni Islam, changing his name to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. After returning to the United States, Malcolm created two organizations, the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity, covering both his religious and secular followers. He was assassinated on Sunday, February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. Minister Louis Farrakhan of Boston took over Malcolm’s position as the minister of Temple No. 7 and was also appointed by Elijah Muhammad as the national representative, second in command to the Messenger himself. Farrakhan played a major role in stirring up dissent against Malcolm, who was

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once his mentor. As a charismatic speaker, he was one of the few leaders of the Nation who could match Malcolm’s forensic abilities. Farrakhan also had to rebuild the membership base of Temple No. 7 since a number of members left after Malcolm’s death. On February 23, 1975, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad died of congestive heart failure at the age of 78. Close advisers and family members decided to keep the leadership of the Nation of Islam within the Muhammad family and announced at the Savior’s Day rally that Elijah’s fifth son, Wallace Delaney Muhammad, would become the new leader of the organization. This decision for hereditary leadership elevated the Elijah Muhammad family to the status of being considered ‘‘the Royal Family’’ among the members of the Nation of Islam. Within a few months of taking office, Supreme Minister Wallace Muhammad began making sweeping changes in the organization, getting rid of all of the black nationalist teachings of Master Fard and Elijah Muhammad and moving the Nation closer to orthodox Sunni Islam. (See the ‘‘American Muslim Mission’’ entry for the changes Wallace made and the direction of his movement.) The death of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the quick succession of Wallace Delaney Muhammad replacing his father as the supreme leader of the Nation of Islam in February 1975 left Minister Louis Farrakhan in a state of shock and confusion. As result of his confusion, he did not challenge Wallace Muhammad’s ascent to leadership, although as the national representative and second in command, there had been a widespread expectation that Farrakhan would become the next leader. When

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Farrakhan was asked to relocate to Chicago by Supreme Leader Wallace Muhammad, he quickly complied. In 1960 Elijah Muhammad wanted all ‘‘Temples of Islam’’ to be called ‘‘Mosques,’’ but the changeover did not completely occur until after his death in 1975. Rather than being given a prominent place in the leadership of the Nation and an important mosque to lead in Chicago, Farrakhan was shunted to the side and appointed to a small rundown mosque. Instead of responding immediately to this insult and his marginalization in the movement, Farrakhan kept silent and watched the directions of Wallace’s leadership. When Wallace began criticizing his father, the Nation’s teachings, and organizations like the FOI, Farrakhan withdrew from the World Community of Al-Islam in the West in 1976 and began a series of travels abroad. During his travels in African countries and throughout the Middle East, Farrakhan learned about the continued oppression of black people and began to see the need for the special message of Elijah Muhammad and Master Fard to awaken their consciousness. Beginning with a meeting in a Los Angeles hotel with Bernard Cushmeer (Jabril Muhammad) in September 1977 and later with other devoted followers in meetings in Florida and Las Vegas, Farrakhan began laying the groundwork for a rebirth of the Nation of Islam based on the work and message of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, which he announced on November 8, 1977. Louis Abdul Haleem Farrakhan was born Louis Eugene Walcott on May 17, 1933, in the Bronx, New York. His mother, Sarah Mae Manning who came from St. Kitts-Nevis, moved to Boston

to raise her two sons, Alvan and Louis, as a single mother. Deeply religious, Gene, as he was called, faithfully attended the St. Cyprian Episcopal Church in his Roxbury neighborhood and became an altar boy. At the age of six he began violin lessons under Preston Williams and later a Russian Jewish teacher. With the rigorous discipline provided by his mother and his church, Gene did fairly well academically and graduated with honors from the prestigious Boston English High School, where he also participated on the track team and played the violin in the school orchestra. In 1953, after two years at the WinstonSalem Teachers College in North Carolina, he dropped out to pursue his favorite avocation of music and made it his first career. Gene also married his pregnant high school sweetheart, Betsy Ross, who later took the Muslim name Khadijah Muhammad. They had nine children together. An accomplished violinist, pianist, and vocalist, Walcott performed professionally on the Boston nightclub circuit as a singer of calypso and country songs where he made $500 a week. He was called ‘‘the Charmer.’’ His stage presence and experience before large audiences also helped him in his career as the leader of the Nation of Islam. In 1955, at the age of 22, Louis Walcott was recruited by Malcolm X for the Nation of Islam. However, it was not until he had met Elijah Muhammad, the supreme leader of the Nation of Islam, on a visit to the Chicago headquarters that Louis X converted and dedicated his life to building the Nation. After proving himself for ten years, Elijah Muhammad gave Louis his Muslim name, ‘‘Abdul Haleem Farrakhan,’’ in May 1965. As a rising star within the Nation, Farrakhan also wrote the only

Nation of Islam song, the popular ‘‘A White Man’s Heaven Is a Black Man’s Hell,’’ and the only dramatic play, Orgena (‘‘A Negro’’ spelled backward), endorsed by Mr. Muhammad. After a nine-month apprenticeship with Malcolm X at Temple No. 7 in Harlem, Minister Louis X was appointed as the head minister of the Boston Temple No. 11, which Malcolm founded. Later, after Malcolm X had split with the Nation, Farrakhan was awarded Malcolm’s Temple No. 7, the most important pastorate in the Nation after the Chicago headquarters. He was also appointed national representative after Malcolm left the Nation in 1964 and began to introduce Elijah Muhammad at Savior Day rallies, a task that had once belonged to Malcolm. Like his predecessor, Farrakhan is a dynamic and charismatic leader and a powerful speaker with an ability to appeal to masses of black people. After deciding to begin the rebirth of the Nation of Islam based on the teachings of Elijah Muhammad in the fall of 1977, Farrakhan made the effort to purchase the licenses from the American Muslim Mission to Elijah Muhammad’s books such as Message to the Black Man, How to Eat to Live, Our Savior Has Arrived, as well as other Nation publications such as Flag of Islam and Muslim Prayer Book. In May 1979 in the basement of his home, Farrakhan began working on The Final Call News, taking its name from the first publication that Elijah Muhammad published in the 1930s, The Final Call to Islam. The purpose of Farrakhan’s newspaper was ‘‘dedicated to the resurrection of the Black Man and Woman of America and the world.’’ The first Savior’s Day event was celebrated in February 1981.

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On September 12, 1982, Farrakhan mortgaged his home to purchase the Final Call Administration Building at 734 W. 79th Street in Chicago’s South Side. During this rebuilding period, the Final Call Building was used as the Nation’s headquarters as well as the site for Farrakhan’s speeches and meetings until Mosque Maryam was purchased. After successfully securing the release of Robert Downing, an African American pilot, from the Syrian government in 1963, Minister Farrakhan and the Reverend Jesse Jackson began to work together during Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1984. Both men participated in the debacle caused by Jackson’s ‘‘Hymietown’’ remarks to a black reporter, and they were considered anti-Semitic by Jewish groups. Throughout the years, Farrakhan’s critical statements about Jews, especially the Israelis’ treatment of the Palestinians, the exclusion of blacks from Hollywood, and the role of some Jews in the African slave trade, have fanned the flames of the conflict. Jewish groups have tried to prevent Farrakhan from speaking in public venues in major cities. The B’nai B’rith AntiDefamation League has singled Farrakhan out as America’s leading anti-Semite. Farrakhan has refused to bow to these criticisms and has stood firm against apologizing because he has seen how Jesse Jackson was treated after his numerous and profuse apologies before Jewish groups, who still considered him to be anti-Semitic. In 1985 Farrakhan released his economic vision called People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth (P.O.W.E.R.), calling for a mass movement for the economic rebirth of black people. In the same year, he appointed five women ministers, breaking the tradition of having only males as ministers.

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The first woman appointed was his lawyer, Ava Muhammad (Atkinson), whom he heard as a panelist on a Nation’s radio broadcast for a charity event in January 1985. After appointing Ava, Farrakhan appointed four other women as ministers, including one of his daughters, Donna Farrakhan. All of the women ministers led study groups instead of a mosque, although Ava acted as the minister of Mosque Maryam for six weeks when Farrakhan and a contingent of Nation leaders attended the Hajj (Pilgrimage) that year. Farrakhan has said that he was just building on one of Elijah Muhammad’s intentions of increasing the role of women in the Nation. In 1998 he went further and appointed Minister Ava Muhammad as the Southern Regional Minister of the Nation of Islam and the minister of Mosque 15 in Atlanta. His appointment of a woman as a minister of a mosque makes his treatment of women more progressive than the tradition of Sunni groups, which refuse to have women as imams. Besides launching the ‘‘Clean and Fresh’’ products in 1986 as part of the Nation’s economic project, the biggest event of the 1980s was the Nation’s

purchase of Mosque Elijah Muhammad from Imam Warith Deen Mohammed’s movement in 1988. With a $5 million interest-free loan from Colonel Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, which was later turned into a grant, Farrakhan was able to purchase the property of the former Greek Orthodox Church for $2.175 million. He renamed the headquarters Mosque Maryam and had Muhammad’s University of Islam attached to it. With Qaddafi’s loan, he was also able to purchase from Imam Mohammed the three stylish Middle Eastern designed houses that Elijah Muhammad had built for himself and his family. The house that Farrakhan lives in is referred to as ‘‘the Palace’’ among members. During 1990 to 1995 the following issues dominated Nation of Islam (NOI) activities: the 1992 release of Spike Lee’s famous movie, X, refocused the public’s attention on Malcolm X’s life and relations to the Nation, which included a reconciliation between Malcolm’s widow, Betty Shabazz, and her daughters with Minister Farrakhan; continued international outreach and economic development; and a national speaking tour preceding the NOI’s preparation for the Million Man March.

AVA MUHAMMAD (1951–) Ava Muhammad is a trained attorney, who worked as a criminal attorney before health issues raised for her religious questions that she answered through the Christian Church and eventually through the Nation of Islam in 1981. As a member of the Nation she has risen through the ranks, at one point serving as Farrakhan’s personal attorney. During the course of her membership in the organization, she has served as the first woman to lead a mosque and has also been a regional minister (1998). More recently, she served as Minister Farrakhan’s national spokesperson. Much of the theological mate rials available in the Nation of Islam, including commentary on its doctrinal beliefs, has been produced by Ava Muhammad.

Nation of Islam Farrakhan has occasionally addressed the topic of Malcolm X’s assassination. For example, for the first time he claimed at a closed meeting in May 1984 at the Final Call Building that as far as he knew, no direct orders were given by anyone in the Nation’s hierarchy to kill Malcolm, and that he (Farrakhan) probably contributed toward creating an emotional climate that led to Malcolm’s death. However, the release of Spike Lee’s X in November 1992 exacerbated the debate. Farrakhan immediately ordered a 90-day period of silence for members of the Nation of Islam in discussing the film on Malcolm publicly. He broke the silence by making this topic the central part of his Savior’s Day talk, ‘‘The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X: 25 Years Later.’’ Farrakhan defended the domestic life of Elijah Muhammad against slander and introduced four of the seven women, now called ‘‘wives’’ instead of secretaries, to the audience. The tensions between Betty Shabazz and Minister Farrakhan also reached a peak during this period. In the past, Shabazz had always blamed Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam for Malcolm’s death. However, on January 12, 1995, FBI agents contacted Farrakhan to let him know that they had arrested Quibilah Shabazz, one of the daughters of Malcolm and Betty, in a murder-for-hire plot against Minister Farrakhan. In a press conference, Farrakhan blamed the intelligence agencies for hatching this plot, similar to what they did in the 1960s Counterintelligence Program to disrupt black leaders and groups such as Dr. King, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party. Shabazz said, ‘‘I was totally surprised at the extent of his humanity of understanding that my daughter had nothing to do with this.’’

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In fact, Michael Fitzpatrick, a former member of the Jewish Defense League who had been convicted for a 1978 bombing of a Russian bookstore in New York City, was both the informer and conspirator, who tried to entrap Quibilah in this plot. On May 6, 1995, at a ‘‘Free Quibilah’’ fundraiser at the Apollo Theatre, Minister Farrakhan and Betty Shabazz met and reconciled. In October 1990, the Nation of Islam Ghana Mission information center was opened in Accra. International Minister Akbar Muhammad headed the Mission. In ensuing years, Akbar has established both a home and a Nation of Islam mosque in Accra. Under Farrakhan, the Nation has built upon its international outreach so that study groups and mosques were established in London and Paris and throughout the Caribbean. A study group was also established in South Africa. On November 26, 1994, the Nation of Islam repurchased 1,500 acres of land in Dawson, Georgia, in order to reestablish the farming operation that Elijah Muhammad had started earlier. Part of Elijah’s plans were to establish an internal economy from farm to grocery store within the Nation. On February 21, 1995, the $5 million Salaam Restaurant and Bakery complex was opened. From 1991 to 1995, Minister Farrakhan had a national speaking tour of American cities and drew very large crowds. Part of the tour focused on the theme of ‘‘Stop the Killing,’’ working on bringing about gang peace among the Bloods, Crips, and other gangs. On October 18, 1992, he spoke on ‘‘A Torchlight for America,’’ which was later published as a book, at the Georgia Dome to an audience of 55,000, which was larger than the number of fans attending the World Series game between the Braves and the Twins.

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Besides the larger audiences, he also had smaller meetings that were advertised as being ‘‘for men only,’’ because that was the target audience for the Million Man March on October 16, 1995, in Washington, D.C. Although he had separate meetings for women, he made clear that this march would focus on the needs and concerns of black men for apology, repentance, atonement, and reconciliation with black women, families, and the community. Apparently, his call touched a deep responsive chord in black communities and more than a million people showed up, largely men but also including some women and children. The Million Man March was four times larger than the 250,000 people who attended the March on Washington in 1963, which featured Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech. Many black men stood up with tears streaming down their faces and took the pledge litany that Farrakhan led them in, apologizing for their failure to protect black women, for abandoning their responsibilities to black children and families; repenting and atoning for these failures; and seeking forgiveness and beginning the hard road toward reconciliation. Some of the results of the March included: more than 1 million blacks were registered to vote, and many church groups have had Million Man March committees that lasted more than a decade, trying to fulfill the pledge and work actively in their communities. In 1996 Farrakhan began a World Friendship Tour of African nations and Muslim countries, visiting Nigeria, Zaire, Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Iraq among other countries. Because of the success achieved by the Million Man March, he was often treated as a head of state.

In 1997 Minister Farrakhan learned that he had prostate cancer. In 1998 he opted for treatment with radiated seed implantation, which caused further health problems for him in ensuing years. In 1999 he claimed that he had a ‘‘near death’’ experience from the severe infection caused by the implantation. This experience led him to move the Nation closer to Sunni Islam. He changed the month of fasting during Ramadan from December, which Elijah Muhammad used as a challenge to the Christmas celebration, to the lunar calendar tradition of the Sunnis. For a while Nation members were fasting for two months, once in December and the other during the lunar cycle for Ramadan. Farrakhan also ordered that all members of the Nation learn how to do the orthodox ‘‘prostration prayer’’ and all mosques were required to institute the Friday Jum’ah prayer service. On October 15, 2005, the tenth anniversary of the Million Man March, the Nation of Islam held the Millions More Movement in Washington, D.C. This event, which also attracted about 1 million black people, was more inclusive and politically focused. Besides women and families and representatives from disempowered racial minority groups, the coalition also included representatives from African American gay/lesbian groups. In his 75 minute speech, Minister Farrakhan criticized the Bush administration’s mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in Louisiana and the disastrous war in Iraq. The Millions More Movement also issued a pamphlet listing its public policy initiatives and political direction. After undergoing a 14-hour operation, dealing with severe infection of his lower intestines, in December 2006, Minister Farrakhan took a leave of absence in 2007. Since then, the daily operations of

Nation of Islam the Nation of Islam are in the hands of a selected leadership council. Lawrence A. Mamiya

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ansari, Z. I. ‘‘Aspects of Black Muslim Theology,’’ Studia Islamica 53 (1981). Ansari, Z. I. ‘‘The Religious Doctrines of the Black Muslims of America, 1930 1980,’’ Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9 (1987). Benyon, Erdmann D. ‘‘The Voodoo Cult among Negro Migrants in Detroit.’’ American Journal of Sociology 43 (July 1937 May 1938). Breitman, George, ed. Malcolm X: The Man and His Ideas (New York: Pathfinder, 1965). Breitman, George, ed. Malcolm X Speaks (New York: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 1969). Breitman, George, ed. By Any Means Neces sary (New York: Pathfinder, 1970). Breitman, George, Herman Porter, Baxter Smith, and others. The Assassination of Malcolm X (New York: Pathfinder, 1991). Breitman, George, Robert Vernon, and Jack Barnes. The Last Year of Malcolm X (New York: Pathfinder, 1997). Clegg, Claude Andrew, III. An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997). Curtis, Edward E., III. Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation and Differ ence in African American Islamic Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992). Curtis, Edward E., III. Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960 1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Essien Udom, Essien U. Black Nationalism: A Search for an Identity in America (Chi cago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). Evanzz, Karl. The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992).

Evanzz, Karl. The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad (New York: Pantheon Press, 1999). Farrakhan, Louis. Seven Speeches by Minister Louis Farrakhan (Harlem, NY: Ministry Class, Muhammad’s Temple No. 7, 1974. Farrakhan, Louis. A Torchlight for America (Chicago: FCN Publishing, 1993). Gardell, Mattias. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996). Goldman, Peter. The Death and Life of Malcolm X (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1979). Gomez, Michael. Black Crescent: The Expe rience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Lee, Martha F. The Nation of Islam: An American Millenarian Movement (Lewis ton, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988). Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994 edition of the 1961 publication). Lincoln, C. Eric. ‘‘The American Muslim Mission in the Context of American Social History.’’ The Muslim Community in North America, ed. Earle H. Waugh, Baha Abu Laban, and Regula B. Qureshi (Edmonton, AB, Canada: University of Alberta Press, 1983). Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence Mamiya. Interview with Minister Louis Farrakhan at his home in Hyde Park, Chicago, October 2, 1992. Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence Mamiya. Interview with Minister Ava Muhammad at Mosque Maryam, Southside Chicago, August 21, 1993. Lomax, Louis. When the Word Is Given (New York: Signet Books, 1963). Malcolm X and Alex Haley. The Auto biography of Malcolm X (New York: Random House, 1999 edition of the 1965 publication).

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Mamiya, Lawrence H. ‘‘From Black Muslim to Bilalian: The Evolution of A Move ment.’’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 21, no. 2 (1982): 138 152. Reprinted in Islam in North America: A Sourcebook, ed. Michael A. Koszegi and J. Gordon Melton (New York and London: Garland Publishing Co., 1992), 165 182. Mamiya, Lawrence H. ‘‘Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Final Call: Schism in the Muslim Movement.’’ The Muslim Community in North America, ed. Earle H. Waugh, Baha Abu Laban, and Regula B. Qureshi (Edmonton, AB, Canada: University of Alberta Press, 1983). Mamiya, Lawrence H. ‘‘Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.’’ Contemporary Black Leaders, ed. David DeLeon (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1994). Mamiya, Lawrence H. Interview with Minister Louis Farrakhan at the Marriott Hotel in Washington, DC, June 7, 2006. Muhammad, Elijah. Message to the Blackman (Chicago: Muhammad’s Temple No. 2, 1965). Muhammad, Elijah. How to Eat to Live (Chicago: Muhammad’s Temple No. 2, 1967). Muhammad, Elijah. The Fall of America (Chicago: Muhammad’s Temple No. 2, 1973). Muhammad, Elijah. Our Saviour Has Arrived (Chicago: Muhammad’s Temple No. 2, 1974). Muhammad, Elijah, with Abass Rassoul, ed. The Theology of Time (U.B. and U.S. Communications Systems, 1992). Toure, Muhammad. Chronology of the Nation of Islam History: Highlights of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam from 1977 1996. Edi tion One. (Toure Muhammad and Steal Away Creations, November 1996). Turner, Richard. Islam in the African Ameri can Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).

NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION OF AMERICA, INC. Historical Development The National Baptist Convention of America, originally called the National Baptist Convention, Unincorporated, was formed in 1915. This organization, developed because of disagreement over the Convention’s publishing house, was the principle product of the second major split (the first was the Lott Carey split in 1897) within the National Baptist Convention, Inc. Prior to 1915, the National Convention Publishing Board had been led by Richard H. Boyd, along the lines of a Booker T. Washington self-help approach to advancement and productivity. Having conceived the nature and function of the publishing board in 1896, Boyd held firmly to the idea that African Americans had to help themselves by way of self-produced economic opportunity and growth. The overall importance of the National Baptist Publishing Board to the National Baptist Convention as well as to the broader African American community during that time cannot be overstated. In 1905, with plans to solidify its publishing arm underway, the Convention sought to separate the management for Home Mission Board and the Publishing Board, with little support from the auxiliary boards. By 1906, the National Baptist Publishing Board had become the premier African American publisher in the United States. As a major provider of church-related materials they supplied books, pamphlets,

National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. booklets, and Sunday school materials. What is more, they utilized the most modern equipment among black publishers of the day. In fact, given their advanced business practices and largely good standing with the broader black community under Boyd’s leadership, the National Baptist Publishing Board became in large part an umbrella organization for other black businesses in Nashville, its headquarters, such as the production of furniture. The growing success and diverse activities of the Publishing Board fueled growing tensions from within the National Baptist Convention regarding its aim and direction under Boyd’s leadership. Seeds of discord were evident by 1914, as rebellion against the separate management requirement of 1905 continued and caused the Convention to consider a new direction regarding this matter. Boyd’s independent business style ultimately led to consternation among those within the National Baptist Convention leadership. Boyd’s belief in cooperation with white Baptists, such as James M. Frost of the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, concerned several members of the convention. Boyd’s simple premise for this cooperation was that such

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a partnership had to be based on equality rather than dependence. Even with the concerns from convention leadership at play, Boyd argued that the publishing board’s affiliation with the national convention did not mean that the latter had full authority over the actions of the publishing board’s activities. Connected to the resentment was the significant issue, and point of dispute for the NBC leaders and pastors, of the receipt of reports from the Publishing Board. Ultimately a debate ensued concerning the ownership of the Publishing Board. During this time the convention’s publishing board became the largest black-owned publishing enterprise in the United States. The central players within this dispute and 1915 court case were R. H. Boyd and E. C. Morris, the president of the National Baptist Convention (NBC). Morris was concerned with the depth and breadth of Boyd’s influence over the Publishing Board. Accordingly, Morris and his supporters demanded Boyd produce all financial records demonstrating that funds were being used appropriately. This demand prompted leaders within the convention to form two factions, one pro-Morris and one pro-Boyd. The result was a complete split, supporters of Boyd and his position

RICHARD HENRY BOYD (1843–1922) Richard H. Boyd was born a slave and attempted various occupations before finding his place in ministry. In 1897 Boyd founded the Publishing Board, which was then asso ciated with the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. In addition to the Publishing Board, he was instrumental in the development of other businesses, such as a doll making company and a bank. Through Boyd’s efforts, the Publishing Board saw many successes, including the publishing of its own materials. Boyd’s full control over the Publishing Board was a concern for the leaders of the convention and ultimately led to the formation of the National Baptist Convention of America, where Boyd moved the Publishing Board.

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regarding the possibilities that would come from an independent publishing board not controlled by the convention formed the National Baptist Convention of America (NBCA) at the Salem Baptist Church in Chicago. It was initially known as the unincorporated convention. By 1917, a constitution of the new convention was adopted. Those who remained with the Morris faction retained the original name. In response to the question of incorporation, those leaders remaining a part of the original convention endeavored to incorporate and thus became the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (see entry ‘‘National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.’’). The unincorporated National Baptist Convention of America would remain so (in name) for some time. Early efforts to solidify the new convention can be seen in their drawing an agreement in 1924 between themselves and Lott Carey regarding missions. Ultimately, in 1928 the new Convention incorporated its Foreign Missions Board, Baptist Young People’s Union, and Sunday School Publishing Board. In 1987 the National Baptist Convention of America was incorporated in Shreveport, Louisiana, becoming the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. The National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. does not have a centralized national headquarters, but the publishing house is in Nashville. In 1988 the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. voted to operate its own National Congress. The organizational structure of the unincorporated convention was similar to that of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. The current organizational structure is composed of 16 national officers. The major offices are that of the president, three vice presidents, and a series of associate vice presidents, functioning as state leaders and moderators of

general associations on the state level. There are seven program boards overseeing missions, publications, evangelism, youth issues, and charitable concerns. Additional auxiliary units such as the Woman’s Missionary and Junior Woman’s auxiliaries and the Nurse’s Corps along with commissions on Christian education and social justice added to the variety of service and ministry efforts of the NBCA. The Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention eventually became the foreign mission wing of the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. It supports missions in the Caribbean, the Virgin Islands, Panama, Haiti, and Ghana in West Africa. To uplift African American communities, the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., in conjunction with the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., made commitments to the economic welfare of African Americans by means of the formation of the Minority Enterprise Financial Acquisition Corp. Through this initiative both organizations sought to secure financial assistance for the building of lowincome housing. By way of these and other efforts, the NBCA seeks to remain involved in the social concerns of black Americans. Of the three major African American Baptist conventions—the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. and the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. (formed in 1961)—the NBCA boasts the second largest membership. Part of their growth is attributed to its long-standing commitment to education and diverse ministries.

Beliefs and Practices As is the case for most of the black denominations, the National Baptist

National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. Convention of America holds to a creed that is Bible-based, drawing its major theological points from the Bible— understood as the word of God, written by humans through divine inspiration and guidance. It holds to a typical Trinitarian view whereby it is understand that God exists in three related and dependent realities—God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. God ‘‘the Father’’ is the creator of all things and giver of life. Jesus Christ is understood and accepted as the Son of God and is in essence equal with God the Father. They believe that while on earth Jesus lived a sinless life. According to God the Father’s plan for humanity, Jesus offered himself as the perfect and once-and-for-all atonement for the sins of all people through his sacrificial death on the cross. Thereafter, Jesus arose from the dead after three days, possessing all power and authority over sin and death. Jesus ascended to heaven and will ultimately return again to earth to reign as Lord of all humankind. The Holy Spirit is also equal in essence with the other members of the Trinity, yet with a distinct role in relation to believers. The Holy Spirit is present in the world to make believers aware of their need for Jesus Christ and make clearer the precepts of God in the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Spirit also provides the Christian with power for living, understanding of spiritual truth, and guidance in doing what is right. The Christian, in turn, is daily and willingly controlled by the Holy Spirit. Humans, by way of their special creation have a unique relationship to God in that they bear in their being the image of God. Hence, humans are the paramount and supreme object of God’s creations. Although humanity has the potential for

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good, humans are flawed with proclivity toward disobedience to God, or sin. Humanity was created to exist forever, but only those who accept Jesus Christ as personal savior will livet with God in Heaven. Because God gives humanity eternal life through Jesus Christ, and a proper relationship with God is maintained by the grace and power of God, not through any self-effort of the Christian, those who reject Christ will experience Hell. Derek S. Hicks

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke Univer sity Press, 1990). Lovett, Bobby L. A Black Man’s Dream: The First One Hundred Years, Richard Boyd and the National Baptist Publishing Board (Jackson, NC: Mega Corporation, 1993). Pinn, Anthony B. The Black Church in the Post Civil Rights Era (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002). Pinn, Anne H., and Anthony B. Pinn. Fortress Introduction to Black Church History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002).

NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION, USA, INC. Historical Development The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. was established in 1895 and is the second largest Baptist organization in the United States, second only to the Southern Baptist Convention. This organization came into existence after the merger of the Foreign Mission

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Baptist Convention (organized in 1880), the American National Baptist Convention (organized in 1886), and the Baptist National Education Convention (organized in 1893). Estimates are that over 41,000 churches with over 8 million members comprise the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. During the antebellum period, several Protestant denominations sought to evangelize and convert slaves to Christianity. Within such an endeavor, Baptists made concerted efforts to convert slaves, though mostly as second-class church members, to their faith and churches. Often slaves were compelled, if not mandated, to sit in slave galleries—often in the balcony—or other designated areas during worship. In some plantation churches the slaves would be offered a separate ‘‘sermon’’ through which their servitude was justified and the superiority of whites was championed. Black plantation preachers were sometimes used alongside white evangelical counterparts as exhorters, but their conversation and preaching was monitored in an attempt to make certain they did not counter efforts to use religion to justify and reenforce the slave system. Increasingly, slaves sought independent religious experience within the Baptist tradition to exercise faith and religiosity. Outside the Deep South, black Baptist churches began to emerge in Virginia as early as 1774; Massachusetts around 1805; Pennsylvania in 1809; New Jersey in 1812; Manhattan in 1809; and Brooklyn in 1847. Within these developing churches slaves could more freely express themselves. However, this situation was not without its problems in that white slave owners and religious leaders expressed concern over autonomous meetings of slaves, fearing

that such meetings had the potential of inciting insurrections. Among the several notable early black Baptist leaders were David George (1742–1810) and George Liele (1750– 1820). Liele was ordained as a minister to the slaves and was instrumental in the conversion of George. Liele also began mission work in Jamaica, becoming one of the first African Americans in the mission field. Both men were principle figures in the founding of the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in South Carolina between 1773 and 1775, often viewed today as the first African American Baptist church in the United States. African American Baptist churches were also established in the North. Notable among these early congregations are Joy Street Baptist Church (Boston, 1804), the Abyssinian Baptist Church (New York City, 1808), and the African Baptist Church (Philadelphia, 1809). While these churches were autonomous, without obligations beyond the needs and concerns of the particular congregation, they recognized the benefits of collaboration. This connection across a geographical area took the form of associations by which congregations were able to pool resources, etc., to address commonly held concerns and issues such as abolition and mission work (both domestic and foreign). With time more local groupings of churches would give way to collective extending beyond narrow geography to include state conventions and national conventions. Many black Baptists during the 1800s worked with white Baptist organizations through what was known as the African Baptist Missionary Society. This subordinate organization initially existed under the patronage of the American Baptist Union. The primary efforts of this

National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. Society were to send missionaries to Africa. The earliest of the all-black Baptist associations were organized in the Midwest: Providence Association (Ohio, 1834); Union Association (Ohio, 1836); Wood River Association (Illinois, 1839); and the Amherstburg Association (Canada and Michigan, 1841). As early as 1840, black Baptists endeavored to develop a cooperative movement beyond state lines. For example, Baptists in New York and the Middle Atlantic states formed the American Baptist Missionary Convention. In 1864 the black Baptists in the Western and Southern territories founded the Northwestern Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1866, these two conventions held a meeting with the American Baptist Convention and formed the Consolidated American Baptist Convention. Perhaps the most significant accomplishment of the Consolidated American Baptist Convention was the support it offered black Baptists in the South to form their own state conventions. Post-emancipation black Baptists in the South, some with the support of the Consolidated Convention, were able to form state conventions in Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, and Kentucky. Yet, despite the groundbreaking efforts and early success of the consolidated convention, regionalism and fragmentation emerging through conflict over resources and convention agendas continued among black Baptists. In 1873 black Baptists in the Western regions formed the General Association of the Western States and Territories, and in 1874 the individual Eastern groups organized the New England Baptist Missionary Convention. Continued regionalism and other factors brought about the eventual decline and

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demise of the Consolidated American Baptist Missionary Convention. The National Baptist Convention, not officially founded until 1895, was made up of representative delegates from three separate African American organizations: the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention (1880), the American National Baptist Convention (1886), and the National Baptist Educational Convention (1893). The formation of the Foreign Mission Convention was partly a result of the demise of the Consolidated Convention. Its death adversely affected efforts in the mission field, especially for African missions. This loss of production prompted Rev. William W. Colley, a missionary to Africa under the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, to issue a decree for black Baptists to meet in Montgomery, Alabama. In the initial meeting, convened by Rev. Colley, approximately 150 Baptist pastors and delegates from 11 states met in Montgomery, Alabama, on November 24, 1880, and formed the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention. Originally headquartered in Richmond, Rev. Colley served as the corresponding secretary. The purpose of this meeting was to organize a national convention to do extensive foreign missionary work. Accordingly, the major thrusts of this convention were to discuss the trajectory of planned mission work in Africa and domestic social issues such as the use of tobacco and alcohol. While this convention had connections with white Baptists, this relationship was far from ideal and at points problematic. However, some African American Baptist leaders still held out hope that working across racial lines would be fruitful. Most others simply sought independent black autonomy in conventional affairs. Both sides were

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represented at the 1880 convention. The result was rather large-scale infighting as well as the eventual formation of the American National Baptist Convention in 1886. With Rev. William J. Simmons leading the formation and serving as its president, the American National Baptist Convention convened on August 25, 1886, the second of these important early groups. The paramount objective at this meeting was to unify the church regarding pressing racial issues. This meeting was made up of 600 delegates from churches in 17 states convened in St. Louis. Claiming over 1 million constituents from some 9,000 churches and 4,500 ministers, this convention represented their significant efforts to create a black Baptist denomination. Such an endeavor was pursued in spite of Northern white Baptist resistance. The third convention, held in 1893 and led by Rev. W. Bishop Johnson of Washington, D.C., sought as its primary goal to address the issue of educating and training black clergy and missionaries. Ultimately, they desired to develop an educational framework of comprehensive formal education and training of black clergy who would normally be denied such opportunities because of racism. Moreover, they felt it necessary for trained black clergy to be capable of leading Baptists in the achievement of an agenda that primarily included the important component of uplifting the black race. Johnson was also a leading figure in the formation of the National Baptist Convention. At the 1894 annual meeting of these various organizational bodies in Montgomery, a motion was cast proposing the merger of the three separate groups into one convention. Thereafter a joint committee was appointed to report on the viability of

such a plan the following year. The year 1894 also saw the establishment and initial publication of the National Baptist Magazine. With the desire to have the convention remain viable, this movement officially came into being on September 24, 1895, at the Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta, when the merger was finalized and these three conventions came together to form the National Baptist Convention of the United States of America. As part of the merger, it was noted that the three former conventions would serve as subsidiary boards of the convention: Foreign Missions (in the form of the National Baptist Foreign Mission Board), Home Missions, and Education. The Reverend E. C. Morris was elected president and presided for 27 years. His tenure was important for laying the foundation of the Convention. Beyond the significance of the general growth of the organization, his presidency brought with it significant accomplishments: one example was the formation of the National Baptist Publishing House in Nashville, Tennessee. One of the motivating factors for the formation of the National Baptist Convention was the desire of blacks to publish literature written by their own ministers. The American Baptist Publication Society had refused to publish writings by black ministers due to vigorous resistance from its Southern clients. Richard Boyd was called upon to give leadership to the National Baptist Publishing House. One of its principle roles was to supply National Baptist churches with all of their church and Sunday School supplies. Within a reasonably short amount of time this publishing house was the world’s largest black publisher of any print material. With regard to its early

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SUTTON ELBERT GRIGGS (1872–1933) Best known as a Baptist minister and social activist, Griggs was born in Texas and attended Richmond Theological Seminary in Virginia. He entered the pastorate in 1893, serving in both Virginia and Tennessee. He is known for his novel Imperium in Imperio, which was published in 1899. This work advanced an idea of a utopian African American state within the United States and was considered one of the first protest novels written by an African American. Other protest novels, The Hindered Hand and The Klansman in 1905 and later One Great Question: A Study of Southern Conditions at Close Range, followed this work. Through his social concerns he became involved with W. E. B. DuBois and the Niagara Movement.

formation, many consider Morris’s 27 years of leadership the most important period for the Convention. Despite the positive accomplishments during his tenure as head of the Convention, Morris’s presidency saw two major splits. In 1897, the Lott Carey Baptist Home and Foreign Mission Convention was formed by a group of National Baptist pastors who left the existing convention. The initial president of this newly constructed convention was C. S. Brown. This abrupt separation was centered on two issues: the location of the foreign mission board and collaborative efforts with white Baptists. That year Convention members demanded complete separation from Northern Baptist Societies. With respect to the former, the prominent issue centered on loyalties to the old Foreign

Mission Convention, which had been based in Richmond (as had the African Baptist Missionary Society). A plan was underway to relocate the Foreign Mission Board’s headquarters from Richmond to Louisville. Added to this, resentment grew toward the publishing board’s activities within the new convention, which, as a result, adversely affected the relations of the Richmond group with other local white Baptist organizations. Those interested in cooperation with whites argued that this proposed move, in conjunction with separatist publication efforts, would be a destructive and counterproductive maneuver away from white Baptists. This move would thus significantly affect their joint mission and educational efforts. In addition, it was believed that such a move would

ELIAS CAMP MORRIS (1855–1922) From Georgia and born into slavery, Morris was ordained into the Christian ministry at 19 years of age. He was pastor of Centennial Baptist Church in Arkansas for his entire ministerial career. Early in his career as pastor he was elected secretary of the state con vention and rapidly moved through the ranks. He was later elected president of the state convention and helped found Arkansas Baptist College. His notoriety outside of the state of Arkansas led to him being elected president of the National Baptist Convention after it merged with the American National Baptist convention and two other organizations.

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hamper the National Baptist Convention’s efforts to generate the necessary income to achieve its lofty missionary goals. Further, they saw cooperation with white Baptists a sign of necessary gratitude for early white support. The Lott Carey withdrawal contingent was made up of better educated members and delegates from North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Accordingly, issues of class and differing ideology, which had long plagued the movement toward denominational independence, resurfaced. Among this period’s continued accomplishments during this time, in 1899 the National Baptist Young Peoples Union organized. In 1905 the Lott Carey Convention and the National Baptist Convention made new efforts to form a partnership. Formed in accordance with an understanding based upon a previously submitted proposal, the two conventions opened up dialogue regarding concessions. The pressing concern, advanced by C. S. Brown, was the readjustment of the foreign mission endeavors so that they reflected cooperation between both sides. Moreover, he requested that each side refrain from unwarranted attacks between officers’ permission regarding the use of materials from either publishing house for Sunday School classes. While resulting cooperation was gained by these attempts, efforts to officially unite the two ultimately failed. Thereafter these two entities remained separately functioning bodies, though several of their members and officers would have dual membership. This set of circumstances was followed by two additional prominent schisms—in 1915 and 1961—within the National Baptist Convention. The seeds for the next split were planted in 1897 with the internal debates

over the publishing board. Before the second schism the National Baptist Convention had roughly 3 million members and some 20,000 affiliated churches. However, even after these splits, the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. remained the major black Baptist convention. Disagreements over the ownership and operation of the Publishing Board, also incorporated in 1897, prompted the second major split that came in 1915. Of all of the agencies of the convention, the Publishing Board, under the leadership of R. H. Boyd, was the most successful. Among the Publishing Board’s various projects, in 1908 they began building church furniture. The following year the Publishing Board would develop the National Baptist Teacher-Training Service. Leaders and pastors of the convention became suspicious of the Publishing Board’s actions when they did not receive anticipated reports on the Board’s activities and financial gains. The ensuing debate regarding the ownership of the Publishing Board pushed Boyd’s supporters, most of whom agreed with his view that the Board was independent of the convention, to form the National Baptist Convention of America (see entry ‘‘National Baptist Convention of America’’). This group would become known as the unincorporated convention. Fueled by a question and resulting debate over incorporation, those leaders remaining in the original convention moved to incorporate it. The constitution was amended in 1916 and the original convention was later incorporated, naming itself the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. Also as a result of this split, other boards within the original convention became subordinate to the convention. The Reverend E. C. Morris,

National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. who had been initially elected president when the National Baptist Convention was created in 1895, was allowed to continue in that role with the incorporated body until 1922. In addition, following the events of 1915, the convention created a new board—the Sunday School Publishing Board of the National Baptist Convention. However, it was the Foreign Mission Board that replaced publishing as the central and galvanizing concern of the convention’s operations. At this juncture the original convention devoted itself even more to domestic concerns. From Reconstruction through World War I, the National Baptist Convention had already advocated selfsufficiency among African Americans. Ministers from among the convention’s fold encouraged high levels of education, temperance, and other forms of social respectability. Their goal was to make thoroughgoing efforts at securing for themselves a greater role in the life of the nation. Accordingly, they ventured to show other institutions, such as banks and major businesses, that the Black Church should be considered a viable starting point and source of support for their ventures. Convention president Morris argued that the church was the very centerpiece of the African American community; which, as a result, would instill blacks with the necessary moral fiber and social adeptness to function as productive members of society. He reasoned then that African American Christians, by way of positive example, would inspire white Americans to act with more tolerance and fairness, reducing levels and social maltreatment. What is more, the National Baptist Convention in the first decades of the new century initiated campaigns against racial violence and segregation in public buildings,

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establishments, and schools. The basis for such campaigns was the notion of self-help, based on the ideology and programs of Booker T. Washington. E. C. Morris was succeeded by W. G. Parks who served only one year as president before L. K. Williams gained office in 1924. L. K. Williams served until 1940. Several notable accomplishments were made during his 16 years, including the establishment of a Laymen’s Department. He was chiefly concerned with the issue of a publishing board. Williams offered the role of General Secretary of the Board to L. G. Jordan. Upon laying plans for a new building in Nashville, which opened in 1925, paying honor to the Convention’s influential and arguably its most important early leader, this new building was named the Morris Building. In 1939 Dr. Williams gave a speech at the World’s Fair in New York. Following Williams as president was David V. Jemison who served from 1940 to 1953. Under his leadership the Convention was able to pay off the mortgage on the Morris Memorial Building. In addition, they were able to purchase a building that would eventually become the National Baptist Bath House in Hot Springs, Arkansas. This establishment would offer African Americans vacation opportunities long denied them in the highly segregated South. Joseph H. Jackson of Chicago became President of the Convention in 1953. Jackson’s presidential tenure spanned the longest of any Convention head, from 1953 to 1982. At the beginning of Jackson’s presidency the National Baptist Convention had nine boards and commissions. During his tenure the Convention moved from nine boards and commissions, whose responsibilities included internal

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operations, foreign operations, and domestic concerns, to 22 such divisions. Each board included a representative from each state in conjunction with eight at-large members. Such a board was free to develop its agenda and all necessary regulations to accomplish the goals set out on the agenda. In addition, he purchased the National Baptist Freedom Farm and set up an unrestricted scholarship at Roosevelt University. It was during the time of Jackson’s leadership that a third major conventional split occurred. In 1956 a symposium titled ‘‘National Baptists Facing Integration: Shall Gradualism Be Applied?’’ was held to discuss the best approach to social transformation. The issues of social transformation and civil rights represented one side of two

significant issues fueling conventional disputes, the other was the question of tenure. Ultimately, this split would ensue due to the lack of support of the Civil Rights Movement. As a result, advocate for black civil rights Dr. Gardner C. Taylor of New York made an unsuccessfully bid to challenge Jackson’s presidency. After his unsuccessful election, a group of convention members, who were led by Dr. L. Venchael Booth, formed another new convention at the Zion Baptist Church, Cincinnati, Ohio. Formed in 1961, this new group called itself the Progressive National Baptist Convention (see entry ‘‘Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.’’). In 1983 the leadership baton was passed to the pastor of Mount Zion First Baptist

Nannie Helen Burroughs holds the banner of the Women’s Convention of the National Baptist Convention, 1900. (Library of Congress)

National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Reverend T. J. Jemison. Jemison served as president for 12 years. His notable development was the building of the Baptist World Center. This project was projected to cost over $12 million, and eventually functioned as the headquarters of the Convention. The Jemison presidency ended in 1994 and Henry Lyons of Florida was elected the new president. Lyons’s time as president was a productive one. Under his leadership the Convention experienced a reduction in the debt on the Baptist World Center and dissolved the debt on the Sunday School Publishing Board. In addition, several commissions were added to the convention. Lyons was compelled to resign from the presidency due to legal issues. Specifically, Lyons was forced to step down due to financial mismanagement of convention funds, which resulted in a jail sentence for his actions. Serving out the remainder of Lyons’s tenure was Dr. S. C. Cureton, the vice president-at-large. William J. Shaw, pastor of the White Rock Baptist Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, became the Convention’s president in 1999 and currently serves in that role. A new motto and theme was introduced that marks the nature of his

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presidency. This theme is termed VISA: Vision, Integrity, Structure, and Accountability. Shaw works to reestablish integrity and credibility in the Convention, and to make the Convention a leader for black people in the nation. In recent years, the Convention has made a major commitment to the economic welfare of African Americans through the formation of the Minority Enterprise Financial Acquisition Corp., which aids with financial assistance for the building of lowincome housing. Baptist as well as Methodist denominations shared a common struggle with the acknowledgment of women and the importance of their contributions to religious life. Spawned by gender conflicts existent within the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., the Woman’s Convention, defined as an auxiliary, encouraged and sought sisterhood among the many female supporters of the Convention and the Baptist tradition in general. Since its inception the Convention sought to give voice to the issues of both black men and women. Yet, it did not encourage expression from men and women as social equals. Accordingly, the Convention’s structure was decidedly masculine, which was most noticeable in its institutional structure. Whereas

NANNIE HELEN BURROUGHS (1878–1961) Born in Virginia but raised in Washington, D.C., Burroughs moved to Kentucky in 1900 and worked as a secretary for the Foreign Mission Board of National Baptist Convention. Within this role, she taught several courses on domestic issues, notably concerning women. Ultimately she would help develop the Woman’s Industrial Club, an organization that helped to feed African Americans in Louisville. In addition to this work, Burroughs helped in founding the Woman’s Convention in 1900, appearing as its initial corresponding secretary, and playing an important role in its development. She was also an active and highly sought after lecturer.

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Methodist churches eventually made noticeable strides toward recognition of women, Baptist denominations did not. While since the 1970s female ministerial leadership has increased, general tolerance and acceptance for women and their contributions remain lacking. Yet, without the work of black women within the Convention in the areas of fund-raising, missionary work, women’s conventions and clubs, and many other duties necessary for keeping the church together and thriving, the Convention would have had a far more difficult time meeting the needs of the African American community. The Women’s Convention of the National Baptist Convention was formed in 1900 principally through the efforts Nannie Helen Burroughs as well as a host of others. Existing under the umbrella of the National Baptist Convention, its membership essentially belonged to them. Accordingly, its annual meetings were held in conjunction with the Convention’s. This organization was committed to issues both within and outside of the walls of the church. Many of these women gave speeches and lectures across the country, outlining high moral and ethical standards necessary for the uplifting of the black race. They also considered women as holders of the keys to social transformation, with the United States as its massive mission field.

Beliefs and Practices The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. ascribes to Articles of Faith, which are to be adopted by any Baptist church seeking affiliation at the time of organization. The core of these articles begins with the Bible. In this regard the

Convention holds that the Bible was written by humans who were divinely inspired, and it is perfect and without error. Further, it, the Bible, sets the standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions are measured. Drawing upon Scripture the Convention’s doctrine of God holds that there is but one living and true God, who is an infinite, intelligent Spirit, and is the creator and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth. Following the theological doctrine of the trinity, the Convention holds that in the unity of the Godhead there are three equal persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Convention also believes in the fall of humankind precipitated by Adam and Eve’s original sin and the resulting need for salvation through the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the second entity within the trinity. They believe, then, that Jesus came to earth, died on the cross, conquered sin and death, sits at the right hand of God the Father, and functions currently as mediator on behalf of all who believe. It follows that, upon placing faith in Christ, the believer is justified—that is, declared righteous by God—through their faith. Consequently, salvation is understood to be a free gift of God granted by way of faith and trust in Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior. Through faith, the believer is regenerated, or ‘‘born again.’’ The Convention holds that Jesus Christ will return again and will judge unbelievers and reward those who have been faithful to his teachings. The Holy Spirit functions as guide and as an aid in the perfecting of one’s faith. With regard to living one’s faith within the world, the process of one becoming perfected in Christ is the process of sanctification. Through this process believers

New Age Movement partake in God’s holiness, which is a progressive work. This work is begun at regeneration and continues throughout the Christian pilgrimage. Sanctification is facilitated through self-examination and reflection, prayer, and the work of the Holy Spirit. The church of Christ is a congregation of baptized believers who are bonded by a common faith in God through Christ. The church functions as a community that encourages faith and common experience. Baptism, through immersion in water, is a sign of this common belief to the world. Baptism thus functions as an emblem of faith. As a privilege of shared faith, the church is granted the opportunity to remember and reflect upon the death, burial, and resurrection of the Savior, Jesus Christ, through the ritual of the Lord’s Supper (communion). Through the Lord’s Supper the members of the church, by the sacred use of bread and wine, are to commemorate together the dying love of Christ, preceded by solemn self-examination. Derek S. Hicks

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church 1880 1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). Leonard, Bill J. Baptists in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke Univer sity Press, 1990). Pinn, Anne H., and Anthony B. Pinn. Fortress Introduction to Black Church History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002).

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Pinn, Anthony B. The Black Church in the Post Civil Rights Era (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002).

NEW AGE MOVEMENT Historical Development The very term New Age is problematic, and defining it poses a number of challenges, from the chronology of the movement to its defining features. Is the New Age only an American phenomenon dating from the mid-twentieth century, or do its roots stretch back further, connecting it to other American and global traditions? Is the New Age limited to crystals, channeling, and UFOs, or does it include other alternative religious, spiritual, and medical practices? Is the term itself pejorative or a positive identifier? Part of the complexity is that, within the New Age itself (however defined), one finds individuals and groups that claim each of these positions, and more. This makes the New Age broader and more amorphous than what is normally understood as a religious movement or tradition: it has no founder, no set canon, no binding creed, and no core beliefs that can be identified as universally shared. Rather, it is an eclectic movement consisting of a loose collection of practices and practitioners, some of whom will adamantly insist they are part of a larger movement, while others will vehemently deny this, and some will ignore the issue entirely. Importantly for this encyclopedia, the New Age is also a virtually exclusively Caucasian phenomenon: there are very few African American figures in its accepted histories, and while the number of African American practitioners

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(as well as that of other non-Caucasian groups) is growing, they still represent a significant minority in the movement as a whole. While the dominant explanation for this is a traditional, class-based analysis (that the New Age is a movement by the privileged for the privileged, requiring significant resources—both financial and in terms of leisure time—for participation), we believe the reality to be more complex than that—indeed, studies show that, while certainly not a ‘‘bottom-up’’ movement, the New Age is far more diverse in terms of its class composition than prior thought would indicate. In spite of the radically pluralistic and heterogeneous backdrop described above, it is possible both to discern common themes and practices that identify the New Age and to historically locate the movement. There is an emerging consensus that the New Age is the most recent manifestation of a distinct lineage of alternative Western religiosity, arriving in the New World with the first European settlements, and ultimately connecting with much older European esoteric and Hermetic movements. In exploring this lineage, one might follow the American religious historian Catherine Albanese, for whom the New Age is merely the most recent manifestation of an enduring form of religious expression that she terms the ‘‘metaphysical,’’ which Albanese argues represents a recurring and pervasive feature of the American religious landscape, appearing in elite and vernacular cultures alike. From its precolonial roots in European Hermetic and magical traditions, she traces metaphysical religion through early colonial America and the Revolutionary War era, from the nineteenth century to the Civil War and the following years, and finally to its

twentieth-century reconfiguration as the New Age. This places the current New Age in a tradition that includes, among other movements, Freemasonry, Mormonism, the Shakers, Unitarianism, Mesmerism, Spiritualism, the Theosophical Society, New Thought, and Christian Science. With this wider lens in place, it becomes easier to observe the influence and impact of African Americans in the development of the New Age, beginning with the Africans brought to America through the slave trade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The interactions between the incredible diversity of African cultures and the emerging culture of White America have been treated from many perspectives. Some authors point to themes that will emerge as key to the New Age, specifically the relationship between humanity and the natural world, the presence and possibility of communion with spiritual guides and helpers, and the construction of a world where the sacred is infused into matter. Using these as a base, Albanese argues for the beginnings of a ‘‘revelation epistemology,’’ where knowledge is passed through unseen methods (dreams, visions, etc.) for the spiritual health of an individual or community. Albanese continues her explorations of the interaction between African American religious expression and the American metaphysical up to the present day, highlighting the close connections between African American religious communities and the Spiritualist movement (where African Americans participated both as mediums and as spirits) and the activities of individual African Americans within metaphysical movements ranging from the Black Shaker Spiritualist Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795–1871) to the influence

New Age Movement Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875) had on the Theosophical movement. Shifting to more recent phenomenon, two leading scholars of the New Age, Wouter Hanegraaff and Steven Sutcliff, have identified two distinct streams within the New Age, one referring to a specific historical movement (the Strict Sense New Age) and the other to a larger, more varied movement (the General Sense New Age). The Strict Sense New Age refers to an Apocalyptic/Millennial movement that emerged in the 1940s and 1950s when a number of AngloAmerican groups announced they were receiving messages from intelligent beings from other planets who were coming to bring a New Age to the peoples of the Earth. These groups believed there would be an apocalyptic catastrophe followed by a new era of spiritual evolution, peace, and prosperity with only those sharing such ‘‘New age’’ values surviving. Predominantly populated by White, middle-aged, and elderly adherents and characterized by a culture of austerity and traditional morality that emphasized community, service, and altruism, these groups also reflected a strong British influence. Of particular importance was Alice Bailey (1880–1949), an English Christian Theosophist who channeled ‘‘The Great Invocation.’’ In the early 1960s some of these groups began to form utopian communities dedicated to awaiting the coming of the imminent New Age, the most famous and significant of which was the Findhorn Community in Scotland. In response to the absence of an actual apocalypse, the Strict Sense New Age underwent a radical shift, internalizing the apocalyptic narrative and relocating the dramatic coming changes from the external world to the landscape

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of the psyche and spirit. Eileen Caddy, one of the founders of the Findhorn Community, declared in 1968 that rather than the New Age being brought about by intelligent beings in the near future, it would be activated through human psychological and spiritual growth in the present moment. Following this (that is, from the 1970s onwards) an understanding of the New Age as an exterior apocalypse in the physical world was superseded by an understanding of the New Age as a global transformation where an old, rationalistic, negative mind-set would be destroyed, paving the way for a radically new state of human consciousness—famously characterized as the ‘‘Age of Aquarius,’’ a designation that was to gain widespread use in American popular culture. There was clear resonance with the emergent counterculture, which quickly adopted the expression ‘‘new age’’ into its ongoing discourse. The same year Findhorn was founded, Dick Price and Michael Murphy started Esalen in Big Sur, California, which would become a central location for the development of this more loosely defined ‘‘New Age.’’ Building on sociologist Colin Campbell’s identification of the General Sense New Age as a ‘‘cultic milieu,’’ Hanegraaff sees the New Age emerging when this cultic milieu becomes aware of itself as an invisible community of like-minded individuals aimed at widespread transformation. (Note that Campbell is not equating the New Age with the common associations of ‘‘cults’’; rather, he is referring to a cultural underground consisting of unorthodox science, heterodox religion, alternative medicine, magic, and the occult.) Hence, it is not a singular unified movement but a broad,

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leaderless network sharing often overlapping visions of transformation and containing a bewildering array of diverse practices and beliefs. The General Sense New Age has a dominant American influence, from the metaphysical lineage traced above (particularly New Thought and Spiritualism) up to the more recent human potential and transpersonal psychology movements; additionally, the encounter with and subsequent assimilation and appropriation of Asian religions has been hugely significant. The General Sense New Age is often seen as being geographically centered in (although certainly not limited to) California, where the counterculture has perhaps taken root the deepest. Demographically, adherents tend to represent the upper-middle class, are mostly Caucasian, and tend to value emotional expressiveness, body awareness, and the belief that the transformation of the world can only come about as a result of individual transformation. Classic texts from across the decades include Ram Dass’s Be Here Now (1971), David Spangler’s Revelation: The Birth of a New Age (1976), Marilyn Ferguson’s The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980’s (1979), Shirley MacLaine’s Out on a Limb (1986), and James Redfield’s, The Celestine Prophecy (1995). Since its inception, the General Sense New Age has been the subject of much critique, most commonly targeting its focus on the individual (which is seen as a form of narcissism), its perceived apoliticism, its commercialism, its demographics, and its appropriation of various religious traditions (often seen as a form of religious and/or cultural colonialism). However, recent scholarship has defended the New Age from these claims; Albanese, for example, argues that

American religiosity—both mainstream and metaphysical—has always included a strong dose of syncretism. From a different perspective, British scholar Christopher Partridge argues that New Agers are deeply concerned with the search for and maintenance of community: where critics find individualism, self-indulgence, and appropriation; Partridge unearths the search for community, individual responsibility, and creative ‘‘bricolage.’’ While the New Age has drawn heavily on Native American and Asian religious resources, there has been an overall lack of interest in a similar assimilation of African or African American material. Additionally—and clearly related—there is a paucity of scholarly inquiry into the relevance of the New Age for African American religiosity. As an example, in British scholar Darren Kemp’s recent extensive and interdisciplinary study of primary sources in both popular and academic literature on the New Age, there are no mentions of any links to African American culture. Additionally, even within those African American practices that can be seen as sympathetic to the concerns of the General Sense New Age, there is often a reluctance to identify with the New Age, largely due to its historically negative portrayal in the mainstream media. Still, the absence of explicit involvement between African American traditions and the New Age (which does have some notable exceptions, especially in discussions of Vodou and other ‘‘magical’’ traditions, and in research on specific individuals, such as John Patrick Deveney’s biographical work on Paschal Beverly Randolph) may very well be the result of a lack of attention and insight, not because of a dearth of raw material.

New Age Movement Finally, because of its associations with commercialism and predominantly negative media attention, as well as to a growing desire among current New Agers to differentiate themselves from the previous generation, the term ‘‘New Age’’ itself has fallen out of favor. This is reflected in both the academic and commercial worlds: ‘‘alternative spirituality’’ is growing to be a preferred term in scholarship, and it is more common in bookstores to see sections marked as ‘‘Spirituality,’’ ‘‘Holistic,’’ or ‘‘MindBody-Sprit’’ than ‘‘New Age.’’ At the same time, practices and themes associated with New Age are gaining both in their mainstream acceptance, and in their integration into existing social and religious structures (see, for example, the growing attention to ‘‘holistic’’ practices in mainstream medicine or the increasing use of Eastern meditation in various forms of Christian practice). From this perspective, there is certainly no evidence that the practices and concerns of the General Sense New Age are diminishing; indeed, if anything, the movements and practices that fall under the rubric of the New Age are growing and seem sure to influence the international religious landscape of the next century.

Beliefs and Practices In examining the General Sense New Age, a number of shared characteristics emerge, among them the themes of a spirituality concentrated on the transformation of the self, a close integration with various psychological models, strong tendencies toward monism and/or pantheism, and a stress on an integrated, holistic view of the world and humanity’s place in it. A common thread is the

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blurring of the boundaries between psychological and spiritual development and the replacement of religious salvation with personal growth and selfactualization. This leads to a sacralization of the Self, where it is seen not as the conventional individual ego, but rather as a type of inner divinity or deity, a Higher Self that is the source of all value and meaning. The goal of these ‘‘Self Spirituality’’ movements is to remove our identification with the egoic self and connect with higher and more sacred levels of this inner divinity. Similarly, a core mythology of the New Age is the journey of the Self through many incarnations toward increasing levels of spiritual knowledge. The physical world, then, is embraced as it serves as the physical manifestation of the opportunity for spiritual growth: the world is a school, and a single lifetime an opportunity for increasing one’s spiritual knowledge and depth. Unlike its role in the Asian religions from which the concept is often appropriated, reincarnation is seen as positive, enabling additional learning and the chance of proceeding to the next level of spiritual maturity. Emerging from this, evolution and the related concepts of growth, change, and development are all metaphors central to the General Sense New Age, where they are seen as creative processes leading humanity toward greater and greater heights of potential and accomplishment. In terms of ontology, the New Age tends to promote a basic Neoplatonic model of a hierarchical cosmos with a myriad number of spiritual beings existing on ascending planes of existence, each corresponding to progressively higher levels of spiritual development and culminating in an

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impersonal monistic Absolute. (Across the New Age, there is quite a bit of flexibility in terms of how this Absolute is referenced and described: in general, New Agers are very accommodating in terms of language, allowing terms like ‘‘God,’’ ‘‘Spirit,’’ ‘‘Higher Power,’’ etc., to coexist quite peacefully.) Pantheism, the concept that the Absolute is identical with the natural universe and Panentheism (the belief that the Absolute contains— but is not reducible to—the natural world) are also popular models. The most important point to note is that the New Age rejects dualistic and materialist ontologies in favor of unified, holistic, and interdependent visions. New Age practices encompass an incredibly wide range of activities, from aromatherapy to astral projection to channeling to various forms of ‘‘energy work’’ (Reiki healing practices, various Asian medical practices such as acupuncture, etc.); however, Hanegraaff has helpfully identified four major trends that may help identify at least the larger groupings: Channeling, Healing and Personal Growth, New Age Science, and New Age Neopaganism. Briefly, Channeling refers to various methods of communicating with other entities, usually either the spirits of the dead or beings from other dimensions and/or planets. Channeling is usually aimed either at personal communications for the development of the self or at the transmission of the knowledge crucial for the coming shift in consciousness. Three of the earliest and perhaps most well-known examples of New Age channeling are Jane Roberts’s interactions with an extraterrestrial entity named ‘‘Seth,’’ which began in 1963 and is collected in numerous books; J. Z. Knight’s ongoing relationship with ‘‘Ramtha’’; and Helen Schucman’s

experiences in the mid-1960s that led to the dissemination of the highly popular A Short Course in Miracles. Healing and Personal Growth may encompass the widest swathe of the General Sense New Age, including everything from energy work to forms of alternative medicine such as homeopathy and hypnotherapy to psychotherapeutic therapies such as psychosynthesis and transpersonal psychology. As such, a wide diversity of perspectives exist, but in general these practices are positioned as against modern Western medicine, which is seen as overly impersonal and invasive, and for a healing of the person as a holistic entity where psychological states and reactions are seen as being intimately tied to the physical manifestations of illness and disease. Additionally, there is a stress on healing as opposed to curing; on illness being seen as the result of an imbalance or a disharmony between mind, body, and spirit; on the potential meanings and lessons entwined with illnesses; and on the need for individuals to take responsibility for their own health. The General Sense New Age has always paid close attention to emerging scientific knowledge, primarily in the areas of theoretical physics, evolutionary biology, and the mathematics of complexity, leading to New Age Science, which focuses on the creation of a bridge between the religious behavior of the New Age and science. The most common areas of focus are theoretical physics (see Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics [1975] as an early and influential example) and an emerging field of ‘‘holistic ecology’’ largely based on the ramifications of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis’s ‘‘Gaia Hypothesis’’ (see Lovelock’s Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth [1979]). While there are great debates as

New Age Movement to the legitimacy of these claims—for some, New Age Science is simply a gross misunderstanding of both the scientific and religious content—the overall direction is clearly in sympathy with the General Sense New Age goals of holism and of the creation of a new, revolutionary paradigm for humanity. Finally, some words need to be said about Neopaganism and its relationship to the General Sense New Age. In doing so, we are explicitly not referring either to the many historical movements that are also termed neopagan or to the various modern, revivalist movements centered around notions of racial purity that are sometimes grouped into that category; additionally, it must be noted that many members of the neopagan communities we are describing remain quite resistant to the term ‘‘New Age,’’ and position themselves very explicitly as outside of the New Age umbrella. Defining neopaganism can be as tricky as defining the New Age itself; again we are reduced to identifying common threads that are not canonical or shared among all varieties of practice. These include a commitment to a deep relationship between humanity and the natural world, a belief in the divinity of the self, the practice and ritual use of magic, and an insistence on direct, unmediated experience of the divine through ritual and individual practice. Neopaganism is often associated with feminism and female-centered spirituality, although this is certainly not a ubiquitous feature. For more detailed explorations, see, among others, Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979), Janet and Stewart Farrar’s The Witches’ Way: Principles, Rituals and Beliefs of Modern Witchcraft

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(1984), and Tanya Luhrmann’s Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft (1988). As a final note, remember that, in each of these four areas, you will find practitioners that embrace their inclusion under the New Age rubric as well as those that are, for a variety of reasons, vehemently opposed to it: these are intended solely as useful categories for exploration and analysis, as they may be applied across large groupings of heterogeneous beliefs and practices. Some common characteristics that in many ways mirror the themes outlined above can be identified across the New Age. First, the General Sense New Age tends to be highly individualistic and experiential, where each person is seen as the highest authority for him/herself and as the final arbiter of truth: personal experience is valued more than tradition or dogma. Second, New Age practice tends, at least on the surface, to embrace a democratic position that rejects, or, at a minimum, is highly suspicious of, various forms of authority; and most New Age practice claims to be open to all individuals, regardless of their social identity. Third, New Age practice tends toward the relativistic, where different approaches are seen as not being exclusionary and where different claims about reality are seen as ‘‘different,’’ and not ‘‘better or worse.’’ This relativism legitimates the incredible diversity and syncretic/eclectic nature of the New Age, whereby elements from widely disparate traditions may be combined into new and innovative forms of spiritual activity. This has lead to the New Age being referred to as ‘‘supermarket spirituality,’’ a normally pejorative term where religious consumers are seen as picking and choosing from a wide range of religious commodities. Finally, this eclecticism

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exists hand in hand with perennialism, where all spiritual activity is seen as leading to or as a manifestation of a common sacred Absolute. This allows the different practices—meditation, ecstatic dance, psychotherapies, shamanic ritual, etc.—to support each other in an interconnected network: metaphors of different paths leading to the same goal abound, as does a belief in unifying oneness existing behind the diversity of spiritual practice. As discussed above, the role of and the contributions to the New Age by African Americans remain an under-researched and undertheorized area. Recent reformulations of the New Age, especially those that, as we have here, tie it to earlier, widespread movements in American religion, should lead scholars to the assumption that African Americans have played as vital, and as complex, a role in its development as they have in other forms of American religiosity. For example, into the mid-1990s, it was taken for granted that African Americans were unimportant in the American magical traditions that many see as the direct precursors of the New Age. However, we are now aware of the absolutely formative contributions of Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875), a key figure in the evolution of Western sexual magic and in Western esoteric theory in general. While John Patrick Deveney’s biography of Randolph (as well as Hugh Urban’s later work on his impact and role in America) was revelatory, the role that Randolph’s race—of which he was quite aware and quite conflicted—played in his religious behavior remains underinvestigated. It is our belief that in the next decades, scholarship will greatly expand our understanding of the role of African Americans in the formation and continued

existence of the New Age, both by reinterpreting various African American practices through the lens of the new conceptions of the New Age (for example, Father Divine, the Nation of Islam, the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, or the similarities between the New Age and the Pentecostal movements of the African American church) and by the recovery of previously ignored or unknown historical figures. Daniel M. Levine and Ann Gleig

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Albanese, Catherine. A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007). Barrett, Leonard E. Soul Force: African Heritage in Afro American Religion (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974). Campbell, Colin. ‘‘The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularization.’’ A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5 (1972): 119 136. Deveney, John Patrick. Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997). Hanegraaff, Wouter. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (Albany: State University of New York, 1998). Hanegraaff, Wouter. ‘‘New Age.’’ Encyclo pedia of Religion, 2nd Edition, ed. Lindsay Jones (New York: MacMillan Reference Books, 2005). Heelas, Paul. The New Age Movement and the Sacralization of the Self (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996). Hess, David. Science in the New Age: The Paranormal, Its Defenders and Debunkers, and American Culture (Madison: Univer sity of Wisconsin Press, 1993).

New Thought Religions and the African American Experience Karenga, Maulana. ‘‘Black Religion: The African Model.’’ Down by the Riverside: Readings in African American Religion, ed. Larry G. Murphy (New York: New York University Press, 2000). Kemp, Darren. New Age: A Guide (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004). Kripal, Jeffrey J. Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Lewis, James, and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Perspectives on the New Age (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). Partridge, Christopher. The Re enchantment of the West: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and the Occulture, Vols 2 & 2 (London: T &T Clark/Continuum, 2006). Pike, Sarah M. New Age and Neopagan Religions in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). Sobel, Mechal. Trabelin’ On: The Slave Journey to an Afro Baptist Faith (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988). Sutcliffe, Steven J. Children of the New Age (London & New York: Routledge, 2003). Thornton, John. African and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400 1680 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

NEW THOUGHT RELIGIONS AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Historical Development While the term ‘‘New Thought religion’’ is still largely unknown to most people, the teachings and principles permeate American and, more specifically, African

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American religious culture. Many people are acquainted with these religious principles through the more popular ‘‘prosperity,’’ ‘‘Name it and Claim it,’’ or neo-Pentecostal Word of Faith ministries that pour out from such wellknown televangelists as T. D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, and Fred K. C. Price. While these ministries do not align themselves with New Thought religions as such, their teachings exhibit a similarity with these principles and thus warrant examination within this context. Thus, I include them in this discussion. New Thought religious teachings are strongly influencing the current context of American Protestant Christianity. Yet, very few people seem to know what it is. New Thought is a general term used to describe a particular set of abstract or metaphysical religions that share a common history as well as beliefs, doctrines, and practices. While there are many different religions that have been categorized as New Thought, the term is best understood as an umbrella that encompasses numerous individual religions that share a set of core beliefs. Much in the way that the term ‘‘Protestant’’ is used in a general sense to refer to Christian denominations that, while sharing a common core, also differ in some ways and yet are still considered Christian, New Thought religions can be understood as similar, yet distinct from one another. Among the ties that New Thought religions share is their connection to a common founder. Most, if not all, American New Thought religions still trace their historical, philosophical, and theological foundations back to the person of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. Quimby began this movement in the nineteenthcentury New England context of religious

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liberalism and experimentation. The late 1800s gave birth to liberal forms of Christianity, spiritualism, spiritual healing, and transcendentalism. Quimby lived from 1802–1866 and was informed by much of these liberal religious views, particularly spiritual healing, which he reinterpreted into a brand of mental healing or Mind Science, through which he taught that human beings have the power to heal one another in body and circumstance using the same spiritual gifts that Jesus had demonstrated in his lifetime. Quimby became extremely successful as a healer, ultimately becoming known as Dr. Quimby, though he was never formally trained as a physician. He continued to attribute his healing abilities to the right use of God’s gifts that he believed to have been given to all of humanity. He taught that Jesus was not unique. Instead, he was a way-shower who embodied the consciousness and wisdom of God, and who was meant to be emulated as one who simply understood the proper way to channel God’s pure energy to correct situations of illness or persistent personal problems. Quimby’s technique of spiritual healing was to correct the thought pattern of the

suffering person away from illness or problems toward the perfection of God. In effect, he healed by teaching people to release their negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts of health and wholeness. Quimby taught his method and his message to a small group of followers who continued in his stead after his death. These followers began to heal and teach others, eventually developing into a new religious movement. The movement grew as new teachers, leaders, and believers rose to prominence preaching this Mind Science. As a system that taught the power of the mind to correct circumstances such as illness and suffering, Mind Science is the phenomenon that paved the way for what soon developed into New Thought religions. By 1895, Quimby’s legacy was being formulated by his followers Warren Felt Evans, Julius Dresser, and his wife, Annetta Seabury Dresser, into a comprehensive religious system with its own cosmology, philosophy, and theology, specifically emphasizing the founder’s original (though unorthodox) Christian interpretations. A new religious movement was born in America.

PHINEAS PARKHURST QUIMBY (1802–1866) Phineas P. Quimby was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire, in 1802, and lived most of his life between Belfast and Portland, Maine. He is considered to be a pioneer in the area of mental healing. He had a simple education but became known as Dr. Quimby for his abilities to intuitively and spiritually heal the sick. He based his abilities on follow ing the example of Jesus. Quimby maintained a practice in Maine, and began a move ment that over time became known as New Thought religions, and he would be known as its founder. Quimby trained many others who would succeed him and carry on his teachings following his death in 1866. Although he did not leave any formal writings, some of his followers retrieved and published his personal papers. These writings are available today in The Quimby Manuscripts and The Complete Writings.

New Thought Religions and the African American Experience This trajectory from Quimby is most apparent in the three major New Thought denominations, Unity School of Christianity, Divine Science, and Religious Science/Science of Mind. While each of these denominations has its own immediate founder(s), each one of these also acknowledges a debt of tradition and historical origin to Quimby. Moreover, New Thought also consists of independent churches, groups, and individuals too numerous to name, who also affirm the same or similar beliefs and practices that began in the United States with Quimby, but who do not choose to affiliate with any one of the major denominations. These nondenominational New Thought believers prefer to maintain independent standing, conducting their religious practices outside the purview of any doctrinal or ecclesiastical authority. While nineteenth century New England had its particular religious developments, the evangelical fervor of the Second Great Awakening (1800–1830s) reached southern states and African Americans with great enthusiasm. Enslaved African Americans living on plantations were being exposed to Christianity through ecstatic worship gatherings. Dynamic preachers at all night revival meetings and Baptist and Methodist missionaries zealously reached out to the enslaved people, baptizing them in large numbers and providing (segregated) worship spaces for them. Thus, African Americans were not learning about New Thought religion. For most, Christianity had replaced any form of traditional African religions or Islam that they may have brought over with them. African Americans began to forge a very intimate relationship with Christianity through the figure of Jesus Christ, whom they perceived as both co-sufferer and liberator.

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The nineteenth century was also the time in which great African American Methodist and Baptist denominations were established. The energetic efforts of the missionaries had borne fruit, and most African Americans became staunch Christians. Until emancipation in 1865, and the following great migrations north and west, only a small number of African Americans had been introduced to new and different forms of religion. African Americans who had migrated to the north in search of better opportunities found themselves once again discriminated against and segregated, this time into urban ghettos. This urban setting provided a fertile atmosphere for the introduction of New Thought principles such as self-help and positive thinking to African Americans looking for a way to improve their circumstances. A handful of northern African American ministers had begun teaching and preaching in ways that borrowed heavily from New Thought religious teachings in their efforts to uplift their people. Some of these ministers were Father Divine, Father Hurley, Daddy Grace, and Rev. Ike. Although they each encountered criticism and suspicion from the larger society, particularly traditional

Rev. Ike delivers a sermon in 1977. (AP Photo)

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Christians, for their unorthodox teachings and flamboyant lifestyles they can be considered to be the forerunners of African American New Thought minister/teachers. They saw that AfricanAmericans were discouraged, impoverished, and disenfranchised from social opportunities and offered their own religious solutions. During this period from the 1920s to the 1960s, African Americans were beginning to integrate New Thought teachings into their Christian practices. They recognized some similarities between those teachings and the long-standing spiritual healing traditions of Spiritualist, Holiness, and Pentecostal Christianity. For example, they already believed in the power of the Holy Spirit to heal and transform, they already believed in a liberating God to whom one might appeal through ritual and prayer for favor, wealth, and well-being. So, when they were introduced to the New Thought ideas of the healing and transformative power of the indwelling spirit, and the rituals of affirmation and visualization to improve their life circumstances, they were hearing a familiar message. Sociologists such as Hans Baer and Merrill Singer have used the term ‘‘thaumaturgical’’ to categorize these types of religions, meaning that followers of these religions believe in the power of ritualistic behavior to change their life circumstances. For example, a believer’s act of anointing the body with oil or lighting candles during prayer for the purpose of experiencing physical healing would be considered thaumaturgical. It is a religious ritual performed to attain a desired outcome. The ongoing development of New Thought religions was beginning to incorporate and appeal to African Americans who sought a different religious approach to their issues and needs.

Beliefs and Practices There are similarities between New Thought teachings and more traditional forms of Christianity such as Spiritualist, Holiness, and Pentecostalism. These followers believe that God responds to these rituals by granting or allowing the believer’s request. Some of these rituals might be particular forms of prayer, burning candles or incense, the use of consecrated water or oils, prayer cloths or beads, fasting, or anything else determined by the group to be sacred and effective. Likewise, in New Thought religions a foundational tenet of faith is that the universe is responsive and always affirms the dominant thought patterns of the believer. Thus, there is an emphasis upon positive thought and affirmative prayer as critical components of faith and practice. These are not carried out in a separate ritual apart from the rest of one’s day or routine. New Thought believers are taught that affirmative thought and prayer must be one’s natural and consistent form of being because the universe is always receiving one’s thoughts and acting upon them to bring them into being for the individual. Despite the diversity among New Thought denominations such as Unity School of Christianity, Divine Science, Religious Science, and the multitude of independent groups, this point of faith is shared among all as a basic belief. This belief may be better understood when placed in perspective with other core beliefs of New Thought, particularly the nature of reality as they define it. These religions affirm a metaphysical idealism, which for New Thought believers, means that the nature of the universe is based upon thoughts or ideas,

New Thought Religions and the African American Experience and that all visible objects that we can observe are created by an invisible first cause (God), who creates through the medium of thought. By extension, it is also taught that the universe is responsive to human thoughts as well. Thus, every human being naturally has the power to create and change his or her circumstances by virtue of being created in the image and likeness of God. Human beings are created by God, and thus are endowed with the same creative capacity by properly using the power of the mind. Another core belief shared among New Thought religions is the idea of a monistic or unified deity. God is understood to be singular in existence, in contrast to Christian trinity, for example. This God manifests itself as the body of the universe, creating a pantheistic universe in which everything is created by God, out of God’s own being, and therefore is God. Furthermore, God operates impersonally according to divine law or principle, and for this reason, many New Thought followers alternatively use God, universe, law, or principle to mean God, the original, creative force. Consequently, New Thought followers believe that God has established these impersonal principles or universal laws to respond to the creative thought patterns of each individual mind. A common statement among these believers is, ‘‘God is no respecter of persons, and will do for any what God will do for one.’’ New Thought believers practice these foundational beliefs in a variety of ways. One of the denominations, Religious Science, commonly uses the acronym, A-T-M, affirmation, treatment and meditation, to describe some of these practices. Religious Science, or Science of Mind as it is also called, was founded in 1927 by Ernest Holmes and is recognized

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as one of the more systematized New Thought religions, perhaps along with Unity School of Christianity. Both have presented a cosmology, philosophy, theology, and ecclesiology. Religious Science seeks to teach a reliable system for creating positive life experiences. Its approach is to raise the consciousness of its adherents to a level of personal empowerment and responsibility grounded in the idea that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God even to the extent that individuals have the same creative power in microcosm that God has in macrocosm. In fact, Religious Science teaches that human beings are always creating their own experiences whether they are conscious of it or not. It is the conscious use of the Universal Principle that allows people to consistently (i.e., scientifically) create desired experiences. If individuals are only unconsciously using this Universal principle, then at best they live in a world of seemingly random events, coincidences, and luck, or at worst, a world of unhappiness, disease, lack, and limitation. Affirmation, treatment, and meditation are the tools by which individuals change their thinking and improve their life circumstances. These methods are ways of rooting out old, dysfunctional thought patterns and replacing them with new more positive ones, so that they become the dominant way of thinking and lead to better life experiences. Participants are asked to claim their desires or state their claims of well-being even in the face of contrary feelings. Such feelings should be examined and recognized as not being consistent with one’s desires and thus reprogrammed via affirmations. These are the beliefs that have previously manifested in one’s life but have remained hidden from conscious

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thought, thereby causing seemingly random or negative experiences. The use of affirmations helps believers to recognize these hidden beliefs and to create more desirable experiences. Treatment or Spiritual Mind Treatment is acknowledged by followers as the most powerful technique that Religious Science teaches, and is also known as affirmative prayer. It is a method of prayer that differs in that it is not done in a petitioner mode or from a mental position of lack asking God to bestow something upon the one praying or perform a miracle on his or her behalf. This would portray God as arbitrary, granting mercy and special favor to a select few. To the contrary, Religious Science teaches that God operates impartially through the impersonal nature of the Law or Principle; therefore one must approach prayer from this perspective. They understand affirmative prayer not as supplication or petition, but recognition and acceptance that God is all there is; and that all the abundance of the universe is already available to be accepted and embodied. Treatments consist of five steps: recognition, unification, declaration, thanksgiving, and release. The first two steps are regarded by many Religious Scientists as the two most important as they are akin to meditation in which one acknowledges the Oneness of God and one’s own unity with God. This allows for one’s consciousness to attain the highest possible level of meditative state. The third step is the declarative stage of stating the object or condition of one’s desire. This statement is really an affirmation. It is the point of claiming and accepting the desired outcome with faith and conviction that it is already accomplished. In the last two stages the practitioner gives thanks in the knowledge

that the prayer is complete and then releases the prayer without any further worry or concern over the situation. It is then given over to God in the form of Universal Law with the expectation that the prayer will manifest accordingly. Spiritual Mind Treatment can be done for oneself, for another whether present or not, or by a Practitioner (lay leader) of the Church. It is taught as a powerful tool for consciously creating one’s own reality, moving people away from the idea that they are victims of circumstance or powerless to achieve their goals. It reflects Ernest Holmes’s systemization of earlier Spiritual Mind healers all the way back to Quimby. Holmes studied their methods and their results and concluded that anyone could put these techniques into practice for themselves. His Science of Mind represents his attempt at putting this process in the hands of the average person in a practical and reliable fashion. Finally, meditation is taught and encouraged as a means of listening to God. Affirmation and Treatment are initiated by the individual, as a means of either talking to oneself or to God, but meditation is the act of getting still and quiet to listen to the guidance that comes from within. It is a tool by which believers may acknowledge the unity principle that then informs all other thoughts and activities. From a position of understanding oneself as spiritually at-one with God, all obstacles and problems are acknowledged as illusory, not the real truth in light of God’s perfection and wholeness. Meditation reminds the believer that he or she shares this perfection and wholeness, acting as a kind of mental housecleaning to allow the desired circumstances to manifest into one’s life. Religious Science stands as one of the contemporary bastions of New Thought religions. Its founder took the

New Thought Religions and the African American Experience philosophical and religious teachings of many who had come before him, and coalesced them into a systematic formula for well-being. It was important to Ernest Holmes that his teaching was not exclusive and that anyone could apply the principles within the context of their own religious beliefs, and still make good use of Religious Science. While it seems evident that ministers such as T. D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, LeRoy Thompson, and Fred Price are teaching a brand of religiously based selfempowerment and wealth building, it is also clear that they remain rooted in conservative, evangelical Christianity. Their messages preach that God wants every saved Christian to be wealthy, and their programs for accomplishing this are rich in New Thought principle. These ministers teach positive confession, visualization, praying ‘‘prosperity’’ Scriptures from the Bible, and ‘‘naming and claiming’’ any object or situation that is desired, believing in faith that it will occur. In New Thought, these practices are called affirmation, treatment, and meditation. What is interesting to note is that New Thought teachings that began with Phineas Quimby in the nineteenth century, geographically isolated away from most African Americans of the time, have periodically throughout the twentieth century emerged within the contours of Christianity, finding a niche with some otherwise traditional Christians. Neo-Pentecostal megachurches are some of the largest and fastest-growing churches in America today, with individual congregations soaring to 20,000–30,000 members according to the respective church reports. We are seeing resurgence in the acceptance of teachings that at least have a strong affinity with New Thought

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religions. More to the point, contemporary neo-Pentecostal ministries are intentionally and strategically borrowing from New Thought principles as they build their religious empires. Ministers such as Jakes and Dollar keep these teachings grounded in familiar Christianity and do not adopt all New Thought teachings, but they are indeed using such principles as the power of the mind to create circumstances, as they lead their congregations to ‘‘name it and claim it.’’ Of course, this selective borrowing from another religious tradition is problematic on a number of levels; namely, it does not fully or accurately present the original religion, nor is it entirely forthcoming to its members regarding the nature of these Word of Faith teachings. In light of the criticism that is being leveled against these Christian churches for teaching a controversial, unorthodox, and possibly heretical doctrine, New Thought religions could well experience a backlash due to this negative publicity. People who might have otherwise been curious or open to New Thought as a religious or philosophical system may be scared away from it through its misrepresentation in Word of Faith ministries. This is an important point in the development of American Protestant Christianity, and African Americans are a focal point as these developments are largely taking place within their churches and from their long-trusted ministers. Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II, better known as Rev. Ike, began his ‘‘success and prosperity’’ preaching to the public in 1972. His ministry was large and nationally televised. Rev. Ike describes his message as self-image psychology, through which positive self-awareness can help an individual change the conditions of his or her life. His teachings

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REV. JOHNNIE COLEMON Rev. Johnnie Colemon was born in Columbus, Mississippi, to parents who were active in their church, and they encouraged her to participate as well. Demonstrating achieve ment and leadership at an early age, Rev. Colemon graduated as valedictorian of her high school class. She received her B.A. at Wiley College and became a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. In 1952 she followed her mother’s advice to enroll in the Unity School of Christianity. In that same year Colemon was diagnosed with an incura ble disease. Using the principles that she had learned through Unity, she was cured, and she went on to become an ordained minister in that tradition. In the 1970s Rev. Colemon left the Unity organization and founded Christ Universal Temple in Chicago, Illinois, and in 1974 founded the Universal Foundation for Better Living, a new Unity based New Thought denomination. Rev. Colemon is the author of Open Your Mind and Be Healed, which relays her remarkable personal healing story. Rev. Colemon retired from her post as senior minister of Christ Universal Temple in 2007, but she retains her title, the First Lady of New Thought.

emphasize visualization, affirmation, and meditation as tools for spiritual and material well-being. Today, Rev. Ike maintains a ministry in New York City, with services held in the Palace Cathedral. Although the height of his popularity has waned since his heyday in the 1970s, Rev. Ike stands as a major forerunner of African American New Thought teachers and ministers. Rev. Dr. Johnnie Colemon was a contemporary of Rev. Ike. Dr. Colemon’s presence, teachings, and impact are legendary. She is considered by many to be the ‘‘First Lady of New Thought.’’ She is the founder of Christ Universal Temple in Chicago, Illinois, a Unitybased New Thought church that she formally founded in 1956. Additionally, in 1974 Dr. Colemon founded an entire New Thought denomination, the Universal Foundation for Better Living (UFBL). This denomination defines New Thought as a set of spiritual tools that empowers people to realize their potential by becoming consciously aware of spirit within them. These tools

help people to change their circumstances by changing their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Dr. Colemon was introduced to New Thought through the Unity School of Christianity denomination in 1952. Her testimony states that she was cured from a physical ailment by applying the teachings of Unity and was therefore convinced of its validity and ability to help others. She remained with Unity until she began to experience instances of racism, limiting her advancement within the organization. She ultimately decided to leave Unity and start her own church, beginning in her home with only a handful of members. This small group developed into Christ Universal Temple with a membership of approximately 20,000 and occupies a 32 acre multiplex. Church reports state that they are the largest New Thought church on earth. Because of Dr. Colemon’s early affiliation with the Unity denomination, she developed and continues the UFBL ministry under the banner of ‘‘Practical Christianity,’’ which maintains an

New Thought Religions and the African American Experience understanding of Jesus as way-shower and example, not savior, but still utilizing the principles that Jesus taught as their primary guide for life. They also use the Bible as a principle text, although interpreted allegorically. The UFBL defines New Thought as a set of spiritual tools that empowers people to realize their potential by becoming consciously aware of spirit within them. These tools help people to change their circumstances by changing their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. The UFBL is largely an African American denomination, and it consists of 30+ churches and study groups located throughout the United States, Canada, and many Caribbean Islands. Rev. Mary Tumpkin serves as president of the denomination, and as of mid-2007, she will also act as Interim Senior Minister of Christ Universal Temple as Dr. Colemon steps down to retire. Rev. Mary is a high profile, well-known New Thought minister in her own right, maintaining a UFBL church in Miami, Florida, the Universal Truth Center, which she founded in 1982. She has been an

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important leader under Dr. Colemon for more than 25 years. Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith, of the Agape International Truth Center in Culver City, California, founded Agape in 1986 as a spiritual center based in Eastern and Western religious traditions. Rev. Michael was ordained as a Religious Science minister in 1985, and started Agape as a Religious Science/Science of Mind church. In 2006, the community declared its independence from the denomination, becoming a transdenominational spiritual community teaching New Thought– Ancient Wisdom. These teachings do not differ significantly from Religious Science; they are based in the understanding that Ultimate Reality or God is the source of all life, and that human beings are made in its image and likeness, making humans co-creators of their lives. The community teaches the practical application of universal principles, cosmic laws, meditation, prayer, and visioning for the enhancement of all life. As senior pastor of Agape, Rev. Michael is internationally known as a

REV. DR. MICHAEL BECKWITH, D.D. (1956–) Michael Beckwith was born in 1956 into a Methodist and Congregationalist family. He later graduated from Morehouse College and, like many people, set out to discover his own spiritual path. After living a life as a self proclaimed militant who always challenged authority, Beckwith came to the study of Eastern and Western spiritualities in the 1970s. Following his ordination into the church of Religious Science in 1985, Rev. Michael began to teach spiritual principles from his home, and in 1986 he founded the Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City, California. Today, Rev. Michael ministers to a congregation of 9,000+ members and speaks to audiences around the world on New Thought spiritual ity. In addition, he has been recognized with numerous humanitarian awards and honors for his work on issues of world peace and justice. He has met with the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Arun Ghandi, grandson of Mahatma Ghandi, and many other world luminaries. Rev. Michael is married to Rickie Byars Beckwith, musician and director of Agape’s music ministry, and they share a blended family of 4 children and 6 grandchildren.

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dynamic visionary, who is setting a new course in New Thought spirituality. Agape is an enormously popular church community in the Los Angeles area, with a reported membership of 9,000 members. The already large membership has experienced explosive growth since Rev. Michael’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live in support of the docu-film, The Secret, in which he also appeared. Rev. Michael has achieved celebrity status in a town of celebrities, and he maintains an extensive schedule of ministry, international speaking engagements, and co-leadership of the Association for Global New Thought, a separate organization seeking to apply spiritually motivated activism to justice issues around the world. Rev. Michael is helping to popularize New Thought spirituality into mainstream American life through his own status and the tremendous outreach of the Agape community. Darnise Martin

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ahlstrom, Sydney E. A Religious History of the American People, vols. 1 and 2 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1975). Braden, Charles S. Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought (Dallas: SMU Press, 1963). Fauset, Arthur. Black Gods of the Metropolis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944). Holmes, Ernest. The Science of Mind (New York: Tarcher/Putnam Publishing, 1998 [1926]). Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke Univer sity Press, 1990). Martin, Darnise. Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church (New York: University of New York Press, 2004). Synan, Vinson. The Holiness Pentecostal Movement in the United States (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971).

O OBEAH

as Obeahmen, and can be considered a mix of shaman, sorcerer, and Vodoun witch doctor. Obeah is often divided into two types known as ‘‘science’’ and ‘‘bush magic’’; adherents of the former use commercial charms and conjuring books while the latter prefer the more traditional talismans of dog teeth, bones, feathers, and minerals. Today, Obeah is increasingly a catch-all term for many different types of spiritual activity, often appearing to blend with other African-Caribbean religions and influenced also by other faiths such as Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity. In Trinidad and Tobago, for example, Obeah is mixed with Orisha in several different forms. Originally, Obeah was practiced solely by enslaved West Africans brought to the Caribbean to work on plantations. Its origins can be traced particularly to the peoples of Dahomey and the Ashanti, arriving in the Caribbean during the seventeenth century. The colonial British rulers of the time used the term ‘‘Obeah’’ indiscriminately to describe any type of magical or mystical activities by

Historical Development Like other African-Caribbean spiritual practices, such as Santerı´a, Vodoun, and Shango, Obeah is an animistic religion that sees the natural world as alive with spirits of ancestors and supernatural forces. In this worldview, as late as the nineteenth century in Jamaica, descendants of African slaves believed that silk-cotton trees gathered together after sunset, and even today that tree is commonly called the God Tree, associated with duppies, or ghosts. Sometimes referred to as Afro-Caribbean shamanism, Obeah is far less well known and researched than its more high-profile relatives. Obeah is shrouded in secrecy, and even the meaning of its name is unclear; some consider that it originated from Obeye—the name given to a supernatural force that resides in African sorcerers— while others see the West African Akan word Obayifo (witch) as the likely source. Those who practice it are known 283

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African slaves. Such was the reputation of Obeahmen for evildoing that they were often blamed for misfortune, unrest, and disaster on plantations by the European planters and African slaves alike.

Beliefs and Practices Although usually credited with malign influence, in fact the Obeahmen who arrived on the first slave ships had the same supernatural qualities possessed by indigenous Amerindian shamans. They were ritual specialists who guarded their society’s spiritual and ethical traditions; they were supernatural warriors who could kill at a distance, steal souls, raise the dead, and cure and send illness. While Taı´no and Carib shamans were also accomplished herbalists, the African Obeahmen seem to have specialized in using plants to conduct apparently miraculous cures and to send magical death through poisoning. Apart from their role as living links between the traditions of Africa and the new African-Caribbean society that was coming into being, Obeahmen also played an important political role during the slavery period. Their ostensibly religious meetings could be used to disguise opportunities for planning insurrection. Obeahmen were often believed to be at the heart of slave rebellions and of less violent forms of resistance. Often charismatic individuals, Obeahmen were believed to be able to protect their followers from the white man’s weapons by rubbing special powders or substances on their bodies. In one case, recorded by Edward Long in his 1774 History of Jamaica, one Obeahman was believed to be able to catch the white man’s bullets in his hand and hurl them back at those

who had fired them. Whatever the credibility of such stories, they served to embolden the slaves and make the plantation owners anxious. Obeahmen made their followers swear bloody oaths of secrecy on pain of death to carry out any instructions that they might be given. These rites of obedience and the other rituals associated with Obeah involved a host of objects and materials deemed to be powerful weapons in the right hands. Plant poisons, powdered glass, gun powder, bird beaks, and animal teeth were all considered ingredients in Obeah sorcery. Eventually, rigorous searches of slave quarters every two weeks were carried out by the white planters, and in Jamaica increasingly harsh penalties were imposed for their possession. The link between Obeah witchcraft and slave unrest was finally recognized in 1816 when a law was enacted that sentenced the guilty to deportation. If anyone died through being poisoned, the occupant of the house where Obeah poisons were found was judged to have committed murder and could be hanged or burned. Obeahmen also sold their services, sometimes being commissioned to poison one person on behalf of another. More often, perhaps, they were employed for more mundane purposes—to cure illness, divine the future, or unmask an adulterer or thief. They were paid in food or money but also might defer payment by requesting a future favor. An astute Obeahman could build up a network of people who owed such favors and so achieve great personal power and influence. The ability of Obeahmen to be in one place while someone died in another location was presented as a sign of his ability to kill at a distance, whereas in

The Orisha Religion in Trinidad fact he had simply called in a favor owed to him by someone else. Obeahmen flourished in the harsh and often cruel conditions of slavery in the Caribbean. The injustices that white plantation owners and overseers visited on the slaves were such that acts of rebellion, large and small, were also desperate forms of resistance against oppression. In the hothouse conditions of plantation life, where slaves outnumbered their white owners, it is not surprising that Obeahmen were feared equally by their African-Caribbean compatriots and European masters. These situations magnified and emphasized the malign aspects of Obeah sorcerers at the expense of their equally important role as healers, ritual experts, and keepers of cultural traditions. Steve Weaver

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bell, H. H. Obeah, Witchcraft, and the West Indies (Westport, CT: Negro Universities Press, 1970 [1889]). Hedrick, B. C., and J. E. Stephens. It’s a Natural Fact: Obeah in the Bahamas. Museum of Anthropology Miscellaneous Series No. 39 (Greeley, CO: University of Northern Colorado Museum of Anthropology, 1977). Kalafou, Azoth. Obeah: Afro Caribbean Shamanism (n.p./n.d.). Long, E. History of Jamaica (London: T. Londwes, 1774). Morrish, I. Obeah, Christ, and Rastaman: Jamaica and Its Religions (Cambridge, MA: James Clarke Press, 1982). Schuler, M. ‘‘Myalism and the African Religious Tradition in Jamaica.’’ Africa and the Caribbean: The Legacies of a Link, ed. M. E. Graham and F. W. Knight (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979).

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Sereno, R. ‘‘Obeah: Magic and Social Struc ture in the Lesser Antilles.’’ Psychiatry 11, no. 1 (1948): 15 31. Williams, J. J. Voodoos and Obeahs: Phases of West India Witchcraft (New York: Dial Press, 1932).

THE ORISHA RELIGION IN TRINIDAD Historical Development The Orisha religion in Trinidad is one of many African-derived religions in the New World whose origins can be traced back to the interaction between European colonials and African slaves. It is this European/African religious dynamic in Trinidad, dating back approximately 200 years, that eventually gave rise to the most salient characteristic of the Orisha religion (and many other African-derived religions as well): a syncretism (the blending of traits from diverse cultures, resulting in the creation of a new trait) involving African religious beliefs and practices (in the case of Orisha, primarily Yoruba) and Christian beliefs and practices (primarily Catholic but in some cases Protestant as well). The term ‘‘Orisha religion’’ was coined by Houk (1995) to replace the term ‘‘Shango cult’’ that had been favored by earlier ethnographers; ‘‘orisha’’ is the Yoruba term for ‘‘god’’ and can be used in the singular or plural sense. ‘‘Orisha religion’’ or simply ‘‘Orisha’’ is an ‘‘umbrella’’ term that serves more as a category rubric rather than a specific identifier of a homogeneous religious practice; the term, thus, functions in a manner somewhat similar to ‘‘Hinduism,’’ a term that also refers in a very general, categorical way to a variety of religious beliefs and practices that one finds in the

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Indian subcontinent. In Trinidad, those who are adherents of Orisha may also practice the Spiritual Baptist religion (a syncretic African/Protestant faith with an emphasis on the latter), a uniquely Trinidadian form of Kabbalah, or, in a small number of cases, Catholicism. Many Orisha worshippers also incorporate Hindu icons into their worship practices although they cannot be said to ‘‘embrace’’ or practice Hinduism; the Hindu influence on Orisha is attributed to the pervasive presence of Hindu Indians on the island. Of course, the foundation of Orisha is strongly African, which can be seen in the many prayers and songs in the Yoruba language as well as the worship of many Yoruba gods, most of whom are referred to by their Yoruba names. We can trace the beginning of Orisha in Trinidad back to around 1838 or so,

when thousands of indigenous Yoruba peoples arrived in Trinidad; most were freed slaves who immigrated to the island. (Complete emancipation of African slaves occurred in 1838.) The religious landscape of the island was predominately Catholic at the time due to the colonial and missionary activities of first the Spanish and later the French. Hence, the earliest syncretism in Orisha involved the amalgam of Yoruba and Catholic beliefs and practices. There are a few theories regarding precisely why this African/Catholic syncretism, so salient in the New World, occurred. In regard to Orisha, however, it appears to be the result of ‘‘reasoned analogy’’; i.e., the two religious systems, in the eyes of the transplanted Africans in Trinidad, seemed to possess similar pantheons. Orisha worshippers today will often refer to Catholicism with its cult of saints as

An Orisha service, Trinidad. (Roberta Parkin/Impact/HIP/The Image Works)

The Orisha Religion in Trinidad the ‘‘white man’s version’’ of African orisha worship. Many Orisha adherents in Trinidad still refer to the Orisha by their Catholic names, for example, St. Michael as opposed to Ogun and St. John as opposed to Shango. The next major development in the Orisha religion probably occurred sometime in the 1920s and 1930s when the Spiritual Baptist religion began to influence Orisha. While it is true that the Spiritual Baptist religion is primarily a Protestant faith and, given the general nature of Protestantism, would not easily syncretize or mix with a polytheistic or henotheistic African religious system (or a Catholic religious system for that matter), the Spiritual Baptists themselves are primarily drawn from the same ethnic group and socioeconomic class as are Orisha worshippers. For reasons noted above, what we find here is not really a true syncretism or blending but rather the wholesale borrowing of traits. So, for example, it is quite common for Orisha worshippers to practice ‘‘mourning,’’ a Spiritual Baptist sensory deprivation ritual in which ‘‘pilgrims’’ undergo a series of ‘‘spiritual travels’’ to Africa, China, the United States, and often other Caribbean islands as well. During this ritual, which can be repeated annually, Orisha worshippers are often given ‘‘spirit work’’ to do or instructions for building an Orisha shrine on their property. The more experienced Orisha worshippers claim that Spiritual Baptist practices prepare the individual for entry into the more ‘‘mature,’’ ‘‘sophisticated,’’ and ‘‘spiritually powerful’’ Orisha religion. The next major development in the history of Orisha occurred sometime around the 1950s or so when Orisha

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worshippers began to incorporate Hindu icons and, on occasion, ‘‘prayers’’ into the Orisha belief system. Both the opportunity and the motivation for this practice are well understood. In regard to opportunity, it should be noted that approximately 40 percent of the Trinidadian population is Indian and well more than half of those practice Hinduism, so this ancient old world religion is popular and quite visible all over the island. Also, the Hindu pantheon was viewed by many Orisha worshippers as yet another variation on the polytheistic theme found in African Orisha worship and Catholicism; a few Hindu gods and goddesses have been syncretized with particular Orisha. Finally, in regard to motivation, it seems clear that Orisha, a ‘‘primitive’’ and coarse religion in the eyes of most Trinidadians including many African Trinidadians, would gain for itself some degree of legitimacy by associating itself with Hinduism, one of the classic ‘‘great’’ or ‘‘world’’ religions. Finally, the last addition to this eclectic mix of beliefs and practices occurred when some Orisha worshippers began practicing the Kabbalah in the 1970s. In Trinidad, this practice involves the invocation of a variety of Kabbalistic spirits known as ‘‘entities’’ and entreating them to do ‘‘spirit work’’ of some kind. Because this practice is generally viewed as being spiritually negative, it is generally kept separate from Orisha worship proper; so while a mongba (male Orisha shrine head) or iya (female Orisha shrine head) may engage in the practice of the Kabbalah, he or she will have a separate physical structure devoted to this activity and special times during the year that will be devoted only to this practice.

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Beliefs and Practices These various religiocultural traditions, then, African Yoruba, Catholic, Spiritual Baptist, Hindu, and Kabbalistic, all combine in a rather complex way to give us what today is known as the Orisha religion in Trinidad. While Orisha may appear to be a ‘‘hodgepodge’’ of this and that thrown together in a haphazard fashion, nothing could be further from the truth. Each component plays a specific role and the syncretism, borrowing, and incorporation of various traits has been guided by reasoned choices and rational decisions. Furthermore, while it may appear that Orisha is overly eclectic, a religion without its ‘‘own’’ corpus of beliefs and practices, it should be noted that this religion (the New World variant, that is) is only about 150 years old and is, thus, in its infancy, and all religions at a comparable stage, including the ‘‘great’’ or ‘‘world’’ religions, were similarly syncretic and eclectic. Given the existence of so many religious traditions and groups on the island (in addition to those noted above, there are independent Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Anglicans, Muslims, and a variety of Pentecostal/Fundamentalist faiths), individuals from a variety of different religious backgrounds are drawn to Orisha. Edmond David, for example, was christened and confirmed as a young man in the Anglican Church and became interested in Orisha when he finished high school. He had actually been a drummer in an African folk music group and, at some point, began to play the drums at Orisha ceremonies. One of the appeals of Orisha for Edmond was the link or connection with his African ancestors that the religion emphasized and celebrated. Edmond was eventually

initiated in the religion and is today one of the most important mongba, directing ebo (ceremonial ‘‘feasts’’) activities as the primary drummer and singer. Because of the popularity of the Spiritual Baptist religion in Trinidad (there are roughly five times as many Spiritual Baptist churches than Orisha shrines), many worshippers come from that tradition to Orisha. One prominent ‘‘Leader’’ (a title that signifies that this individual is a male leader in the Spiritual Baptist church), Aldwin Scott, even maintained his Spiritual Baptist honorific even after he became involved with Orisha. Leader Scott eventually became one of the most ‘‘religiously fluent’’ elders in the religion as he ‘‘pastored’’ his own Spiritual Baptist church, held an annual ebo at his own Orisha shrine, assisted in Kabbalah ceremonies, and even conducted Hindu prayer ceremonies before his annual feast. Leader Scott’s ability to ‘‘manipulate’’ these various traditions made him one of the most prestigious Orisha elders on the island. There are approximately 150 Orisha shrines in Trinidad, most of which will sponsor an annual ebo. The first night of the ebo begins around 10 PM on a Tuesday and concludes around dawn Wednesday morning. The feast continues in this manner for three more nights, concluding on a Saturday morning. The typical feast night begins with Spiritual Baptist prayers and songs. At the conclusion of this activity, there is a short break during which time the palais (a rectangular, covered structure, with benches along the four sides and surrounded by a fence or wall that is about waist-high) is swept out and readied for the African part of the night’s activities. The three drummers will begin beating drums and directing songs for the ‘‘trickster god’’

The Orisha Religion in Trinidad Eshu (recognized throughout the New World as Exu, Eleggua, Legba, and Elegba) who will be respectfully ‘‘asked’’ through offerings of his ‘‘food’’ (ashes and water) not to disrupt the ceremonies. Once this is done, songs for a variety of other gods and goddesses are sung with the intention of drawing the spirits down to earth to possess one of the worshippers. Spirit possession of this sort is considered a positive and uplifting religious experience that serves both to energize the activities and to validate the Orisha religious system in the eyes of its adherents. Sometime around dawn, various animals (generally, chickens, ‘‘morocoys’’ [land turtles], and goats) are sacrificed to particular gods or goddesses (depending on the night), the blood of the carcass is drained into the earth at the outdoor shrine for the various Orisha, and the animal is cooked with some of the food being offered to the Orisha and the rest being consumed by worshippers. While it is true that a viable community of Orisha worshippers does exist, given the eclectic and variegated nature of the religion, disputes and disagreements among worshippers, including even the elders and mongba and iya, regarding various aspects of the religious system, are quite common. This is, however, precisely what one would expect for a religion in the incipient stages of development. Nevertheless, as the Orisha religion, from its beginning an ‘‘open’’ religious system that was constantly adjusting to the contingencies of its multicultural legacy and its worshippers’ needs, grew ever more complex, the already tenuous web of commonality that held the religious community together became increasingly frayed. It is precisely at this point, conceptually, that the organic structure of the religion becomes apparent.

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On the one hand, there are ‘‘centrifugal forces’’ that are acting to expand the religious system; this would include primarily the historical tendency to ‘‘fill out’’ a religion that was originally an incomplete version of its African counterpart, the prestige conferred on Orisha leaders who were adept at manipulating all of the various religious traditions that make up the system, and the ‘‘mourning’’ ritual that allowed for the incorporation of individual or subjective experiences into the religious system. On the other hand, there are ‘‘centripetal forces’’ at work that are tempering the historical tendency toward expansion including the formation of the Opa Orisha (Shango), an organization that oversees liturgy and practice in an effort to standardize the religion, and ‘‘Africanization,’’ an attempt on the part of generally younger worshippers to pare down the religion to its original African roots. It should be noted here that these two ‘‘centripetal’’ mechanisms, formation of the Opa Orisha (Shango) and ‘‘Africanization,’’ only appeared in the past 20 to 30 years or so. In other words, it seems clear that the tendency toward expansion of the Orisha religious system had, in some sense, be it psychological, conceptual, or institutional, become too eclectic, too complex, and too confusing. So, if one views the Orisha religion from the broadest perspective possible, it is clear that two essential needs are being met. All individuals need some sense of permanence in their religion, some indication that their faith is, in fact, not misplaced or superfluous; what is being referred to here is a religion in the Durkheimian sense, i.e., religion as a social institution, enduring and immutable, that both symbolizes and validates the social system as a whole. On the opposite end of the spectrum, so to

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speak, are more individual, existential concerns that can only be addressed by a flexible, protean religious system. This religion will, no doubt, continue to change and adjust to both the culturally diverse Trinidadian society and the needs of its adherents. Although, one cannot predict the future course of the Orisha religion with any degree of certainty, it does appear as though a stabilization point of sorts has been reached and there will be very little ‘‘expansion’’ of the system in the future, if any at all. James Houk

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Elder, J. D. African Survivals in Trinidad and Tobago (London: Karia Press, 2001). Houk, James. Spirits, Blood, and Drums: The Orisha Religion in Trinidad (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995). Lum, Kenneth Anthony. Praising His Name in the Dance: Spirit Possession in the Spiritual Baptist Faith and Orisha Work in Trinidad, West Indies. Studies in Latin America and the Caribbean (London: Routledge, 2000). Simpson, George E. Religious Cults of the Caribbean: Trinidad, Jamaica, and Haiti, 3rd ed. Caribbean Monograph Series, no. 15 (Rio Piedras: University of Puerto Rico, Institute of Caribbean Studies, 1980). Warner Lewis, Maureen. Guinea’s Other Suns: The African Dynamic in Trinidad Culture (Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1991).

OYOTUNJI AFRICAN VILLAGE Historical Development Oyotunji African Village is an intentional community in Beaufort, South

Carolina. Founded in 1970, and by the late 1970s boasting a residential population of 191 residents, today the village’s community base spans thousands of practitioners both within it and in affiliated communities throughout the United States. Oyotunji represents the home of black people in America whose ancestors were enslaved and transported to the Americas as captives. As a result, and over a period of 300 years, the United States became the home to millions of black Americans sold into slavery. The development of religious revivalist movements, as part of a counterculture, is not new. It reflects various practitioner’s attempts to respond to historical conditions that led to black disenfranchisement. It is a community of African American converts to Yoruba religious practices that is part of a larger network of Yoruba American revivalist practitioners throughout the Americas and Africa. As African religions moved with the spread of African captives into transatlantic slavery, there developed a repressive sphere of plantation slavery that led to the transformation of orisa ritual practices in the Americas. These vast numbers of practitioners who trace their lineage to predecessors in West and Central Africa were transported as captives to the Caribbean and North and South America and in that process participated in the transformation of ritual and religious practices that have endured over centuries. These changes have led to the reconfiguration of orisa ritual practices, including the reconfiguration of ways that the orisa were represented. In Brazil, the spaces of interpretive production led to the development of a variation that became Candomble´; in Cuba, it became Santerı´a; in Trinidad and Tobago, it

Oyotunji African Village became Shango (see entry ‘‘The Orisha Religion in Trinidad’’); and in the United States, among black American cultural nationalists interested in Africanizing orisa practices, it became orisa voodoo or a return to the Yoruba orisa. These variations are reflective of the encounter between the West and Sub-Saharan Africa in the making of the modern world; and increasing numbers of these orisa adherents are contributing to the growth of multiple networks of orisa knowledge outside of the African continent. The late twentieth- and twenty-firstcentury proliferation of groups of orisa practitioners outside of West Africa is expansive, ranging in the millions of adherents of orisa voodoo, Santerı´a, and Candomble´ religious practices. And today, practitioners in the Caribbean and South America are increasingly in conversation with practitioners from the global North. Now, more than ever, vast numbers of Americans in the United States are reclaiming or converting to Yoruba religious practices and playing central roles in reshaping how orisa traditions are to be practiced. The widening constituencies of changing Yoruba orisa practitioners, though not mutually exclusive, can be classified in four significant groups. (1) The first are the orisa practitioners, principally in Nigeria and Benin as well as various surrounding West African countries; they tend not to be educated in the West, have limited financial resources, and claim orisa worship as their religious faith. (2) The second are Orisa/Santerı´a/Lukumi practitioners in the Americas who constitute the largest group of religious worshippers and in varying degrees tend to accept the hybridization of o`rı`sa` practices. Practitioners in this group span regions

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throughout Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and the United States. (3) The third are orisa worshippers and Yoruba or orisa revivalists who are part of a relatively new (post-1960s) orisa economy of practitioners who are interested in the return to a more orthodox traditional practice; this return sometimes includes the purging of whiteness, but, more fundamentally, it is manifest through the reconfiguration of changes to the religion that were important because of the criminalization of the religion during conditions of enslavement. (4) The fourth, orisa modernists, are a relatively new (post-1980s) group of initiates, led by predominantly white American and European practitioners, who are part of a growing movement interested in the transcendence of racial membership through the emphasis of ancestral lineage. These four groups constitute multiple networks of orisa practitioners that have produced orisa institutional practices throughout the Americas and reflect, to a greater or lesser extent, the African origins of orisa practices. However, Oyotunji practices are reflected in the third category and through beliefs that blackness is the modality through which African ancestral lineages are lived; their mission is a cultural and religious reclamative one. During the formation of Oyotunji Village, knowledge of orisa practices took shape through the prism of Santerı´a practitioners from Cuba. ‘‘Santerı´a,’’ a word derived from the Spanish santo, or saint, means the worship of saints—as in Catholic saints (see entry ‘‘Santerı´a’’). On Cuban plantations Yoruba orisas, once outlawed, led to the production of two stages in the development of orisa transformation. The first stage, the

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establishment of the regla de ocha, occurred during the first generation of African slaves in Cuba in which the Spanish colonial government encouraged enslaved Africans to create mutual aid societies. (It is believed that the regla de ocha was encouraged in order to avoid slave uprisings.) The second critical moment took place during the second and third generations of enslaved Africans who adapted orisa practices based on their social circumstances. These circumstances led to the production of new hybrid representations of orisa icons in which various Catholic iconic symbols came to stand in for orisa religious objects and cosmologies. It was these Santerı´a conceptions and practices and their related histories of regimentation and exclusion, post-1960, that became part of the widespread development of orisa practices in the Americas—Oyotunji practices included. By the mid-1970s, the membership of the growing Yoruba movement comprised hundreds of U.S. voodoo practitioners spread throughout the United States and Canada to establish networks of Yoruba orisa practices. This form of Yoruba religious practice took shape alongside the proliferation of Afrocentricity and was self-consciously driven by the growing tide of black nationalism in the 1960s. The founders of Oyotunji, many of whom apprenticed with Cuban Santerı´a practitioners up until the height of the black power movement of the 1960s, developed an African-centered religious and cultural movement to counteract the history of the loss of African religious practices. It was in this context that black Americans involved in this movement reconceptualized the form of Santerı´a ritual practices that they were taught in order to disentangle it

from its history of Spanish and Christian regulation. Oyotunji Village contemporary membership and affiliation cannot be understood in relation to its physical location alone. Late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century processes have presented new developments such as distance learning and ‘‘mobile’’ computer databases for divinatory interpretation across scales of use, and Oyotunji members of satellite communities are able to use these technologies to gain access to Oyotunji knowledge practices and to maintain connections and alliances. Thus, Oyotunji societies operate through a network of linkage and obligations and society membership. Society members pay yearly fees to their local and transnational member associations, they participate in voting and decision making well outside of their regions, and they refer clients to each other throughout the society network. The growth of a national and international membership that is mobile and intersects with other orisa sects has led to a need to develop institutional infrastructures to coordinate interrelated satellite communities globally. Lying outside of the geographic boundaries of African nation states, Oyotunji African Village is a small community built to accommodate up to 25 housing compounds with a potential capacity of over 500 people. With the mission to bridge ties to an African homeland as a postslavery revivalist and reclamative project, the Village began with the following founding families: Adefunmi, Adesuji, and Olafemi. The families of Ajamu, Adeyemi, Awolowo, Olaleye, and Ajanaku set the terms for what would become a vast cultural mission.

Oyotunji African Village Over the years the number of residents at the Village has fluctuated, ranging from eight to ten families. Despite this small contingent of residents, Oyotunji’s network is part of a wider configuration of hundreds of thousands of orisa practitioners and today the network of Oyotunji practitioners has produced spaces for the growth of orisa voodoo practices throughout the Americas and beyond. Oyotunji is a place for making and maintaining an Africa denied by the historical practices of American slavery and continually thwarted by contemporary processes of U.S. American daily life. Viewed as strange and odd by some, Oyotunji practitioners use notions of ancestral continuities to recast Africa in America. Oyotunji is organized around three main sectors: political and educational governance, religious ritual and organizations, and a small-scale market economy. The community’s claims to African ancestry are signified through its grand political organization. In keeping with the nobility of Empire, Oyotunji is politically structured according to

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hierarchies of grandeur and social status. Embracing these symbols—signs of Yoruba institutional power—the formation of Oyotunji governance marked the development of a new kind of black nationalist governance in the 1970s that required an ideological framework from which to determine what is counted as Yoruba. Oyotunji is hierarchically divided into various levels, ranging from a political leader—the Oba—to the chiefs, the priests, and the nonpriest practitioners for Oyotunji is a democratic dictatorship. Through a structure of hierarchy and nobility, the Oba represents the symbolic head of the Oyotunji kingdom. The first leader, His Royal Highness Oba Adefunmi, ruled the community for 35 years and on February 11, 2005, he died and was succeeded by his son and heir, H.R.H. Obalola A. Adefunmi II. His Royal Highness Oba Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Adefunmi I (born Walter Eugene King) (October 5, 1928– February 11, 2005) was the first known twentieth-century African American to

OBA EFUNTOLA OSEIJEMAN ADELABU ADEFUNMI I (1928–2005) Oba Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Alladahunu Adefunmi I (name at birth Walter Eugene King) was born on October 5, 1928, in Black Bottom, Detroit, Michigan, and died on February 11, 2005. In 1959 he traveled with his friend and godbrother, Obalumi (Chris) Oliyana to Matanzas, Cuba, and became the first known African American to be initiated into the Yoruba priesthood of the orisa. Reborn Efuntola, he returned to New York and founded the Order of Damballah Hwedo, the Sango Temple, the Yoruba Temple, and incorporated the African Theological Archministry. After a decade of organizing, he relocated to South Carolina in 1970 and founded Oyotunji African Village in Sheldon, South Carolina. In 1972 Efuntola traveled to Nigeria and was initiated into the Ifa priesthood and became a babalawo (father of secrets). During the same period, the people of Oyotunji named Adefunmi their formal leader and gave him the title ‘‘Oba’’ (King). Nine years later, Oba Efuntola Adefunmi traveled to Ile Ife, Nigeria, for the first World Orisa Congress and was given the title of ‘‘Bale’’ (Town King) by the Ooni of Ife, the spiritual leader of all Yoruba worldwide.

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A man representing an egungun (sacred ancestor) at Oyotunji African Village, South Carolina. (Bob Krist/Corbis)

be initiated into the Santerı´a orisa priesthood. Adefunmi’s initiation paved the way for other African Americans to engage in orisa practices. Having grown up as Walter Eugene King, however, Oba Adefunmi I underwent significant transformations from a dancer for the Katherine Dunham Dance Company to a cultural activist to a central leader of the Oyotunji movement. In 1959, just before the Cuban Revolution, the then Walter King traveled to the Matanzas region of Cuba to be initiated into the orisa priesthood of Obatala. As a result of that initiation, he returned to the United States reborn as Efuntola Oseijeman Adefunmi and founded the Order of the Damballah Hwedo. He later transformed it into the Shango Temple and later incorporated it as the African Theological

Archministry (ATA). The ATA would eventually become the Yoruba Temple, marked by increasing concern for black nationalism. By 1969, Oba Oseijeman developed a new lineage of Orisa worship that placed what was seen as the orisa homeland— Nigeria—at its core. With this lineage Oyotunji Village was founded in Beaufort County, South Carolina, and by 1972, Oba Adefunmi was initiated into the Ifa Priesthood in Nigeria. This placed him in the highest rank of orisa religious practitioners—the rank of Babalawo— a by its inhabitants. And there they lived, polygamous, Afrocentric, and ten families strong. At the apex of Oyotunji’s zones of governance is the palace, a signifier of ancient ¨ ba (king), ancestral leadership. The O sophisticated and learned, is currently under the reign of Oba Adefunmi II— the son of Oba Oseijeman I. He claims a constituency of thousands of African Americans in the United States, hundreds of whom have lived and trained in Oyotunji African Village. On December 21, 1976, Prince Obablola II was born the fourteenth child of 22 children to His Royal Highness Oba Efuntola Adefunmi I, and the third child of five born to Iya Esu Ogo Oyewole. Prince Obalola was raised in Oyotunji African Village. At a young age, Obalola under the teachings of H.R.H. Adefunmi I, was schooled in the cultural lessons of Yoruba leadership and cultural practices. Raised in the traditional lifestyle of Oyotunji African village, Obalola learned at the feet of his father. Upon graduating from the Yoruba Royal Academy, Obalola was an initiate of several sacred Egbes (African societies), as well as the worship of Ifa. And since 2005, Obalola, now Oba

Oyotunji African Village

OBA A. ADEFUNMI II (1976–) Prince Obalola was born on December 21, 1976, as the fourteenth child of 22 children to His Royal Highness Oba Efuntola Adefunmi I, and the third child of five born to Iya Esu Ogo Oyewole. The Prince Obalola was raised in the Kingdomj of Oyotunji African Vil lage. By the time of his graduation from the Yoruba Royal Academy, Prince Obalola was an initiate of several sacred Egbes (African societies), to name a few: Egbe Egungun, Egbe Obatala, Egbe Onilu, Egbe Akinkonju, and he was a sophisticated drummer. As a young man, Prince Obalola followed his first love of drumming into many performances interna tionally and nationally. In 2001, Obalola moved to Key West, Florida, as an artist in resi dency at the Lofton B. Sands African Bohemian Museum. H.R.H. Oba Adejuyigbe E. Adefunmi II has a wife and two sons and sees his goal as one by which he fulfills his father’s vision for the expansion of the Kingdom of Oyotunji, and passes on to the next generations the customs, traditions, cultural lifestyle, and skills of African peoples.

Adejuyigbe E. Adefunmi II, has been the reigning leader and lives in Oyotunji with his wife and two sons. The political governing body of Oyotunji is the Ogboni. This body consists of the land owners and titled persons of Oyotunji. The Ogboni is a twochambered council. The house of chiefs and the house of other landowners. The Ogboni makes laws, rules, and ordinances for the village. This body also hears

complaints between its members as well as adjudicates trials within the community. As of 2007, the following are the members of the Oyotunji Ogboni Society: 1. Oluwa Olaitan (Apena rules committee)

Head of the

2. Iya Oba Adaramola (Iya Sanla Priest of Obatala Temple) 3. Oluwa Akintobi (Olotu cial Priest)

Chief

Chief Sacrif

OLOFUNDEYI OLAITAN (1950–) Born January 25, 1950, in Buffalo, New York, Olofundeyi Olaitan became aware of Yoruba cultural practices in the 1970s after a friend gave him a book entitled, The Reli gion of the Yoruba. This book answered questions about what religion and culture Afri can people had before they were enslaved. He began a search for his African ancestry. A former radio announcer, Olaitan became associated with the Founder of the African Cultural Center in Buffalo and they with seven others (Iya Lode of Buffalo, Iya Oyelana and her child [Olokunwumi], Iya Osadele and her two children [Olojuokun, Ifategunse], and Iya Makinde) founded the Yoruba Foundation Inc. Olaitan became aware of Oyotunji after seeing an article in Ebony magazine in January 1978. Since arriving at Oyotunji, August 6, 1978, Olaitan has received several Chiefly and Priestly titles. Under his leadership as head of the Ancestor Society, Egbe Egungun has been presented Egungun (Ancestor Masquerade) throughout the United States, in England, in Belize in the Caribbean Islands, and West Africa.

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CHIEF ADENIBI IFAMUYIWA S. AJAMU (1940–) Chief Adenibi Ifamuyiwa S. Ajamu was born on October 31, 1940, in Chicago Illinois. Throughout the early and middle 1960s Chief Ajamu was the ‘‘Staff Coordinator’’ of the ‘‘Southern Christian Leadership Conference’’ on the west side of Chicago in the Lawndale area. By the late 1960s he was introduced to black nationalism and followed this concept until 1968 when he met the late Queen Mother Moore who introduced him to the notion of African Nationalism. Through this association he was led to the late Chief Medahochi Kofi Zanu, and it was through this association that he was introduced to the first Oba of Oyotunji, His Royal Highness Oseijeman Adefunmi. In 1970, Chief Ajamu joined Oba Adefunmi in Beaufort County, South Carolina, to establish the Oyotunji African Village. He was initiated in 1972 to the Yoruba deity Obatala. Leaving South Carolina, he traveled to Los Angeles, California, where he established a Yoruba shrine and community. In 1989 Chief Ajamu was initiated into the mysteries of Ifa in Oyo Town, Nigeria, on the compound of Ona Ilemole.

4. Oluwa Osadele (Chief Priest of Sango Temple)

4. Ijoye Akinsegun (Iyalode Women, SC)

Head of

5. Oluwa Ajamu (Chief Priest of Ifa Temple)

5. Ijoye Okunwale (Iyalode Women, NC)

Head of

6. Oluwa Adeyemi (Otun Alagba of Igbale Egungun)

6. Ijoye Akinsegun (Iya Magbaje Healer)

7. Baba Akinwon (Landowner)

7. Ijoye Igunmuyiwa (Baba Alaje Owner of Wealth)

When the first reigning King, Efuntola Adefunmi I started the Ogboni Society, it was in the 1960s in New York City. This Society was formed to spread the cultural/political message of African Cultural Restoration. At that time the society included Chief Akinbaloye, Chief Ogunseye, Chief Oyeilumi, Chief Awolowo, Queen Mother Moore, Iya Keke, Baba Gbumi, and others. In 2005, H.R.H. Adefunmi II, at his installation as Oba, selected a new cadre of mostly nonresident Chiefs of Oyotunji: 1. Oluwa Abisegun (Balogun Road Opener)

Oba’s

2. Ijoye Adegbolola (Head of Egbe Egungun, NY) 3. Ijoye Oludoye (Igberohinjade Secretary)

Oba’s

8. Ijoye Gbolagesin (Agbede Teacher) 9. Ijoye Zannu (Igbabowo Wealth)

The

Senior

Owner of

Beliefs and Practices Although it was their contact with Santerı´a practitioners that enabled the survival of Yoruba traditions in the New World, in an attempt to reclaim Yoruba practices as a phenotypically black African phenomenon, the founders of Oyotunji formed a black separatist movement in which they rejected Santerı´a and instead strengthened their ties with Nigerian Yoru`ba´ traditionalists and cultural workers. The development of orisa voodoo Yoru` ba´ revivalism led to symbolically

Oyotunji African Village

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CHIEF ADELAGBARA ADEYEMI (1945–) Chief Adelagbara Adeyemi was born 1945 in Chicago, Illinois, and attended high school in the Gary public school system. He graduated in 1963. From 1964 to 1969, Chief Adeyemi majored in music therapy with a minor in psychology at Indiana Univer sity and Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Missouri. He moved to Beaufort County, South Carolina, in 1970 to take part in the establishment and building of Oyotunji African Village. Chief Adeyemi became one of the liaisons and diplomatic links to the community surrounding Sheldon, South Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia, and in 1971 Chief Adeyemi directed the all ‘‘African Peoples Pre school Program’’ in Sheldon, South Carolina. On October 17, 1978, he was initiated into the priesthood and cult of Obatala. In 1981 he earned his certificate of completion and passed the diviners test from Igbimolosha Priest College in Oyotunji. In 1983 he was appointed as the Alagba of the Egungun Society. In 1986 he departed from Oyotunji, but returned in 2000 to assist with a new phase of the Village’s development.

‘‘blackening’’ Santerı´a and drawing ties to the West African Empires and kingdoms that preceded the colonization of Nigeria by the British Empire. The Oyotunji rejection of particular signs of whiteness in favor of the realignment of blackness with Africanness shaped a new Yoruba movement in the United States that shifted the criteria for African authenticity by privileging blackness and contesting the increasing racial marginalization of African Americans in the United States.

On a basic level of signification, Oyotunji practitioners argued for the need to culturally Africanize Santerı´a as fundamentally Yoruba and visibly ‘‘African.’’ Therefore, spurred by ideological clashes over the ‘‘whitening’’ of Yoruba ritual practices in Cuba, Yoruba revivalists in the United States—i.e., black American nationalists—renamed their version of Yoruba-Santerı´a, orisaVoodoo, substituting Spanish-language words and pronunciations with African

AYABA OLUBUNMI ADESOJI Olubunmi Adesoji was born Eula L. Mayzck in South Carolina and started fighting for civil rights at the age of 12. At the age of 14 she was arrested and kicked out of the state of South Carolina. She relocated to Harlem, New York City, with her biological mother, and started attending Julia Richmond High School where she saw her classmate James Powell slain. As a result of this horrific experience, she was then hurled into the full fight for civil rights. She became interested in the cultural traditions of Yoruba peoples after the world fair and upon being introduced to the late King of Oyotunji. So enchanted was she upon meeting him that she joined the Yoruba cultural revolution and accepted her new name: Olubunmi Adesoji. In 1966 Adesoji was initiated into the Orisha miotho house. During that same year Olubunmi and Oseijeman married and had their first child named Fabayo Adefunmi.

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words. Using representations that incorporated the mythic visual imagery of the old empire from which Yoruba people are known to have descended, the founders of Oyotunji created landscapes that resembled Nigerian Yoruba religious and political institutions thought to be more ‘‘authentically’’ African. They substituted their Anglophone names with Yoruba names, producing performative cartographies of Yoruba membership. These reformulations of Africanness shaped the terms of contestations, which developed in the United States, between early black nationalists and new Cuban immigrants to the United States. The name, ‘‘Oyotunji,’’ meaning ‘‘Oyo Returns,’’ refers to the old ancestral city state of the Oyo Empire in West Africa that toppled and lost power in the nineteenth century as the transatlantic slave trade was on the decline and the British colonial Empire gained strength. Today, Yoruba traditionalism in the Americas is connected to the history of fifteenth- to nineteenth-century transAtlantic enslavement of Africans to the Americas and black American attempts to reclaim African traditions as their own. As a result of the belief that they have a right to control the African territory that they believe was their homeland— prior to European colonization—residents of Oyotunji Village have reclassified their community as an African Kingdom. This process has involved claiming diasporic connections to the ancestral history of the ˆ yo˜ Empire of the Yoruba people. Great O The priesthood, following West African traditional practices, is trained in the practice of divination and the ritual slaughter of livestock and the practice of healing techniques. During the first years after the founding of Oyotunji African Village several priests were

initiated into the priesthood. The first ones included: 1. Orisamola Awolowo Priest of Obatala 2. Monilade Ogundupe Yemoja 3. Sangodele Omowale

Priestess of Priest of Sango

Persons seeking the service of priests can visit an Oyotunji priest and receive advice, often referred to by Benjamin Soars as ‘‘fee for service.’’ The governing and licensing body of the priesthood in Oyotunji is the Igbim Olosa. This body qualifies and licenses priests to practice and arbitrate disagreements between and among priests and also adjudicates complaints brought by clients against priests. Priests are grouped into orders. These orders, each maintaining a house of worship, is situated on a lot that is roughly 50 feet by 100 feet. These houses of worship may be referred to as temples or shrines. No special requirements are necessary for a person or organization to participate in or receive benefit from the activities except belief in or curiosity about the religious and cultural programs of the African Theological Archministry Inc. (ATA). These activities accomplish a degree of healing for the believer and/ or entertainment for the spectator and as such provide opportunities for economic viability. Oyotunji residents earn a living through their religious services, tourism, market sales, commerce, lecture tours, and research, as well as other miscellaneous means; but the largest economic attractions are its religious festivals. Annual religious ceremonies, called festivals, are celebrated by each order of priests and bring in considerable amounts of monthly revenue. There is a senior priest who acts as the master of ceremonies and who leads

Oyotunji African Village prayers, singing, dancing and directs placement of offerings on altars to the patron saint or divinity of the order hosting the festival. No collection is made at annual festivals, but contributions in the form of animals and money are often offered to the Shrines as sacrifices. The major portion of all monetary contributions and donations are used to finance repairs or expansion and operation expenses of the several houses of worship. These festivals provide priests and spectators a spiritual exuberance related to the holistic healing process. This tradition of annual festivals originated in West Africa, but in Oyotunji they are conducted on a monthly basis. They are held in the outdoor courtyard or lot provided for each house of worship. The dances of worship are costumed presentations. Music is provided by drums and accompanied by gongs and various shakers and rattles. Oyotunji has its own formal educational system as well as a priestly training institution. The ATA was founded in 1959 in New York City as a center for dissemination of knowledge and information about religious traditions of the Yoruba people of Southwest Nigeria, Southern Dahomey, Togoland, and regions adjacent to the city of Accra in Ghana. The ATA’s activities operated for the first ten years in New York City and centered on ordination of an Oyotunji priesthood, presentation for ceremonies, chants, preaching, divination, and dances dedicated to the deities of the Yoruba people. In 1970, the ATA relocated in South Carolina on a small tract of land and dubbed its location as Oyotunji African Village. It became a settlement for black Americans interested in the study of such cultural traditions. In 1980, the directors of the Oyotunji African Village applied

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for and were granted a religious charter in the name of the ATA. The activities of the village have remained in the subsequent years a project of the ATA. The ATA offers a series of religious services and cultural activities for visitors, tourists, colleges, high schools, grade schools, and researchers and also sponsors an annual convention and revival for national, as well as international, bodies of priests, congregants, or laypeople. These activities include demonstrations of Yoruba religious customs and practices, ritual dances, lectures, books, pamphlets, and arts and crafts. Also offered are workshops in holistic healing and open discussions of Yoruba social organization. The ATA provides weekly religious services of worship for the residents of the Yoruba African Village and for the general public who may regularly attend. The priests provide spiritual counseling to all who seek it. It provides, on occasion, shelter, clothing and food for arrivals to Oyotunji Village who do not have a place to go. As part of an African American revitalization movement, Oyotunji practitioners recreated their identities through the adoption of Yoruba kingships and family codes seen by practitioners as being ‘‘traditionally’’ Yoruba. Contemporary dominant representations of African cultural traditions or indigenous African cosmologies as uncivilized and unworthy of serious attention (read ‘‘heathen/ pagan’’) have also influenced significantly the discourses of African nobility that have become central to Yoruba practices. Therefore, the revival of African American interests in Yoruba-based religious cosmologies centers on the redemption from racial oppression and the revival of African-based cultural practices—known by them as those practices that predate European colonization.

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When the builders engaged in the creation of the spatial layout, they started with small compounds that encircled the ` a` fin. They changed the spelling of A Spanish/Lucumi ritual words, as well as the pronunciation of ritual objects, and created a landscape that referenced the symbolic prestige of precolonial African village life in which they replaced the symbols of Santerı´a saints with disembodied orisa shrines. They organized these reconfigurations to indexically reference key regions in West Africa, from which nine of the most popular Yoruba American orisa were known to ` a` fin, the center for emerge, and the A noble governance, and employed Yoruba names and terminology. Today, the village is divided into five ` a` fin, Igbo´ o` sa` , I` ka´ main districts: the A ` ` gbo´ (Ikabo´), Ana`go´, and `Igba`leˆ (sacred forested district). Each of these districts is governed by a series of town chiefs or a political or civic society (Egbe¨). Each of the districts houses living quarters, public buildings, and private and public temples and/or shrines for venerations ` a`fin, the seat by the practitioner. The A of leadership, seen as the central most important district, was configured as a large compound that houses the oba (king), his four wives and children’s houses, as well as the ancestral shrines. One such shrine represents the embodiments of the oba’s ancestors, as well as of the venerated unknown ancestors, Dombalahwedo. Other shrines housed in ` a`fin include the orisa sango (a symthe A bol of kingship), the oba’s orisa of Ifa´ (the deity of destiny), onile (owner of the earth), and obatala (creator of the ` a`fin also houses the human form). The A school complex, the museum, and guesthouses for new residents, indentured workers, and unmarried women (ayaba)

who are betrothed or otherwise accountable to the oba. ` na`go´ district, named to honor the The A Nago of Dahomean people, is adjacent to ` a`fin. At the the eastern border of the A ` front gate of the Aa`fin is what is referred to as the shrine of Esu/Elegba. Extending westward, beginning with the Igbo´o`sa` district, is the area popularly referred to as temple row. This district houses the tem¨ ya, Olo´ kun, and Yemo¨ ja ples of the O ` ` ` ` ´ Orıyas. The Ika´ gbo´ district begins with the Osun temple and includes the shrine to ogun and Ososi, as well as public and ˆ balu´aye is private buildings. The orisa O located in the forest adjacent to the I`ka´ gbo´ district. The final district, the place of ancestral veneration for the community, is known as the I`gba`leˆ grove, the home of the sacred egungun (ancestors). These configurations of community were developed to produce a sense of connection to Africa that was represented not only as ancestrally legitimate but also as originary. Cyclical and seasonal rituals of the ancestral orisa traditions are central to Oyotunji daily life. This extreme adherence to ‘‘tradition’’ is part of the means by which Oyotunji practitioners and related adherents are attempting to find their way back to Africa, back to a ‘‘homeland.’’ In 1990, with the introduction of the African Cultural Restoration Plan, the elders of the Oyotunji Village outlined a program that seeks to develop and expand the consciousness of African Americans. AFRICAN CULTURAL RESTORATION PLAN • ANCESTOR WORSHIP: ERECT AN ANCESTOR SHRINE • CULTURAL IMAGE: TAKE AN AFRICAN NAME, WEAR AFRICAN ATTIRE, BE A POSITIVE

Oyotunji African Village ROLE MODEL, MAKE AFRICA THE CENTER OF YOUR WORLD VIEW • SEXUAL CODE: AFRICAN IDEALS, VALUES AND MORALS MUST BE STUDIED, LEARNED AND EXPLAINED TO MALES AND FEMALES • EDUCATION PROGRAM: WE ALL MUST BE REEDUCATED ABOUT AFRICA 24/7/365 • ECONOMIC PROGRAM: START YOUR OWN BUSINESS, FORM BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS • LEGAL CODE: LEARN AFRICAN TRADITIONAL AND CUSTOMARY LAW • MARITAL CODE: LEARN TRADITIONAL AFRICAN MARRIAGE TYPES • SOCIAL CODE: JOIN OR START AN AFRICAN GENDER SOCIETY, GO THROUGH A RITES OF PASSAGE PROGRAM • RECREATION PROGRAM: THE ADULTS MUST INSTRUCT THE YOUTH AS TO THE CONCEPTS OF TEAMWORK, FAIR PLAY AND GOOD CHARACTER • ARTS PROGRAM: CREATE AFRICAN ART, RESPECT, DISPLAY AND BUY AFRICAN ARTS AND CRAFTS The Cultural Restoration program is a ten-year plan with a goal of invigorating, regenerating, and empowering those of African descent to a return of their royalty and majesty. All of the major aspects of African Cultural lifestyle are researched and presented for accurate incorporation in the day-to-day activities of African Americans.

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Two of the most widespread and transnationally far-reaching societies founded by Oyotunji residents are the Egbe Akinkonju men’s and Egbe Moremi women’s societies. The Egbe Akinkonju is a society of males of African descent. Its mission is described as organizing and developing males to grow to be dedicated men committed to the work of orisa revitalization and black empowerment. The society uses the iconic symbol of the deity Ogun—warrior, pioneer, and advocate for justice. The Society of Men at Oyotunji Village incorporates the egbe of men in their various functions: The militia, the dopkwe (work group), Egbe Akinkonju, and the Onilu (musicians/drummers) are some of the manifestations of the Society of Men. The militia is the paramilitary department of the men’s society, which oversees the community watch system, the raising and lowering of the community flags, as well as village security during festivals, and its parade unit is called upon to greet and is in procession on formal state occasions. The dopkwe oversees construction and public works in the African community. Under the auspices of the dopkwes training program, young men are taught the various facets of the building trades necessary to build and maintain a community. Public works include not only the building and maintenance of public as well as private facilities but landscaping, road maintenance, recycling, plumbing, and electrical systems. The Onilu (musicians/drummers) are the society of drummers and represent another important component of any spiritualreligious, civic-social function. Since the late 1980s, the national appeal of this society has been its male initiation rites programs known as the Egbe Akinkonju. Boys join at young

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ages and over time accomplish various tasks toward their ‘‘manhood rites’’ tests. At puberty they undergo a series of rites, and after passing them they are admitted for life to the Egbe Akinkonju. Interested practitioners in various U.S. cities can establish affiliations with Oyotunji through membership in the Egbe Akinkonju’s men’s society. As members, they must pay dues, viewed as important to group cohesion and to the support of group activity and productivity. In both London and Birmingham, England, there are also Oyotunji-allied practitioners who have undergone Egbe Akinkonju rituals and maintain affiliation through the payment of dues, yearly rites, and occasional attendance at meetings. Male members of Oyotunji also join other male societies based in England, Benin, Nigeria, and Brazil, among other places. Their ritual initiations in men’s societies in these various sites further concretize their claimed spiritual affinities with African societies. Similarly, the Egbe Moremi women’s society boasts widespread membership in a range of institutional networks within and outside the United States. Its mission is to educate and train girls and women to understand and transmit traditional African values. The Egbe Moremi society celebrates womanhood each June through the figure of the patron orisa Yemoja Moremi. This annual Yemoja festival includes the celebration of affiliated

members of Egbe Moremi. To become members, girls must undergo a yearlong female rite of passage; grown women follow an adapted version of the training rituals and ceremonies. With the successful completion of such rites, girls and women are admitted to the society and considered members for life and even in death. Kamari Maxine Clarke

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Clarke, Kamari M. ‘‘Governmentality, Modernity, and the Historical Politics of Oyo Hegemony in Yoruba Transnational Revivalism.’’ Anthropologica: The Jour nal of the Canadian Anthropology Society 44 42 (December 2002): 271 93. Clarke, Kamari M. Mapping Yoruba Net works: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004). Clarke, Kamari M. ‘‘Transnational Yoru`ba´ Revivalism and the Diasporic Politics of Heritage.’’ American Ethnologist 34, no. 4 (November 2007). Gregory, Steven. Santerı´a in New York City: A Study in Cultural Resistance (New York: Garland, 1999). Hurt, Carl M. Oyotunji Village: The Yoruba Movement in America (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1979). Johnson, Samuel. The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1921).

P PALO MONTE

as their state religion and began to develop a version of Catholicism that integrated Christian beliefs with their own indigenous beliefs and practices. Although the Kingdom of Kongo was a major source of slaves for the Portuguese and other European traders from as early as 1502, it was the settlement of Brazil in 1630 with its concurrent demand for slaves that accelerated the importation of peoples from this area. By 1670 as many as 3,000 people a year were being sold out of the Kongo river basin. In all, it is estimated that between 40 and 45 percent of the 11 million Africans imported to the Americas were from this part of Africa. Because of their early exposure to Catholicism in their homelands, many of the Kongoese people who arrived in the Americas also came practicing their own unique form of Christianity. Kongolese people were imported to Cuba from the early sixteenth century until as late as the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Although originally predominant in the eastern end of Cuba, by

Historical Development Regla de Palo Monte Mayombe, more commonly known as Palo Monte or Palo Mayombe, or simply Palo, is the general term given to the Afro-Cuban religions that are based on the traditions of the people who lived in the Kongo River region of west central Africa. (This area and the people that inhabited it during the precolonial and colonial periods are designated as ‘‘Kongo’’ with a ‘‘K’’ to distinguish them from the area and people of the contemporary countries of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, both of which contain many non-Kongo people.) The Kongo River area had been a highly developed, centralized kingdom for over a century and a half when Portuguese sailors first landed in 1483. The first Catholic priests arrived in the Kingdom of Kongo in 1491 and begin baptizing the king and his principle nobles. In a short time the Kongoese aristocracy accepted Christianity 303

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the time of the Haitian Revolution between 1791 and 1804 the Kongolese had spread throughout the island and were a major ethnic group working as stevedores in the ports of Havana and Santiago as well as workers on the sugar and tobacco plantations and the sugar mills throughout the island. During the colonial period, Afro-Cubans both in Havana and in the smaller towns were encouraged to organize religious and self-help organizations known as cabildos. Since the cabildos were organized along ethnic lines, members were able to reestablish their religious ceremonies and other cultural traditions. Records of Kongo-based religion in Cuba go back as early as 1796 when it is reported that a certain Malchor ruled one of most famous cabildos in Havana, Cabildo de Congos Reales. Each year, members of this cabildo engaged in street performances and masquerades as part of the Epiphany celebrations as well as during Carnival and Holy Week. In 1799 the colonial authorities ordered that the cabildos be moved outside the city walls because of their music, ceremonies, and public displays. Later during the wars for independence and in the early Republican eras, when the cabildos became highly regulated and even prohibited, the religious centers moved to home temples, an organization structure that continues today both on the island and in the United States. When great numbers of Yoruba people were brought to Cuba in the mid-nineteenth century, there was originally much conflict between the two groups but by the Cuban Revolution in the mid-twentieth century many people had become practitioners of both Palo Monte and the Yoruba-based religion of Santerı´a, and many contemporary practices in the Palo

tradition show the influence of this interaction with Santerı´a (see entry ‘‘Santerı´a’’). By the twentieth century subgroups under the umbrella of Palo Monte Mayombe include la Regla Conga, la Regla Biyumba, la Regla Musunde, la Regla Quirimbaya, la Regla Vrillumba, and la Regla Kimbisa del Santo Cristo del Buen Vieje. With the flight of Cubans following the Cuba Revolution and Castro’s rise to power and the second exodus in 1980 when the marielitos took advantage of Castro’s temporary opening of the Port of Mariel to e´migre´s, the African-based religions of Cuba have spread beyond the island. Anywhere Cubans landed also became the center of religions such as Palo Monte, including Miami, New York, and Panama. Today there are strong Palo communities along both the East and West coasts of the United States as well as Chicago, Houston, and many smaller communities. Because this tradition is even more secretive than its sister tradition of Lukumi (Santerı´a), it is difficult to give any estimate of the total number of practitioners

Beliefs and Practices Because of the similarities between Kongolese beliefs and those of the Catholic priests, it was easy to incorporate Catholic ideas into the existing Kongolese cosmology. Kongolese cosmology included a supreme God, Nzambi (known as Sambia among Palo Monte practitioners), who was approached through the mediation of land and sky spirits, most of whom were understood to be ancestors who had once lived on the earth. Principal spirits in Palo Monte include Lucero Mundo, who is associated with Anima Solo Purgatory (the lonely

Palo Monte | 305 soul in Purgatory) and the Orisha Eleggua; Sarabanda, who is associated with St. Peter, St. Michael the Archangel, and the Orisha Ogun; Insancio, popularly known as Siete Rayos (Seven Lightning Flashes), who is associated with St. Barbara and the Orisha Shango; Baluanda popularly known as Madre de Agua (Mother of Water), who is also known as Siete Sayas (Seven Skirts) and is associated with the Virgin of Regla and the Orisha Yemaya; Chola also known as Mama Chola or Chola Awengue, who is associated with the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre and the Orisha Oshun. In addition, there are many other spirits and the ancestors of individual family lineages. All of these are believed to be highly advanced and powerful ancestors who have died and continue to work for the welfare of their children and devotees. There are no ‘‘gods’’ within Palo Monte; rather all of the spirits were once human beings who, having died, have gained additional power and abilities. The oldest of these ancestors, Sarabanda, Siete Rayos, Baluanda, Chola, and even Nzambi are all powerful spirits, who after centuries of worship have become godlike in their power and abilities. However, they are still continuous with their human devotees in that they are not a different order of beings, but merely extremely old and powerful ancestors. These ancestors, although separated from their living families, maintain a link to them so that they might counsel them and provide healing and support. During rituals they are invited back into the circle of the family, offered food and other gifts, and consulted by their living descendants. Whatever organized pantheon of these spirits that had existed in Kongolese mythology has been lost in the Americas, and Paleros depend on the correspondences between these spirits

and the Orisha of Santerı´a to form the mythological relationships between these spirits. This cosmology was represented by a circle surrounding an equal-armed cross. The horizontal bar of the cross separates the world of the living (above) from that of the spirits (below). The four moments of the sun (sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight), as well as the journey of human life (birth, adulthood, old age, and the afterlife) are represented by the points where the end of the cross intersects the circle (right, top, left, bottom). This and other cosmograms, also know as firmas, are used to inscribe the ground of ritual space, and the inside of the sacred nganga described below. Most firmas are the signature of a specific spirit or religious congregation and as such resemble the ve` ve` s of Haitian Vodou. Some firmas are as simple as the cross bisecting a circle; others are quite a complex group of circles, lines, curves, arrows, crosses, skulls, suns, and moon that represent the spiritual force in amazing detail and serve as altars for the spirits to interact with their devotees. Firmas drawn on the ground accompanied by the appropriate singing during rituals serve as centering spaces and the connections between the world of the spirits and that of human beings. For those who can read the symbolism, the firmas contain the stories and characteristics of the spiritual entity portrayed. Initiation into this tradition is commonly referred to as having been ‘‘scratched’’ or ‘‘cut’’: as the ritual includes having small firmas incised onto the body of the initiate. The most important icon of Palo Monte is the nganga or prenda (Spanish for jewel, treasure, or pawn), a metal caldron that contain sticks (palo) from the woods (monte) as well as Spanish coins,

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Nganga at Calixto Garcia Museum, Holguin, Cuba. (Mary Ann Clark)

a piece of sugar cane filled with sea water, sand and mercury, dirt, human and animal bones, herbs and spices such as chili, pepper, garlic, ginger, onion, cinnamon, and other items. Nganga containing human skulls are considered especially powerful as the skull contains the seat of intelligence. The nganga becomes a microcosm embodying these objects and the qualities they represent. Each item lends its own characteristic to the whole. With it the priest has harnessed all the energies of the plants and animals of the wilderness for his own use. Once sacralized the nganga becomes home to the spirit or spirits who work for the priest (called a palero/ a or mayombero/a) who owns the nganga. Often this spirit is called the nganga-perro or ‘‘nganga dog’’ as it works under the control of the palero and guards the microcosm contained in the nganga. If the nganga is dedicated

to only good works, it is baptized with holy water from a church and is said to be christana (Christian) while one used for less savory ends is considered unbaptized or judı´a. A christiana nganga may also be called a nkisi while a judı´a nganga may be called a ndoki reflecting their positive and negative attributes, respectively. Some people consider the nganga judı´a more purely African than the nganga christana as they think it represents a refusal to incorporate Christianity into Kongolese practices. Each ngnang, said to contain the cosmos in microcosm, bears the name of the spirit of a deceased person (muerto) ensconced inside. Names such as Paso Larog (Long Steps), Viento Malo (Bad Wind), Remolino (Whirlwind), and Rompe Monte (Forest Breaker) are common. During the initiation ceremony referred to as rayamiento or ‘‘being scratched,’’ a pact is made between the

Palo Monte | 307 priest and the spirit of the nganga. This pact enables the priest to direct the spirit to perform healing and other ‘‘magical’’ activities on his behalf. Although the work of the palero/a is often described as brujerı´a (witchcraft), most of the rituals are designed to protect the palero, to help overcome obstacles, and to bring spiritual, mental, physical, or emotional healing to the palero, his family, or client. Although the relationship between the priest and the spirit is often described as one between a master and his slave, the spirits of Palo are believed to be powerful and dangerous beings. They must be treated appropriately according to the agreements made by the priest and his client to avoid having the spirits turn against and destroy them. Traditionally only senior priests, commonly known as tata (father) or yaya (mother) maintained a nganga, and it was common for a nganga to be passed down through the family line. Such old ngangas were said to be very powerful, having been used by generations of priests. The junior member of the religious group would petition the spirits through the senior priests. Today, however, it is much more common for even new initiates to be given their own nganga born from the nganga of their initiating priest. Many people are initiated into both Palo Monte and Santerı´a. Santeros generally say that a person should be initiated into Palo Monte before their initiation into Santerı´a as ‘‘the dead come before the Orisha’’ but, although it is considered spiritually dangerous to do so, there are some santeros that have been initiated into Palo after their initiation as priests of Santerı´a. As in many African-based religions, drumming, dancing, possession trance, divination, and animal sacrifice are

integral to this tradition. A drum ensemble accompanied by wrist maracas and a plowshare or other piece of iron generally provides music for dance rituals. These rituals generally result in one or more of the devotees being possessed by the spirit of the nganga. Once it has possessed a devotee, the spirit can communicate with the assembled congregation, blessing individuals and working toward their physical, emotional, and spiritual betterment. As with other African-based traditions, the singing tends to be in a call and response form. Divination is performed using piles of gunpowder, a mirror embedded in a cow horn known as mpaka, or pieces of coconut shell. Before the rise of modern medicine and readily available pharmaceuticals, herbalists were the primary healers in all communities. Paleros were known as especially knowledgeable and powerful healers whose knowledge of local herbs supplemented their spiritual healing work. Many paleros continue to work as herbalists and healers, integrating a wide range of healing arts into their religious practice. It is commonly the case that both scholars and the general public compare Regla de Ocha (Santerı´a) and Regla de Palo. Santerı´a is often described as more refined, effete, and developed than Palo, which is described as cruder, ‘‘darker,’’ and less sophisticated but also as more powerful, pragmatic, shrewd, and unhampered by strong ethical considerations. Although both men and women are initiated into Palo Monte, many people consider it more masculine and instrumental in its approach and style. Because paleros work with spirits of the dead rather than gods, their rituals are sometimes described as ‘‘witchcraft’’ or ‘‘evil.’’ The dead, being at base human beings, are thought to be subject to the failings and foibles of the living. Often

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people will say that the Kongo spirits are less ethical than the Orisha of Santerı´a and thus can more easily be enticed to perform unsavory or unscrupulous actions by their priests, and many think Palo rituals are more expeditious and effective because the spirits invoked are less hampered by ethical considerations. At the same time, Palo practitioners are quick to point out situations where a palero misused the power of the prenda and was subsequently punished by its spirit. The use of the term ‘‘witchcraft’’ to describe the religious work of Palo is fraught with difficulties as African, European, and American concepts are interwoven in the various connotations of the term, and most of these connotations include the idea of power used for evil or immoral ends. Although much of this religious work involves healing of spiritual, emotional, and physical imbalances, it tends to be oriented toward individuals whose concerns may not be completely ethical. The Palo Monte prenda also looks scary to the uninitiated with its sticks and chains gathered together into a threelegged pot similar to the witch’s caldron of popular imagination. Palo Monte is sometimes identified as the ‘‘dark’’ side of Santerı´a in spite of the fact that these are two separate traditions. Because none of the Afro-Cuban religions are exclusive, it is quite common for practitioners to be initiated in both systems (and others such as Espiritismo as well). However, the two traditions are independent, each coming from a different geographic and historical context and both containing both ‘‘light’’ and ‘‘dark,’’ positive and negative, elements. Those practitioners who are initiates of both traditions are very strict about keeping the rituals of the two traditions apart so that they are

never performed in the same ritual space and time. Mary Ann Clark

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Cabrera, Lydia. El Monte (Igbo, Finda, Ewe Orisha, Vititi Finda): Notas Sobre Las Religiones, La Magia, Las Supersticiones Y El Folklore De Los Negros Criollos Y Del Pueblo De Cuba (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1975). Matibag, Eugenio. Afro Cuban Religious Experience: Cultural Reflections in Nar rative (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996). Olmos, Margarite Fernandez, and Lizabeth Paravisini Gebert. ‘‘Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santerı´a to Obeah and Espiri tismo.’’ Religion, Race and Ethnicity, ed. Peter J. Paris (New York and London: New York University Press, 2003). Palmie´, Stephan. Wizards and Scientists: Explorations in Afro Cuban Modernity and Tradition (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2002). Thompson, Robert Ferris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro American Art and Phi losophy (New York: Random House, 1984).

PEACE MISSION MOVEMENT Historical Development The early twentieth century in the United States marked a period of great change. The aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction included entrenched patterns of discrimination referred to as ‘‘Jim Crow’’ that through social code and law made African Americans inferior. These sociopolitical problems combined

Peace Mission Movement with World War, economic challenge to make the early twentieth century a challenging time. And many African Americans responded by moving to new locations in search of better economic opportunities and a decrease in racial oppression. This movement—called the ‘‘Great Migration’’—that took African Americans west and north to cities like Chicago began shortly after the Civil War and continued into the midtwentieth century. This was a period of important and somewhat rapid cultural and social change in the United States, and the cultural production of African Americans often chronicled these shifts. African Americans moving north, for example, spread the influence of the blues—detailing their lives in music. Literature also gave voice to the struggle for a ‘‘good life’’ within the context of oppressive circumstances. Changing life in the United States was not simply a secular matter. The early twentieth century was also a time of the growth of a diverse range of religious communities and beliefs. Some African Americans continued to embrace African American churches because, for them, these churches met a full range of their needs. But this did not mean that only the long-standing and dominant denominations were the target of devotion. No, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also marked the emergence of new Christian denominations such as the Church of God in Christ. In addition, some African Americans found churches of limited assistance to them; both theologically and sociopolitically they found church supported the status quo and did little to help African Americans face the new challenges in front of them. It is in part this discontent that gave energy

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to the development and growth of alternate religious orientations such as the Nation of Islam, the Universal House of Prayer for All Peoples, and Father Divine’s Peace Mission. Scholars of religion began giving attention to the development and activities of Father Divine’s Peace Mission by the 1940s, with one notable example being Arthur Huff Fauset’s Black Gods of the Metropolis (1944) in which he chronicles several key religious developments in African American urban communities. How could Father Divine not generate this sort of interest when one considers his financial means during a time of great socioeconomic want and need? For example, as many scholars note, during the Great Depression, Father Divine fed and housed many people, when the United States government seemed of little assistance. This religious organization marks one of the more intriguing religious developments of the early twentieth century. It is believed that ‘‘Father Divine’’ or Father Major Jealous Divine was born George Baker, in Georgia. The actually date of his birth is unknown, but generally placed in the late 1870s or early 1880s. There is general consensus that Father Divine traveled as a preacher, but ministered without the benefit of formal education. Some scholars argue that at the turn of the century he worked for religious leader ‘‘Father Jehovia’’ (Watts 1995). Father Divine was influenced by the energy and thought of the growing Pentecostal movement and New Thought movement, and he used this combination of theologies and rituals to form a rather unique and ‘‘unorthodox’’ religious organization. Eventually making his way to New York in roughly 1919, Father Divine

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FATHER MAJOR JEALOUS DIVINE [FATHER DIVINE] (?–1965) It is possible that Father Divine was born in either Georgia or Maryland, with the name George Baker. Little is known of his early life, although it is assumed he may have been a Baptist preacher, but one without the benefit of formal training. Having come under the in fluence of New Thought, Holiness teachings among other philosophies and theologies, Father Divine preached in various locations before moving to Long Island. It was in Long Island that he began holding the banquets that would define his movement. During these events his followers received his teachings, expressed their appreciation, and developed a sense of religious community outside the confines of strict hierarchy and organizational structure. His movement, known as the Peace Mission Movement, grew slowly until public speculation concerning his powers increased interest in him on the part of white Americans and African Americans. He would eventually move his organization to Harlem, but within a short period of time he would establish his primary location in Philadelphia, where he worked until 1960. At that point he stopped speaking and died in 1965.

began holding small meetings during which he preached his message. For the first decade of his New York ministry, there was slow growth among African Americans. In fact, it was not until white Americans took notice of his teachings and began to participate in his activities that numbers (and resources for the movement) grew in a noticeable manner. Figures with public visibility began to join the organization by the third decade of the twentieth century, and Father Divine continued to impress not only through his teachings but also through alleged healings (Fauset 1944; Watts 1995). The energy of his message, combined with what appeared to be supernatural power, helped a growing number of people make sense of a troubled world. His appeal would continue to grow, and an event in 1932 solidified his standing as a spiritual leader with great cosmic authority. I recount the story as told by numerous scholars and members of the Peace Mission: Father Divine and several of his followers were arrested on Long Island for disturbing the peace. In May 1932 he was found guilty and

sentenced. However, and this is key, a short number of days after the verdict, the judge in the case died. Father Divine claimed to have used his spiritual power to bring about the death of the unjust judge. As one might expect, his public exposure and appeal only grew because of this event (Fauset 1944; Dallam 2007; Watts 1995). This boost to his popularity and visibility was matched by efforts to establish a more institutionalized approach to his work, and to more clearly and systematically present to the public his teachings as they related to the equality and value of all people. To achieve the former, Father Divine moved his organization to Harlem (New York City), the recognized ‘‘center’’ of African American cultural life. The plan was to grow the scope and reach of the organization through public exposure and the securing of property for housing Father Divine’s ministry. This growth required the type of organized presentation of his teachings made possible through their media outlets such as the New Day (1937). As a consequence of these activities,

Peace Mission Movement Father Divine’s organization grew and by the early 1940s a name change spoke to this new status. The organization became the Peace Mission Movement (Watts 1995). Father Divine’s exposure was great, and national media outlets routinely covered him; but his activities were not without challengers. Most notably, as scholar Marie Dallam makes clear, Sweet Daddy Grace would be responsible for a major shift in Father Divine’s popularity and a relocation of his movement to Philadelphia. Sweet Daddy Grace and Father Divine were chief rivals, in part because of overlap in their New Thought–Pentecostal influenced teachings, but also their powerful presence and personas often brought them into comparison. Both leaders claimed special status, Sweet Daddy Grace as a powerful and anointed spokesperson for God and Father Divine as God (Dallam 2007, 112). The degree of similarity between these two religious leaders is less the point here. What is more important is the friction between them and the nature of their interaction. Harlem, where both would settle, was a substantial geographic and cultural location, but not so big that these two major figures, with different theological perspectives and strong claims to special status, would be able to coexist without any conflict. The desire of both to punctuate their authority eventually brought them into conflict. Problems for Father Divine would mount, and would create vulnerabilities others would seek to exploit. Regarding this, the late 1930s marked a change in the ‘‘fortune’’ of the Peace Movement, as controversy challenged its public reputation. For instance, at least one key member of the organization—‘‘Faithful

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Father Divine holds a parade in Harlem to celebrate the acquisition of a new communal dwelling that he calls Heaven, July 31, 1938. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Mary’’—left the Mission and began to critique the teachings and practices of Father Divine (Dallam 2007, 123–124). Such fracturing of the Peace Mission and the rhetoric surrounding it suggested the high moral standards endorsed by its members were not always practiced. Conflict developed between members based on shifting loyalties to Father Divine versus those who had a growing level of suspicion toward Father Divine. In addition, the illness of Father Divine’s wife, Peninniah, caused stress in that she had been a major source of support for him (Dallam 2007, 123–124). These problems and challenges were not simply addressed within the context of the Peace Mission but also within the larger Harlem community, and within both scholarly and popular publications. Disagreeing with much of Father Divine’s teachings and practices, Sweet Daddy Grace took his move to Harlem as an opportunity to distinguish what he considered the truth and power of his teachings from the teachings and practices of Father Divine. Targeting the

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headquarters of the Peace Mission— ‘‘Number One Heaven’’—Sweet Daddy Grace sought to secure the building during a time of financial stress for the Peace Mission Movement. Through securing this property, Sweet Daddy Grace would be able to critique Father Divine’s claim to be God and establish his authority (Dallam 2007, 125–126). The manner in which Father Divine taught his members to avoid debt such as mortgages made this property vulnerable in that it was rented and available for purchase from the bank (see appendix ‘‘Explaining the Peace Mission’’). Sweet Daddy Grace bought the property, evicted Father Divine, and proclaimed that he had ‘‘kicked God’’ (i.e., Father Divine) ‘‘out of Heaven’’ (i.e., the Peace Mission Headquarters). Father Divine eventually moved the Peace Mission headquarters to Philadelphia (some three years after the eviction), claiming that in fact the Harlem location was not adequate for the needs of his organization. While the loss of his Harlem location meant a challenge to his organization and teachings, Father Divine remained active but modified his practices. For example, he began to secure personal property that was something he avoided prior to 1938. Furthermore, some scholars speculate that the loss of his Harlem property also demonstrated to him the vulnerability of an organization that was not properly and firmly structured. So, Father Divine worked to develop all the elements of a solid and sustainable organization— incorporation, a governing board, and so on. Change in business perspective allowed the Peace Mission to regain material health and both national and international growth. Father Divine continued his teachings and practices, until

1960 when he stopped speaking. At that time his second wife, Edna Rose Ritchings (‘‘Mother Divine’’), had to expand her work within the organization. After his death in 1965, Edna Rose Ritchings maintained the activities of the Peace Mission.

Beliefs and Practices Expressed through publications and provided often through weekly banquets during which Father Divine taught his followers, the beliefs of the Peace Mission Movement entail a blending of New Thought, Holiness, and Pentecostalism among other minor influences. As scholars have noted, those who lived in the ‘‘compound’’ were called ‘‘Angels’’ and took large responsibility for the financial needs of the movement, while those who commuted in for the weekly banquets but lived elsewhere were called Father Divine’s ‘‘Children’’ (Dallam 2007, 113). The organization lacked the type of hierarchy and structure associated with traditional churches, preferring instead a more community-centered model. Followers of Father Divine believed that he, as God in the world, had been given to them to teach them and guide them toward healthy and prosperous existence on earth. Father Divine’s teachings, according to scholars of religion, revolved around the belief that the universe is defined by its beauty and positive value and that each individual is a representation of this value and beauty (Dallam 2007, 113; Burnham 1979; Watts 1995). Hence, their activities in the world should speak to this goodness and should represent commitment to harmony between the physical and the spiritual. In a way that would be later

Peace Mission Movement mirrored in the prosperity gospel, Father Divine taught that material wealth reflected spiritual health. Therefore, physical discomfort or hardship corresponded to poor spiritual health (Dallam 2007, 113–114; Watts 1995). This theological perspective, however, did not justify greed and the harming of others for personal wealth accumulation. Father Divine taught that spiritual and social equality and harmony were fundamental aims. Meaningful life in this world took precedence over any talk of heaven or hell. As existing scholarship on the Peace Mission suggests, Father Divine’s perspective on financial responsibility urged proper management of resources, and denounced the borrowing of money and credit. Instead, members were to work hard, monitor their resources, and stay within their means. Moral conduct, according to Father Divine, demanded sharing of resources; therefore, community assistance represented the proper mode of healthy material and spiritual life (see appendix ‘‘Explaining the Peace Mission’’). And while material health was important, Father Divine did not personally own property and business; everything, instead, belonged to the Peace Mission. While this attention to prosperous living on earth did not justify greed, it also did not allow for questionable practices in securing material happiness. To the contrary, members of the Peace Mission believed in the need for strict rules for life, and failure to abide by these rules could result in dismissal from the community. They were to live a healthy and socially modest life by avoiding things such as alcohol, wagers, immodest clothing, and questionable conversation (Dallam 2007, 114; Watts 1995).

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In terms of ritual practices, the banquets mentioned at the start of this section entailed the most sustained and regularized gathering for the membership. It was during these weekly sessions that Father Divine spread his wisdom and those committed to him celebrated the strength of their community and the power of his teachings. Members testified to the progress they had made regarding proper living (Dallam 2007, 114). These ritual gatherings and the teachings they reinforced fostered strong bonds with Father Divine that often resulted in separation from birth families and friends outside the movement. This in part stemmed from the nature of life within the Peace Mission, but also from a desire to keep at a distance nonmembers who might try to harm the Movement and soil the reputation of Father Divine through their disbelief. Anthony B. Pinn

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Burnham, Kenneth E. God Comes to America: Father Divine and the Peace Mission Movement (Boston: Lambeth Press, 1979). Dallam, Marie W. Daddy Grace: A Celebrity Preacher and His House of Prayer (New York: New York University Press, 2007). Fauset, Arthur Huff. Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944). Watts, Jill. God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). Weisbrot, Robert. Father Divine and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983).

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PEOPLES TEMPLE Historical Development The Peoples Temple movement began in the 1950s as an independent Pentecostal congregation of white and black working-class families in Indianapolis, Indiana. Seventy members of this congregation followed their leader to northern California in the mid-1960s. Here they were joined by a number of young, middle-class, professional whites who in turn helped recruit hundreds of urban African Americans. In the mid-1970s, the movement built a utopian community in the country of Guyana that was named for its founder and leader, Jim Jones. The movement ended in 1978 after more than 900 members died in Jonestown in a mass homicide and suicide. In part because of its tragic and apocalyptic ending, this movement has frequently been labeled a ‘‘cult’’ by both scholars and members of the communications media. (Scholars today prefer the language of ‘‘new religious movement’’ or ‘‘alternative religion.’’) Some argue it was initially a Christian sect that then became a new religious movement. Mary Maaga suggests that the movement can best be described as including various types of religious organization, according to different time periods and different membership groups. Thus, the members from the first stage of the movement can be regarded as sect-like, younger white members from the second stage on were more cult-like, and African American members who joined in later years were neither. With regard to the African American members, Mary Sawyer makes a case that those who retained a Christian

orientation constituted a ‘‘church’’ within the larger movement. Anthony Pinn argues that African American members could well have represented a range of religious orientations, including humanism. Certainly the movement’s emphasis on community-building and social justice was resonant with the values of black religious traditions that have their roots in the cosmology of African traditions. Peoples Temple was a complex movement that offered hope to thousands of individuals. The overwhelming majority of people who affiliated with the movement had a vision of peace and equity and a commitment to match the vision. In many respects, it was a mini-version of the civil rights movement. It was also a movement full of contradiction. While the leader of the movement, at least in its earliest years, was undoubtedly sincere in his quest of these goals, his manner of pursuing them ultimately degenerated into a nightmare of control, hypocrisy, paranoia, and abuse. In the end, he was a contradiction of everything he had claimed to hold dear. Focusing solely on the leader or leaders of a movement tells us little about who joined, and why, and what meaning the experience had for them. At the same time, the leadership of the movement cannot be discounted. Most especially, the fact that Jim Jones, as well as some 60 percent of the movement’s governing group, was white cannot be discounted. Within the movement’s Planning Commission was an inner circle of staff members who were especially close to Jones. Most of them were white, most were women, and most were welleducated professionals. The majority of the members were poorly educated and

Peoples Temple unskilled. While the movement membership was diverse, including Native Americans, Latinos, and Jews, it was not integrated at the leadership level. The paradox is that the primary goals of the movement were racial integration and class equality. Personally, Jones and his wife, Marceline (Marcie) Baldwin Jones, lived this commitment by adopting a number of children who, together with their biological son, formed a multiracial family. James Warren Jones was born during the Great Depression in a rural county of southern Indiana on May 13, 1931. An only child, Jones and his parents soon left their farm, moving into the small town of Lynn, Indiana. Jones’s father was a disabled World War I veteran of Quaker and Baptist heritage who purportedly was also a member of the Ku Klux Klan and virulently anticommunist. His mother carried much of the financial responsibility for the family, working odd jobs and volunteering as a labor organizer. She did not share the bigoted views of her husband and his family, a point that she impressed upon her son. In terms of religious views, Jones’s mother believed strongly in the presence of spirits in the world, but rejected the idea of a monotheistic, allpowerful God. This perspective was also not lost on young Jim.

Beliefs and Practices Jones defied his father by embracing socialist tenets of equality and becoming an ardent proponent of racial integration. Although he never embraced the Christian understanding of God, he was impressed by the teachings of Jesus. His engagement in organized religion appears to have been largely a matter of convenience and utilitarianism. He was

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attracted to Pentecostalism, finding its emphasis on the ‘‘gifts of the spirit’’ especially appealing. Jones apprehended the ways in which claims of spiritual gifts, especially those of discernment, healing, and prophesying, could be used to gain power over people. The apocalyptic worldview of Pentecostalism also was important, connecting, as it did, with Jones’s conviction that nuclear annihilation was imminent. In later years, Jones invoked the Pentecostal expectation of a second coming of Christ, declaring himself to be the divine embodiment of Christ. However, Jones rejected the otherworldly salvation claims of traditional Christianity, instead emphasizing social salvation in this world. He rejected the Bible as Holy Scripture, though he pointed to the early communities of Jesus’ followers that are described in the Book of Acts as the ideal model of human relationships. He knew the contents of the Bible well and became skilled at using biblical language, as well as Marxist language, to assert the imperative of equality. He rejected institutional religion, though he was not averse to using these forms of organization to attract and mobilize followers. Jones’s first attempts at weaving together these disparate strands occurred in 1952 when he served as a student pastor at a Methodist Church located in an all-white, economically impoverished section of Indianapolis. His championing of racial integration resulted in a number of black Pentecostals joining the church, which in turn led to his dismissal. Within the year, however, while attending a black Pentecostal church convention, he was proclaimed a prophet and called to the ministry. In 1954, Jones started his own church. The church initially was called

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Community Unity, then Wings of Deliverance Church, and finally Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. In 1955, his congregation elected to affiliate with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination. Four years later, Jones was ordained a Disciples of Christ minister. His choice of denomination is interesting, but in hindsight not surprising. Disciples of Christ differs from other mainstream Protestant denominations in significant ways. The church does not believe in the concept of ‘‘original sin,’’ for example, and declines to use the phrase ‘‘Holy Trinity.’’ It has no creed and emphasizes freedom of thought and individual interpretation. These positions of the church were compatible with many of Jones’s personal biases. In addition, at the time Jones was ordained, church authority rested in the local congregation; not until some years later did the denomination develop a significant national structure to provide oversight of individual churches. At the time the Jonestown tragedy occurred, Jones was still credentialed as a Disciples minister and Peoples Temple was still in good standing as a Disciples of Christ congregation. In a statement issued shortly after the tragedy, however, Dr. Kenneth L. Teegarden, general minister and president of the denomination, made it known that a review of Jones’s ministerial standing had been underway. He also noted that, ‘‘When James W. Jones affiliated with the Disciples and during his ministry in Indianapolis there was no forewarning of what was to come. His early ministry was considered something of a model for inner city work, with strong interracial aspects and community service to the poor.’’

More so than the tenets of the Christian Church, Jones was influenced by the teachings of the black messianic leader, Father Divine. Divine was the founder of the movement known as Peace Mission Movement (see entry ‘‘Peace Mission Movement’’). Concurrently, Jones was preparing for ordination in a mainstream Christian denomination while he was visiting Father Divine in Philadelphia where he studied the programs and organizational structure of the Peace Mission Movement. The Peace Mission Movement was itself a communal movement devoted to racial equality and alleviation of poverty. Its goals were pursued through two strategies: urban outreach and social service in the city, and the building of interracial, cooperative communities in rural areas of upstate New York. Urban social service and migration to escape the racism and classism of American society became the twin foci of Jones’s own movement. The sharing of personal economic resources, communal living, and the operation of various service entities (e.g., nursing homes and drug counseling) became the means for financing these endeavors. When Jones was named executive director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission, he launched an aggressive program to desegregate Indianapolis. While he achieved some success, he also generated fierce hostility and opposition. As early as 1961, he explored the possibility of building a settlement in a South American country that, following independence, became known as Guyana. However, in 1962 Jones and his wife, Marci, along with their children, relocated to Brazil, where he inquired about obtaining land on which to build a settlement. Failing in

Peoples Temple this endeavor, they returned to Indianapolis in 1964. Upon being met with the same hostility they had experienced previously, Jones and members of his congregation began looking to California as a more favorable climate for their social ministry and as a location safer from nuclear destruction. By 1965, Jim Jones and his followers had migrated to Mendocino County in the Redwood Valley of Northern California. Initially, membership growth was slow. A few families continued to relocate from Indianapolis, and some recruits were drawn from among black residents recently arriving from the Bay Area. But the primary growth consisted of young professional whites—teachers, social workers, and lawyers—who were drawn to the movement by its program of social transformation and socialist lifestyle. Among these new members were several individuals who assumed important positions in the leadership circle of the movement. Sharon Amos, Teri Buford, Carolyn Moore Layton, Michael Prokes, and Timothy Stoen joined older members such as Rick Cordell and Archie L. James as confidantes and disciples of Jones. In 1968, Peoples Temple began reaching out to African Americans in San Francisco. Two years later, a church building was purchased in San Francisco that in short order became the primary headquarters of the Peoples Temple movement. A church also was established in Los Angeles and, for several years, Jones and hundreds of members caravanned by bus to other California cities, as well as to major cities around the country, where evangelistic-style rallies were staged to draw new recruits. At its peak, Peoples Temple had a membership of some 3,000. The largest

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proportion of its members consisted of disaffected black youth, single mothers with children, and elderly black women. The ranks of Peoples Temple included some who had little political consciousness, but were simply seeking a better life. Black youth found help with legal problems, addiction issues, and educational and employment deficiencies. Single mothers were assisted in obtaining social services. Elderly people, especially women, responded to the promise of lifelong care and security. But the majority of members also were impassioned about the movement’s overt political values and activities. While the well-educated whites who had joined earlier were products of the countercultural challenges to authority of the 1960s, African Americans were more influenced by the liberation struggles of the day. For whites, the student protest and anti–Viet Nam war movement were pivotal; for blacks, the context was defined by the Civil Rights Movement, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and the flourishing of black power groups such as the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam. Activist members campaigned for ballot initiatives, worked for tenants’ rights, and protested on behalf of journalistic freedom. They supported gay rights, protested the California Supreme Court decision in the anti-affirmative action Bakke case, and joined the movement to abolish apartheid in South Africa. They were connected to well-known social change activists, including Dennis Banks, one of the leaders of the American Indian Movement; Dick Gregory; Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame; and defense attorney William Kunstler. Locally, Peoples Temple took

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control of the San Francisco chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Jones himself had the ability to develop relations with key government representatives that gave him entre´e to power circles denied to most social change activists. He was appointed to the influential San Francisco Housing Authority, which gave him an official platform from which to speak on behalf of citizens who were being displaced by urban renewal programs. On a moment’s notice, Jones could mobilize hundreds of people for a campaign or protest rally. The power he wielded at election time in getting out the vote was legendary. For a few brief years, he and his aides were a public force to be reckoned with. The Temple became known for its charitable giving, some of which had transparent political motives. But it also held clinics for testing sickle cell anemia and hypertension, and for administering flu shots. Hundreds of people were provided daily meals; others were offered shelter in the complex of homes for the elderly, foster children, and mentally challenged individuals that the movement owned and/or operated. This extraordinary demonstration of commitment to social service and social justice, along with its public presentation as a Christian Church, garnered the movement support from such entities as the San Francisco Council of Churches. Peoples Temple also successfully cultivated relations with representatives of the local Muslim and Jewish communities. No entity was more supportive of the movement than the local black newspaper, The Sun Reporter, which consistently ran stories and articles favorable to the Temple’s activities.

Black ministers in San Francisco initially embraced Jim Jones as a gospelpreaching ‘‘brother,’’ disregarding his racial heritage in the face of his public ministry to ‘‘the least of these.’’ They fairly quickly became hostile, however, as members of their churches left for Peoples Temple. Many individuals and families who changed affiliation came from local black churches that had a reputation for their otherworldly focus. Members who were frustrated with the conservative theology and passivity of their home congregations saw in Peoples Temple a religious organization that lived out the principles of equality and justice that were the bedrock of their Christian faith. Of the few progressive ministers in the Bay Area at this time, some were skeptical of Jones, but others saw him as functioning in accord with the prophetic biblical tradition. As the character of Jones’s power changed and as his behavior during the movement’s San Francisco years became erratic, he grew increasingly defensive and punitive. Members who were perceived to be obstructing his program were punished both psychologically and physically. An elaborate system of spying and reporting on one another was instituted. False rumors were started, causing friend to turn upon friend, all in the interest of maintaining control. In 1973, Peoples Temple negotiated the purchase of land in the country of Guyana for the purpose of building a utopian community. This new settlement was envisioned as the Promised Land, a place in which people—young and old, black and white—could live lives of peace and harmony, free from the racism of American society. The country of Guyana, which had first been considered by Jones a decade earlier, was appealing for several reasons: it was a Cooperative

Peoples Temple Socialist Republic, its leadership was Afro-Guyanese, and it was strongly anticapitalist. The project of clearing the land in the midst of jungle terrain began in 1974 and quickly became a primary focus of the movement. As houses, a school, and a health clinic were erected, visitors to the site returned to California with glowing reports and photos that excited the members and friends of the movement alike. Things began to unravel in San Francisco as rumors surfaced in the larger community that all was not well within the movement. Allegations ranged from misuse of public funds (none of which were ever substantiated) to abuse of individual members. The most damaging critique of the Temple took the form of an article published in August 1977 by New West magazine, but articles by the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner newspapers added to a growing public suspicion. As the attacks on the movement mounted, Jim Jones and hundreds of Peoples Temple members relocated to Jonestown, Guyana. According to the accounts of nonmembers who visited the settlement, it was an extraordinary accomplishment. Hundreds of people were fed, clothed, and sheltered. Children were educated. All were provided high quality medical care. Many residents rejoiced in the sense of freedom and self-worth that came from living in an atmosphere where all were treated equally. Meanwhile, however, Jones himself descended into a world of illness, paranoia, and drug addiction. Most of the allegations made against the movement came from disaffected former members. Most of the critics were white, and many of them had been out

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of the movement for a number of years. Some of them became part of a group calling itself ‘‘Concerned Relatives.’’ In general, the practices used to maintain social control that former members had come to find intolerable were not unusual in the history of utopian communities. But outside the context of the communities themselves, such practices engendered even more alarm. The concern that defectors felt for friends and relatives still in the movement was undoubtedly genuine. At the same time, the full range of motives of persons alienated from a movement that had at one time been meaningful to them is rarely transparent. Some, for example, had given large sums of money to the movement and later came to regret having done so. Consequently, parties to whom they took their concerns were invariably ambivalent about how to respond. One person who did respond, Congressman Leo Ryan, unwittingly triggered the chain of events in Jonestown that led to the movement’s demise. In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a delegation to Guyana to investigate the concerns of members’ relatives. The delegation, which included several staff members as well as journalists and photographers, visited Jonestown and spoke to Jones as well as numerous members. Upon returning to the airfield with several defectors, Ryan and others were attacked by a small contingent of Jonestown members. Ryan and four others were killed; a number of people were injured. When word of these shootings was received in Jonestown, Jones, fearing military retribution that would destroy the entire community, led the residents in a ritual of what he termed

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revolutionary suicide. The ritual had been rehearsed a number of times previously. This time, however, it was the real thing. On November 18, 1978, 909 people died in Jonestown; four more died in Georgetown, Guyana. A few individuals escaped through the jungle and eventually returned to the United States. Other members, including three of Jim and Marci’s sons, were away at the time of the violence. About a hundred members remained in California, the majority of them in San Francisco. But the movement was effectively eliminated. Speculation about CIA or other government involvement in the demise of the community ensued. In fact, from the time significant numbers of people migrated to the settlement, Jonestown was under surveillance by various government agencies—Guyanese, United States, and international. No evidence has surfaced to date that any of these agencies were directly responsible for what transpired. But the surveillance and continuous allegations against the movement were experienced by the leadership as harassment, and the people collectively developed a siege mentality that made them vulnerable to engaging in extreme behaviors. It is plausible that, by the end, the capacity of adult members to choose their fate was compromised by the effects of the extreme duress they had endured. Clearly, for some time before the end, Jones himself, having succumbed to drug addictions and mental aberrations, was incapable of exercising rational judgment. Among the survivors were countless friends and family members of those who died, who were not themselves formally affiliated with Peoples Temple.

Their healing and recovery from this traumatic experience was severely impeded by the inflammatory media coverage of the deaths, and by the shroud of silence woven by the insensitive and unsympathetic sentiments of most Americans. For many years—in some instances, decades—survivors did not even acknowledge having had a connection to the movement. Annual memorial services held at the Oakland cemetery where some 400 unclaimed bodies are buried, and the establishment of the Jonestown Web site and a regularly published newsletter (called the jonestown report) by Rebecca Moore and Fielding McGehee, have been primary avenues for voicing thoughts and feelings, as well as for reporting research and insights about the movement. Peoples Temple representation of itself as a black church was critical. This representation began with Jones’s own self-presentation. Jones was so invested in the principle of racial equality that he appropriated a personal identity of blackness and spoke the inclusive language of ‘‘we blacks.’’ Ultimately, he even claimed to have African ancestry. While in Redwood Valley, he encouraged both black and white members to adopt the African dress and Afro hairstyles of the black consciousness movement. Jones also appropriated the theological vocabulary, autocratic leadership style, and messianic themes characteristic of many black ministers. The services conducted at Peoples Temple had the ambience of black worship services, with strong emphasis on gospel music, testimonies, and healing. Many black members who participated in this culturally familiar milieu undoubtedly did so with sincerity and integrity, but Jones

Peoples Temple did not. Black members were part of the larger of the two orientations that comprised the Redwood Valley organization. The smaller of the two orientations was secular and Jones made an effort to appeal to their Marxist inclinations. The larger orientation entailed a highly religious perspective that Jones nurtured through attention to the gospel message of community involvement and justice. The economic and political objectives and the religious rhetoric came together in Jones’s program of ‘‘apostolic socialism.’’ A central component of this program involved drawing black religious members away from an escapist, otherworldly version of Christianity to a set of social principles that mandated activism in order to create more just conditions in the world. Jones often expressed frustration that the people he was seeking to free from the ‘‘opiate of religion’’ insisted on remaining tied to old forms and understandings of their faith. At the same time, Jones gave his political program religious status through his claims of having special powers of perception and healing. Testimonies abound of Jones’s extraordinary charisma. Still today, some survivors remain persuaded that Jones had unusual, if not supernatural, power; some among these have spoken of his powers for good that over time were transformed into powers for evil. In the very last years of the movement, references by the movement’s leadership to conventional Christianity were made only during the Temple’s public worship services when ‘‘outsiders’’ might be present, some of whom it was presumed would be Christians. Insincere as it may have been on the part of the leadership, Christian language was spoken and heard by religious members who attended these services. Even when scriptural language

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was forbidden in private Temple meetings, those terms that had been so prevalent in the years of the Civil Rights Movement—such words as freedom, equality, integration, and community— continued to be primary. When Jones or members of the leadership team exchanged visits with black churches, they spoke in the language of Christianity. Christian language was also used by Temple staff whenever they interacted with prominent individuals in the black community, the ecumenical religious community, and government offices. To the very end, the letterhead of the movement’s stationery read, ‘‘Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, Jim Jones, Pastor.’’ On the sideboard was printed the text of Matthew 25: 35– 40: ‘‘For I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; naked, and you clothed me . . . . Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these . . . you have done it unto me.’’ It is noteworthy that, following the dissolution of Peoples Temple in California, a number of survivors returned to conventional Protestant churches. What the religious journey of all the black members who joined Peoples Temple was or would have been will never be known. Evidence argues that at least some of them kept the faith of Christian orthodoxy—the faith that Jesus was Lord and Savior, the faith that God had sent a servant to lead the people out of bondage in biblical times and would do so again, the faith that all people were the children of God and ought to be accorded equal respect and opportunity. It was the resonance of Jim Jones’s words with these core tenets of Christianity that brought many of them to the movement in the first place; it may in

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part have been these tenets—along with the historic African values of community and kinship so deeply embedded in the souls and psyches of the people—that kept them there. At least some among them retained a capacity for questioning what was presented to them and made conscious choices to remain with the community that had become their family and the church that was real for them in spite of Jones’s apostasy. That is to say, the people retained agency; they were not merely puppets of a deranged leader. For all of their leader’s deceit, the people of Peoples Temple recognized that Jim Jones spoke a truth. That truth was that America’s ‘‘self-evident’’ principles were not evident in practice. In despair that it would ever be otherwise, they sought to build a community in another land. Persuaded that the very existence of their community was threatened, and believing they could never return to a racist American society, the majority of adult members concurred with the decision to die—together, as a community. It goes without saying that the infants, children, and youth, who numbered nearly 300, had no power to choose. While the killing of the children was incomprehensible to most outsiders, there is historical precedent. Their deaths, which Marceline Jones reportedly protested until the end, are reminiscent of the stories of captured Africans killing their children to spare them the worse fate of slavery. Reprehensible as the acts may have been, they provide a measure of how horrific the members of the movement understood racism in American society to be: Being denied one’s humanity on account of color was regarded as the worse fate. Mary Sawyer

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Hall, John R. Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Pub lishers, 1989). Maaga, Mary McCormick. Hearing the Voi ces of Jonestown (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998). Moore, Rebecca. A Sympathetic History of Jonestown (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1985). Moore, Rebecca, Anthony B. Pinn, and Mary R. Sawyer, eds. Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004).

POCOMANIA Historical Development Pocomania is an African-based religious tradition indigenous to the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean. Pocomania adherents are generally drawn from the poor and depressed sector of Jamaican society. The name ‘‘Pocomania’’ is generally attributed to the Spanish word pocomania, meaning ‘‘small madness.’’ This Jamaican indigenous religious tradition is also spelled as ‘‘Pukumina.’’ Some scholars question the Spanish derivation of the name. They argue that the spelling ‘‘Pukumina’’ signifies the religion’s derivation from the West African Twi words po, meaning ‘‘small,’’ and kumina, referring to the dance of ancestral possession. According to this argument, ‘‘Pukumina’’ means ‘‘small kumina’’ or the ‘‘small dance of ancestral possession’’ (Thelwell 1988, 397). Nevertheless, Pocomania or Pukumina refers to the same African-based religious tradition indigenous to Jamaica. We shall here use the term ‘‘Pocomania,’’

Pocomania since it appears to be the more popular term used to refer to the religion. However, it must be pointed out that the term ‘‘Pukumina,’’ referring to the ‘‘small ancestral dance,’’ brings out the images of dance and music that are associated with the religion, as well as emphasizing through reference to ancestors the African base of the religion. Millions of Africans were brought to the New World, including Jamaica, to work as slaves on the sugar plantations or estates that developed as the base of the modern industrial and economic system. Most of the slaves, who came from West Africa, carried their ancestral or traditional African religious and cultural system with them across the Atlantic, and used it to develop new religious and cultural systems in response to the hardships and brutality of slavery and plantation life. Pocomania belongs to what is called Revivalism in Jamaican religions. Consequently, the terms ‘‘Revivalism,’’ ‘‘Pocomania,’’ ‘‘Kumina,’’ and ‘‘Zionism’’ are frequently used to refer to various indigenous Jamaican religious traditions that bear similar features. For example, it is possible for Pocomania to be referred to as ‘‘Revival’’ by members and nonmembers. Nonetheless, we shall here distinguish Pocomania from other forms of Revivalism. The umbrella term ‘‘Revivalism’’ hides what distinguishes Pocomania from other Revival cults in Jamaica (Hogg 1964). The difference between Pocomania and other Revival traditions in Jamaica revolves around the kind of spirits Pocomania band leaders and adherents collaborate with. It is easy to understand the perception that Pocomania leaders use obeah (see entry ‘‘Obeah’’) or witchcraft, since they work with the ‘‘ground spirits.’’ Pocomania is

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predominantly African in its rituals and beliefs. Pocomania emerged in Jamaica during the 1860s. It was influenced by Myalism, the Great Revival of the 1860s. Myalism is an amalgamation of religious observances in Jamaica, contained, in varying proportions, African and Christian religious elements, concepts, and practices. Myalism, first documented in the late eighteenth century, was the crucible out of which present-day Revival, Zion, and Pocomania religions evolved (Warner-Lewis 2003, 190–198). Myalism first gained attention during the 1760 Taki Rebellion. The Taki or Tacky Rebellion occurred when Tacky, a Coromanti slave, led a small band of slaves and captured Fort Haldane at Port Maria, Jamaica. The rebels set fire to Heywood Hall Plantation and destroyed some buildings at Esther Estate. There was no general uprising, though a number of slaves joined the rebels. The uprising was eventually put down, but in the same month there was another slave uprising in the Parish of St. Thomas-in-the-East, as well as uprisings on several plantations in the Parish of Westmoreland. The Coromantin slaves were at the center of these rebellions in the 1760s. The role of Myalism in these rebellions means that it had been in gestation for some time prior to the rebellion. In other words, Myalism was a form of religious resistance to the oppression experienced in plantation life. Myalism enabled a rebellion to be organized on panAfrican, instead of strictly ethnic, lines for the first time in the history of the Africans in Jamaica (Warner-Lewis 2003, 190–198). Dreams of freedom, the growth of the Native Baptist Church, and Myalism increased in Jamaica

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around the time of the American War of independence. Following the commencement of the American War of Independence in 1776, a number of American planters, loyal to the British crown, migrated to Jamaica with their slaves. In the group were a Baptist preacher named George Liele, Moses Baker, and George Lewis. Some planters with abolitionist sentiments permitted Lisle and Baker to proselytize the slaves. Lisle’s work focused in Kingston where he established the first Baptist church in Jamaica. He used the classleader system in which the most talented converts were appointed leaders over classes of new converts. As soon as these converts were baptized, they passed on the gospel to others. The Baptist church grew in this process. However, it was Myalism that was really growing (Chevannes 1994, 20–21). The classleader system allowed greater autonomy and freedom for Myalism to refashion the symbols and teachings of Christianity in its own image. This new development made it possible to identify and distinguish some of Myalism’s teachings and practices, with Christianity as the basis of comparison. Myalism modified Christianity’s central doctrine of Jesus Christ as the Mediator between God the Father and humankind; the Holy Spirit is the sole Mediator between God and humankind in Pocomania. Myalism’s emphasis on the experience of the Spirit was strategic. Ritually, the centrality of spirit possession in Myalism defines it as a space of experience in which a horizon of expectation is constructed. In other words, it is the liberation of eschatology, in keeping with the conviction of those formerly enslaved, that their masters were withholding, the freedom that the British monarch had granted them. In contact

with the Great Revival of the 1860s, Myalism underwent further development. The Great Revival that swept the world in the 1860s impacted the development of Revivalism, Myalism, and African religions in Jamaica. Under the general name of Revival Zion, the intensity of the Great Revival transformed Myalism into two streams, Zion and Pocomania. Zion, the first to become public, like the Native Baptists, retained close resemblance to Christianity. It made greater use of the Bible and other Christian symbols. Above all, it refused to show any respect for the belligerent and dangerous spirits that it acknowledged existed but kept under control through the power of ritual symbolisms. Pocomania emerged after Zion in the early months of 1861. This is why Pocomania is referred throughout the Revival world as ‘‘Sixty-One’’ and Zion as ‘‘Sixty.’’ Pocomania modified the African and ancestral heritage, adapted them to the Jamaican context, and provided healing from the trauma of displacement from ancestral homelands and the brutality of slavery and plantation society. Writers and scholars like Edward Seaga, Rex Nettleford, Barry Chevannes, and Noel Erskine would appreciate the argument that through Pocomania African-descended peoples in Jamaica expressed self-agency to reclaim their subjectivity (Chevannes 1994; Erskine 1998; Nettleford 2001; Seaga 1969). They recognize Pocomania’s significance in the construction of Afro-Jamaican humanity, Jamaican culture, and the evolution of post-emancipation Jamaican sovereignty. Seaga, an early Pocomania researcher and former Jamaican prime minister, knows the political significance of Pocomania, with respect to the mobilization of the Jamaican masses for political

Pocomania transformation. Nettleford would argue that people express their inherent need to name God or the Divine in their own image. Chevannes, in the context of indigenous Jamaican religions, would call for a radical rethinking of Pocomania in relationship to peasant religious traditions and their role in the revolutionary process of creating Jamaican nationhood. Though Erskine subsumes Pocomania within the phenomenon of Revivalism, he defines it as a form of Black religion designed to help Black people in the Caribbean become more fully human. These perspectives point to the historical struggle of Jamaican and Caribbean peoples of African descent for sovereignty, full emancipation, self-determination, and the right to represent themselves authentically.

Beliefs and Practices The major Pocomania beliefs and rituals must be interpreted within the framework of a myth or drama of cultural regeneration. Belief in spirits is central in the Pocomania worldview. A pivotal belief in Pocomania is the coexistence of the ancestral spiritual and temporary world. Pocomania, by virtue of its very name, indicates the centrality of the spirits in the tradition. One knows one’s identity in Pocomania through relationship to the spirits that include, amongst others, the ancestors. That all spirits are powerful in Pocomania is closer to traditional African religions. Since all spirits can possess, they deserve respect (Chevannes 1994, 20–21; Simpson 1956). The ‘‘spirits’’ include Old Testament prophets, New Testament saints, other Biblical figures, and the ancestral dead. The spirits must be venerated since the spirits of the dead may affect the fate of the living in important ways. There are three

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categories of spirits in Pocomania: (1) the Heavenly spirits, (2) ‘‘Earthbound’’ spirits, and (3) ‘‘Ground’’ spirits (Seaga 1969, 10). The Heavenly spirits are made up of the Triune God, archangels, angels, and saints. The Earthbound spirits include the ‘‘Fallen Angels’’ or satanic powers. The Ground spirits are the human dead who are not mentioned in the Bible. Pocomania’s orientation to ground spirits distinguishes it from Revival Zion, Kumina (see entry ‘‘Kumina’’), and Covince, other members of the Revival family in Jamaica. Whereas Pocomania followers collaborate with Ground spirits and Fallen Angels, other Revival groups do not, since they consider these beings evil. Pocomania followers maintain that the ‘‘Ground spirits’’ are more useful than those used by Zion. These spirits are closer at hand and more accessible. According to Edward Seaga, ‘‘they are more attentive and quicker in action than the other powers who are too busy to give personal attention and too cautious in action’’ (Seaga 1969, 10–11). Pocomania groups are organized into ‘‘bands’’ under the leadership of a Shepherd. In the case of Pocomania, the leader or Shepherd is always a male. Since the spirits are essential to healing, the Pocomania leader is a type of shaman. He must know how to negotiate with the spirits, with the visible and invisible worlds, to exorcize devotees of the evil and traumas they experience, individually and collectively. To a large extent the life of a Pocomania band depends on the leadership skill of the Shepherd or leader. The Shepherd or leader is critical to the maintenance of the Pocomania ‘‘band’’ as a support group or structure for those who find themselves at the margins of Jamaican society.

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As in other religious traditions, ritual or sacred spaces are marked off in Revivalism, and in the Pocomania tradition, from ordinary space. Hence there are Revival or Pocomania churches, healing centers, and balm yards that are decorated with poles and flags of different colors to attract passing spirits. Sometimes, the pole is planted in the ‘‘Seal’’ or mission ground. The seal is considered to be sacred and is the center or axis mundi for most of the important ritual activity. The belief is that the spirits of all the dead who work for the revival ‘‘bands’’ inhabit these spots. Features of a Revival yard would include an altar covered with a white cloth on which a number of items such as flowers, fruits, Bibles, hymnals, and candles are placed. Revival yards also contain a water pool or a large earthenware jug with water that is used in various rituals. In Pocomania, the water is understood to be ‘‘home’’ of all the functionaries who perform with water such as the River Maid and the Diver. Major rituals in Pocomania include prayer meetings, street meetings, and rituals for specific purposes such as feast tables or duties, altars, and baths (Seaga 1969, 9–10). Prayer meetings are held for different purposes. They usually take the form of Bible reading, hymn singing, and discussion. Street meetings are held to gain new members, preach biblical doctrine, make the Pocomania ‘‘band’’ or group known, and even to utter prophetic warnings to the society as a whole. Street meetings or public processions in rural or urban spaces in Jamaica combat invisibility, create community, and make a space for Pocomania in Jamaica’s culture and religious landscape. The ‘‘Tables’’ or ‘‘Duties’’ are ritual features in Pocomania. Each is a ritual

held for a specific purpose. In some cases a number of purposes could be linked within the observance of a particular ‘‘Table.’’ Though they vary in detail, they generally follow similar procedures (Hogg 1964, 309). According to Seaga, tables are held for ‘‘thanksgiving for a particular event, prosperity, deliverance, memorial, death and judgment, mourning, consecration, pole-planting, ordination, dedication, and baptisms’’ (Seaga 1969, 9). They could also be held for marriage, birth, or success of a child or family member, for personal or family success, for safe travel, and for healing. The list is endless. It depends on the circumstances and the felt need. Participation in the table expresses hospitality and commensality. The most common table is the thanksgiving table since it reciprocates or shows appreciation to the spirits for benefits received. Shepherds, band members, and sometimes well-wishers hold them after recovery from serious illnesses or success in major economic ventures. Observance of tables also helps to build community amongst the members of a Pocomania ‘‘band,’’ as well as with other bands, well-wishers, and other members of the wider community. The observance of tables helps to structure a sense of collective identity, both with the living and the dead. In Pocomania, the feasting table is usually held on Sunday nights. It is covered with fruits, drinks, bread, candles, and vegetables. Following the reading of the Bible and the greeting and welcoming of visitors and those who have responded to the invitation to attend the ceremony, the table is ‘‘broken’’ at midnight. The food is then distributed amongst those present as a form of communal meal. The entire ritual ceremony connected with the table fuses Bible reading,

Pocomania preaching, singing, dancing, and movement to invoke the spirits to enter and participate in the ceremony. In this sense the table can be understood as a kind of ‘‘birth-night’’ or spiritual regeneration of the group present. In keeping with Pocomania’s African orientation, the invocation and participation of the spirits at the table is a way of honoring the ancestors, a major feature of African traditional religion. An essential part of Pocomania meetings is the tramping and the cymbals. This occurs after the singing and the Bible reading part of the program. Members gathered move around in a circle, counterclockwise, each using forward stepping motions with a forward bend of the body. Songs or hymns used in the Revival tradition, including Pocomania, usually vary in beat and rhythm, and include the familiar African American lining or call-and-response feature. The songs, hymns, and choruses are often adaptations of spirituals and Christian hymns, particularly those from the Protestant nonconformist tradition. This mode of singing is Africanized with the accompaniment of the beating of drums such as the kettledrum or the bass drum. Tambourines are also used, along with other instruments. On the whole, the mode of singing and worship is lively, as is expected of the Revival tradition. One of the major functions of the Pocomania leader or Shepherd is to distribute ‘‘portions’’ or alternative identities to members of a ‘‘band.’’ The Pocomania Shepherd is critical in the process of individual and collective cultural regeneration. The ‘‘portions’’ or roles assigned to members give them meaning and purpose that are alternative to those Jamaican society has imposed on them. In Pocomania, they have an

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alternative portrait of themselves, one in which they are regenerated or ‘‘born again.’’ The Shepherd must give gifts, portions, to the different members of his band to construct individual and collective identity, to incorporate them into the mythological journey or pilgrimage beyond the Middle Passage. It is a form of religious resistance. These portions include Armor Bearer, Bands Mother, Explorers, Ambush women, and Water Maiden (Hogg 1964). The Pocomania imagination is similar to that of the carnival bands and celebrations throughout the Caribbean and the New World. Pocomania band members take on roles contrary to those assigned by the social status quo. The Pocomania leader creates this sense of alternative reality through the portions he assigns to members. This distribution of charisma, for which each adherent is responsible, is framed in emancipatory terms. It sets the imperative to create a post-emancipatory identity. Myth, rituals, and portions integrate in Pocomania as they symbolize a journey or pilgrimage into the Land of Promise. Portions such as the ‘‘Water Maids’’ or ‘‘River Maids’’ symbolize, in Pocomania, someone who will swim through, and lead others across, waters from slavery into freedom. In terms of Jamaican history it signifies return across the Middle Passage and a reversal of slavery through return to Africa. The Pocomania Shepherd must periodically issue new portions to his followers. Failure to grant new portions will destroy the vitality of the tradition. The Sundial orients Pocomania members to a new sense of time and eschatology. The in-breaking of freedom, newness, and the experience of a new day, resonate the J’Ouvert

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celebrations that open carnival celebrations in the Caribbean. Though freedom is conceived in different ways in Pocomania, the Nine Night ceremony that marks the final passing of the dead from the terrestrial into the spiritual nuances freedom in Pocomania. As a liminal or threshold space in Pocomania, death symbolizes freedom that includes repatriation to Africa or Guinee. As a myth of return, Pocomania highlights the concept of return to Africa, physically or metaphorically, in Afrodiasporic religion and culture. Comparatively, the carnival aspect is one of several that links Pocomania myth and ritual to the African-diasporic tradition in the New World. Carnivals are forms of resistance to the dominant construction of reality. In carnival individuals organize themselves into bands around a particular leader and theme, with kings and queens. To ‘‘play mas’’ is to break out from their prescribed roles in the dominant status quo. Pocomania bands, like those of carnival, are organized in private. At the appropriate time, they take to the streets. In the public showcase or spectacle, the boundaries between the sacred and the secular are erased; the street space becomes the scene of primal power. Pocomania resembles other indigenous Afro-diasporic religious traditions in Jamaica, the Caribbean, and the Americas. The Pocomania leader, usually a male, is a kind of shaman. However, there are female leaders. Pocomania Shepherds operate in network fashion, some leaders gravitating to and oscillating between Revivalism in general and Pocomania in particular. The most outstanding Revivalist leader in Jamaica’s history was Alexander Bedward (1869–1935) who gained prominence as a healer and

prophet at the turn of the twentieth century. Strictly speaking, Bedward was not really a Pocomania leader. Among Pocomania leaders, Donald Hogg identified Father Leslie, who at the turn of the twentieth century, had tremendous prestige and influence among other Pocomania leaders in St. Mary’s Parish, possibly a major center for the development of modern Pocomania (Hogg 1964, 281). Francis Walker, who succeeded Father Leslie, joined the group in 1900 at the age of 18. Within a short time, Walker became a Shepherd, married Leslie’s daughter, and took over Leslie’s Obeah practice and leadership of his band when the latter died in 1912. Walker gained regional prestige and influence, was subsequently appointed Father, the highest rank in Pocomania, by the Shepherds who led other bands in St. Mary (Hogg 1964). Walker’s relationship with Pocomania, as well as his religious career, was somewhat checkered as he moved between Pocomania, different Revival traditions, and Christianity. Criticism of Pocomania, fear of being considered non-Christian, and loss of influence were some of the reasons Walker shifted adherence between Pocomania, Presbyterianism, and Zion Revivalism. Shepherd Trashy, another Pocomania leader referred to by Hogg, operated in the parish of St. Catherine’s within the ambit of Walker’s group (Hogg 1964). Walker’s band was apparently a kind of centrifugal force around which other Pocomania bands, mainly in rural Jamaica, revolved. Within Pocomania, women’s status is to a large extent defined by its traditional, patriarchal, hierarchical leadership structure. Nevertheless, there are female leaders, called Mothers. Hogg identifies one such female leader, Chichi from Spanish

Pocomania Town, who suffered loss of prestige in a challenge with Shepherd Luther from Clarendon (Hogg 1964, 383). From the perspective of peasant religions, therefore, Pocomania served to keep Afro-Jamaicans close to their African roots. Pocomania is a classic illustration of the interface between myth, fable, religion, and the imagination in Afro-Jamaican religion. (Harris in Bundy 1999, 152–166). It is an important interpretive tradition within the set of Afro-Jamaican and Afrodiasporic religious traditions. It opens horizons of interpretation and consciousness that can be defined as gateways through which devotees experience insight into the human condition as they know it, experience individual and collective healing, and resolve identity and other conflicts. Focus on the Afrocentric core of Pocomania is critical to understand its role in the preservation and maintenance of African-diasporic humanity. It is also important to explore Pocomania’s relationship to other Afro-diasporic religions and the role that religion played in the survival of African-descended peoples in the New World. The Pocomania leader is a virtual shaman who plays a critical role in leading his followers through the gateway of consciousness into alternative realities. Since reality shifts, Pocomania will also because it is a valid mirror of the fluid Afro-diasporic experience in Jamaica. Concerning Pocomania’s future, George E. Simpson did not foresee an ‘‘early disappearance’’ of syncretistic revivalist cults in Jamaica. ‘‘Pure and reinterpreted Africanisms are deeply embedded, integral parts of the Pocomania-Revivalism-Obeah complex and they will last as long as revivalism lasts’’ (Simpson 1956, 401). For Seaga, it remained ‘‘to be seen whether the forces of social and economic change will either modify or obliterate the revival practices

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of a significant sector of the Jamaican population’’ (Seaga 1969, 9). To Simpson, who defined ‘‘Jamaican revivalism [as] an adjustive-escapist type of activity,’’ the future of Revivalism, including Pocomania, depended on two factors: first, changes ‘‘in the economic, educational, and social conditions of the lower-class population’’ in Jamaica, and second, on the increase or decrease in appeal of ‘‘functional alternatives as the established religious denominations, the Pentecostal sects, and the Ras Tafari movement’’ (Simpson 1956, 401). Jamaica’s history, especially since the independence era that began in the 1960s, validates the wisdom of these insights. An anatomy of Pocomania shows the integral relationship between religion and politics in Jamaica, an axiom well known to Jamaican politicians. The religiosity of Jamaican society is well known. Though the Revival tradition, including Pocomania, might not be numerically strong in the Caribbean island nation, there is no reason to doubt that it is an important aspect of the Jamaican religious and cultural landscape. Revivalism and Pocomania contribute to Jamaica’s religious distinctiveness. Revival churches can be found all over Jamaica, particularly in the deep rural areas and in the inner-city sections of the corporate Kingston–St. Andrews area. Watt Town in the Parish of St. Ann’s, the same parish out of which came Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley, is one of the most popular revival meeting places or pilgrimage sites. In addition to being a site to which Revivalists flock on a quarterly basis each year, Watt Town has become a kind of museum for the Revival tradition. At this location the various aspects of the tradition, Bible readings, the singing of hymns and choruses, trumping, dancing, spiritual

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possessions, healing, and prophecy, are there to be seen. Pocomania is therefore very much alive in Jamaica. Amongst other things, in Jamaica, which is almost 90 percent Black, it helps to keep Jamaicans rooted to their African ancestry and heritage. Pocomania’s influence transcends more than the narrow boundaries of religion, as it is usually understood. Its impact of Jamaican music, dance, art, and other forms of expressive culture is significant since Pocomania is a classic manifestation of the persistence of the African influence in Jamaican religion. Much of the vitality of Jamaican life and culture stems from the persistence and preservation of African religion and culture. It is therefore easy to imagine that this pattern will continue since Jamaica has been a major African Diasporic center for the preservation of African traditional religion and culture, as well as the site for the emergence of important African Diasporic religion and philosophy. Leslie R. James

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bundy, Andrew, ed. Wilson Harris: The Unfinished Genesis of the Imagination (London, New York: Routledge, 1999). Chevannes, Barry. Rastafari: Roots and Ideology (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1994). Erskine, Noel L. Decolonizing Theology: A Caribbean Perspective (Trenton, NJ, Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, 1998). Hogg, Donald W. ‘‘Jamaican Religions: A Study in Variations’’ (Graduate School of Yale University Dissertation in Anthropology, 1964). Nettleford, Rex M. Mirror, Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica (Kingston C.S.O., Jamaica: LMH Publishing Lim ited, 2001).

Seaga, Edward. Revival Cults in Jamaica: Notes Towards a Sociology of Religion. Reprinted from Jamaica Journal, Vol. 3:2 (Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Jamaica, June 1969) Simpson, George Eaton. Jamaican Revivalist Cults. Institute of Social and Economic Research Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 5:4 (Jamaica: University College of the West Indies, December 1956). Thelwell, Michael. The Harder They Come: A Novel (New York: Grove Press, 1988). Warner Lewis, Maureen. Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Time, Transforming Cultures (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2003).

PROGRESSIVE NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION, INC. Historical Development Founded at Zion Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 14–15, 1961, by 33 delegates from 14 states, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. (PNBC) has its immediate roots in the turbulent environment of the Civil Rights Movement and in the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (NBC USA). The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pivotal figure in each of the intertwined streams of thought and political activities. Dr. King’s concerns and the concerns of numerous others centered on two critical issues—first, the issue of term limits within the NBC USA (see entry ‘‘National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.’’), and second, the NBC USA’s engagement and active (or in this case lack of) participation in the Civil Rights Movement.

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MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (1929–1968) Born into a Baptist family in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929, Martin L. King Jr. received his education at Morehouse College and Crozer Theological Seminary, and he received his PhD from Boston University. He was central to helping to create the environ ment that led to the founding of the PNBC. King, while having been involved in church min istry, is best known as the central figure of the Civil Rights Movement. His work on behalf of civil rights would result in new legislation and new opportunities for African Americans and other oppressed groups. King’s activities would result in his receiving numerous honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal. His birthday is a national holiday.

The men who had held the presidency of the NBC USA generally stayed in that position until they died. At the time Joseph H. Jackson wrote and published his account of the history of the NBC USA, Inc. in 1980, for example, Jackson was one of only four men who had served as president of the organization established in 1895. Likewise, two of the three previous presidents had died in office, and this was the case despite the fact that the Convention’s bylaws called for annual elections. In 1952, the body amended this ‘‘governing’’ document to limit the annual reelection of the same president to no more than four consecutive terms and the requirement that if the maximum terms had been served, the same person would be eligible to run again only after vacating office for one year. This amendment had been proposed by a special study committee. Indeed, annual elections were supposed to apply to all leadership positions in the NBC USA. Ironically, Jackson had been the presiding officer of the 1952 convention session at the time of this constitutional revision, and he, in fact, announced the revised policy to limit the tenure of the presidency.

Some members of the Convention had become increasingly concerned that the leadership of the NBC USA was autocratic, given that one could be elected president of the Convention and remain in leadership of the organization indefinitely. This meant that the president could wield enormous power over the group and could position himself to maintain power and to limit what other leaders were able to accomplish within the Convention. In other words, some members of the NBC USA contended that President Joseph H. Jackson was dictatorial in his leadership style, that he did not rule by committee or consensus, but rather issued solitary edicts. They were also concerned that Jackson, in their opinion, was manipulative and not forthcoming about the business of the Convention and that financial management of the organization needed more oversight. That is, his word was law and was not subject to sufficient checks and balances by the members and churches of the Convention. One of the ways to undermine such authoritarian leadership, they believed, was to try to enforce term limits on the presidency, so that, by rule, the president would be able to stay in

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power for only a limited and defined extent of time. This issue of term limits, of course, was a contentious one because it was a direct affront and threat to President Jackson and the continuation of his leadership. Regardless of the policy of term limits that had been ostensibly enacted in 1952, Jackson was elected to his fifth consecutive term as president of NBC USA at the annual meeting of 1957. Later that year, ten ministers filed an initial law suit, charging that Jackson’s reelection had violated the organization’s constitution. Among those filing the suit were T. M. Chambers, W. H. Borders, L. K. Jackson, and Marshall Shepard. These men’s names would later appear during the birth and formation of the PNBC. The U.S. District Court ruled on the suit just prior to the 1958 Convention meeting, suggesting that Jackson was ‘‘the titular head of the largest Negro church organization in the world.’’ Details are scant about how the court arrived at such a decision despite the fact that the group’s bylaws apparently required term limits. Notwithstanding, it was clear that the lawsuit cemented the rupture between factions in the Convention. Undocumented historical accounts note, for instance, that some NBC USA members believed that those who had filed suit should apologize to the Convention before being fully restored. What this ‘‘restoration’’ entailed is not altogether clear. Likewise, if these were indeed the stipulations, no public apologies ever appear to have been issued, and strong disagreements remained among some of the members over the issue of the number of terms one could hold office. Tension about the issue of tenure grew among members of the NBC USA at subsequent annual Convention meetings

between 1959 and 1961. One plan was to unseat the then Convention president by vote—something that had never successfully occurred since its founding in 1895. In November 1959, a group of Convention ministers began meeting secretly to devise plans to nominate and support an alternative candidate for the presidency of the NBC USA, the oldest and largest national, black Baptist convention. By June 1960, the number of these conferees had grown to nearly 300. At their June meeting, this alternative leadership movement called upon Gardner C. Taylor, a member of the Board of Education of New York City, internationally noted preacher, and pastor of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, to allow his name to be placed in nomination at the September 1960 NBC USA Convention meeting in

Gardner C. Taylor, pastor of the Concord Baptist Church and a member of the New York City School Board, in August 1961. (Bettmann/Corbis)

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GARDNER C. TAYLOR (1918–) Taylor was born in Louisiana and entered church ministry early. He received his edu cation at Oberlin School of Theology. Taylor pastored several churches before moving to Concord Baptist Church, the pastorate that would bring him national attention. Some writers have credited Taylor as the founder of the Progressive National Baptist Church. However, the history as documented on the Convention’s Web site does not mention this. Correspondence related to the development of the denomination indicates that Taylor’s participation was highly sought in the new effort and clearly his name remains most prominent among the members of the ten pastors expelled from National Baptist Conven tion, USA Inc. Taylor, also known as the ‘‘Dean of black preaching,’’ is recognized as one of the greatest African American preachers of all time.

Philadelphia. Taylor was widely known for his ability as a gifted preacher and leader and for his ability to build meaningful relationships across religious traditions. The details of the 1960 meeting are disputed by various writers. Apparently, it was Martin Luther King Jr. who had nominated Taylor, but it is clear from all accounts that the dissenters mounted a massive disruption at the Convention. To that end, Jackson referred to their activities as a ‘‘sit-in’’ and compared their tactics to those used in the Civil Rights Movement. The men who would later be known as the ‘‘Taylor Team’’ failed in their attempt to unseat Jackson and to elect Taylor president. Sources often ignore the influence of Dr. King in the issues that led to the founding of the PNBC, not only in his nomination of Taylor but in the Civil Rights activities that led to some of the contention between King, the Taylor Team, and President Jackson. Dr. King desired to use the resources of the NBC USA in the struggle for African American civil rights, and he attempted to appeal to Jackson to make the Convention a more meaningful part of the movement. King thought

the Convention should either enter the Civil Rights Movement or meet its demise as irrelevant to the social conditions faced by the majority of black people in America. The second critical issue was that Dr. King and several prominent members of the Convention had become concerned that the president of the NBC USA and his position on social progress for African Americans was too conservative and laid an excessive amount of the responsibility for the improvement of race relations and quality of life on African American communities. In a philosophy that was reminiscent of Booker T. Washington’s appeal in his address to the Atlanta Exposition of 1895, President Jackson called on black people to focus on self-help and intraracial uplift rather than large public demonstrations and boycotts that were becoming the preferred method to effectuate social and political change. Jackson believed that such activity was un-American and inappropriate. Given the cumulative effects of Jackson’s philosophy and the tumultuous relationship between Jackson and those who wanted the organization to be more engaged with the Civil Rights Movement, the end of the 1961 meeting of the NBC

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USA signaled the end of Dr. King’s relationship with denomination. King and the others would hold a ‘‘March-In’’ during the 1961 Kansas City Convention. The ‘‘March-In,’’ as it was called, was the name given to the civil disobedience method meant to disrupt the Convention. Some suggest ‘‘confusion’’ began when Taylor supporters rushed the main platform, where the Convention leadership was seated, to fill seats that had been designated for denominational officers— positions to which they believed they had been legitimately elected at Philadelphia. In the end, the Convention Board of Directors removed Martin Luther King from his office as vice president responsible for the Congress of Christian Education. The Reverend Martin Luther King Sr., the father of Dr. King, and other officers and Board members associated with the Taylor Team were also reprimanded for their actions. A special meeting was called just two days after the ‘‘March In’’ (September 9, 1961). Apparently laying the blame for the crisis within the Convention on Dr. King, Jackson indicated that King Jr. was removed because he had caused disruption to the Convention by using civil disobedience tactics against NBC USA in 1959, 1960, and 1961. According to Jackson, King had used a ‘‘type of militant campaign against his own denomination and his own race’’ (Jackson 1980, 486). These events led directly to the founding of the PNBC. Given the vision for relevance and social equity that the PNBC founders wanted to create in its formation, it is also ironic that one of the main critiques leveled at the PNBC is that it is considered by some to be among the most elite of national black Baptist conventions. Even with fewer affiliated churches, the average PNBC

congregational size—approximately 1,000 members—was initially significantly higher and more middle class than that of its predecessor, the NBC USA. Writers have attempted to explain this disparity by pointing out that the difference in size and social class exists because the PNBC churches tended to be in urban areas rather than in rural locations whose churches tended to be smaller. One PNBC president, Bennett W. Smith (1995–1998), noted this difference and focused some of the Church’s outreach to rural congregations as part of his vision for a more inclusive Convention. Indicative of this concern for class difference, early key leadership of the Convention was often more highly educated than the majority of African American Baptist ministers. Famous members of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Incorporated (PNBC) have included Martin Luther King Jr., Gardner C. Taylor, Benjamin Mays, Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Louis Jackson, former NAACP President Benjamin Hooks, former U.S. Representative and President of the United Negro College Fund William Gray III, and U.S. Representative and founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus Walter E. Fauntroy.

Beliefs and Practices Consistent with other Protestant denominations, the PNBC believes in the notion of the Trinity—the belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit equally and together are the One God. Furthermore, as a Baptist denomination, PNBC churches teach the ‘‘brotherhood’’ of humankind by which human beings are related, and that followers of Jesus Christ will live eternally in heaven.

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BENJAMIN MAYS (1894–1984) Though he never served as an officer of the PNBC, Benjamin Mays was active in Baptist denominations and was an outspoken supporter of an educated clergy. Mays had been appointed to the team of observers who would oversee the ill fated 1960 NBC USA, Inc. election that would contribute to the departure of many ministers who would later serve the PNBC. Benjamin Elijah Mays is most noted for serving as the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Under his leadership, this private institution became the premier black men’s college in the United States. Among its most celebrated students and scholars were Martin Luther King Jr. and Howard Thurman. Mays was highly influential in the life of Dr. King, but before his tenure as Morehouse president, Mays was a scholar and administrator at the Howard Divinity School. In the late 1930s he co authored the sociological study, The Negro’s Church with Billy Nichols, and he wrote the influential book, The Negro’s God. A theological education fellowship was named for him in order to promote an educated black clergy.

The denomination maintains two sacraments or ordinances, that is, ritual practices they believe are sacred: water baptism and communion. Persons who attend PNBC member churches become eligible for baptism upon confession of their belief in Jesus Christ as God, who came to live on earth in human form. Jesus’ mission on earth was to demonstrate to humans how to live with one another as well as to allow himself to be killed in order to restore the relationship between God and humankind broken when humans disobeyed God while living in the Garden of Eden. The conversion experience in which the person confesses that he or she adheres to this belief often occurs in early adolescence or teenage years, although it is not unusual for the experience of conversion to be publicly confessed in adulthood or childhood. Baptism of the confessor is generally done by immersion into a pool or body of water such as a river or pond and is performed by an ordained minister—a person who has been authorized by officials of the

denomination. This ritual imitates the baptism of Jesus that was conducted by John the Baptist in the Jordan River and symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The other sacrament practiced by PNBC churches is communion. In this ritual, worshippers reenact a meal shared by Jesus and his disciples on the night he would be arrested by Roman soldiers. According to each of the gospels of the New Testament, Jesus broke a loaf of bread, served it along with wine to his 12 disciples, and instructed them to do the same in the future in remembrance of him. Accordingly, for PNBC churches, the bread represents Christ’s body. The wine represents his blood that flowed from his body when he was killed. PNBC churches believe that Jesus’ death was necessary to redeem human beings from sin, or transgression and ‘‘spiritual’’ separation from God. The PNBC has a strong belief in the priesthood of all believers, meaning that they support the notion that lay members,

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not just clergy, have a divine ministry to fulfill. To that end, the laity should rely on their faith as a foundation to guide them to the service that they are to provide other believers, members of their congregation, and society. The PNBC motto incorporates these theological positions in its thrust for ‘‘fellowship, service, progress, and peace.’’ In its formative years, leaders in this new National Baptist convention worked to avoid the types of disrespectful exclusion that many of them believed they had experienced as a result of challenging the leaders of their parent convention, the NBC USA, Inc. Inclusive fellowship was a practice meant to foster respect, deference, and spirit of collegiality and discourse in accordance with their belief that God has taken all believers into the same family, God’s family. Throughout the history of the PNBC, its presidents have emphasized various portions of this motto, but the commitment to racial progress for African Americans and ecumenism has always remained prominent. Progressive National Baptists pride themselves on their heritage of ministry that is intertwined with social progress. Data on the PNBC’s social teachings indicate that ‘‘progress’’ relates to a realized view of the future—that is, a constant and forward historical movement of ‘‘God’s revelation’’ that makes imperative Christian service to humanity. This notion served as the foundational basis for the birth of the PNBC, that it would be ‘‘progressive’’ and active in its social outlook and practices. Annual Convention agendas provide evidence of other PNBC social teachings. Ongoing agenda items include support of higher education and historically black colleges and universities, especially Shaw University in Raleigh, North

Carolina; Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia; Howard University Divinity School in Washington, D.C.; and Spelman College, Morehouse College, and the Interdenominational Theological Center, in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the areas in which the PNBC views itself as distinct from the NBC USA is with respect to women, who, unlike in their parent group, were invited to participate in the PNBC from its inception as seen in the initial press release calling for the formation meeting that included ‘‘men and women.’’ One woman, Mrs. Thelma Walton of Antioch Baptist Church in Cincinnati, is listed among the registered attendees at the November 1961 organizational gathering. The bylaws of the organization note that men and women are eligible to hold the office of president; however, no woman has served in that role to date. Women have provided leadership, however, in the Women’s Department and the Board of Christian Education and Publishing. Furthermore, being highly supportive of education, one of the first acts of service of gender inclusion was to garner support for the Nannie Helen Burroughs School in Washington, D.C. The school had been founded by its namesake, a long-time Baptist activist and corresponding secretary of the NBC USA Women’s Department during the early and mid-twentieth century. Its original purpose was to train women and girls for advancement rather than the domestic and servile employment of that era. It is now a private Christian elementary school. Albert Avant interviewed female leaders in the PNBC through the year 2000. Few women have noted gender inequality as an issue, and none made gender

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LAVAUGHN VENCHAEL BOOTH (1919–2002) Lavaughn Venchael Booth was born into poverty in rural Mississippi in 1919. He became acquainted with church at an early age. By the age of 17, Booth had decided to enter the ministry. He left his family to attend Alcorn A&M College. While there, he was on the debate team and was an itinerate preacher in the local area. In Atlanta, Booth attended the Wheat Street Baptist Church and worked under the tute lage of William Holmes Borders. Booth struggled financially, but completed one aca demic year at Gammon. He transferred to Howard University School of Religion in Washington, D.C. While in Washington, Booth accepted his first pastorate only to leave shortly thereafter to attend the University of Chicago Divinity School on scholarship. In addition to his theological education, L. V. Booth was trained in practical ministry while serving Chicago’s Olivet Baptist Church. By 1944, Booth had accepted a pastorate in nearby Gary, Indiana. He was active in the community and in the Baptist denomination. Eventually, he was called to the Zion Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was the pastor for over 30 years. He left Zion Baptist Church in 1984 and accepted the pas torate of Olivet Baptist Church. In 1990, he played a role in the founding of the Marva Collins Preparatory School, which began in the basement of Olivet Baptist Church.

issues a key part of their leadership agenda. Despite this fact, the convention has taken no official stance on the ordination of women as ministers. L. V. Booth appointed a committee to make a theological inquiry into the issue of women’s roles in ministerial leadership. (The issue was precipitated by the fact that former Women’s Auxiliary president Uvee Mdodana-Arbouin had begun preaching.) The committee determined only that congregations ordain ministers and preachers, and that this issue was deferred to local congregations. (The PNBC relies on a standard understanding of Baptist congregational polity, meaning that each local church determines its own perspective on governance matters and voluntarily associates with other churches and conventions.) Author William D. Booth interpreted this stance as an essential agreement that women could be called by God to preach. But Avant interprets the move less

generously, pointing to an L. V. Booth statement that indicates that the position on the ordination of women was much more politically motivated. The Convention may have failed to take a definite position on the issue because of its potentially inflammatory and divisive nature, which could divide the new and therefore vulnerable organization. Some leaders in the denomination have been more intentional in noting that sexism must be structurally rooted out of PNBC operations and strategies. The 1990s chair of the Goals Commission, Gary Simpson, successor to Gardner C. Taylor as pastor of Brooklyn’s Concord Baptist Church, is one PNBC leader who has been documented as much more vocal on the issue. Los Angeles pastor and late 1990s PNBC president Bennett W. Smith proactively appointed two women to his executive cabinet, namely, Rev. Ella Mitchell and Mrs. Brenda Little. Stephen C. Finley and Terri Laws

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Avant, Albert A., Jr. The Social Teachings of the Progressive National Convention, Inc., Since 1961 (New York & London: Routledge, 2004). Booth, William D. The Progressive Story: New Baptist Roots (St. Paul, MN: Braun Press, 1981). Booth, William D. A Call to Greatness: The Story of the Founding of the Progressive National Convention (Lawrenceville, VA: Brunswick Publishing Corporation, 2001). Fitts, Leroy. A History of Black Baptists (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1985). Jackson, Joseph H. A Story of Christian Activism: The History of the National

Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (Nashville: Townsend Press, 1980). Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke Univer sity Press, 1990). Paris, Peter J. Black Religious Leaders: Conflict in Unity (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991). Pinn, Anne H., and Anthony B. Pinn. Fortress Introduction to Black Church History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002). Washington, James Melvin. Frustrated Fellowship: The Black Baptist Quest for Social Power (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986).

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things European and the depreciation of African and Native cultures. African traditions are often pejoratively referred to as obeah (see entry ‘‘Obeah’’), a variant of the Ashanti term obayifo and the Twa term obeye, both of which refer to spiritual energy. Obeah practitioners used this energy to manipulate spiritual powers on behalf of themselves or others for physical, emotional, or social healing and protection. Caribbean colonial powers often used the term obeah to associate any African-based tradition with witchcraft, sorcery, and other types of harmful magic in the same way that ‘‘voodoo’’ is often used in American culture to denigrate an idea or practice. In both cases the term entered the culture as an easy way to discount an idea or practice by characterizing it as ignorant, primitive, or barbaric. In 1868 Trinidad passed a series of laws outlawing what the authorities saw as obeah. Rada practitioners were caught in this legal net; and although his sentence was eventually commuted, Papa Nanee was sentenced to jail time

Historical Development The term ‘‘Rada’’ refers to the people and spirits of the Arada region of the former Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa. In 1860, free Rada persons under the leadership of Abojevi Zahwenu (Robert Antoine), known as Papa Nanee, began to reproduce their Dahomean-based cultural traditions in Trinidad. Papa Nanee came to Trinidad around 1855 as a trained diviner and skilled herbalist in the traditions of Dahomey. In 1860 he was able to purchase a parcel of land in Belmont on the outskirts of Port of Spain and began to create a residential compound on Belmont Valley Road that eventually formed the center of Rada religious life on the island. Like many African-based religions, Rada was rejected and even persecuted by the dominant society. One of the consequences of colonialism throughout the Caribbean was the overvaluation of all 339

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ABOJEVI ZAHWENU (1800–1899) Abojevi Zahwenu, who adopted the French name Robert Antoine, was born in Whyda in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey about the year 1800. As a young man he served in the Dahomean army under the monarch Ghezo. He immigrated to Trinidad after both the abolition of slavery in 1833 and the apprenticeship system that followed. It is thought that he arrived in about 1855 as a 55 year old man. He was not a member of the Dahomean priestly caste but was an experienced bokono or diviner. He was held in great respect by his neighbors and became known as Papa Nanee. In 1868 he was able to buy a parcel of land and establish a compound where he could live with his family and establish the shrines necessary to perform ceremonies for the earth, sky, and thunder dei ties. He died in 1899 and was buried in the private cemetery within his compound.

and lashes. More laws were passed in 1921 prohibiting essential elements of African religious practice including public dance processions, singing and dancing in public or private yards, and drumming. It was not until the Black Power movement in the 1970s that these traditions were perceived as important contributions to the culture of the island. Unlike many other African-based traditions of the Caribbean, Rada has not expanded outside its homeland of Trinidad. Always small, the number of initiated Rada practitioners continues to be limited to members of Papa Nanee’s extended family and close neighbors. Today Rada practice is being replaced by the more popular Yoruba-based traditions.

Beliefs and Practices Although little is known of the rituals performed by Papa Nanee and his companions, we do know that his compound included a vodunkwe or ‘‘house of the gods’’ and numerous shrines. Rituals were performed according to a yearly cycle and new vodunsi or priests were regularly initiated. The compound survived Papa

Nanee’s death in 1899 and continues to exist into the twenty-first century, although it has been overshadowed by other Trinidadian African-based traditions. It appears that most potential Rada members have been absorbed into the more popular Orisha religion. The focus of Rada rituals is the deities known as vodu. The principal vodu include Dada Segbo, the creator deity; Dangbwe, a serpent deity; Elegba, the owner of the crossroads; Age, the patron of the hunt; Sakpata, an earth deity associated with smallpox; Ogu, the deity of iron; and Legba, the divine messenger. In addition, practitioners engage in a type of ancestor veneration. Significant rituals, known as vodunu, include food offerings and the sacrifice of common barnyard animals, divination, and the embodiment of the deities through the medium of trance possession. Often these celebrations are referred to as sacrifices because of the offerings made to the spirits to ask for blessings for one’s household, the health and well-being of children, and thanksgiving for past blessings. Although these rituals continue to be performed throughout the year, according to the Rada ritual calendar,

Rastafari their frequency has decreased significantly since the death of Papa Nanee. Mary Ann Clark

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Eastman, Rudolph, and Maureen Warner Lewis. ‘‘Forms of African Spirituality in Trinidad and Tobago.’’ African Spiritual ity: Forms, Meanings and Expressions, ed. Jacob K. Olupona (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2000), 403 15. Warner Lewis, Maureen. Trinidad Yoruba: From Mother Tongue to Memory (Tusca loosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1996).

RASTAFARI Historical Development Rastafari is an Afro-Jamaican religion that holds together Jamaican folk Christianity with pro-Africa perspectives inspired by Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Garvey articulated a vision of life for Afro-Jamaicans

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and people of African descent highlighting racial pride, race consciousness, and educational uplift. He challenged social inequality in Jamaica and insisted that as Jamaicans viewed reality through African lens racial pride and self-esteem would ensue. While Garvey insisted that AfroJamaicans view God and the world through the spectacles of Ethiopia, he never explicitly stated that God is black. Garvey said: If the white man has the idea of a white God, let him worship his God as he desires. If the yellow man’s God is of his race let him worship his God as he sees fit. We, as Negroes have found a new ideal. Whilst our God has no color, yet it is human to see everything through one’s own spectacles, and since the white people have seen their God through white specta cles, we have only now started out (late though it be) to see our God through our own spectacles. The God of Isaac and the God of Jacob let Him exist for the race that believes in the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. We Negroes believe in the

MARCUS MOSIAH GARVEY (1887–1940) Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the founder of the Back to Africa Movement, was the foremost prophet of black liberation in the early twentieth century. He taught that black Jamaicans, like the children of Israel, were captives in the white man’s land, and it was God’s will that they experience exodus. ‘‘Africa for Africans’’ was the essence of his cry for self awareness and liberation. Born in Jamaica August 17, 1887, he belonged to both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His central contribution to Jamaica and the rest of the African Diaspora was not only to keep Africa central in the consciousness of black people but to press black people in the Diaspora to clarify where they stand in relation to Africa. It is no secret that the unseen hand that guided Rastafari from its initial impulse was that of the Jamaican visionary Marcus Garvey. His emphasis on Africa as an organizing principle and his insist ence that black people view God through the lens of Ethiopia was decisive in shaping Ras tafari thought and practice. Wherever Garvey went he bemoaned the plight of black people. Garvey felt that he could help change occur by creating the Universal Negro Improvement Association with chapters in strategic locations.

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Rastafari God of Ethiopia . . . . We shall worship him through the spectacles of Ethiopia. (Garvey 1974, 44)

In spite of such pronouncement, Garvey was not radical enough for the Rastas. Garvey was not willing to identify God with a black man in Ethiopia. The Rastas understood that there was a theological and spiritual basis for the poor self-esteem and the loss of racial pride that afflicted Afro-Jamaicans. They understood that there was a correlation between construing God as white or colorless and having poor self-esteem. The main problem as the Rastas understood it was not that Afro-Jamaicans saw God as colorless, as Garvey implied, but that they saw God as white. The implication was that they interpreted themselves in the light of a white ideal. The Rastas turned this around by seeing God as a black man, the emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I. This reversed the anthropological implication and gave them permission to revalue and view themselves in the light of the divine image of blackness (Owens 1995, 57–63). If Garvey’s insistence that AfroJamaicans look to Ethiopia was one of the triggers that led Rastas to construct a new social reality in Jamaica, the other was the coronation of Ras Tafari as emperor of Ethiopia in November 1930. Ras Tafari who assumed the name Haile Selassie I (‘‘Might of the Trinity’’) claimed that he was a descendant of the biblical King David through the union of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Haile Selassie’s titles include King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah. These titles anchored the new emperor in the

Judeo-Christian tradition and allowed the Rastas to look to Ethiopia and the new emperor for deliverance from the harsh conditions and grinding poverty that confronted them in Jamaica. The Rastas felt that what was being signified in Garvey’s prophecy and the coronation of an African emperor was nothing less than the death pangs of colonial rule in Jamaica and the signal for black people to repatriate to Africa. A new theology emerged on Jamaican soil as four followers of Marcus Garvey— Leonard Howell, Robert Hinds, Archibald Dunkley, and Joseph Hibbert— preached that the new emperor was the incarnation of Jah (Rastafari’s name for God). According to these founding fathers, the new emperor was the messiah who had come to liberate Africans and people of African descent everywhere. In the early years, the tenets of the new teaching were clear: Haile Selassie I was the black Christ and black people everywhere shared in his divinity. Furthermore, redemption came only through repatriation to the homeland of Ethiopia— the ‘‘New Zion.’’ In light of this final point, the central question highlighted during this early period of the tradition’s formation was short and to the point: Where do you stand in relation to Africa? Howell held his first public meetings on the subject of ‘‘Ras Tafari, King of Abyssinia’’ in Kingston, Jamaica, during January 1933; but, failing to attract the community of followers he had hoped for, he shifted the center of his activities to St. Thomas where he made his earliest converts. And it was there, after a meeting held in Trinityville on April 18, 1933, that he attracted the attention of authorities when he urged the audience to sing the national anthem, but pointed out that before they sang, they should

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ROBERT HINDS Robert Hinds, a Garveyite, was the most successful of the early Rastas. At one time his ‘‘King of Kings Mission’’ numbered over 800 adherents. Hinds was also closely related to the early revivalist Alexander Bedward and worked closely with Leonard Howell. Hinds was able to merge Revivalist and Rastafari principles. At the King of Kings Mission there were fasts, feasts, and baptisms these practices remembered Revivalism. Women also outnumbered men, which was also a carryover of the Revivalist faith. Rastafari as practiced by Hinds indicates that in the early years the place of women in the movement was not an issue. In both Howell’s and Hind’s communities, women were key players. One area in which Hind’s mission differed from the Revivalist community was that he established a court for hearing grievances internal to the mission. Related to the court were seven security guards who were charged with the safety of the meetings who also served as members of the court. Hind’s version of Rastafari thrived because on the one hand it provided continuity with Revivalism and on the other hand it signaled a forging with new practices and beliefs.

remember that they are not singing for King George V, but for Ras Tafari, our new king (Edmonds 2003, 36–40). It is important to note elements in the social context that provided fertile ground for the new teaching. There was a widening gap between rich and poor. Key resources were owned by foreigners, and a handful of white people were in charge of the society. The masses of

black people were at the bottom of the society. The country was in the grip of high unemployment and poor housing, and there were many malnourished children. The people revolted against these atrocities in 1938. The revolt began with the field workers—those who worked on the sugar estates—but very soon they were joined by workers in factories, sanitation workers, and dock workers.

JOSEPH N. HIBBERT (1894–1985) Hibbert was born in 1894 and died in 1985. Raised a Baptist, at the age of 17 Hibbert migrated to Costa Rica, where he lived for 20 years. There he became a member of the Ancient Order of Ethiopia, a Masonic Lodge. Upon his return to Jamaica, Hibbert began preaching a message that drew from his association with the Ancient Order of the Ethiopian Masonic Lodge and Ethiopian Orthodoxy, and that related to Haile Selassie, whom he proclaimed was more than a political leader. Hibbert proclaimed Selassie divine. He became a significant figure in the Rastafarian Movement in Jamaica. Hibbert’s fascination with the secrets of the Bible, which were hidden by the clergy from the wider society, and his embodying a sense of dread as a ‘‘scientist’’ steeped in the ‘‘occultism’’ for which the Ethiopian Coptic League was known certainly set him apart. From this perspective, Hibbert tapped into a culture of magic and redemption made pos sible by practitioners of African medicine and culture. One reason for the decline of Hibbert’s approach to Rastafari is that Hibbert did not pass on his secrets to new initiates.

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Eventually, the colonial powers with the help of former Prime Ministers Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley were able to quell the revolt. Rastas did not participate in the uprising. They did not join the masses in blocking roads, wielding machetes, and disrupting the infrastructure. They regarded Jamaica as Babylon and did not believe that Babylon could be transformed. (For Rastas ‘‘Babylon’’ points to oppressive social and political conditions of Jamaica.) Instead, they focused on talk about repatriation to Ethiopia, where Haile Selassie I would provide redemptive space for the healing of black people. The theological and philosophical basis for this position is that Jamaica, which is enmeshed in the ‘‘Babylonian system’’ must be destroyed as it is not capable of transformation. Based on such reasoning, it is not surprising that toward the end of the 1930s Howell and his group retreated to Sligoville and founded Pinnacle, a commune in the hills in St. Catherine, where they received a respite from the harassment of police brutality. Howell called his newfound community the ‘‘Ethiopian Salvation community’’ (Barrett 1997, 68–102). The second phase of the movement begins with the issuance of the University Report. The government of Jamaica asked three academics from the University of the West Indies to undertake a study of the movement. The study, which in many respects was sympathetic to Rastafari, sought to help Jamaicans rethink policies and perceptions of Rastafari. The report pointed out that there were vast cleavages in Jamaican society, many of which were caused by the colonial education system. The system trained the middle class, who had matriculated through the secondary

school system, to view Jamaica through European eyes. This placed the middle class on a collision course with Rastafari, who viewed life through Afrocentric lenses. The University Report helped middle class Jamaica see that the Rastas were not as unpatriotic as they had originally thought. Their desire to repatriate to Ethiopia was presented as not unJamaican but rather was likened to migration of middle-class Jamaicans in search of their destinies. The issuing of the report two weeks after it was commissioned began the process of middleclass Jamaicans attempting to accommodate Rastafari as a way of life. The report helped the wider society understand that the desire to physically move to Ethiopia was fueled in part by the lack of an infrastructure in Rasta communities. The University Report accomplished two objectives. First, it signaled a rapprochement between Rastas and the wider society, with the university serving as broker. Second, it gave the Rastas a stake in Jamaica as the report called on the government to provide employment, housing and other necessities to rehabilitate Rastas into Jamaican society (Edmonds 2002, 84–88). It is reasonable to believe Rastas were never passive, sitting on the margins of Jamaican society waiting for change. They continued to threaten the colonial system—Babylon—and critique the educational and church establishments that they considered oppressive. However, it was not until after the University Report that they began to consider the Africanization of Jamaica. Although Ethiopia was their spiritual home, they lived in Jamaica and now had a vested interest in their homeland. They began in practice to parallel the approach of some Christian churches that regard heaven as their

Rastafari home but must come to grips with the reality that they live on earth. While they had not given up on Ethiopia, in the meantime they lived in Babylon. Rastafari began to move from being only a millenarian community to one that would work for social change. The third stage in the development of the movement is marked by the advent of reggae lyrics and the creation of the ‘‘Twelve Tribes’’ of which Bob Marley was a member. With the national embrace of reggae, Rastas became bearers of the cultural heritage of Jamaica. Reggae music remembered Africa and used African history as a tool for the liberation of oppressed Jamaica. Learning from Rastas, reggae artists used their experience of suffering and victimization as the prism through which to criticize Jamaica as Babylon and to work for social change in Jamaica. No one understood better the heartbeat of the Jamaican people than Bob Marley, who had spent many years as a youth in one of the harshest ghettoes of western Kingston, Trench Town. Marley became a member of the Twelve Tribes along with several women, Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt, and Minnie Phillips among others. Through Twelve Tribes many women found a home in Rastafari (Marley 2004, 116–124).

Beliefs and Practices The twin concepts of the divinity of Haile Selassie and the redemption of black people—the sons and daughters of God—have distinguished Rastafari from other Afro-Caribbean movements that seek to promote an awareness of black consciousness. It must be kept in mind that the discourse concerning the divinity of Haile Selassie I and the claims

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concerning biblical warrants that justify their positions are made in the sociopolitical context in which the vast majority of Rastas are at the base of the social and economic ladder. The unwillingness to accept spirit possession within the movement and the sense that Rastafari was driven by a strong sense of the divinity of Haile Selassie came to full flowering in the life and ministry of Archibald Dunkley. He was clear that Rastafari was to be differentiated from the practices of the Revivalists. Spirit possession was a central element in Revivalist teaching and practice but not in Dunkley’s version of Rastafari. While it is clear that Rastafari borrowed Revivalist practices such as chanting, drumming, and dancing, it is also clear that Dunkley did not deem dancing in the spirit as a central tenet of Rastafari. Rastafari, like Revivalists, believed in the Bible. For Rastafari, the category of blackness—both in relation to their messiah and in relation to themselves—functions as an interpretive key; for the Revivalists, the key was the power and presence of the spirit. Rastas’ practice of ‘‘I-and-I consciousness,’’ or an awareness of the link between God and the divinity of black people, which is the result of a new awakening of the self, results in a high anthropology that contradicts the ‘‘anthropological poverty’’ that was the lot of Rastas before the awareness of this new consciousness. For Rastas the mark of anthropological poverty in Babylon is the need to look to authorities outside the self, the tendency to deprecate self and to marginalize self as was typical in colonial and neocolonial Jamaica. The mark of anthropological poverty is to associate blackness and Africanness with bondage, psychological dependency, and the spirit of victimization. The practice

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of I-and-I consciousness breaks this cycle of poverty as through the process of Jah indwelling the self a new collective self emerges—a new self in terms of collaboration and cooperation. This is the basis for a unifying context for Rasta ideology, theology, and organization. A Rasta never loses his or her Africanness, and this is what makes it possible to survive life in Babylon. It is this Africanness that provides the interpretive and unifying key in which doctrine, lifestyle, and organizational ethos are mediated. Rastas seek in their living to preserve a rhythm between themselves and nature. Nature is closely related to the power of Jah (God) and as such demands respect from everyone. Rastas proceed at a very local level to advocate that streams are not polluted and that pesticides and chemical waste are not buried in Mother Earth. But there is also a sense in which nature expresses the will of Jah. Nature is not merely neutral; it is the vehicle of Jah’s judgment. There are times when, as Rastas press for justice, they call on nature to embody the word. Often as judgment is pronounced on Babylon or the agents of Babylon, they will call on nature to assist: ‘‘may lightning and thunder strike the downpressors’’ (‘‘downpressor’’ is the Rasta term for

Rastafari men play drums, Jamaica. (Bojan Brecelj/Corbis)

oppressor). Closely related with Rastas’ organic view of human beings’ relationship with Mother Earth is their understanding of natural living. Natural living does not mean to live naturally but to live in an awareness of the organic relationship between human beings and Mother Earth. The way of wholeness is to live in harmony with the principles of creation. Everything is given in Mother Earth for sustenance, healing, and wholesome living. Emerging from this notion that the earth is sacred and that it provides everything for human beings’ wholeness and healing is the concept of ‘‘Ital living.’’ ‘‘Ital’’ means related to the earth— one with nature, of the earth. ‘‘Livity’’ is to live according to the strict principles of Rastafari. This is one way in which Rastas differentiate their lives from those lived in Babylon. One can easily identify the ways of Babylon. For example, the people who embrace the Babylonian way of life use tobacco, alcohol, synthetic materials, and chemically treated foods. Rastas warn against the use of manufactured foods, especially canned foods, as they contend that these foods are made by the Babylonian authorities to destroy the minds of Black people. Most Rastas try to adhere to a vegetarian lifestyle—rarely eating meat and prohibiting the consumption of pork, shellfish, and scaleless fish. Closely related to the notion of ital living is herbal healing and the role of ganja (marijuana). Rastas believe that Jah chooses to reveal God-self to human beings through herbs. Herbs, they contend, are intended for the healing of the nations, and if a people will seek to understand Jah it is through the use of herbs. And chief among these is ganja. Rastas who are versed in the Bible cite Genesis 1:29 to provide biblical warrants

Rastafari for their use of the ‘‘holy herb’’: ‘‘And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.’’ Another text that underscores their use of ganja is Revelation 22:2: ‘‘the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nation.’’ Using Scripture for their own ends, Rastas suggest that even God enjoys smoking by citing Psalm 18:18: ‘‘There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.’’ Because Rastas live in a fractious society that is divided by inequalities of class, economics, and privilege, they contend that in this society the smoking of ganja is for the healing of the nation. For Rastas, smoking ganja is the medium of contemplation, inspiration, and insight. Through this sacrament they are able to plumb the depths of wisdom and discover the revelation of God that is given to reason. Smoking the herb intensifies the reasoning process and opens up new worlds of illumination, visions, and enlightenment. In the 1950s and 1960s there were clashes between Rastas and the police, and in each instance the public claimed that the confrontation was caused by Rastas smoking ganja. This perception changed in the 1970s and 1980s as the public came to better understand Rastas. It was discovered that Rastas were peace-loving people and that much of the conflict with the police was caused by others in the society posing as Rastas. The difference in perception came as many Rastas began to make it into middle-class Jamaica and as ganja use in Jamaican society began to be demystified. The smoking of the herb is a deeply religious ritual. Rastas concoct a pipe

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specifically for the smoking of ganja that is called the chalice. Before the smoking begins, the pipe is blessed and prayer is offered to Jah. Through the smoking of ganja Rastas attain I-and-I consciousness, which is regarded as a fusing of the experience of the individual and Jah. Rastas insist that ganja smoking assists them in praying, contemplating, reasoning, and exposing the trickery of Babylon. There is the potential for conflict between Rastas and the government that has made the smoking of this herb illegal. Rastas attest to the sacramental value of the herb and its potential for awakening mind and spirit; the government prosecutes for possession of it What has been described thus far is within the context of a patriarchal worldview. However, Obiagele Lake questions how a community such as Rastafari that purports liberation for African peoples could advocate male dominance, hence the subjugation of women (Lake 1998). Lake contends that the immediate answer is that the subordination of women in Rastafari parallels that of women in the larger Jamaican and Caribbean context. Furthermore, Obiagele claims that Rastafari is at its very core a patriarchal movement that looks to the Bible, especially to the Old Testament, for its structure and philosophy. The Bible is often used in Rastafari to validate the subordination of women, and because this way of life in which women accede to male privilege is also practiced by many Christian churches and has a foothold in Jamaican culture, many people—including Caribbean scholars—are reluctant to criticize. Maureen Rowe, herself a Rasta woman, agrees with Obiagele Lake that Rastafari is essentially a patriarchal religion (Rowe 1998). She is able to nuance

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her assessment with a historical profile of women’s relationship to the movement and their impact on the movement. Because Rastafari emerged from a long line of African religious experiences, Rowe argues that to understand the role of women in Rastafari one needs to pay attention to how African patriarchy functions in the Caribbean, over and against European patriarchy. European patriarchy is based on wealth. In this setting, male authority has a direct connection to wealth. In the European construct of male authority, the male is the chief breadwinner; if the female works, she does so in order to support the male. In instances where the male does not work or makes less than the female, the male is emasculated. Maleness and authority are related to wealth. However, in African patriarchy maleness is the source of authority. The African male is expected to wield power in the family by virtue of being male. It is clear from both perspectives that women are not the equal of men in Rastafari. The male in Rastafari is the representative of His Imperial Highness Haile Selassie I. The woman’s role approximates that of the Empress, in relation to Emperor Haile Selassie I. Both scholars assert that Rastas need to become aware of the importance of releasing women from the shackles of second-class citizenship and subjugation within Rastafari. The hope for a breakthrough in terms of the place of women in Rastafari cannot be modeled in terms of the relationship between His Imperial Highness and his Empress but in terms of the relationship with Jah who indwells Rastas and allows them to view the world, including their relationship with women from a different place. This new place from which they view the world is

not Babylon. It is ‘‘Zion,’’ or ‘‘Ethiopia,’’ the place in Rasta theology where the ways and practices of Babylon have no currency. This new vantage point means that they cannot relate to others, be they men or women, along the traditional lines of Babylon. The practice of I-and-I consciousness places each Rasta, whether male or female, in a direct relationship with Jah. There is a liberating individualism that is pervasive of Rastafari thought and practice. Each Rasta is encouraged to forge a personal relationship between self and His Imperial Highness, Haile Selassie I. There is no set format dictating or governing how one may pray or worship Jah (God). Prayer and worship even if done communally is at its core a personal relationship between the individual Rasta and Jah. There are some Rastas from the Bobo community in Jamaica who prefer to worship on Friday evenings and on Saturdays. Drums are the preferred musical instruments. There are important celebrations that are important for Rastas such as the celebration of Haile Selassie’s birth date and in more recent years that of Bob Marley’s in Ethiopia. These occasions are referred to as ‘‘Nyabinghi,’’ the coming together of Rastas from many places for celebration. These meetings are comparable to a synod or convention, and often last for a week. There are no formal requirements for membership in Rastafari faith. Anyone may become a Rasta. Entry to Rastafari is usually signaled by a new awareness of one’s relationship to Jah (God). This relationship between the individual and Jah allows each Rasta to claim divinity, and it is this new sense of self, I-and-I consciousness, that constitutes authority.

Rastafari While the Bible (usually the King James Version) is an important text for Rastas, it is not the main source of authority. Each Rasta, because of his or her relationship to Jah, constitutes the primary source of authority. Noel Leo Erskine

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Barrett, Leonard. The Rastafarians (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1997). Chevannes, Barry. Rastafari: Roots and Ideology (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Uni versity Press, 1995). Edmonds, Ennis Barrington. Rastafari: From Outcasts to Culture Bearers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Erskine, Noel Leo. From Garvey to Marley: Rastafari Theology (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007).

Garvey, Amy Jacques, ed. Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, vol. 1 (New York: Atheneum, 1974. Lake, Obiagele. Rastafari Women: Subordi nation in the Midst of Liberation Theology (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1998). Lewis, Rubert. Marcus Garvey (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998). Makeda, Barbara, and Blake Hannah. Rastafari: The New Creation (Kingston, Jamaica: Headstart Publishers, Ltd., 1980). Marley, Rita. My Life with Bob Marley: No Woman No Cry (New York: Hyperion Books, 2004). Owens, Joseph. Dread: The Rastafarians of Jamaica (Kingston, Jamaica: United Co operative Printers Ltd., 1995). Rowe, Maureen. ‘‘Gender and Family Rela tions in Rastafari: A Personal Perspective.’’ Chanting Down Babylon, ed. Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane (Philadel phia: Temple University Press, 1998).

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S SANTERÍA

developed in Cuba in the early to midtwentieth century as an alternative to the then-common designation ‘‘brujerı´a’’ or witchcraft. ‘‘Santerı´a’’ is a Spanish word that in a nonreligious context refers to the place where statues of saints are made or sold. In the religious context it generally is translated ‘‘way of the saints’’ although ‘‘saints’’ here refers not to the holy people of Christian traditions but to the ‘‘holy beings’’ of this tradition known as the Orisha. At the time the name was popularized, ‘‘Santerı´a’’ was considered to be a less disparaging designation; however, over time it has acquired many of the negative connotations of ‘‘brujerı´a.’’ In addition, many practitioners in the United States want to de-emphasize the tradition’s Cuban heritage and valorize instead its Africanness. They prefer such terms as ‘‘Lukumi,’’ which was the name given to the Yoruba-speaking people by their neighbors and may come from a phase meaning ‘‘my friend’’; ‘‘Orisha religion,’’ which focuses on the deities of the tradition; or ‘‘Yoruba Traditional

Historical Development Santerı´a is the common name for a group of religious traditions that developed in the nineteenth century in Cuba and continues to develop in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Based primarily on the religious traditions of the Yoruba people who inhabited the southwestern portion of contemporary Nigeria and the southeastern portion of Benin, this tradition has maintained its open, flexible, and incorporative response to new environments. Although Santerı´a is the most familiar name among outsiders, many practitioners find it offensive and prefer to call the tradition Lukumi (or Lucumi), Orisha religion, Yoruba Traditional religion, or Regla de Ocha. Each of these names carries certain social and political connotations. The name ‘‘Santerı´a’’ was

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Santerı´a altar in Trinidad, Cuba. (James Emery)

Religion,’’ which focuses instead on the people who developed it. Among Spanish-speaking and Spanish-identified practitioners ‘‘Regla de Ocha,’’ a mixed Spanish-Yoruba construction that means ‘‘rule or order of the Orisha,’’ is the legitimate name of the tradition. ‘‘Orisha tradition’’ tends to be the least politically

weighted of the names and is a commonly used designation among African American practitioners. The Yoruba people living in contemporary Nigeria are the largest ethnic group in Sub-Saharan Africa and one of the most politically powerful groups in the country of Nigeria. As early as the

REMIGIO HERRERA/ADECHINA (OBARA MELLI) (C. 1811–JANUARY 27, 1905) Remigio Herrera/Adechina arrived in Cuba as a young man in 1833 to work the plan tation of Don Miguel Antonio Herrera in Nueva Paz near Havana. He was instrumental in the founding of the Cabildo of Yemaya or Cabildo of the Virgin of Regla in the city of Regla together with Filmento Garcı´a (Atanda´) and Juan el Cojo (An ˜ abı´) in the early 1800s. The cabildo continued, probably as a house cabildo until 1947. He is thought to have brought Ifa to Cuba from his home in Africa. He was a leading babalawo of the nineteenth century and initiated many of the second generation of Cuban babalawo.

Santería fifteenth century, the people of the city of Oyo had developed one of the many powerful empires that arose along the western coast of Africa. By the eighteenth century, however, civil wars brought many Yoruba-speaking captives to the coastal cities where they were taken by the European slavers who plied those waters looking for workers for the sugar fields of the Caribbean. During the height of the Cuban slave trade, between 1850 and 1870, over a third of the captives brought to the island were members of this ethnic group. Although the majority of the peoples brought to Cuba during this time were destined to work the sugar fields of central Cuba, the Yoruba were highly prized as domestic workers and artisans. Consequently, many of them ended up in the capital city of Havana. There, under the authority of the Catholic Church and the Spanish government they were able to form the social clubs and mutual aid societies known as cabildos. The earliest of these cabildos were formed around the ethnic identities of their members, giving the people a place to gather together with others with their same language and cultural background. These cabildos were intended by the Catholic clergy to serve as sites of guided syncretism that would bring AfroCubans into mainstream Catholicism through cultural assimilation. However, the cabildos allowed the people to maintain many of their own cultural traditions, including the traditions of drumming and dancing so vital to the maintenance of their own religious practices. After Cuba gained its independence from Spain in 1898, the cabildos were placed under more and more repressive rules and regulations. It appears that at this time African-based religious activities were moved from the cabildos to

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private homes of the religious leaders and practitioners, where they continued, albeit in a more clandestine manner. Although the majority of the Cubans who fled the island in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the wake of the revolution led by Fidel Castro were members of the middle and upper classes who tended to have more Spanish than African racial heritage, many found solace in the AfroCuban religious traditions of their homeland. Many who had not been involved in these traditions in Cuba began to participate and were initiated after their arrival in the United States. Major centers of Orisha religion developed in Miami and the New York/New Jersey areas that were the homes of many Cuban ex-patriots. There were some practitioners in the United States before this time including the babalawo Francisco (Pancho) Mora who came in 1946 and the Cuban-born Mercedes Noble who was initiated in 1958. The first African American from the United States to be initiated was Walter Serge King, who later took the name Oseijeman Adefunmi. King, along with Christopher Oliana, was initiated in Matanzas Province, Cuba, in 1959. He had already been immersed in African culture as a dancer in the Katherine Dunham Dance Company and as a student of the Afro-Haitian religion of Vodou as well as ancient Egyptian religion. He was learning the African trade language of Swahili and had established the Order of Damballah Hwedo in Harlem. It was the discovery of the Orisha through his friend Oliana, however, that gave him his most important connection to the African homeland and eventually his life’s work. After his return from Cuba he established a series of Orisha-centric organizations in the New York City area. However, his

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religious practice soon became more and more entwined with the Black Nationalist movement of the time, much to the chagrin of his Cuban religious elders who viewed Cuba, rather than West Africa, as the primary home of the Orisha and their religion. Eventually Adefunmi broke with the Cuban religious community and founded his own religious lineage. Because he felt that African Americans needed to separate themselves from mainstream American culture, in 1970 he founded Oyotunji Village in Beaufort County, South Carolina (see entry ‘‘Oyotunji African Village’’). Oyotunji Village (the name means ‘‘Oyo returns’’) was designed to be the reincarnation of the great Yoruba city of Oyo on American soil. In 1972 Adefunmi was initiated into the Ifa priesthood in Nigeria and later that year was proclaimed the Oba (king) of the Village. Until his death in 2005, Adefumni led the Village in its effort to create an authentically African ‘‘kingdom’’ within the confines of the United States. Although the actual population of the Village has always been small, it has had a major effect on the face of Orisha worship in the United States and abroad due to the large number of priests and priestesses who were initiated into Adefunmi’s lineage. The Orisha traditions are experiencing an explosive growth in the United States as more and more people are exposed to the beliefs and practices. This is especially true in the African American community where many people find solace in a religious tradition based on the cultures of their ancestors. Oyotunji Village has been an important factor in the promotion of these traditions among African Americans but there are many other religious houses throughout the nation whose members are

exclusively or primarily African American. As more and more non-Latino African Americans have become involved in these traditions, they have moved the practices away from Cuban and back to ostensibly African forms. Some devotees have traveled to Nigeria to meet with contemporary Yoruba practitioners and to bring back rituals that did not make the original journey to the Americas in the nineteenth century. As the religion moves into mainstream America, there is also pressure to create institutions modeled on the dominant Protestant religious form of church organization. Groups like Church of the Lucumı´ Babalu Aye (CLBA) are being formed to present a familiar face to the larger community. These groups are applying for and getting ‘‘church’’ status from the U.S. government so that they can stand together with other religious organizations. Because the church rather than the religious family forms the basis of these organizations, they are changing the internal structure of their groups. Now the imposition of a structure that follows the model of a church governed by one or more ministers and a board of directors will change the overall power dynamics within these groups, and between them and other, more traditional Orisha communities there is still an open question that will only be answered as the Orisha traditions continue to grow and develop in the twentyfirst century.

Beliefs and Practices The basic beliefs and practices of Orisha religion in the United States are based on the cosmology that the Yoruba people brought with them to Cuba. In this worldview the cosmos is singular. There is no

Santería this world and another world but simply a single world with both visible and invisible elements. The visible elements include living people, plants, animals, rocks, stars, rain, the ocean, everything that can be perceived by the basic senses. The invisible world includes both those who have died and those waiting to be born, the Orisha, and the great God Olodumare. Sometimes the visible world is call Aiye, often translated as ‘‘earth,’’ while the invisible world is called Orun, ‘‘sky or heaven.’’ But it is important to understand that Orun is not some other place out there but merely the invisible portion of the cosmos. Aiye and Orun are merely the two pieces that form the whole of the cosmos. Holding this cosmos together is a form of energy known as ashe´. Everything, visible and invisible, contains some portion of this energy. By learning to recognize and control this energy, Orisha priests can learn to maintain the balance and order of their little portion of the universe. Ashe´ is a dynamic force that is always in motion, constantly changing so the balance and order of the universe as a whole is more like a tightrope walker with continuous subtle movements that allow him to maintain his equilibrium than the balance of a rock firmly embedded in the earth. When a portion of the cosmos is out of balance, people experience emotional, physical, or economic disorder. By manipulating ashe´ Orisha priests can help individuals bring their lives back into the balance that is most in line with their destiny. Drumming and dancing are important in this tradition because they both express the fundamental dynamism of ashe´ and enable practitioners to use their ashe´ to communicate with the Orisha, the deities of this tradition.

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One of the ways devotees come to understand the workings of ashe´ is by personifying it in the form of Olodumare and the Orisha. Olodumare, the great god of this tradition is the chief source of all power in the cosmos. As the God behind the lesser gods, Olodumare is beyond human comprehension and outside all of our categories. However, ashe´ is not everywhere the same; rather it collects and forms into nodes of power called the Orisha. The Orisha are multidimensional beings that represent forces of nature (for example, wind, ocean, thunder), act as religious archetypes (for example, mothers, fathers, kings, warriors), and function as sacred patrons or ‘‘guardian angels.’’ As knowable aspects of Olodumare, the personification of the ashe´ of the cosmos, the Orisha represent powers that can be approached through religious ritual. The Orisha form the religious pantheon and ritual focus of Yoruba religious practice. They have stories and attributes similar to those used to describe the deities of other traditions. According to the mythology there are innumerable Orisha, and in Yorubaland there are many Orisha who are only worshipped in limited geographic areas. Among American devotees the most commonly worshipped are Eleggua, Ogun, Ochosi, Osun, Obatala, Shango, Agayu, the Ibeji, Orula, Yemaya, Oshun, Obba, Oya, Olokun, Inle and Abata, Osain, and Babaluaye and his family. Each of these Orisha is known by its stories in the mythology. Each has a special number, color, favorite foods, drum rhythm, and dance step. As forces of nature and religious archetypes, each governs a portion of the natural and built environment as well as different areas in the lives of devotes. On altars and other religious displays and in artwork they

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can be recognized by the icons and other objects associated with them. Everything in the natural and manufactured world can have an Orisha association, so as new items enter the culture they are often given Orisha associations. Thus some practitioners associate computers and the Internet with either Ogun (the owner of technology) or Eleggua (the trickster and owner of communications). In addition to Olodumare and the Orisha, the invisible world also includes the spirits of those who have died and those awaiting rebirth. The ancestors are believed to be reborn into their own family lineages. Thus the living, the dead, and those waiting to be born form a continuous chain between the visible and invisible realms. Among the Yoruba and their religious descendants, rebirth is considered a positive experience rather than a punishment for past lives. Life in the visible world is considered a good and welcome experience, and through the process of reincarnation people can return again and again to enjoy the pleasure of the visible world. Thus it is life in the here and now that is important and much religious effort is aimed at providing devotees and others with the full, happy, and productive lives they deserve. These ideas are embodied in their ideas of destiny. According to Yoruba mythology, when someone is ready to be born he or she kneels before Olodumare and chooses or is given a destiny for this lifetime. One’s destiny includes one’s intelligence, competence, personal limitations, and capacity for self-defense. It includes the general outline of one’s life, when and to whom one will be born, when and how one will die, and the broad sweep of one’s life. Although one chooses or accepts one’s destiny, one must embrace the Tree of Forgetfulness on

one’s way to birth and thus is born ignorant of the destiny one has chosen. However, the Yoruba people do not believe in a strong, unalterable destiny. Rather, they believe that one can modify one’s destiny for better or for worse. Through one’s own action and with the help of one’s religious elders and the Orisha, one can soften a difficult destiny or enhance a fortunate one. On the other hand, if one refuses to engage one’s legs (industry) and brain (intellect), even the best destiny will remain dormant. Character, industry, sacrifice, and dynamism are all required to manifest the success encased in the most fortunate destiny. One learns about one’s destiny and the actions that will soften or enhance it through the mechanism of divination. Divination allows devotees to interrogate their ori, the guardian of their destiny, their patrons Orisha and Olodumare (through the agency of the Orisha Orula) about the current status of their destiny, what may be blocking the best possibilities of it, and what can be done to move forward. American devotees have three types of divination at their disposal. The simplest form uses four pieces of coconut that are shaped so that they can fall in an up/down, heads/tails configuration. This form of divination, often called ‘‘obi divination’’ after a similar Yoruba form, is normally used to answer straightforward yes/no questions addressed to the ancestors or to the Orisha or to gain confirmation that rituals are proceeding to the satisfaction of the deities. Obi divination can be performed by those with the simplest forms of initiation and, in some communities, even those with none at all. A more complex form of divination, known as diloggun is limited to priests of the Orisha. Diloggun divination uses 16 cowry shells

Santería whose backs have been removed so that they can fall in a head or tails (mouth or stomach) configuration. The numbers generated by the fall of the cowries as associated with a set of proverbs, stories, warnings, and remedies the priest can use to advise the inquirer about his past, the current state of his life, and what is necessary to manifest the best possible future. The practice of the third form of divination, known as Ifa, is the special province of priests of the divination deity, Orula (also known as Orunmila). Ifa is considered to be the highest and most sophisticated form of divination. It uses either 16 palm nuts, which are passed from hand to hand in order to determine a series of numbers known as odu, or a chain with eight nuts of other tokens that generates the odu in a single throw. Traditionally, Ifa divination was limited to men known as babalawo (father of mystery) although there were some women diviners among the precolonial Yoruba. In recent years American women known as iyanifa or iyalawo have been trained and initiated into the Ifa divination priesthood. Divination rituals are an important part of the Orisha religion. Divination allows devotees to communicate directly with the Orisha and determine the best

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actions to take to manifest their best and highest destinies. Other important rituals include initiation ceremonies and the drum rituals that allow the Orisha to become embodied and speak directly to their followers. Since the Orisha traditions are initiatory traditions, one moves into the religious community and gains power and prestige through a series of initiation rituals. Generally the first ritual is one known colloquially as Necklaces (collares in Spanish and ileke in Yoruba). During this ritual the new devotee is given a blessed set of beaded necklaces representing each of the major Orisha. These necklaces mark the wearer as a follower of the Orisha and a member of the ritual household of the initiating priest. Often a group of Orisha known as the Warriors (Los Guerreros) is presented to the devotee at the same time. The Warriors are the Eleggua, Ogun, Ochosi, and Osun. During this ritual the icons of these Orisha are vivified and then presented to the devotee to place near the front door of his or her home. These Orisha form the beginning of the devotee’s personal pantheon and are said to warn and protect the devotee against both spiritual and physical dangers. Depending on the needs of devotees, they may receive other Orisha to worship in

˜ A ROSALI´A OF EL CERRO EFUCHE N ˜ a Rosalı´a of El Cerro was one of the many women who were instrumental in Efuche N the development of the religion. Known as la reformista de la religion, the reformer of the religion, it is believed that Efuche arrived in Havana around 1886 1896 as a one of two free women from Nigeria. Complaining that the Orisha worship they found was not as they knew it in Africa, they set about reforming the religious practices in Cuba. Efuche is credited with the introduction of the ceremony known as pinaldo, cuchillo, or ‘‘knife’’ that authorized one to kill sacrificed animals with Ogun’s knife.

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their homes. These Orisha, known as adimu Orisha to distinguish them from those received as part of priestly initiation, provide protection, healing, and general spiritual and physical well-being to their worshipper. Another protective ritual received by devotees is the Hand of Ifa, known as ikofa or cofa when presented to women and abo faca or awofaka when presented to men. These ceremonies are similar to the rituals to receive an adimu Orisha in that one receives the beaded necklace and the icons of Orula for personal worship and protection. During this ritual, which can only be performed by a priest of Ifa, the devotee is given a special divination that determines the odu that controls his life and destiny. Knowing this odu and the proverbs and stories associated with it helps the devotee understand his destiny, his past, present, and future. The most important rituals within the Orisha traditions are those that make the follower a priest of the Orisha. There are two types of these rituals: one that can only be performed by the babalawo to bring others into the priesthood of Orula and one performed by the priests of the other Orisha to create new priests for them. The ritual, known as Making

Ifa, that makes one a priest of Orula requires a special calling and a complex and intense initiation. In the United States and Cuba only straight men can make Ifa, that is be initiated as babalawo (father of mystery); however, there are instances of gay men who have been initiated, and the practice of initiating women into Ifa is becoming more common in some communities. Once one has received this initiation, one can begin to learn the odu and rituals associated with Ifa divination. The ritual itself is long and arduous, over a week long with many tests of the initiate’s firm intentions. It is the follow-up by training and practice in the arts of the diviner that makes one a babalawo. It takes years of work under the guidance of a senior babalawo for one to learn not only the 256 odu of Ifa with all their symbols and stories but also all the rituals one is called upon within the divination sessions to perform. Also complex and intense is the initiation that brings one into the priesthood of the other Orisha, known as crowning, asiento (Spanish for ‘‘seat’’ or ‘‘contract’’), and kariocha (Yoruba for ‘‘to place the Orisha in or on the head’’). This ritual unites the head of the initiate with the energy of the guardian Orisha so that

OCTAVIO SAMAR RODRI´GUEZ/OBADIMELLI Born and raised in Matanzas (or Africa by some accounts) during the second half of the nineteenth center, Octavio Samar Rodrı´guez/Obadimelli arrived in Havana in the early to mid 1920s where he was reinitiated by Efuche, thus gaining the name Obadi mella, ‘‘the king that is born twice.’’ He is honored as one of the architects of the modern Cuban initiation ceremony. He also professionalized the role of the oba oriate or master of ceremonies. Although the earliest oriate were women (Ayayi La Tua´n Timotea Albear and Guillermina Castel are the best known), Obadimelli was instrumental in making this a primarily male role.

Santería the Orisha serves as a spiritual ‘‘crown’’ for the initiate. The initiation process itself is a series of ceremonies that begins before the initiation itself and encompasses a yearlong novitiate period known as the iyawoage. The first of the preparatory rituals is one called ‘‘Marking the Head’’ that determines the identity of the guardian Orisha. During a special divination session a babalawo or specially trained priest known as an oriate determines which Orisha has called the devotee into its service. Once the guardian Orisha has been determined, the rest of the ritual preparation and execution is determined. As part of the crowning ritual, the devotee is made the priest of the guardian Orisha and receives the group of five to seven other Orisha that will form his or her personal pantheon. Although the new priests receive other Orisha throughout their lives, these will form the core of their devotion. The initiation ritual itself encompasses a seven-day period in which the initiate is stripped of her previous identity and is ‘‘born again’’ as the child of the Orisha. She receives an extended divination known as ita in which all of the Orisha she has received talk to her about new life in the religion. On the third day, the so-called Middle Day, she is dressed as her guardian Orisha and presented to the community in recognition of her new status. However, her initiation does not end at the end of the seven-day period. The initiation is not complete until she fulfills the yearlong iyawoage. During this time she is subject to a wide range of regulations, which protect her delicate new spiritual condition and help solidify her new position in the religious community. At the end of the iyawoage and yearly on the anniversary of his initiation the

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Orisha priest celebrates by throwing a party for his Orisha, his religious family, and friends. The priest builds an elaborate trono (Spanish for throne) for his Orisha and invites family and friends to join in the celebration. The ritual includes dinner, many different desserts, and perhaps drumming. Although the birthday celebration encompasses an entire seven-day period, the party generally is celebrated on the actual anniversary of the priest’s initiation. Because they are personal festivals, these parties are commonly held in the home of the celebrant, the priest whose initiation is being commemorated. The trono that is built as part of this celebration and many others is sacred space constructed for the event. The area itself is delimitated by mats and lengths of cloth that form a room in which the Orisha are presented, surrounded by sumptuous cloth, objects representing them and their stories, candles, coconuts, plates, fruit, flowers, desserts, and other offerings. Drum rituals, known as tambor (Spanish for drum) or bembe (Yoruba) may be performed as part of initiation or birthday rituals or independently. The primary purpose of these rituals is through drumming, singing, and dancing to entice one or more Orisha to leave their home in Orun (heaven) and join their devotees in Aiye (earth) through the process known as possession trance. During the possession event individual members of the gathered community enter into an altered state of consciousness that involves becoming entranced and dominated by an Orisha. Possession trance allows gathered Orisha devotees not only to talk to their deities and other spiritual beings but for those beings to talk back, to respond in a clearly tangible way. Although several different types of

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drums may be used in these rituals, the most sacred are a set of consecrated or fundamental bata drums imbued with the spirit of the Orisha of the drum known as An˜a. The bata ensemble consists of three two-headed hourglassshaped drums that are played resting horizontally on the drummer’s lap. Specially trained drummers familiar with the rhythms associated with each Orisha play these drums, led by a singer known as the akpwon. The akpwon is the master of ceremonies who leads the call and response singing of the assembled congregation and speaks even more directly to the Orisha both before and after they have chosen to embody in one of the priests. Although any fully initiated priest can become possessed by her Orisha, generally the person commissioning the ritual will also hire a known medium of the Orisha that is the focus of the drumming in order to assist the possession event. Once a person has become possessed, he or she is costumed as appropriate for that Orisha and for the duration of the possession event speaks and acts as the Orisha. Often additional Orisha take possession of their priests and join in the celebration. One of the most controversial elements of these traditions is the use of animal sacrifices within different rituals. Animal blood is used to vivify and feed the Orisha icons as part of many rituals. This practice has brought devotees of these traditions into conflict with local authorities and animal rights groups. In the early 1900s the city of Hialeah, a suburb of Miami, Florida, passed a series of ordinance that a local Santerı´a congregation felt were aimed at suppressing their religious practices. Unlike many other Orisha communities who have been persecuted for their sacrificial rituals, the

Church of the Lucumı´ Babalu Aye (CLBA) decided to fight the ordinances as a violation of their First Amendment right to freedom of religion. The dispute went all of the way to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices upheld CLBA’s right to practice their religion as they saw fit. Sacrifice is an important part of these traditions. Generally only food animals, chickens, goats, geese, and sheep, and some small birds, like doves and pigeons, are sacrifices. After the blood has been given to the Orisha, often the animal carcasses are cooked and eaten by the ritual participants. In this way the human and the divine come together in sacred feasting and celebration. The basic congregational unit in most Orisha worshipping in the United States is the religious family. Each family is headed by the most senior priest commonly known as the godmother (madrina) or godfather (padrino). Those devotees the godparent has initiated are his or her godchildren. A devotee may have received multiple initiations from different godparents, so one might hear someone introduce another as ‘‘my godmother for Necklaces’’ or ‘‘my godfather for Warriors.’’ Each family consists of the godparent, everyone he or she has initiated, and everyone the godchildren have initiated. This creates a large extended family, as each family group is also a member of a larger group headed by the godparent of one’s godparent. Each ritual requires two senior priests to be the godparents for that ritual. The two godparents need not be the same for each ritual and the gender of the godparents is unimportant. So for any particular ritual one might have a godmother and a godfather, two godmothers, or two godfathers. Although it is common for both

Santerismo godparents to come from the same religious family, it often happens that two priests decide to work together outside their religious lines. This means that a godchild becomes a member of two different religious families. Having different godparents for different rituals can soon entangle the godchild in a complex web of relationships. The most important of these relationships and the one that overrides all previous relations is that between the primary and secondary godparents of the priestly initiation (Crowning). While other relationships can be broken, these relationships are considered permanent. Even if there is an eventual disagreement between godparent and godchild that causes the godchild to no longer participate in the godparent’s religious family and move his or her allegiance elsewhere, the bond remains. Just as you can never change the fact of who gave birth to you, so there is a permanent bond with the godparents who gives one religious rebirth. There are two major types of religious families within the Orisha tradition. In one type the most senior priest is a babalawo, the divination priest. Since a babalawo as the priest of Orula generally does not participate in the initiations into the priesthood of the other Orisha, in babalawo-headed households one or more other priests perform these initiations. Often it is the wife of the babalawo who provides the initiations and other religious services the babalawo is precluded from providing. In the other type of religious family, the senior priest is not a babalawo but the priest of one of the other Orisha. Since all of the Orisha, except Orula, can have priests of either gender, often women head these religious families. Mary Ann Clark

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, David D. Santerı´a Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro Cuban Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). Clark, Mary Ann. Santerı´a: Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the Realities of a Growing Religion (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2007). Mason, Michael Atwood. Living Santerı´a: Rituals and Experiences in an Afro Cuban Religion (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002). Murphy, Joseph M. Santerı´a: African Spirits in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993). Murphy, Joseph M. Working the Spirit: Cer emonies of the Africa Diaspora (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994). Vega, Marta Moreno. The Altar of My Soul: The Living Traditions of Santerı´a (New York: One World, The Ballantine Pub lishing Group, 2000).

SANTERISMO Historical Development In the early 1960s anthropologists working with practitioners of Caribbean religions in New York and New Jersey began to notice a variation of Espiritismo dubbed Santerismo. This form of Spiritism incorporates elements of Cuban Santerı´a into the Puerto Rican beliefs practices of Espiritismo (see entry ‘‘Espiritismo’’). Practitioners generally do not use this term, preferring to see themselves as within the parameters of legitimate Espiritismo practice. Major elements distinguish Santerismo from other forms of Espiritismo, including the use of beaded necklaces similar to those used in Santerı´a, the

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incorporation of some of the Orisha into the pantheon of spirits, the adaptation of a Santerı´a-style kinship system, and the practice of charging for spiritual services. The centro or congregation, within Puerto Rico, is generally led by a head medium—either a male or a female— who trains and supervises other mediums. The mediums are individuals trained to communicate with the spirit world for the benefit of themselves, their families and friends, and the clients of the centro, providing spiritual, physical, and emotional healing. Mediums often fall into a trance in order to speak with the voice of their spirit guides. In addition to organizing and conducting regular se´ances, the head medium is available for individual consultations with members of the congregation and others who come for advice and healing. Furthermore, the head medium is responsible for the financial resources of the centro, renting and furnishing the space used for both public and private events and coordinating the necessary furnishings and supplies. The relationship between the head medium and members of the centro is tenuous in that there are no formal membership requirements and many attend se´ances at more than one centro. At times mediums will incorporate elements and leadership structures from Santerı´a in order to establish a more secure community. For example, some will develop the ‘‘godmother’’ or ‘‘godfather’’ connection with members in that this connection, using terminology borrowed from Santerı´a, entails a relationship that is indissoluble. The connection between Santerismo and Santerı´a at times extends beyond the construction of relationship to include appropriation of deities into the Santerismo spiritual pantheon. Even this

incorporation is not without its differences in that the Orisha are understood in Santerismo not as deities but rather as spirits of a lower nature than other spirits because they demand blood and other material offerings. Such interaction with the material world diminishes the power of Orisha over against other spirits that do not require earthly goods.

Beliefs and Practices This combining of Santerismo and Santerı´a is not without its critics. Some practitioners of the latter, for example, believe the two systems should be kept separate, although one is free to practice either or both. Rituals should be held at different times, in different places. Furthermore, for Santerı´a practitioners, the Orisha are full gods who should not be invoked or manipulated by the uninitiated. And practitioners of the former, Santerismo, criticize those who have appropriate elements of Santerı´a on two counts: the practice of charging for spiritual services and the incorporation of the Orisha into the pantheon of spirits. Traditionally spiritists do not charge for their services while all Santerı´a rituals involve a monetary component known as the derecho, Spanish for right or tax. Santerismo mediums have incorporated this right into their own religious practice in order to receive fees for their ritual work, much to the distress of mediums who view the derecho as a type of spiritual exploitation. In general, those involved with Santerismo prefer to work with higher or purer spirits. As a result of their history as colonial subjects, many Puerto Ricans (and other Caribbean peoples) regardless of their own racial heritage consider anything tinged with an association with Africa as inherently less pure and good.

Seventh-day Adventists Consequently, the higher spirits of Espiritismo are envisioned as purer, that is ‘‘white’’ while the earthbound spirits and the Orisha are ‘‘dark,’’ less spiritually developed. Mary Ann Clark

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Brandon, George. Santeria from Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), especially 107 120. Pe´rez y Mena, Andre´s Isidoro. Speaking with the Dead: Development of Afro Latin Religion Among Puerto Ricans in the United States (New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1991).

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS Historical Development From its origins in William Miller’s movement to the present, blacks have participated in the Seventh-day Adventist movement. Several prominent black

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preachers such as Charles Bowles, William Foy, and John Lewis proclaimed the apocalyptic message of the Advent Awakening alongside Miller in the 1840s. Their gospel pointed to the return of Christ in October 1844, drawing on prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. When the date passed, many abandoned the faith in disappointment. Other followers remained, splintering into small Bible study groups, one of which formed the core of the nascent Seventh-day Adventist Church. Although the term ‘‘Adventist’’ loosely refers to this body of believers, the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church was not formally organized until 1863. Adventism, often mistaken for other nineteenth-century American religious movements (such as Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Science; see entries ‘‘Mormon Church’’ and ‘‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’’) emphasized the seventh-day Sabbath, the second coming of Christ, spiritual revelation, and health and temperance. Distinct from many other Protestant Christian churches, Adventists have emphasized the authority of both the Old and New Testaments and the spiritual gift of prophecy.

WILLIAM ELLIS FOY (1818–1893) A former Free Will Baptist minister from Maine, Foy became an evangelist in the Mill erite movement. Initially reluctant to share his visions because of fears of racial persecu tion, he began to relate two visions early in 1842, which he published that same year. Foy was recalled by Adventist pioneer John Loughborough as ‘‘a well educated and tal ented minister.’’ Drawing large crowds in northeastern cities, Foy’s preaching attracted the likes of Frederick Douglass (whose daughter later converted to Adventism). Foy also shared a vision with Ellen White, where they both saw men and women on a pathway to heaven. Foy’s ministry remains symbolic for black Adventists, revealing the nondis criminatory bestowal of the spiritual gift of prophecy.

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Considering the unique historical, geographical, and hermeneutical circumstances surrounding its origin, it is interesting that the Adventist movement in America has been characterized by such a degree of black involvement. While some Adventists were involved in the Underground Railroad, like John P. Kellogg and John Byington, the greatest developments of black Adventism came through the rise of black institutionalism stemming from ‘‘colored work’’ of the late nineteenth century. Following the Civil War, missionaries under the leadership of Edson White established a mobile ministry on a boat called the Morning Star, the first sustained and organized effort directly aimed at ministering and educating black Americans along the Mississippi River. As more black churches were established, including Edgefield Junction, Tennessee (1886), and the Magazine Street Church in Louisville, Kentucky (1891), a Negro Department (later headed by William H. Green) was created (1909) to effectively administer the efforts. When the headquarters of the church shifted from Battle Creek, Michigan, to Washington, D.C., many churches adopted Jim Crow policies. Refused

admittance at the segregated Washington Adventist Sanitarium, Lucy Byard was sent to the colored Freedman’s Hospital where she died later. The incident sparked an intradenominational effort for change. Some blacks defected to create independent Sabbatarian churches; others lobbied for stronger structures within the General Conference to address racial injustices. A major change came with the development of black regional conferences, the first of these being the Lake Region Conference in 1944. Only four years after these changes were implemented, black membership increased by 10,000. Magnetic evangelists such as E. E. Cleveland and E. C. Ward—both to be homiletically succeeded by the Breath of Life evangelist Charles D. Brooks—are also credited for the growth. Cleveland engaged the question of racial equality within the Adventist church by supporting the March on Washington and the Poor People’s March. When C. E. Bradford became the North American Division President in 1979, it was clear that blacks would continue to play prominent roles in church leadership to advance the gospel and address racial equality.

EARL E. CLEVELAND (1921–) As associate director of the General Conference Ministerial Association, E. E. Cleve land’s evangelism was essential to the development of some of the largest black churches in the denomination today. Cleveland assisted black Adventist ministry in making an adjustment to the needs of a postwar generation threatened by nuclear disaster, racial divisiveness, and socioeconomic disparity. He increased membership in churches in Chi cago, Watts, Port of Spain, Dar es Salaam, and even Warsaw, Poland. Cleveland repre sented the international black face of Adventism during years when the black regional organization was just getting underway. His contribution to the Adventist church contin ues to be seen in the training of black ministers, inner city programming, and the church’s Human Relations Committee.

Seventh-day Adventists Historically, black Adventists have emphasized education. Oakwood College, located on the plantation where Dred Scott once labored, was established as a vocational school for blacks in 1896. In the post-Reconstruction years, the school was maintained by white northerners who came to the South to teach blacks to read. By 1932, students and black ministers had pressed for greater black oversight of the school; James L. Moran was appointed the first black president of the college. Following the Oakwood precedent, in 1946 Pine Forge Academy was created to provide a nurturing environment where students could be shielded from racial discrimination and focus exclusively on spiritual and intellectual development. In addition to education, blacks also contributed to the development of the health care systems such as the Hadley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., and the Nashville Riverside Sanitarium. Riverside, founded in 1901, was the first black Adventist medical institution. It was developed under the initiative of Scottish missionary Mrs. Nellie Druillard to educate black students in nursing and natural medicine. Supporting these institutions, blacks have also contributed and controlled major publications of the church, including the Gospel Herald, the North American Informant, Message, and the North American Regional Voice. The present world membership of the Seventh-day Adventist church tallies over 15 million members, with a growing percentage of this number being composed of blacks from the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. The North American Division records over 1 million members, of which the majority are white, in over 5,000 churches.

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Recognizing these trends, some African American ministers have placed a greater emphasis on African roots of sabbatarian rituals. In evangelism efforts, a significant emphasis has been placed on personal achievement as a result of spiritual and cultural benefits of the tradition. For example, Dr. Ben Carson, Chaplain Rear Admiral Barry Black, and vocalist Wintley Phipps exemplify the reward of obedience to the tenants of the faith.

Beliefs and Practices Adventists are Protestant proponents of the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer, emphasizing personal responsibility to study the Bible. Adventists emphasize the continuity of the Old and New Testaments, interpreting the spiritual typologies of the former revealed in the latter. For example, Adventists emphasize the earthen sanctuary described in the Books of Exodus and Numbers as having a spiritual counterpart as described in Hebrews. Over a period of time, Adventists also came to believe that the seventh day of the week was set aside by God to be observed since creation. They do not interpret Sabbath observance as part of Jewish ceremonial law. Sabbath observance is the dominant ritual that characterizes the Seventh-day Adventism from its Protestant peers. As sabbatarians, Seventh-day Adventists do not engage in any type of nonessential labor on the Sabbath but devote the 24-hour period from dusk on Friday to dusk on Saturday to spiritual devotion and physical regeneration. Adventists also believe the human soul is not immortal and that at death conscious aspects cease to function until a final resurrection at the end of time. Consequently, Adventists do not believe

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that fires of hell eternally torment the wicked, that the deceased are in heaven, nor that the dead can communicate with the living. The ‘‘gift of prophecy’’ is highly regarded among Seventh-day Adventists. Adherents believe that the gift was manifested in the charismatic ministry of Ellen White. White, who never referred to herself as a prophet but as a messenger, is purported to have received over 2,000 visions during her adult life from 1844–1915. Her visions, or testimonies as they are commonly called, provide spiritual guidance in a variety of topics ranging from the advent of Christ to child rearing. Although White holds a significant influence among Adventists, her testimonies have always been openly and critically challenged by fellow believers. This tradition makes her prophetic role in the Adventist church fundamentally different from the role of other charismatic founders. Importantly, Adventists do not apply the prophetic marker as evidence of personal conversion. Rather, they view prophetic foretelling and forth telling of ‘‘the truth’’ as evidence of doctrinal purity, a sign of the true ‘‘remnant’’ church. The medical missionary impulses of modern Adventism originated in the American temperance movement of the early twentieth century. Adventists joined reformers that discussed the usage of tobacco and alcohol products as a moral evil. Believing that ‘‘the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,’’ Adventists have historically encouraged, though not required, a vegetarian diet and demanded total abstinence from pork and other unclean meats by its members. The appeal of Adventism to blacks may be found in the religion’s emphases on the Sabbath, education, the gift of prophecy, the deliverance of the faithful,

and the development of black-managed institutions. While Adventists abstained from moral posturing on the divine ordination of racial categorization, dominant attitudes of each era and region factored heavily in church practices. Critics have pointed out that William Miller and Ellen White did not believe that slaves would be in heaven. While these early dominant social views made it difficult for blacks to enjoy full spiritual fellowship, the broader message has appealed to blacks who were disenfranchised economically, politically, and socially. Seneca D. Vaught

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Baker, Delbert. The Unknown Prophet (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1987). Baker, Delbert. Telling the Story (Loma Linda, CA: Loma Linda University Printing Services, 1996). Bradford, Charles E. Sabbath Roots: The African Connection, a Biblical Per spective (Barre, VT: L. Brown and Sons, 1999). Dudley, Charles E., and Tamar Henley Corry. Thou Who Hath Brought Us: The Devel opment of the Seventh day Adventist Denomination among African Americans (Brushton, NY: Teach Services, 1997). Foy, William E. The Christian Experience of William E. Foy Together with the Two Visions He Received in the Months of January and February 1842 (Portland, ME: Pearson Brothers, 1845). Graybill, Ronald D. Mission to Black America (Omaha, NE: Pacific Press Pub lishing Association, 1971). Nichol, Francis David. Ellen G. White and Her Critics (Takoma Park, Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Asso ciation, 1951).

Shrine of the Black Madonna Reynolds, Louis B. We Have Tomorrow: The Story of American Seventh day Adventists with an African Heritage (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Asso ciation, 1984). Schwarz, Richard W. Light Bearers to the Remnant (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1979). Sepulveda, Ciro. On the Margins of Empires: A History of Seventh day Adventists (Huntsville, AL: Oakwood College Press, 2007). White, Ellen. Southern Work (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1966).

SHRINE OF THE BLACK MADONNA Historical Development The Shrine of the Black Madonna of the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church (PAOCC) began as a socially and racially conscious, African American religious

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institution in 1953. The first Shrine of the Black Madonna, formally known as the Central Congregational Church, was founded in Detroit, Michigan, by the Reverend Albert B. Cleage Jr. and former members of St. Mark’s United Presbyterian Church on Detroit’s west side. Cleage had accepted the pastorate of St. Mark’s in 1951, due in part to strong familial connections; e.g., his father and uncle had been founding members of the congregation. However, Cleage and numerous congregants bristled under the paternalistic and patronizing activities of the predominantly white church hierarchy, which interfered with their efforts to serve the black inner city community in which they were located. Under the auspices of Central Congregational Church, Cleage and the dissident St. Mark’s members committed themselves to community service that took many forms: youth athletic leagues, employment services, health care, and general political empowerment.

REV. ALBERT B. CLEAGE JR. (JARAMOGI ABEBE AGYEMAN) (1911–2000) Albert B. Cleage Jr. was born on June 13, 1911. After graduating in 1943 from semi nary, Cleage accepted a call as interim pastor of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peo ples in San Francisco. Cleage would move on to serve at Chandler Memorial Church in Lexington, Kentucky. He then began work on a PhD at the University of Southern Califor nia, but returned to active ministry before completing his degree. He accepted the call to St. John’s Congregational Church in Springfield, Massachusetts. At the church, he devel oped youth drama programs and brought in engaging speakers such as Langston Hughes. Cleage would leave St. John’s in 1950, accepting a call to St. Mark’s Presby terian Church in Detroit, but he would leave to found St. Mark’s Congregational Church. He and his congregation played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in Detroit. Cleage stood out in his advocacy for Black Nationalism for African Americans. In 1968, Cleage would publish a collection of sermons entitled The Black Messiah. His developing Christian nationalist initiative was articulated in 1972 through Black Christian Nationalism: New Directions for the Black Church. In 1972, Cleage also adopted the name Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman. He passed away February 20, 2000.

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The southern regional headquarters of the Shrine of the Black Madonna was established in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1975. The southwestern regional headquarters was founded in Houston, Texas, in 1977. Finally, the fourth major center for the denomination, known as Beulah Land Farms in Calhoun Falls, South Carolina, was founded in 1999. The very first Pan-African Synod was held in Houston, Texas, in 1978. It was at this gathering that the church adopted the name Pan-African Orthodox Christian Churches after having been known previously as the Black Christian Nationalist Church. The name intentionally drew upon Marcus Garvey’s African Orthodox Christian Church and adherents’ attestation to the orthodox nature of the Church’s theology. It was also at this gathering that Cleage was designated as the First Holy Patriarch. As such, Cleage held the highest episcopal rank within the church. In this capacity, Cleage presided over the affairs of the Church, functioning as the final authority. Further, Cleage acted as the primary spokesperson for the denomination as well as its spiritual head. A few years earlier, Cleage had also taken a new name, Jaramogi (Leader of the People) Abebe (Defender) Agyeman (Blessed Man), which exemplified his position within the religious body. While it is the current convention within the denomination to refer only to the regional centers as Shrines, historically, the designation was applied to all congregations. Thus, Shrine #1 is the ‘‘Mother Shrine,’’ the former Central Congregational Church, located at 7625 Linwood Street in Detroit, Michigan. Shrine #2, which no longer exists, was another church in Detroit opened on the other side of town. Shrine #3 was the

Shrine’s Law Center. Shrine #4 was the Church’s graphics building that has recently been moved to the Akwaaba Community Center in Detroit. Shrine #5 is another building owned and operated in Detroit, where the Church holds summer camps, fashion shows, weekly church orientations, and so on. Beulah Land Farms in Calhoun Falls, South Carolina, is Shrine #20. The number 20 (as opposed to its place as #15) was chosen by the PAOCC because any number ending in zero or five is an earth number in many different African cosmologies. Furthermore, among other reasons, it was nearly a 20-year process to bring the farm from vision to fruition. Contemporaneous with the organization’s adopting its new name in 1978 was an admonition on the part of Jaramogi Agyeman for the Church and its members to enter into a time of reflection and introspection. Inner transformation, i.e., spiritual renovation, became a central component of PAOCC teaching. While the Church’s commitment to social transformation and outreach never went away, there was a new emphasis on ministering to one another. Some observers have asserted, however, that such an inward focus has meant little in the way of numerical growth for the Church over the past several decades. According to the current head of the PAOCC, Jaramogi Menelik Kimathi, church membership is approximately 50,000 nationally. In the major cities associated with the Shrine, i.e., Detroit, Atlanta, and Houston, the Church is engaged in a myriad of faithbased community services. For example, in each of these key locations, the Shrine directs a cultural center and bookstore. According to the Shrine’s mission, these institutions are intended for the education

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DEMOSTHENE NELSON (JARAMOGI MENELIK KIMATHI) With the death of Agyeman in February 2000, the church called as its new Holy Patriarch Cardinal Demosthene Nelson, who adopted the name Jaramogi Menelik Kima thi. Demosthene Nelson is the second Holy Patriarch and Presiding Bishop of the Shrines of the Back Madonna of the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church. He is a native of Detroit, Michigan, where he attended the Detroit Public Schools. Jaramogi Kimathi began undergraduate studies at the University of Detroit, but transferred to the University of St. Thomas, from which he received a bachelor of arts degree in Theology and Philoso phy. He later earned a master of divinity degree from Yale University. While there, he was president of the Yale Black Seminarians and pastor of the Black Church at Yale. He was a product of the Black Christian National Training Center and for almost 30 years was a close prote´ge´ of Cleage. Before becoming Cleage’s successor, he was pastor of congregations in Detroit, Michigan; Atlanta, Georgia; and New Haven, Con necticut. A respected teacher and preacher, Nelson has traveled extensively. He is also the national director of the Black Slate Inc. He is the recipient of a NAACP Unity Award. He has appeared numerous times on TV and radio, and authored several articles. He is married and is the father of three children.

and edification of the African American community. Thus, they offer resources and programs that promote Black and Pan-African nationalism centered upon the legacy of African peoples. In addition, social services, educational opportunities, and recreational activities are facilitated through associations such as the Akwaaba Community Center in Detroit. The Alkebu-lan Academy Youth Centers are another important ministry of the Shrine in each of its major centers. It is the purpose of the academy to equip African American youth for servant leadership within the larger Pan-African global community. Students are instructed in the doctrines of the Church, the KUA Transformation system, as well as exercises and training to nurture their physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. A more recent focus of Academy programs is the equipping of Black youth to be a part of the digital age. The last major undertaking of the Church’s founder, Beulah Land is a

2,700-acre site on the Georgia–South Carolina border. The compound is involved in the cultivation of crops; fisheries; the raising of poultry, cattle, and hogs; and the development of timber and sod. The facilities include food processing plants, a school, a church, a summer camp, a retreat center, a truck depot, and a marina. It is the goal of Beulah Land to one day produce enough in the way of foodstuffs to support a distribution network for victims of hunger and strife around the world. Perhaps more important, however, is for Beulah Land to serve as a sign or symbol of Black people’s ability to be selfsufficient and thus in due course selfdetermined. An even more recent undertaking of the PAOCC is the Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr. Memorial Health Center. Named in honor of the father of the Church’s founder, the center constitutes a nonprofit health care facility committed to improving the quality of health care provided in

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the city of Detroit. The vision was presented in 2003 as a part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Shrine. The health center officially opened its doors in 2005. Administered by skilled volunteer health professionals, they assist an underserved constituency dealing with chronic and acute health issues, such as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, hypertension, and obesity. As with many of the Shrine’s offerings, children are a major priority. This commitment is evinced by programs such as prenatal care and pediatric immunization. One last association of note is the Jahi Foundation, which is dedicated to the survival, care, nurturing, and development of boys and young men of African descent. Its mission includes the establishment of schools, nurseries, scholarships, mentoring programs, and other educational, enrichment, and recreational activities in cities across America. It is also involved in the building of an educational and social service complex at the Beulah Land Farm built on the Boys

Town model. It is designed to provide a wholesome environment that is mentally, physically, morally, and spiritually developmental, racially affirming, drug-free, and dedicated to the full realization of one’s God-given potential. The crown jewel of the foundation will be the Jahi Pan African Leadership Development Institute, a private boarding school that will select promising elementary-age boys and girls from across the Pan African World to attend school at Beulah Land in the hope of promoting true Pan Africanism. The foundation is named for Osakwe Ndegwa Jahi of Detroit, Michigan, a gifted and charismatic young man whose positive example and message of love, pride, and selfdetermination provided insight and inspiration to many of his peers. He was brutally murdered on July 5, 2006. His story is seen by members of the Church as characteristic of the crisis that is affecting African American youth in general and males in particular in contemporary society.

ALLEN WALKER—CARDINAL ASWAD YUSEF AMBIDWILE (1965–) Born Allen Walker, he and his family moved to Houston, Texas, from Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1974, when he was nine years old. While at University of Texas at Austin, Walker quickly became involved in various organizations. For example, Walker became quite involved in issues around apartheid in South Africa, and he was a noted proponent of divestment on campus. It was also during this period that he had his initial exposure to the Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center. He would eventually join the Church and would continue his studies at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia. His role in the church would grow quickly and in 1995 he was made a cardi nal in the church at the behest of Jaramogi Agyeman. He was then officially posted to the staff in Atlanta until 1998, when he was transferred to the mother congregation in Detroit. He was named pastor of the Detroit church in June 1999, but shortly thereafter was transferred. In time, Walker would be assigned to Atlanta as an acting member of the Shrine’s staff, and then finally, under the directives of the new patriarch, he was assigned as pastor to the Houston Shrine late in the fall of 2002.

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Beliefs and Practices As to worship style, a PAOCC congregation differs little from that of most African American Protestant congregations. Traditional hymns and gospel songs are played and sung. Prayers are offered up that one might find in any historically black church. However, at the point in the service where one might expect to join with others in the saying of the Lord’s Prayer, the following would be heard: Almighty GOD who called together the Black Nation Israel, through Thy son, the revolutionary Black Messiah, Jesus, hal lowed be Thy name. May Thy Black Nation speedily come and Thy will be done on earth as we accept commitment to daily sacrifice and struggle. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive our tres passes, as we forgive Black brothers and sisters who trespass against us. Help us to resist temptation, as we struggle against individualism, and may the Black Nation stand, as a living witness to Thy power and Thy glory, forever and ever. AMEN

Further, in place of such traditional creeds as the Apostle’s Creed, the PAOCC congregation recites the following, found in the Order of Service: I BELIEVE that human society stands under the judgment of one GOD, revealed to all and known by many names. His cre ative power is visible in the mysteries of the universe, in the revolutionary Holy Spirit which will not long permit men to endure injustice nor to wear the shackles of bondage, in the rage of the powerless when they struggle to be free, and in the violence and conflict which even now threaten to level the hills and the mountains.

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I BELIEVE that Jesus, the Black Mes siah, was a revolutionary leader, sent by GOD to rebuild the Black Nation Israel and to liberate Black people from power lessness and from the oppression brutality and exploitation of the white gentile world. I BELIEVE that the revolutionary spirit of GOD, embodied in the Black Messiah, is born anew in each generation and that Black Christian Nationalists constitute the living remnant of GOD’s Chosen People in this day, and are charged by Him with respon sibility for the Liberation of Black People. I BELIEVE that both my survival and my salvation depend upon my willingness to reject individualism and so I commit my life to the Liberation Struggle of Black People and accept the values, ethics, morals and program of the Black Nation, defined by the struggle, and taught by the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church.

The service culminates with a sermon by the pastor and ends with an invitation to join the Church; a unique, covenantal community committed to the work of redemption and liberation for all Black people in the world. As mentioned earlier, in the 1970s, Jaramogi Agyeman would direct the Church membership in a turn inward. This move was reflected in the establishment of the Shrine’s KUA (Kiswahili word said to refer to the practice of ‘‘becoming what you already are’’) Centers. The Church teaches that the KUA Transformational System has its roots in the spiritual disciplines brought together in the African Mystery Temples. Jaramogi Agyeman is credited with putting the African system back together in the KUA practices. The KUA Transformational System is made up of several processes, rituals, and religious therapies. KUA small group devotionals, group encounters, rituals, worship services,

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classes, and fellowships together make up the KUA Transformational System. KUA is understood to be a science of ‘‘becoming what you already are.’’ Members are taught that human beings are created out of God. However, we have been blocked from the powers that are available to us, inwardly and outwardly. KUA is the process that helps one to remove the energy blockages. If one participates regularly in the different therapies offered over the course of a week, healing will take place in one’s mind, body, and spirit. According to the PAOCC, God is cosmic energy and creative intelligence. God is in us as well as surrounding us. Moreover, each person has an inner energy or Jesus potential, which he/she can access. As for Jesus, he is a man, a messiah, and a Black revolutionary leader. In his published collection of sermons entitled, The Black Messiah, Jaramogi Agyeman (Cleage) states, In the Old Testament and in the Synoptic Gospels, God is concerned with a people, not with individuals. Yet, the slave Chris tianity that we were taught told us that God is concerned with each individual. And the master told each slave, ‘‘If you are a good slave, God is going to take care of you and you will be saved.’’ He didn’t tell them that if all you Black people love God and fight together; God is going to help you get free from slavery. The group concept is historic Christianity. Individu alism is slave Christianity . . . This was the emphasis that the slave master wanted to make so that he could use religion to control his slaves. (Cleage 1989, 43 44)

Continuing, Agyeman goes on to say that . . . our religion is something different. The Black man’s religion is essentially based

on the Old Testament concepts of the Nation Israel, God’s chosen people, and our knowl edge that the problems of the Black Israel ites were the same as ours. When we read the Old Testament, we can identify with a Black people who were guided and loved by God. Everything in the Old Testament speaks directly to our problem. We know that Israel was a Black nation and that the descendants of the original Black Jews are in Israel, Africa, and the Mediterranean area today. The first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tell the story of Jesus, retaining some of the original materials which establish the sim ple fact that Jesus built upon the Old Testament. Jesus was a Black Messiah. He came to free a Black people from the oppression of white Gentiles. We know this now to be a fact. Our religion, our preaching, our teachings all come from the Old Testament, for we are God’s chosen people. God is working with us every day, helping us find a way to free dom. Jesus tried to teach the Nation Israel how to come together as a Black people, to be brothers one with another and to stand against their white oppressors. (Cleage 1989, 110 111)

It is important to note, however, that according to the teachings of the Shrine, the Black nation is not a physical place or location, and yet it is tangible; it is real; and it exists. The aspiration among members of the Church is for the Black nation to be recognized and respected as other nations are respected. Further, their commitment to Black Christian Nationalism means a commitment to pursuing the health and happiness of all Black people. Indeed, Black people constitute a nation within a nation. The objective of Black Christian Nationalism is that Black people should not be dependent upon others and should take control of their own welfare.

Shrine of the Black Madonna With respect to ritual and liturgy, the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church has Eleven Holy Sacraments, where a sacrament is understood as a sign, symbol, ritual, or observance that reflects their faith in the life, teaching, and work of Jesus Christ. As with the KUA system, the sacraments are understood to both reflect and demonstrate transformation and spiritual rebirth. It is through the sacramental life of the church that one is ‘‘saved’’ or ‘‘born again.’’ Moreover, the sacramental life of the church reflects one’s commitment to the Christian community and communalism. The Eleven Holy Sacraments are as follows: 1. Invocation the initial commitment to Christian service and to the total reor dering of one’s life in accordance with the New Testament principles 2. Baptism the Christian ritual of initia tion that is associated with application of water 3. Confirmation accepting the covenant of the Church 4. Commitment engaging in the Chris tian commemorative meal known as Holy Communion (Eucharist/Lord’s Supper) 5. Confession and Absolution repent ance of sins and the imparting of forgiveness 6. Holy Matrimony tian marriage

the ritual of Chris

7. Renewal and Rebirth in the PAOCC, this is accomplished through one’s devotion and participation in the KUA Transformational System 8. Holy Unction a ritual of healing through an act of anointing one who is sick physically and/or spiritually 9. Incarnation Jesus

the birth and life of

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10. Holy Orders ordination of priests and the consecration of bishops 11. Last Rites ritual performed for a per son in danger of dying or in connection with burial

Among members of the PAOCC, the most fundamental evil and grievous sin is that of individualism; e.g., looking out only oneself. According to their teaching, one controls a people by destroying their sense of community, by getting them to care for themselves alone. However, freedom comes through adherence to divine principles, one of which is communalism. Thus, communalism and community are reoccurring themes throughout the Shrine’s teaching. Unlike most Protestants’ understanding of salvation, for members of the PAOCC, salvation is a corporate and shared experience. Thus, no matter how good any one person may have it, if other Black people, individually or corporately, are powerless or oppressed, all are hurting and living in a situation beneath where God would have God’s people living. Moreover, salvation is not understood to be the exclusive property of members of the Shrine, but rather the possession of those who use the principles of communalism and self-determination to build a self-determining, righteousness-focused existence. This is the heart of what members mean by the words, ‘‘Black Christian Nationalism (BCN) is the Answer.’’ However, the principles of our faith can be seen in the righteous struggles of nations and groups all over the planet— regardless of race or religious affiliation. Members of the Shrine are adamant that they are not Christian racists who damn everyone outside our faith to hell. Rather, they assert that there is one God known

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by many names and that there are common, basic spiritual ways of life demanded by many of the world’s religions. Further, they do not define salvation by what happens to our souls or spirits after death. Because they understand God to be cosmic energy, and because human beings are at their very essence ‘‘energy beings,’’ after death one’s energy returns to the source, i.e., God. This theological move, however, does not discount the existence of heaven or hell. Rather, what people do while they are alive determines whether they live in heaven or hell now. However, if such places as heaven or hell exist in some great beyond, those who gave their lives trying to make this world a better place have nothing to worry about with regard to where their soul will rest. Thus, members of the Shrine commit themselves to a system of living that meets the needs of the group, that invites cooperation, and that demands respect of and for all humanity. The Shrine teaches that what the world lacks at present is a dynamic, viable, working alternative to life as usual. They seek to offer people a way to live that will meet their present unmet needs, and that this way will win over all those who are on the short end of the present economic, social, and political stick. As God empowered Jesus in the struggle for the liberation of the Black Nation Israel, God can empower Black people today in their collective struggle for freedom and liberation. For members of the Shrine who desire a greater level of involvement in the church beyond that of the standard member, and yet are not inclined or called to become clergy, the Shrine has four special guilds or associations with

the designation of Holy Orders: Kilomo, Mtoto Maendeleo, Essenes, and Maccabees. The Holy Order of Kilomo is made up of members who have dedicated themselves to learning and using the skills necessary for founding and running the Beulah Land Farm. The Holy Order of Mtoto Maendeleo is made up of the church’s youth workers, and according to the Shrine, it involves ‘‘conferring Holy Order status upon those who do a demanding job with little fanfare.’’ The Holy Order of the Essenes was founded just a few years ago although the Shrine has had ‘‘Essenes’’ for over 30 years. As indicated by the Church, ‘‘This holy order is made up of members who have made a religious decision to become full-time missionaries for the church. They are willing to go where sent, and take on whatever assignment given.’’ For their full-time service, Essenes have their needs met by the church, e.g., room, board, child care, and transportation. Finally, the Holy Order of the Maccabees is the security force of the Shrine. According to Allen Walker (Cardinal Aswad Yusef Ambidwile), this holy order has a long history of over-andabove service. ‘‘The Maccabees are not merely security guards. They consider themselves the ultimate servants of the church, and pride themselves on being able to take on any assignment no matter how difficult, and coming up successful.’’ The majority of the Shrine’s leadership has come from the Holy Order of the Maccabees. Finally, as an institution, the Pan African Orthodox Church is hierarchical in structure. The Holy Patriarch is understood to be God’s ‘‘Vice-regent’’ on earth. He is invested with complete spiritual and earthly authority with respect to

Spiritual Baptists the Church and its ancillaries. The Holy Patriarch is elected for life. The Assembly of Cardinals constitutes the Church’s governing body, and serves in an advisory capacity to the Holy Patriarch. Local congregations are headed by cardinals or bishops, who frequently have staffs consisting of both ordained ministers and laity. It is important to note that all levels of ordained and lay ministry are open to men and women. Torin Alexander

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Cleage, Albert B. The Black Messiah, 1st AWP ed. (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1989). Cleage, Albert B., and George Bell. Black Christian Nationalism: New Directions for the Black Church (Detroit, MI.: Luxor, 1987). Dillard, Angela Denise. Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007). Ward, Hiley H. The Prophet of the Black Nation (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1969). Williams, Juan. This Far by Faith: Stories from the African American Religious Experience (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2003).

SPIRITUAL BAPTISTS Historical Development The Spiritual Baptist Church is an African-Caribbean religion that emerged, historically, in the Englishspeaking Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago and St. Vincent. The

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religion is a part of the culture of resistance to colonial domination and enslavement forged by enslaved Africans and their descendants. The tradition’s major theological tenets, rituals, and practices are rooted in its practitioners’ creative approaches to understanding and interacting with the divine under, and in resistance to, the brutality of slave and colonial regimes and their ideological justification of racism. The Spiritual Baptist faith (‘‘faith’’ being the term that is most often used by practitioners) is a religion of community reflecting the multiracial, multiethnic, and multireligious historical legacy of the Caribbean region and Trinidad, Tobago, and St. Vincent, in particular. These two island nations, Trinidad and Tobago, and St. Vincent, are regarded as the historical home of the religious tradition (Glazier 1991). The Spiritual Baptist faith developed during the nineteenth century. The tradition known as Converted and Shakers in St. Vincent is similar to the Spiritual Baptists, and in fact many practitioners of one or the other understand themselves to be sharing a similar religious path. Shouters is another name associated with the Spiritual Baptist faith in a Trinidadian context. There are also similar religious traditions in Barbados (tie-heads), Guyana (the Jordanites), and Jamaica (Pocomania), which bear comparable theological understandings of divinity, similar ideas about the interactive relationships between humans and the divine, and approaches to health and healing. The existence of these similar traditions, historically and in contemporary times, points to a possible shared historical basis in African Traditional Religions and the interpretation and

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adaptation of Christianity by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the region. Relatedly, it could also, speculatively, point to the significance of interregional migration among Caribbean people during and after slavery in which their religious traditions were mutually influential. Blending elements from Protestant Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and influences from Yoruban Orisha, Spiritual Baptists also incorporated aspects of Hindu, Buddhist, Kabbalistic, and Muslim traditions. As noted earlier, it is a religion of community in which the creativity of the practitioners emerged in response to the specific socioeconomic and cultural circumstances in which they were enmeshed. The term ‘‘syncretic’’ is commonly used to categorize religions of African diasporic and other colonized peoples, pointing to their mixed and blended elements. While this distinction, in itself, may be useful, it can also obscure the fact that syncretism is a feature of all religious traditions including the so-called ‘‘major’’ world traditions. Instead, the term ‘‘community’’ has been used to underscore the ways in which Spiritual Baptists developed their tradition out of several influential strands during the nineteenth century. The Spiritual Baptist faith can be characterized in several ways (Duncan 2008, 70–73). First, it can be understood as a part of the Orisha religion complex in Trinidad and Tobago (Houk 1995, 36). In this instance, links between Spiritual Baptists and Yoruban Orisha as practiced in Trinidad and Tobago in terms of shared ritual practices point to the prevalence and persistence of African-based traditional religions in a Caribbean context. This approach not only stresses the African

A ‘‘Mother’’ (a title that refers to the highest ranking member of a particular shrine or church) preaches to her Spiritual Baptist congregation. (James Houk)

origins of the tradition but it also suggests that the syncretism between Roman Catholic saints and Yoruban Orishas was not only a phenomenon in French and Spanish Caribbean and other New Worlds contexts but also manifested in the Anglophone Caribbean. The Spiritual Baptist faith can be characterized as a part of the Sanctified Church tradition in its Caribbean and later transnational development in North America and the United Kingdom. The emphasis on spiritual gifts, sanctification, and ecstatic worship practices such as the holy dance or ‘‘shouting’’ and spiritual possession place Spiritual Baptists’ approach to Christianity within the Sanctified Church tradition. As well, a group referred to as the ‘Merikens (creole for American Baptists) is cited by some as a possible source of origin for the Spiritual Baptists in Trinidad. These ‘Merikens were companies of formerly enslaved African Americans who had fought in the War of 1812 on the side of the British. They settled in Trinidad and cleared land in the 1820s. Mostly Baptists, they practiced the religion of the enslaved, the ‘‘invisible

Spiritual Baptists institution,’’ that had developed in the United States South by the early nineteenth century. Finally, the development of the Spiritual Baptist tradition is a part of the culture of resistance to slavery and colonialism. Some Spiritual Baptists would characterize themselves as Protestant Christians while others use the broader term ‘‘spiritual’’ to encompass beliefs and worship practices that span both Black church and especially Sanctified church traditions to those that are rooted in Orisha practices. All of these approaches combined point to the Spiritual Baptist tradition as a uniquely Trinidadian phenomenon with multiple cultural roots. The religion was banned in Trinidad and Tobago between 1917 and 1951. The Shouters Prohibition Ordinance provided legal grounding for this ban. This piece of colonial legislation specifically targeted worship in order to shut down the religion as loud, disorderly, and disorganized, as well as a perceived threat to public peace. The tradition survived through this period of persecution as it effectively went underground. That is to say that practitioners would appear to practice more mainstream forms of Protestant or Roman Catholic Christianity while Spiritual Baptist practices were continued in secret. This banning of the religion was part and parcel of the centuries-long repression of African and African-derived religious and cultural traditions in the Americas by various colonial and slave regimes aimed at quelling the bases of resistance by the enslaved and their descendants. Africans and their descendants crafted cultural and religious traditions under these oppressive conditions. They drew on a repertoire of experiences and cultural encounters that included their ancestral

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past in Africa as well as their interactions with Euro-American forms of Christianity and later, in the era of indentureship of peoples from Asia in the latter half of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries, traditions from India and China. It is out of this interactive cultural dynamic and multiple historical migrations that Spiritual Baptists emerged. After concerted political effort, the ordinance banning the practice of the religion was repealed on March 30, 1951. In 1996, Baptist Liberation Day, a national holiday in Trinidad and Tobago at the end of March, annually, was instituted to commemorate the lifting of the ban. The struggles of the Spiritual Baptists for freedom from religious repression was linked, tangibly and symbolically, as part of the struggle against British colonial rule and the quest for independence. Tubal Uriah ‘‘Buzz’’ Butler (1897–1977), a Spiritual Baptist leader, was a prominent leader in Trinidad and Tobago. Significantly, to this day, stories persist that Dr. Eric Williams (1911–1981), a Trinidadian born and raised, an Oxford-trained historian, and the first prime minister of an independent Trinidad and Tobago, was affiliated with the Spiritual Baptists. While the veracity of Williams’s association is one of conjecture, at this point, what is clear is that the struggle for the abolition of the ordinance was symbolic of the larger struggle for self-determination and freedom from British colonial rule. The majority of Spiritual Baptists, historically, were poor and working-class people of African descent, the very same people who were positioned at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder in colonial society. They cast their lot with the struggle for independence. During the 1940s,

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Elton George Griffith (1913–1992), who was Grenadian born, launched a campaign to lift the ban on the practice of the religion. Today, the March 30 national holiday commemorates this spirit of independence. More recently, Spiritual Baptists have migrated to major urban centers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the post–World War II years. There are Spiritual Baptists in Toronto, Canada, London, England, and American cities such as Brooklyn, New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston. The religion was brought by Caribbean migrants who were part of the large influx of immigrants from the region in the decades immediately following the ending of World War II in 1945. While there had been small trickles of movement from the Caribbean to England through the preceding three or more centuries of the modern era of slavery, the flow in the years immediately after the war and continuing through the 1950s and 1960s was unprecedented. Changes in Canadian immigration policy in 1967 made Canada a possibility for migration in larger numbers. This change to the immigration system, called ‘‘the points system,’’ focused on candidates’ for immigration education, training, and job skills as well as language facility in French or English, the country’s two official languages. As such, it was a more merit-based system than the previous criteria for assessment, which focused on notions of cultural suitability. These earlier immigration policies limited the immigration of persons of African descent and other nonwhite peoples to specific work-related roles while seriously curtailing civic participation and full citizenship. The revised immigration policy directly resulted in

the demographic transformation of Canadian cities such as Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, major urban centers that are recognized, internationally, for their incredibly rich cultural diversity. The immigration policy changes were precipitated by a need to fill labor market demands in areas such as health care, education, and more recently science- and technology-related fields. The massive migration has changed the religious and cultural landscape of cities such as London, England, and Toronto. For many Caribbean immigrants living and working outside of the countries of their birth, religion takes on the significance of providing community and cultural support. In lives where everything else has changed, the religious and cultural, including food, practices become important places of identity formation and continuity with the homeland. In the study of Spiritual Baptists living in Toronto, Canada, the practice of the religion was noted for its power to connect practitioners to others who were going or had been through similar challenges (Duncan 2008). The church then functioned as a religious and cultural center and also as a place that provided support in other areas of everyday life, including the provision of practical tips for daily living and sharing jobseeking strategies. Spiritual Baptists living in social contexts outside of the Caribbean face the challenge of maintaining the tradition in the face of a life that has changed in many other respects. The tradition has developed in these diasporic contexts between these two factors—the push to change because of the new setting and the need to stay the same in light of everything else changing in life.

Spiritual Baptists

Beliefs and Practices The Spiritual Baptist faith is characterized by a belief in the connection between material everyday life and the world of the Spirit. The churchly expression, ‘‘so carnally, so spiritually,’’ is an expression of this belief. Centrally, the religion emphasizes the significance of dwelling within the Holy Spirit and of the significance of salvation through full-immersion ‘‘living water’’ (ocean, river, or stream) baptism. Worship services involve singing, praying, preaching, and testifying. Spirit possession by the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues are regarded as spiritual gifts. The moaning sound, called ‘‘doption’’ is utilized during praying and singing. Significant sacred objects used in worship include the handbell (rung during prayer and singing), candles, and flowers. Foodstuffs such as rice and honey can also be featured on altars. Major ritual practices include baptism, mourning, pilgrimage, and thanksgiving. Spiritual Baptists are also known for their specific forms of dress including long skirts, head ties, and petticoats for women. The covering of the head and the wearing of longer clothing is both an act of modesty as well as a visible expression of a spiritual connection since colors of clothing are symbolic. Baptism involves a period of preparatory reflection and instruction for the baptismal candidate. It culminates in the actual baptism itself performed in living water by the baptizer. ’Mourning is a period of prayer and fasting that can last for three days or more. The person who mourns is referred to as a pilgrim or pilgrim traveler.

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The mourning takes place in a mourning room. The pilgrim is made to lie on the mourning ground and is attended to by others designated as nurses during this period of seclusion. The chronicles of dreams and visions received are referred to as mourning tracts. It is during this period that spiritual gifts including the gift of healing and various church leadership roles are received. Pilgrimage involves travel of one Spiritual Baptist church to another. Services are characterized by exuberant singing and praise giving. Thanksgiving is a ritual feast in which church and wider community members are invited to prayers and singing to give thanks for specific events in a church member’s life. A meal is prepared and served, and gifts, typically of foodstuffs, are distributed. The Spiritual Baptist faith is characterized by several leadership roles. These roles are frequently spiritual gifts received during mourning and developed through their employ in the life of the church community. Each religious community member provides a valuable service within the congregation. Leader: An ordained minister and head of a church. A leader is a male role. Mother: The church mothers care for church members and their spiritual children. Captain: This role is responsible for the church during the conducting of services. Nurse: A female member who cares for others during rituals such as baptism and mourning. Prover: This role validates the authenticity of the pilgrim’s mourning experiences. Watchman: This person stands guards and, in the days of the banning of Spiritual Bap tists, he had the role of lookout for the arrival of police.

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Shepherd: The shepherd (or shepherdess if female) is responsible for gathering and guiding the congregation.

SPIRITUALISM

Baptizer: The baptizer performs the rite of baptism.

Historical Development

Teacher: A teacher holds a senior role as he or she is entrusted to teach others about the tradition.

Belief in an ‘‘Infinite Intelligence’’ and the ability of systematic communication between humans located in earthly dimensions and entities within spiritual realms via prophesy, automatic writing/speaking, materialization, and trance induction represent only some of the primary qualities that characterize spiritualism. It is a movement that has grown from a few scattered circles in the northeastern region of the United States into a movement that contains many national organizations across every region of the country. Accordingly, within this maturation process, the presence of individuals of African descent has been felt from the automatic speeches of Paschal Beverly Randolph (see entry ‘‘New Age Movement’’) to the formation of the National Colored Spiritualist Association. Hydesville, a small town in upstate New York served as the birthplace of spiritualism. It is here that two sisters,

Pointer: The pointer guides the pilgrim and is responsible for his or her welfare during mourning. A pointer can hold another role such as leader or mother.

Carol B. Duncan

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Duncan, Carol B. This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008). Glazier, Stephen. Marchin’ the Pilgrims Home: A Study of the Spiritual Baptists of Triniadad (Salem, WI: Sheffield, 1991). Houk, James T. Spirits, Blood and Drums (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995). Zane, Wallace. Journeys to the Spiritual Lands: The Natural History of a West Indian Religion (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

PASCHAL BEVERLY RANDOLPH (1825–1875) On October 8, 1825, Flora Clark gave birth to Paschal Beverly Randolph in New York City. By 1852, Randolph operated as a barber in Utica, New York, and by 1953 he openly pledged allegiance to the spiritualist movement. From 1953 to 1955 Ran dolph was revered in the movement for ‘‘automatic writing,’’ an ability to write a textu ally manifest message from the spiritual realm while in an unconscious state. During this period he also produced publications such as Waa gu Nah and The Triplicate Order, both published in 1854. In addition, he served as a medium within the move ment, delivering over 2,500 trance induced speeches in both domestic and international locales. Although Randolph officially renounced spiritualism in 1958, he progressed for ward serving as the founder of one of the earliest Rosicrucian groups and authored com prehensive manuscripts like Dealing with the Dead: The Human Soul, Its Migrations and Its Transmigrations, published in 1862.

Spiritualism Kate and Margaret Fox, in 1848 established and developed—with assistance from their mother—‘‘a system of communication with a spirit (Mr. Splitfoot) who freely roamed their home’’ (Leonard 2005). It is this systematic approach in tapping the spiritual realm that served as a catalyst in the propagation of this movement. Four years after the ‘‘Hydesville Occurrences,’’ a free Creole—a person of mixed ancestry, particularly of African/ French or African/Spanish descent—by the name of J. B. Valmour began healing people. Valmour’s ability to heal became so well known throughout the city of New Orleans that he moved these healing sessions from his private apartment to an open square. Since the number of individuals who sought healing from him was steadily increasing, Valmour on some days could not operate as a blacksmith. Although Valmour was financially strained at times, he refused to charge individuals who sought healing for he believed that therapeutic force flowed from God and should be given to others freely.

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Around the same time of Valmour’s ‘‘spiritual healings’’ in New Orleans, Paschal Beverly Randolph, in 1853, joined the spiritualist movement in the northeast region of the United States. Randolph, primarily operating in predominantly white spiritualist circles in this region, became associated with his ability to receive messages from the spiritual realm via automatic writing and trace speaking. By 1855, only two years after joining the movement, Randolph—who at this time had delivered over 2,500 trance-induced speeches in the United States and abroad and whose writings were now published—was marked as one of the greatest mediums within the movement. However, in 1858, Randolph openly rejected spiritualism, and with this denouncement of the movement he was marked by his former colleagues, like Emma Britten, a ‘‘negro minstrelsy’’ because of his swift exit from the movement and his active involvement in Rosicrucian—secret societies that proclaim the apprehension of esoteric knowledge.

J. B. VALMOUR Although little is known about J. B. Valmour, his legacy in the modern Creole spiritual ist movement that occurred in New Orleans is not a secret. By 1852, the locals tagged him with the ability to initiate healings. This special ability to act as a healer while under semiconscious states became so well known in the city that he could no longer practice in his shop (also his small residence), but he was forced to perform these healings in an out door public space. He also openly rejected teachings like mesmerism belief in the exist ence of a cosmic like energy that permeates throughout all physical objects. Instead, he purported that a medium’s ability to enter into trancelike states is due to focalizing on God, and the combination of the medium’s concentration on the healing of the patient and the power of God that manifest healing within the patient. While it is not known whether any of his knowledge was recorded in textual form, Valmour was instrumental in the training of mediums like Nelson Desbrosses a practicing medium in the Rey circle whose healing capabilities became known throughout New Orleans.

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While Randolph rejected spiritualism in the northeastern region of the United States, Henry Louis Rey became an instrumental figure in the establishment of ‘‘Creole spiritualism’’ with the initiation of a spiritualist circle in New Orleans. The circle’s members consisted of Creoles from prominent families within the city. Because of laws instigated by Catholicism, the predominant religious tradition operating in the Crescent City, circles like those started by Rey and independently operating mediums like Valmour were forced into private spiritualist sessions. Despite these executive regulations, spiritualism among the Creole community in particular and larger community in general continued to increase. There are several reasons for such a swelling in the number of people joining the spiritualist movement. The spiritualist space provided opportunities through which participants could receive therapeutic treatment free of financial obligation. Combining organic elixirs with biblical Scriptures in order to stimulate healing, Valmour,

due to the personal testimonials of resulting physical healings, achieved an elevation from blacksmith to one of the most powerful spiritual healers in New Orleans. Also, specifically in Creole spiritualist circles like that of Rey, participants were afforded the opportunity to experience direct contact with the spiritual realm via automatic writing and prophesy. As a people representing mixed ancestry, the spiritual guides of Creoles, manifesting themselves in these modes of writing and speaking, offered these members a glimpse of hope in regard to the structural composition of the spiritual realm. Guides like Pe` re Ambroise describe this realm as one lacking liminality, an assurance that circle members translated into hope and transplanted into their everyday temporal existence. Not only were acts of healing, trances, ‘‘inspirational’’ writing, prophecy, and trance-induced speaking prominent factors initiating participation in Creole spiritualism, but these same occurrences were also utilized as catalysts in the promotion of

HENRY LOUIS REY As one of the sons of Barthe´lemy and Rose Agnes Rey, Henry Louis Rey enjoyed many privileges, including high levels of private education, financial stability, and flexibility to travel, which were commonplace among wealthy Creole families in New Orleans. In 1852 not only did Rey’s father die but his mother also donated a huge amount of the willed estate to a Catholic church in the city, leaving the family in a situation of economic instability. It is this ethos that led Rey toward se´ances. It is personal experience of auto matic writing within a se´ance in 1857 that prompted him to initiate a spiritualist circle. At the age of 29, Rey, along with three of his brothers joined the Louisiana Native Guard. Despite serving as a state representative from 1868 to 1870, Rey reestablished his spiritu alist circle. This reconstructed circle, due to its placement within an incredibly harsh, post war racially turbulent ethos, began to operate as a vehicle of social action and protest. From 1868 to about 1874, messages believed to have been sent from the spiritual realm spoke against inequalities and violence due to the harsh racial climate of New Orleans.

Spiritualism ideas of social change. For example, before the Civil War spiritual communication concerning social structure occurring in Rey’s circle primarily involved challenging the promotion of orthodoxy among religious systems like Catholicism. However, after the Civil War the content of spiritual messages in this same circle underwent a drastic change. There were two primary reasons for such a transformation. Both racial tension due to the collapse of a three-tiered social system that placed Creoles in the same social standing as individuals of African descent and an increasing number of racially motivated acts like those experienced by both Rey and his brother, Octave Rey, while serving as officers in the Louisiana Native Guards, fueled this transition of message content manifested in Creole spiritualist circles. For example, in 1868, Rey’s circle began to receive messages from the spirits of former slaves, local and national freedom fighters, and Civil War soldiers of Creole descent—like his friend Andre´ Cailloux. The spirits spoke: Cailloux espoused the essentiality of the Civil War in the assurance of civil liberties to every man, woman, and child regardless of ethnicity. Toussaint L’Ouverture espoused the total annihilation of political hierarchies. Spiritualist guide W. R. Meadows, a murder victim of the race riot of 1866 in New Orleans purported, ‘‘The hour of reward has struck for the suffering blacks . . . You can put off the hour, but you cannot stop it. Mixed schools will come, the sooner the better for you; the punishment of your crimes will be according to your resistance to the law of Justice’’ (Cox 2003). This type of shift occurring in the message content communicated within the Creole circles signaled a change in the local spiritualist landscape in New Orleans in particular and in the American

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spiritualist body in general. Thus, by the early 1890s, spiritualism in general began to undergo organizational changes. In an attempt to make the movement more structurally sound, the National Spiritualist Association (NSA) was founded in 1893. At the time this national organization contained members who were of African and European descent; however, in 1924 the latter group decided that it would be best if the former possessed their own group. From this decision the National Colored Spiritualist Association was founded in 1925 under the leadership of John R. White and Sarah Harrington. Not only did this group maintain the bylaws developed by the NSA, but they also established their own organ known as the National Spiritualist Reporter. Although there is little textual information about the historical activities of this group, its operation continues with Nellie Mae Taylor serving as the organization’s president.

Beliefs and Practices The overall doctrinal and belief system of spiritualism is characterized by the operation of three areas: (1) scientifically based initiatives, (2) philosophically driven principles, and (3) elements of spiritually based religion presented as Mediumship. Followers of spiritualism did not view this movement as a religion with unilateral form, but adamantly proposed that their belief system was based on scientific principles revolving around the ability to establish a link of communication between temporal and spiritual realms. Thus, members espouse that it is this ability to communicate that creates a space in which this religion can be viewed as scientific. Unlike the orthodox

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religious establishments that categorize these types of spiritual manifestation as supernatural, followers of spiritualism, as illustrated in the National Spiritual Association of Churches’ fifth principle, not only view these spiritual communications as manifestations of Natural Law, but they also interpret them utilizing scientific inquiry such as observation, data collection/interpretation, and application of concluding resolutions. Spiritualism’s overall belief in a ‘‘supreme Impersonal Power,’’ i.e., Infinite Intelligence, serves as a philosophical platform on which their doctrinal system is based. This philosophically driven thought can be seen operating in the National Spiritual Association decrees. In 1899, the National Spiritual Association adopted six principles initiating an official doctrinal and belief system surrounding spiritualism known as the ‘‘Declaration of Principles.’’ The primary tenets involved belief in an Infinite Intelligence—an intelligence that manifests itself in both physical and spiritual entities. In addition, these earlier principles included beliefs that centered on the individual form after death as expressed in the NSA’s fourth principle, which maintains the survival of an individual’s identity even after one has passed from temporality to the spiritual realm. Descriptions of such survival were often displayed through the appearance of spirits in either an individual or communal encounter within a se´ance-type ethos. For example, Pe` re Ambroise, a well-known spirit who often visited Creole spiritualist circles in New Orleans, describes death as a process by which the material body is removed, leaving only the spirit that enters into a world of invisibility enrobed with his earthly identity. From 1909 to 1944 this association

adopted its last three principles, which included the individual’s ability to affect moral accountability based on obedience to laws of nature—proposing that institutions such as slavery were a result of not following nature’s laws—and the spiritual realm; flexibility of the soul’s condition even after death; and acceptance of the manifested operation of both prophesy and healing via Mediumship—a process that involves a medium being used as a portal through which a spirit utilizes in order to communicate with the earthly realm. It is important to note that for African American members of the spiritualist movement, initially, there was an verbatim adoption of the NSA’s principles— as seen with the adoption of the traditional bylaws by the National Colored Spiritualists Association of Churches in 1926. This same type of allegiance to the nationally recognized spiritualist principles was also evident in Creole spiritualist circles in New Orleans. For instance, these circles, especially before the onset of the Civil War, believed in the operation of Infinite Intelligence in temporal as well as spiritual entities; the maintenance of personal identity after death; and the probability of healing and prophesy via Mediumship. However, after the Civil War these same principles and systems of belief began to undergo a type of transformation due to the harsh racial ethos of New Orleans, an environment in which these Creole spiritualist circles existed. In general, these amendments can be seen in the overall function of the group. For example, although the overall attitude of spiritualists, specifically in northern circles, tended to be one tagged with abolitionism, the Creole circles in New Orleans after the war began to use their religious setting as a

Spiritualism platform for social reform, publicly contesting the inequalities between the races in New Orleans. As a result of this religiopolitical function, the content of spiritual messages received by the group did not express the traditional type of message espousing soft tones of egalitarianism; instead, as noted before, messages of protest were sent by spirits who were slaves, abolitionists, and black/Creole soldiers harshly denouncing systems of institutionalized racial intolerance. It seems as though African American circles like those operating in the Creole communities of New Orleans altered spiritualism’s traditional philosophical driven doctrinal system so that it could be utilized in a practical sense within the social reform movement occurring in New Orleans. Finally, Mediumship includes three distinct subcategories: (1) Prophecy, (2) Automatic Writing/Speaking, and (3) Healing. Prophecy is recognized as the ability of a medium to commune with the spirits. Overall, it involves the reception of information from spirits. According to the many spiritualist groups, prophecy allows the medium to describe specific activities occurring within the spiritual realm; establish a connection with individuals who have experienced death; and receive guidance from spirits concerning matters transpiring in the temporal realm. The second subcategory can be described as a state of semiconsciousness in which a recipient, most often the medium, receives messages from the spiritual domain and relays these messages in either verbal or written form. Lastly, healing is a major component

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operating in Mediumship in particular and the overall spiritualist belief system in general. Healing involves harnessing an unseen, curative energy in order to ascertain wholeness with respect to mind, body, and emotions. Margarita Simon Guillory

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bell, Caryn Cosse. Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana 1718 1868 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004). Carroll, Bret E. Spiritualism in Antebellum America (Bloomington: Indiana Univer sity Press, 1997). Cox, Robert S. Body and Soul: A Sympathetic History of American Spiritualism (Char lottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003). Deveney, John Patrick. Paschal Beverly Ran dolph: A Nineteenth Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997). Leonard, Todd Jay. Talking to the Other Side: A History of Modern Spiritualism and Mediumship (New York: iUniverse, 2005). Murphy, Larry G., et al. Encyclopedia of African American Religions (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993). National Spiritualist Association of Churches. ‘‘Declaration of Principles.’’ http://www.nsac.org/principles.htm (accessed July 16, 2008). Ochs, Stephen J. A Black Patriot and a White Priest: Andre´ Cailloux and Claude Pas chal Maistre in Civil War New Orleans (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000).

T TAMBOR DE MINA

1977; Bastide 1978; M. Ferretti 1985, 2000; S. Ferretti 1986, 2001; Pereiva 1979.) Tambor de Mina has its roots in two West African religious traditions, resulting in two main currents in contemporary Tambor de Mina: Mina-Nagoˆ and Mina-Jejeˆ. Mina Nagoˆ draws on the traditions of the Yoruban region of what is now Nigeria. Mina-Jejeˆ , which has drawn more attention from anthropologists, traces its roots to what used to be called Dahomey, now the Republic of Benin. Tambor de Mina dates to the first half of the nineteenth century, with the founding of two casas, literally ‘‘houses,’’ that continue in operation at the present time in the capital of Maranha˜ o, Sa˜ o Luis. The most famous of these is the Casa das Minas, which follows the Jejeˆ tradition. The Casa das Minas was probably founded sometime before 1850 by an African-born woman whose Portuguese name was Maria Jesuina, although some have argued that Na Agontime´, a Dahomean queen sold into slavery, was the

Historical Development Tambor de Mina is the Afro-Brazilian religion associated with the northern state of Maranha˜ o. A central focus of Tambor de Mina is ritual possession of adepts by spiritual entities, especially the African deities. Like other AfroBrazilian religions, Tambor de Mina incorporates many symbols from Roman Catholicism (especially the Catholic Saints, who are identified with African deities). The name—Tambor de Mina— points to two important facts about the religion. ‘‘Tambor’’ means ‘‘drum,’’ and as in all Afro-Brazilian religion, drums play a central role in ritual, used in conjunction with song to invoke the African deities and other spiritual entities, and to give rhythmic shape to their dances. ‘‘Mina’’ refers to the fort of Mina, on the old Gold Coast of West Africa (now Ghana), from which Africans were shipped into slavery from a wide area of West Africa. (I draw from Barretto 387

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actual founder. The Casa de Nagoˆ was probably founded by two women, Josefa and Joana, who may or may not have been sisters, and who may have been helped in their efforts by Maria Jesuina of the Casa das Minas. A few other houses opened in Sa˜o Luis in later decades, and by the end of the nineteenth century Tambor de Minas had begun to spread to other regions. By the 1950s, there were over 50 houses operating in and around Sa˜o Luis.

Beliefs and Practices The Casa das Minas is in some ways distinctly different from other places where Afro-Brazilian religion is practiced. While in the well-known Candomble´ of Salvador (and Rio de Janeiro, and in recent years Sa˜o Paulo), the Xangoˆ of Pernambuco, and the Batuque of Rio Grande do Sul, it is the Yoruban (Nagoˆ) deities known as Orixa´ s that possess dancers during rituals; at the Casa das Minas it is the Jejeˆ sacred entities, the Voduns, that are invoked. As with the Orixa´s, the Voduns are associated with the Catholic saints. But while a rich mythology identifies the Orixa´ s with the forces of nature and the domains of culture and invests them with elaborate identities, little is known—or perhaps more accurately, little is revealed to researchers—about the Voduns. They are organized along family lines, and categorized according to age. They intercede between human beings and the supreme being (EvoVodun) helping persons in need provided such help is the will of Evovodun. As with other AfroBrazilian religions, the Voduns at the Casa das Minas appear during public rituals, in which they posses their ‘‘daughters,’’ known as vodunsi, during

trance. The trance is notably more subdued than in Candomble´ . Only those Voduns who have vodunsi appear during ritual; and no other types of spiritual being, such as the caboclos or encantados (see below) are invoked. Distinct from other Afro-Brazilian religions, at the Casa das Minas, Exu (or Legba, as the trickster messenger between humans and the deities is known in the Fon language of the house) is not cultivated and is considered bad or evil. While the Casa das Minas has been tremendously influential in shaping the Tambor de Mina, it has not spawned a host of daughter houses, as other prestigious centers of Afro-Brazilian worship have done. Initiations into the highest levels, which allow one to open up a new house, rarely occur; in fact, a whole category of Vodun, the tobossi or child Voduns, no longer appear because the last initiation for that aspect of worship was held in 1913–1914. Outside of the unique but important confines of the Casa das Minas, Tambor de Mina celebrates a much wider variety of spiritual entities. At the Casa de Nagoˆ, as at Mina houses throughout the region, the Voduns are joined by the Nagoˆ Orixa´s. In addition, there are legions of spirits of human or quasi-human entities, often referred to as encantados, ‘‘enchanted ones.’’ These include figures drawn from European folklore, such as Rei Sebastia˜o (a Portuguese king who disappeared fighting the Moors), the King of Turkey, various princes, nobles, and others. There are also spiritual protectors known as Caboclos, but unlike the Caboclos of Umbanda or the Candomble´ de Caboclo, these are not necessarily or even usually the spirits of indigenous Brazilians. The latter comprise a different category, that of ‘‘Indios.’’ Finally, there are the

Tambor de Mina ‘‘meninas’’ or little girls, equivalent in some ways to the ‘‘crianc¸ as’’ or child spirits, of Umbanda. During rituals, which can last from several hours to three days or more, these various spiritual entities become present, summoned by the drums and the songs, and embodied by the ‘‘daughters’’ (and ‘‘sons,’’ though most participants who receive spirits are women). As with all Afro-Brazilian religions, Tambor de Minas represents both the continuity of tradition and dynamic innovation. It offers participants the protection and healing of powerful spiritual entities, a positive way of identifying with their heritage, avenues for selfexpression, and compelling systems of symbols and meanings. Lindsay Hale

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Barretto, Maria Ama´lia Pereira. Os Voduns de Maranha˜o (Sa˜o Luis: Fundac¸a˜o Cultural do Maranha˜o, 1977). Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the

Interpenetration of Civilizations, trans. Helen Sebba (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). Ferretti, Mundicarmo. De Segunda a domingo: etnografia de um mercado coberto; Mina uma religia˜o de origem Africana (Sa˜o Luis: Servic¸o de Impressa e Obras Gra´ficas do Estado, 1985). Ferretti, Mundicarmo. Desceu na Guma: O caboclo do Tambor de Mina em um ter reiro de Sa˜o Luis a Casa Fanti Ashanti (Sa˜o Luis: Edufitia, 2000). Ferretti, Sergio Figueredo. Querebentan de Zomadonu: Etnografia da Casa das Minas (Sa˜o Luis: Universidade Federaldo Maranha˜o, 1986). Ferretti, Sergio Figueredo. ‘‘Religious Syncretism in an Afro Brazilian Cult House.’’ In Reinventing Religion: Syncre tism and Transformation in Africa and the Americas, ed. Sidney M. Greenfield and Andre´ Doogers (Lanham, MD, Boulder, New York, and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001). Pereira, Nunes. A Casa das Minas: Cultos dos Voduns Jeje no Maranha˜o (Petro´polis: Editora Vozes, 1979).

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U UMBANDA

identify themselves as Catholics in surveys and national censuses, and there is no one central organization comprising all Umbandistas or Umbanda centers. Diana Brown, an anthropologist who did extensive field research on Umbanda in the late 1960s, estimated that between 10 million and 20 million Brazilians followed Umbanda by the 1970s. Those numbers have certainly diminished in the past two decades, as many Umbandistas have joined the burgeoning numbers of Pentecostals, while others have entered into the more traditional (and for many, more ‘‘authentic’’) AfroBrazilian Candomble´ . Nonetheless, Umbanda continues to be a vital part of the Brazilian religious scene, and has attracted followers over the borders in Argentina and Uruguay. (This entry draws from Bastide 1978; Birman 1980; Brown 1994; Concone 1987; Hale 1997, 2004, and 2009; Lerch 1980; Maggie 1975; Monteiro 1985; Ortiz 1978; and Pressel 1973.) Umbanda is considered a syncretic religion—that is, a religion that includes

Historical Development Umbanda is a religion that began in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the early decades of the twentieth century. Umbanda combines elements of Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomble´ with Roman Catholicism, French Spiritualism, and symbols and concepts drawn from a variety of sources. With no recognized ecclesiastical authority to impose orthodoxy, as in the Roman Catholic Church, and without the rigorous devotion to tradition characteristic of Candomble´ , Umbanda varies greatly in different terreiros, centros, and tendas (all terms used to designate Umbanda churches), in beliefs but even more, in practice. For example, in some Umbanda centers blood sacrifices are a part of ritual, while in others the practice is strictly forbidden. It is difficult to estimate with much confidence how many people participate in Umbanda; most Umbandistas (Umbanda participants) 391

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symbols and concepts from more than one religious tradition. The syncretic nature of Umbanda is rooted in its history. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Afro-Brazilian religions were a lively, if largely underground, presence in Rio de Janeiro. Mostly Bantu—that is, Angolan or Bakongo in tradition—these religions not only celebrated the African deities, they also offered spiritual assistance and intervention in dealing with the problems of everyday life, most notably through practitioners who would receive spirits. Stigmatized by the Church and ridiculed in the press, practitioners were also subject to police persecution. Nonetheless, Macumba, as this religious and ritual practice was called, flourished on the margins of Rio society, ministering to the spiritual and practical needs of a mostly poor, and mostly Black, community. At the same time, many thousands of well-off and overwhelmingly white Brazilians engaged in a spiritualist practice known in Brazil as Kardecismo or Spiritism. The name comes from its founder, a Frenchman who wrote under the pen name Allan Kardec. Kardec developed an elaborate system based largely, he maintained in his writings, on messages from illustrious and enlightened spirits from beyond the tomb. Couched in an erudite language of science, philosophy, progress, and history, Kardec’s writings drew a wide readership in France but an even wider and more enthusiastic one in Brazil. While Kardec’s teachings violated basic Roman Catholic doctrines, Christian concepts and language were incorporated alongside reincarnation, karma, and se´ances. Though just as heretical in the eyes of the Catholic Church as Afro-Brazilian religion, Kardecismo’s elite following insulated it from repression and ridicule, while its high status drew the attention of religious innovators from the

Macumba (see entry ‘‘Macumba’’)—and from the masses of working poor who were not necessarily Black, and not necessarily involved with Macumba, but certainly Catholic. There can be little doubt that many different individuals and groups were combining Macumba and Kardecismo around the turn of the century in Rio de Janeiro, but one in particular stands out historically. While sources differ in regard to the date, in either 1908 or about 1920 a young man by the name of Ze´lio Fernandes de Morais attended a Spiritist session in Niteroi, across the bay from Rio. During the se´ ance, Ze´ lio was suddenly possessed by the spirit of a Brazilian Indian called Seven Crossroads. The Spiritists, being rather elitist, tried to expel Seven Crossroads, who proceeded to proclaim a new Spiritist religion, which would welcome the spirits of Indigenous and African descended peoples and minister to the masses, themselves largely of African and mixed ancestry. The next day Ze´lio founded the first terreiro of Umbanda, which would relocate to Rio de Janeiro and continue in operation through the century. While the story may be apocryphal in some ways, Ze´lio de Morais did, in fact, found a Spiritist center whose practices—especially the presence of Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian spirits—are characteristic of Umbanda throughout its history. Umbanda’s solid growth through the twentieth century can be attributed to several factors. Umbanda offers spiritual intervention in dealing with the problems of daily life, which have pressed very hard on the poor and working class masses in urban areas, where Umbanda achieved its greatest following. Umbanda has combined Spiritism and AfroBrazilian traditions and Catholicism in a

Umbanda wide range of mixtures, allowing it to appeal to a broad spectrum of religious taste. And finally, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, Umbanda achieved mainstream legitimacy, in part because many military and civilian leaders during the dictatorship were either Spiritists or Umbandistas, while others patronized terreiros to garner working-class support.

Beliefs and Practices Umbanda cosmology postulates a hierarchically organized realm of spiritual beings. After they die and before they are born, human beings are said to exist in the form of pure spirit. These spirits are ranked in terms of their level of evolution. A person who is charitable to others and achieves wisdom when alive will rank higher than a selfish, ignorant, and sinful person. Thus karma and reincarnation are important concepts to most Umbandistas. One way to improve one’s karma is through charitable participation in Umbanda, as a medium who receives spirits, such as those of Brazilian Indians or Afro-Brazilian slaves, that help people with their problems. Those spirits, in turn, evolve by helping the living. The spirits that ‘‘work’’ in Umbanda are organized into ‘‘lines’’ and falanges (legions) in a quasi-military fashion. Each line is under the direction of an African deity, or orixa´. (Orixa´ is the term used in Brazil for Orisha, the word used elsewhere in Spanish-speaking Latin America. Because Umbanda is a Brazilian religion, I will use orixa´.) While the precise names and configurations of these lines vary within Umbanda, they are largely composed along ethnic divisions. For example, there are the ‘‘People of Mozambique’’ (or Angola) and the ‘‘Legion of the Tupi-Guarani’’ named

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after the broad family of indigenous peoples of Brazil. Broadly, the spirits of Umbanda rituals fall into the following categories: 1. Caboclos, indigenous spirits, such as Seven Crossroads. 2. Pretos Velhos, ‘‘old blacks,’’ the spirits of Afro Brazilian slaves. 3. Exus, less evolved spirits, somewhat devilish and trickster like, who in life were often criminals, lowlifes, or noto rious sinners. 4. Pomba Giras, the female equivalent of Exus; these are typically portrayed as dancers, ladies of the night, etc. 5. Criancas, the spirits of children.

All the above are called ‘‘spirits of light’’ because they work for the good. There are also spirits, banished from Umbanda, who are said to work for the dark side within Quimbanda, a kind of evil, mirror image of Umbanda. A central concern of Umbanda is caridade (‘‘charity’’), which means helping people deal with the problems of living. Problems have both spiritual causes and consequences. For example, malevolent spirits, or just being out of balance spiritually, can make a person sick; at the same time, recovery involves not only biological healing but spiritual healing as well. Illness, emotional distress, and all manner of misfortunes are attributed to bad spirits who molest people out of spite, evil magic from Quimbanda, contamination of the spirit, karma, and other spiritual causes. The good spirits of Umbanda, the caboclos, pretos velhos, and so forth, are the experts in dealing with these matters. At the same time, Umbandistas generally take a realistic, pragmatic approach to problems. In dealing with spiritual causes and effects, they do not ignore the material

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dimension. If a person is sick, she goes to the doctor and takes her medicine—and visits with the caboclo or the preto velho. Both are seen as valid and necessary. Most Umbanda centers hold public rituals, at least weekly but in some places twice a week, to which the public is invited to attend and to bring their problems to the spirits. The precise details of Umbanda rituals vary from place to place, but most follow the same basic structure. Before the terreiro or tenda is opened to the public, a private ceremony is held in which an offering is made to Exu, who is seen as a vital intermediary with the orixa´s, but one who can cause trouble if not placated. In some Umbanda centers, those most aligned with the Macumba traditions, this might involve the sacrifice of a chicken, the preparation of a dish of manioc flour, red palm oil, and onions, and a bottle of cachac¸ a (sugar cane brandy). Those more oriented toward Kardecismo—centers that often refer to themselves as ‘‘pure’’ or ‘‘white’’ Umbanda—eschew blood sacrifice and liquor; the offering to Exu might consist of a glass of water and a candle. The offering, which enlists Exu’s cooperation and protection, is essential; it is often said that ‘‘without Exu, nothing is done.’’ The ceremony itself typically begins with a short prayer from the ma˜e de santo or pai de santo (‘‘mother of saint’’ or ‘‘father of saint,’’ respectively, i.e., the spiritual leader of the group). The prayer is recited before an altar, on which are placed statues of Christ and various Catholic Saints who traditionally were identified with the orixa´s. The prayer itself typically makes explicit Christian references while asking that the center, the participants, and the evening’s ritual enjoy the blessing and protection of the higher spiritual entities. Next follows a series of hymns that invoke

the various orixa´s in turn. In some centers, these will be accompanied by drumming, while in ‘‘white’’ Umbanda, drums are often banished as ‘‘primitive’’ holdovers. Unlike in the Candomble´, the orixa´s do not ‘‘descend’’ and possess their mediums, but in those centers that remain closer to Macumba or Candomble´, mediums will become possessed by Caboclos in the service of the orixa´s and will perform the dances characteristic of the various orixa´s. The next phase is the heart of the ritual. Invocatory hymns invite the spirits to descend. A session will typically be devoted to only one type of spirit, for example, the pretos velhos. As the hymns are sung, mediums go into trance and receive their spirits. If it is a session for the pretos velhos, the mediums will assume the postures of broken-down old slaves, bent and hobbled from years of suffering and abuse. They may effect creaky voices, their speech full of archaic jargon from slave times and grammatical errors, not unlike the stereotyped language of Uncle Remus, the fictional narrator of a collection of stories by Joel Chandler Harris, based on slavery-era African American folktales. The pretos velhos, who have names and life stories known to regular participants, will be assisted to their seats, which are low stools like those used in the slave quarters. An assistant, often working from a list, will summon the first of those scheduled to tell their troubles to a preto velho. The problem might include illness, a romance gone bad, trouble on the job, overwhelming stress or sadness, or any of a number of troubles. The preto velho listens patiently, sympathetically, asking questions, getting to the root of the problem, offering advice, encouragement, and quite likely a prescription to perform an offering or a prayer or a personal

Umbanda ritual, such as taking an herbal bath or wearing a protective amulet. After the mediums (or rather, their spirits) have attended to all those who have come seeking their charity, the session draws to a close. Hymns are sung to send the spirits on their way. The mediums come out of trance. A short prayer, typically thanking the higher spiritual powers for the success of the session and the opportunity to do a good work of charity, is recited and a closing hymn is sung. In contrast to Candomble´, from which several leaders over the past century have emerged to become highly influential in shaping the religion while entering national consciousness, Umbanda leaders have remained largely anonymous, with the partial exception of Ze´lio Fernandes de Morais. There are many tens of thousands of Umbanda centers, but none occupy the almost mythical status of the oldest Candomble´ terreiros; leadership of an Umbanda center does not carry with it the spotlight that shone, for example, on a Ma˜e Menininha of the Gantois Candomble´. There are many Umbanda leaders, but their leadership does not extend far, if at all, beyond their own terreiros or tendas. Within those confines, they enjoy a great deal of freedom to innovate, to draw on a wide range of traditions, in part because there are no great figures exercising hegemony. Thus, Umbanda exhibits a truly impressive range of diversity. Lindsay Hale

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Inter penetration of Civilizations, trans. Helen Sebba (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).

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Birman, Patricia. ‘‘Feitic¸o, Carreco, e Olho Grande; Os Males do Brasil Sa˜o: Estudo de um Centro de Umbanda numa Favela do Rio de Janeiro’’ (Master’s diss., Uni versade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/Museo Nacional, 1980). Brown, Diana. Umbanda: Religion and Poli tics in Urban Brazil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). Concone, Maria Helena Vilas Boas. Umbanda, uma Religia˜o Brasileira (Sa˜o Paulo: FFLCH/USP CER, 1987). Hale, Lindsay. ‘‘Preto Velho: Resistance, Redemption, and En Gendered Representa tions of Slavery in a Brazilian Possessio Trance Religion.’’ American Ethnologist 24, no. 2 (1997). Hale, Lindsay. ‘‘The House of Father John, the House of Saint Benedict: Umbanda Aesthetics and a Politics of the Senses.’’ Race, nation, and Religion in the Americas, ed. Henry Goldschmidt and Elizabeth McAlister (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Hale, Lindsay. Hearing the Mermaid’s Song: The Umbanda Religion in Rio de Janeiro (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009). Lerch, Patricia. ‘‘Spirit Mediums in Umbanda Evangelada of Porto Alegre, Brazil.’’ A World of Men, ed. Erika Bourguignon (New York: Praeger, 1980). Maggie, Yvonne. Guerra de Orixa´: Um Estudo de Ritual e Conflito (Rio de Janeiro: Zahar Editores, 1975). Monteiro, Paula. Da Doenc¸a a˚ Desordem (Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1985). Ortiz, Renato. A Morte branca do Feiticeiro Negro (Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Vozes, 1978). Pressel, Esther. ‘‘Umbanda in Sa˜o Paulo: Religious Innovation in a Developing Society.’’ Religion, Altered States of Con sciousness, and Social Change, ed. Erika Bourguignon (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1973).

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UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION Historical Development African Americans have embraced humanism in a variety of ways over the years, but the most visible, substantial, and institutional form of this commitment is probably their involvement in the Unitarian Universalist Association. The Unitarian Universalist Association is a nationally recognized body, developed through a merging of Unitarian and Universalist churches in the late twentieth century. The former, Unitarianism, founded in 1825, was a movement with European roots insisting upon the oneness of God and the humanity of Jesus Christ. Unitarianism in the United States was carried forth by influential figures such as Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Unitarianism as such was not explicitly humanistic, but its theological liberalism contained openness to inquiry that easily incorporated the activism that marked humanism and social reform efforts of this period. In addition, this openness allowed those who believed in God as well as those who denied God a place in the church as well as in social transformation (Lamont 1965, 53). Unitarians, however, were not alone in their radical appeal to the value of humanity. Universalist churches emerged in the eighteenth century and provided another forum for humanist endeavors. Having rejected notions of eternal punishment based upon failure to accept the ‘‘correct’’ faith,

Universalists—as the name implies— believed God would embrace all of humanity and bring about democratic existence of all. A common need for a stronger organizational base combined with theological connections between these two organizations resulted in a 1961 merger—the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). (Humanist organizations such as the American Humanist Association founded in 1934 also merit consideration. This organization has been extremely important, although it has not consistently given attention to overtly religious issues.) The timing of this merger is important in that the 1960s mark a period of strong intellectual openness and disillusionment with African American churches that might account for the interest of some African Americans in the UUA. The theological openness of this organization allowed the rejection of the basic principles of theism suggested by figures such as James Forman to take more concrete and institutional form. While the number of African Americans involved remains small, they have been vocal and have sparked changes within the organization. The use of Black humanism as a ‘‘label’’ or ‘‘tag’’ is fairly recent, and it is associated with the presence of African Americans in the UUA. Because this organization was already open to the label of humanism, it makes sense that one of the first, if not the first, references to Black humanism took place within its struggles over the advancement of Black Power within the UUA. Empowerment: One Denomination’s Quest for Racial Justice, 1967–1982 provides the following information concerning the use of this term, Black humanism, linking its

Unitarian Universalist Association use with the Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus (BUUC) created to respond to racial issues within the UUA. In February 1970, the BUUC’s newsletter (BUUCVine) announced this label and defined it this way: ‘‘Black Humanism calls for a seizure of decision making and implementation for oneself. Gaining power is an essential element of humanism’’ (Unitarian Universalist Commission on Appraisal to the General Assembly 1983, 24). Such a statement allowed for the fundamental elements of religiosity—ultimate concern in the form of human development and ultimate orientation humanizing empowerment. That is to say, humanism as a religion replaces a devotion to God with a commitment to human progress, and bases this hope for human development on signs of human potential for doing good. This religiosity brings into play the ‘‘unique’’ demands and existential context of African Americans; the value of their ‘‘blackness’’ was brought into humancentered thought and action. Such a posture was possible because the UUA’s appeal to social justice is similar to that used historically within African American Christian churches minus one ingredient: justice is demanded and premised upon an appeal to human accountability and progress, and not on the dictates of Scripture lived through a commitment to God. The UUA is embraced by some African Americans, and this relationship can be traced to at least the early twentieth century through Egbert Ethelred Brown and Lewis McGee. Frustrated with Unitarians in Jamaica, Brown traveled to Harlem in 1920, hoping to bring liberal religion to African Americans in New York City. Brown found Harlem engulfed in progressive possibilities related to the NAACP, Marcus Garvey’s

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UNIA, and the Communist Party. He held numerous jobs in an effort to support his family while attempting to establish a Unitarian church, with little support from the American Unitarian Association. Brown devoted a significant amount of time to his ministry and fostered a sense of religiosity that was connected to a longing for justice and political-social equality while drawing on the few socialists, communists, and Garveyites who crossed his path. Gatherings usually consisted of thoughtful talks, rebuttals, and discussion. Missing was the emotional outburst and otherworldly orientation that marked many churches in this same section of New York City. However, the format and focus of the church created problems. Brown’s answer was variation. That is to say, ‘‘he reported that services were modified from year to year, always with the hope of attracting new people. Over the years they varied between a traditional religious service, with hymns, prayers, Scripture readings, doxology, sermons, and benediction, and a forum situation, with a strongly secular orientation that included a brief service before the sermons and a discussion afterward.’’ In addition, ‘‘. . . it was largely upon the forum element that the reputation of the Harlem Unitarian Church was built. It drew people through the quality of its speakers and the open dialogue, yet its character as a forum also left it vulnerable to the kind of disruption described earlier. Moreover, it left some members desiring a service that was more religious in content and format’’ (Morrison-Reed 1994, 92). Some who desired a more religious— meaning theistic—service complained to Unitarian officials about the atheistic tone of the church. Nonetheless, the atheist ethos was a natural outgrowth not

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only of Brown’s leadership but the perspective of many participants—the communists and socialists among them. In keeping with this perspective, Brown believed African Americans needed to be freed from ‘‘the emotionalism and superstition and otherworldliness of the old time religion.’’ Furthermore, he understood the Harlem Unitarian church as ‘‘a church-forum where the honey-inheaven and harassment-in-Hades type of religion is not tolerated. There are no ‘amen corners’ in this church, and no ‘sob sister bench’ ’’ (Morrison-Reed 1994, 92). Rather, this church called for human action and accountability for the condition of the world. Its selfunderstanding is present in its charter statement: This Church is an institution of religion dedicated to the service of humanity. Seeking the truth in freedom, it strives to apply it in love for the cultivation of character, the fostering of fellowship in work and worship, and the establishment of a righteous social order which shall bring abundance of life to man. Knowing not sect, class, nation or race it welcomes each to the service of all. (Morrison Reed 1994, 95)

In the 1940s Brown lost the few members he had to larger more prominent churches such as Community Church. Until his death in 1956, Brown continued to struggle with this church. Lewis A. McGee began the Free Religious Fellowship (initially named the Free Religious Association) in Chicago in 1947 after having been a part of the Chicago Ethical Society. He developed this Fellowship in response to a lack of liberal religion on Chicago’s South Side. It began as a discussion group composed of African Americans and from that it

grew. Most of the members of this fellowship, unlike Brown’s church in Harlem, were African Americans from the United States (not the Caribbean) with some white and Japanese members (MorrisonReed 1994, 130). McGee’s Fellowship consisted of people who came to Humanism from more traditional Christian communities. Many argued that they left traditional Christian churches because those churches failed to adequately explain why oppression existed in the world, and the theology of those churches often conflicted with science. For those in McGee’s group, science was a more solid basis for thought and action than was unsubstantiated theological claims. Furthermore, the exclusive nature of the African American church community and the general segregated nature of the Christian community (and the larger society) posed a problem for them. In short, ‘‘these were people whose lives were no longer confined to the black community. Their broadening outlook required a religion that supported their quest but did not confine them as orthodoxy had’’ (Morrison-Reed 1994, 132–133). First held in the home of Harry Jones, whom McGee met at the Chicago Ethical Society, the services consisted of 20-minute talks by McGee on issues such as ‘‘What is Unitarianism,’’ and ‘‘Why Make a New Approach to Religion’’ (Morrison-Reed 1994, 132–133). Some members of McGee’s Fellowship were involved with the Communist and Socialist Parties, reinforcing a humanist perspective within the Fellowship. This, however, during the years of U.S. communist hunting, caused problems resulting in surveillance of Fellowship activities. Yet, in spite of increased stress created by external forces, McGee’s Fellowship was more successful than Brown’s church for

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Unitarian Church sponsors a meeting on January 15, 1950, during the National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization conference held in Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress)

several reasons, the most obvious being a changed attitude within the Unitarian Association concerning integrated churches and concerning African American Unitarians in general. He built on this growing acceptance. McGee’s Fellowship was committed to social action. Members of this organization, under McGee’s leadership, acknowledged religious involvements necessitate social activism. And so McGee and other members of the Fellowship involved themselves in the NAACP, Civil Rights Movement, and other transformative efforts. In the words of McGee: We believe in the human capacity to solve individual and social problems and thus to

make progress. We believe in a continuing search for truth and hence that life is an adventurous quest. We believe in the sci entific method as valid in ascertaining fac tual knowledge. We believe in democratic process in our human relations. We believe in ethical conduct. We believe in a dynamic universe, the evolution of life, the oneness of the human family and the unity of life with the material universe . . . . We believe in the creative imagina tion as a power in promoting the good life. (Morrison Reed 1994, 135)

The Fellowship maintained as its goal the application of humanist principles within African American communities. After McGee’s retirement the Fellowship continued to function on Chicago’s South Side.

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Unlike the makeup of these two early churches led by Brown and McGee, African Americans in the UUA currently are spread throughout the 1,000+ predominately white congregations, within 20 districts. The involvement of African Americans in the Unitarian Universalist Association does not rival the number of African Americans who make African American churches their home. At best roughly 1 percent of the total membership of the UUA (approximately 150,000) is African American. Nonetheless, even this limited involvement represents a strand of religious experience within African American communities. Progress was made, however, in 2001, when William Sinkford was elected the first African American president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. In that position, he is the central figure within an organization run by a Board of Trustees and a representative General Assembly.

Beliefs and Practices African American members of the Unitarian Universalist Association do not differ in belief from white members. In part this is because the UUA is based, as it claims, on ‘‘deeds not creeds.’’

That is to say, there is no assumed allegiance to any particular set of doctrines or theologies; rather, the commitment is to practices that promote healthy life and peace. As a result, the UUA houses a variety of religious belief structures, from atheism to Christianity, with some members embracing aspects of traditions such as Buddhism. That is to say, the UUA draws from the best of the world’s religious traditions, ethical structures, and moral commitments. One gets a firm sense of the organization’s beliefs and practices based on the seven principle sources printed on its Web site and in its literature: • The inherent worth and dignity of every person; • Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; • Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; • A free and responsible search for truth and meaning; • The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

WILLIAM SINKFORD (1946–) William Sinkford was born in San Francisco, California, and was educated at Harvard University and Starr King School for Ministry. After college, Sinkford held a vari ety of positions in marketing before opening his own business called Sinkford Restora tions, Inc. With time, his commitment to community activism sparked an interest in ministry. Having spent years as a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association, he trained for ministry and took a position within the UUA, serving in a variety of capacities, including work as an officer of the African American Unitarian Universalist Ministry and the UU Urban Concerns and Ministry Committee. In 2001, Sinkford became the first African American president of the UUA.

United Church of Christ | 401 • The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; • Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. (http://www.uua.org/visitors/ 6798.shtml) Anthony B. Pinn

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Lamont, Corliss. The Philosophy of Humanism (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1965). Morrison Reed, Mark D. Black Pioneers in a White Denomination, 3rd ed. (Boston: Skinner House Books, 1994). Pinn, Anthony B., ed. By These Hands: A Documentary History of African Ameri can Humanism (New York: New York University Press, 2001). Pinn, Anthony B. African American Human ist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of Nimrod (New York: Pal grave/Macmillan, 2004). Unitarian Universalist Commission on Appraisal to the General Assembly. Empowerment: One Denomination’s Quest for Racial Justice, 1967 1982 (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Associa tion, 1983).

UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST Historical Development The United Church of Christ (UCC) was born out of the union of the German Reformed, Evangelical Synod, the Christian Church, and American Congregational churches. These religious traditions incorporated in 1957. African Americans came in by way of the Congregationalist and Christian Church bodies. Through

these respective denominations, African Americans have established several prominent churches and produced notable leaders in the United Church of Christ. In the nineteenth century, African American Congregational churches and schools flourished and Congregationalism spread among African Americans in New England. African Americans formed the first African American Congregational church, the Dixwell Avenue Church in 1820 in New Haven, Connecticut. African Americans established several other Congregational churches by 1847. The list includes the Talcott Street Congregational Church, Hartford, Connecticut; Fourth Congregational, Portland, Maine; and Second Congregational Church, Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Early efforts of outreach and missions to African Americans in the Congregational tradition were carried on by an ecumenical missionary organization called the American Missionary Association (AMA). A related organization and abolitionist group, the Amistad Committee, supported and funded the legal case of enslaved Africans who took over a Portuguese ship on which they were held in 1839. The high profile case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The outgrowth of the Amistad Committee’s work helped form the AMA, with Congregationalists as primary sources of support. With time, the AMA became a ministry of the Congregational Church. Most of the AMA’s home missions targeted African Americans, and they became beneficiaries of the AMA’s work in education and church growth. At one point, the AMA’s ministry to freed blacks rivaled the government and its Freedmen’s Bureau in dollars given to aid the social integration of African Americans. The black Christian Church or AfroChristian Church experience began with

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congregations in North Carolina and Virginia. The first African American Christian Church was the Providence Church in the Chesapeake area of Virginia in the early 1850s. By the late 1800s, the number of black Christian Churches grew. The churches in the various regions of Virginia and North Carolina formed conferences to cooperate in missions and to focus on education for its membership and clergy. In 1892, the regional bodies formed the Afro-Christian Conference. Even before this formal partnership, congregations in the black Christian Church founded an academy in 1883, the Franklinton Literary and Theological Christian Institute. They paid for it with dues of ten cents per person from the churches’ memberships. In 1931, the Congregational and Christian churches merged to form the Congregational Christian Churches. The partnership displayed the diversity of religious sentiment and expression in African American Christianity. The mixture of the Congregationalist’s New England Puritanism and the revivalist tendencies of clerical populism in the Christian Church experience did not always mesh well. When congregations in the Afro-Christian Church and the southern black Congregationalist churches merged to form the Conference of the South in 1950, strong leadership helped the distinct groups find common ground. The Congregational Christian Church merged with the Evangelical Reformed Church to create the UCC in 1957. Some suggest, however, that this new denomination marginalized African American Congregational groups and black Christian Churches. The merger was less than ideal for many African Americans and the Congregational

and black Christian Churches. In some cases, African Americans felt excluded from the larger denominational family in the pre- and post-UCC denomination(s). Racial/ethnic commissions and caucuses meant to integrate denominational leadership became active during the civil rights era. Remnants of those groups persist today; the United Black Christians (laypersons) and Ministers for Social, Racial, and Economic Justice are examples of such efforts.

Beliefs and Practices New England Puritanism nurtured the theological ethos of Congregationalism. Congregationalist churches held the Bible as their authority on matters of doctrine, claimed local autonomy for their churches, and believed in a theocratic society. Church members were encouraged to live morally upright lives. This was the message of many New England Congregational clergymen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who felt called to preach this faith to Africans and African Americans. One cannot mention the major beliefs of the Congregationalists without acknowledging their passion for education. The AMA constructed schools next to most of the churches that it built. The list of black colleges built by the AMA include Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee; Talladega College, Talladega, Alabama; Dillard University, New Orleans, Louisiana; Howard University, Washington, D.C.; and Atlanta University (Clark Atlanta University), Atlanta, Georgia. Many educated African American Congregational ministers, therefore, led churches filled with an educated laity. The Second Great Awakening and events like the 1801 Cane Ridge Revivals

United Church of Christ | 403 laid much of the theological foundation for the Christian Church. While Baptists and Methodists were well known for their appeal to African Americans, the Christian Church attracted many African Americans in the South. The Christian Church believed in democratic principles for church governance. Upstanding moral character was an important requirement for church membership. And, the members of this religious body believed that the label ‘‘Christian’’ was the only suitable term to describe their church. These beliefs are evident in the Cardinal Principles of the tradition: (1) Jesus Christ is the only head of the Church; (2) Christian is a sufficient name for the Church; (3) The Holy Bible is a sufficient rule for faith and practice; 4) Christian character is a sufficient test for Church membership and fellowship; and (5) The right of private judgment and the liberty of conscience are rights and privileges which should be accorded to and exercised by all. While members of the black Christian Church were a part of a larger

denominational experience, the black Christian Churches maintained their own expressions of faith. Preaching and worship in the African American Christian Churches reflected that of their brothers and sisters in the Baptist and Methodist faiths. ‘‘Soulful preaching’’ and ‘‘joyful shouting’’ were two labels that described the Afro-Christian worship experience. The UCC inherited the concern for social justice from its black denominational members and ancestors. African American Christians in this fellowship remain aware of the struggle against racial, social, and economic injustices. The leaders Lemuel Haynes, Henry Hugh Proctor, and Jeremiah A. Wright represent historic and contemporary examples of this fact. Adam L. Bond

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alston, Percel O. ‘‘The Afro Christian Con nection.’’ Hidden Histories in the United Church of Christ, ed. Barbara Brown

LEMUEL HAYNES (1753–1833) Lemuel Haynes is one of the early black leaders in Congregationalism. Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, Haynes grew up in Massachusetts where he was an indentured servant until he turned 21. At that point, he joined the Minute Men and completed mili tary service during the Revolutionary War. His path led him into the ministry. Many his torians believe that he was the first ordained black minister in America. (The ordination took place on November 9, 1785.) Haynes served several Congregational churches during his life. His pastorates included stops at churches in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. Incidentally, those churches included white congregations. Haynes’s stature grew within the Congregational Church. He was also the first African American to receive a college degree (an honorary master of arts). Among the black clergymen who were his contemporaries, Haynes has probably received the most attention.

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HENRY HUGH PROCTOR (1868–1933) Henry Hugh Proctor was an established pastor and ‘‘race man’’ mostly known for his lead ership of the First Congregational Church in Atlanta, Georgia. He was born in Tennessee to parents who were sharecroppers. Proctor received his education in public schools, preparing him for a secondary and college education at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1891 from Fisk and shortly thereafter enrolled in Yale Divinity School. He graduated from the divinity school and was ordained for ministry in 1894. Proctor began his ministry as the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Atlanta, Georgia. The church became a place of service for the spiritual, social, recreational, and intellectual needs of the community. First Congregational Church’s reputation and successes drew visits and commendations from Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft. Proctor finished his ministry in a Congregational church in Brooklyn, New York. Proctor’s ministry as an advocate for the race was practical. He worked on behalf of Fisk to raise money for the school. He protested against Jim Crow laws in the 1890s.

Zikmund (New York: United Church Press, 1984), 21 36. DeBoer, Clara Merritt. ‘‘Blacks and the American Missionary Association.’’ Hid den Histories in the United Church of Christ, ed. Barbara Brown Zikmund (New York: United Church Press, 1984), 81 94. Jones, Lawrence Neale. From Consciousness to Conscience: Blacks and the United

Church of Christ. The Heritage Series (New York: United Church Press, 1976). Slie, Samuel N. ‘‘The United Church of Christ and the Experience of the Black Church.’’ Theology and Identity: Tradi tions, Movements, and Polity in the United Church of Christ, ed. Daniel L. Johnson and Charles Hambrick Stowe (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1990), 39 50.

JEREMIAH A. WRIGHT JR. (1941–) Until his retirement in 2008, Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. served as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois, which is the largest congregation in the UCC. His early influences included his parents, Jeremiah Wright Sr. and Dr. Mary Henderson Wright, and persons like Samuel DeWitt Proctor, who was the president of Virginia Union University when Wright enrolled at the school. After a brief period of service in the military, Wright finished requirements toward an undergraduate degree at Howard University (1968). He studied at the University of Chicago Divinity School, earning a Master of Arts degree in 1975. He earned a Doctor of Ministry degree in 1990. Wright began his public ministry at Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago, Illinois, in 1972. He was called to serve a church with a dwindling membership. During his watch, the membership swelled to nearly 10,000 by 2004. The church completed a new sanctuary in 1997 (2,700 seats) to accommodate the numerous persons who worshiped at Trinity each week. Wright nurtured the sense of pride that the congregation had in its African and African American heritage. The phrase ‘‘Unashamedly Black, Unapologetically Christian’’ became the motto for the church during Wright’s watch.

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MARCELINO MANUEL DA GRACA (1881–1960) Marcelino Manuel da Graca was born in approximately 1881 on the island of Brava in the Cape Verdean archipelago, off the coast of northwestern Africa. He was raised in the Catholic Church. He followed his family to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1904. He claimed to have been ordained by the Church on the Rock of the Apostolic Faith, and elected bishop by the same in Boston in 1921, and it was this that clarified his evangelist goals and set him on his path. In time, Grace became known as much for his religious leadership as for his flamboyant personal style. As a religious leader, Grace was known as the peoples’ ‘‘Daddy.’’ He was a father figure, and he was called ‘‘Sweet Daddy’’ as a sign of adoration and respect. His own style set the precedent for House of Prayer bishops who succeeded him. Furthermore, parts of the House of Prayer structure were also based on some of Grace’s own cultural heritage, such as the annual cycle of celebratory events that mirrored Cape Verdean festivals both in design and in content.

Speller, Julia M. ‘‘Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian: One Congre gation’s Quest for Meaning and Belong ing’’ (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1996). Stanley, A. Knighton. The Children Is Cry ing: Congregationalism Among Black People (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1979). Stanley, J. Taylor. A History of Black Congregational Christian Churches of the South (New York: United Church Press, 1978).

UNITED HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL PEOPLE Historical Development The United House of Prayer for All People, which takes its name from Isaiah 56, is a church that is historically situated within the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition yet has maintained its independence and never aligned with any denomination. Its founding bishop, Charles M. ‘‘Daddy’’ Grace, started his first church in West Wareham, Massachusetts, in 1919; two years later he opened a second church in the nearby town

of New Bedford, Massachusetts. In the mid-1920s Grace began a cycle of evangelizing tours in the southeastern United States, and his itinerant preaching inspired many people to join together as a new religious group. In each town, Grace held protracted tent meetings filled with lively music, testimonials, preaching, and faith healing. He brought assistants with him to advertise, play music, fill seats, and otherwise facilitate many aspects of the services. Grace sought for people to come together out of devotion to God and commitment to a fellowship rather than because of the charm of a leader; therefore he left it to the people themselves to create something more when the tent meetings ended and he left town. Under a fledgling ministry appointed by Grace, the new members were responsible for creating and maintaining a worship space and a community, and this gave them power, a degree of autonomy, and a deep investment in their new religious home. This was the blueprint for the early House of Prayer: Grace remained a selffinanced itinerant preacher, and slowly but steadily new Houses of Prayer arose up and down the East Coast as people responded to his religious message.

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From the earliest years, Grace was careful to create basic structural elements to unite all of the churches. The name ‘‘United House of Prayer for All People’’ was established in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1926, and Grace incorporated the organization in Washington, D.C., the following year. A set of bylaws were written to clarify the power structure and delineate other rules, and these were occasionally reviewed and revised when senior ministers gathered. Under Grace’s leadership the behavioral expectations for members were particularly stringent compared to American culture at large, though they were not unlike other groups in the broader Holiness-Pentecostal tradition at that time. One way that the basic ideals of the church were reinforced, as well as a way for members to connect more broadly with the community, was through the house organ called Grace Magazine.

Bishop Charles M. ‘‘Sweet Daddy’’ Grace is assisted into a car by his chauffeur, undated. Grace was the founding bishop of the United House of Prayer for All People in 1919. (Corbis)

All of these structural pieces were firmly in place before 1930, and this helped bring the constant flow of new members into the fold in a unified way. The church became more nationally known during the 1930s in part because of its continued growth and in part because Daddy Grace achieved notoriety due to lawsuits against him. One concern frequently expressed by outsiders was the ‘‘focus’’ on money within the church. It was and is true that a major activity permeating House of Prayer functions is fundraising, that followers work on many projects in order to raise money for church work, and that much time is set aside in services for the public donation of funds. Because the hierarchy works as a topdown system, money raised is handed over to authority figures and redistributed as the leadership decides. Beginning in the 1930s outsiders frequently accused Daddy Grace of squandering church money on himself as his clothes, homes, and automobiles increasingly demonstrated that he had begun to live a luxurious lifestyle. Hence, critics assumed members were duped into handing over their hard-earned money for ‘‘church work,’’ yet it was merely supporting the whimsy of the bishop. However, the other way to understand this is that money in the House of Prayer is simply not banished to the private sphere as it often is in other forms of Christianity. Money is overtly recognized as being a practical necessity for furthering the work of the church, and therefore to raise it is to participate in God’s work and to donate it publicly brings one honor. Furthermore, the bishop is the most significant figure in the church because he is the conduit to God; therefore members feel he should be supported in a comfortable lifestyle on par with the importance of his job. As the church grew in prominence, it made sense that the public

United House of Prayer for All People | 407 appearance of the bishop should be representative of the best it had to offer. In sum, for the House of Prayer there has never been any shame in being public about money, and it is this cultural difference that has often caused outsiders from a different religious perspective to bristle. The church wealth was, in fact, growing, especially because in the late 1930s Grace began to invest in high profile real estate. In some cases he invested in land or buildings that were used directly for the church, but quite often he bought fancy mansions for his own living quarters, such as the Nye House in New Bedford, or he bought large apartment buildings like the El Dorado in Manhattan, which was filled with rent-paying tenants. Often his transactions made headlines in major newspapers and magazines because it was considered newsworthy that such imposing properties had been purchased by a man of color. This investment strategy strengthened the church in many ways: it created publicity, which often meant an influx of new

members; it built actual wealth, as the properties were typically resold later at a profit; and it brought pride to many members, whose spirits were bolstered by the church property holdings. Although Grace was inconsistent with property titling—some he purchased in his own name, and others in the name of the church corporation—at his death all of the real estate was left to the church and thus became a virtual endowment that ensured the long-term financial stability of the House of Prayer. Bishop Grace made a call in the 1939– 1940 church year for new ministers, and many young men in the church stepped up; women, according to Biblical interpretation, are not eligible for official positions of congregational ministry. Grace’s personal oversight of the ministers’ training in these first decades certainly helped to keep the church united in focus and practice, despite the missions being located up and down the East Coast and in more distant spots such as Detroit and Los Angeles. Ministers are commonly

WALTER MCCOLLOUGH (1915–1991) Walter McCollough was born and raised in Great Falls, South Carolina, and became a member of the church in the early 1930s when he was a teenager. Because he demon strated strong leadership qualities from a young age he was quickly welcomed into Grace’s inner circle, and by the late 1930s McCollough was training for the pastorate in a Washington, D.C., mission where he served as assistant minister. In the 1950s McCollough was appointed pastor of the House of Prayer national headquarters, the M Street House of Prayer in Washington, D.C. This was his stepping stone to the post of bishop, to which he was elected after Daddy Grace died in 1960. In the 1970s and 1980s he facilitated the construction of several apartment complexes in the Shaw neigh borhood of Washington, D.C., that served people with low incomes. McCollough’s work was widely applauded, and he received a variety of public honors including two Presidential Commendations in 1976 and 1980 and a Distinguished Community Service award from the National Urban Coalition in 1985. He died in 1991, and was survived by his wife, Clara, and their four children.

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referred to as Elders, and those who are most senior in responsibility are titled Apostles. As these new ministers grew into their roles in the 1940s and 1950s, Grace increasingly handed over management of everyday affairs to this new tier of leadership. It was, perhaps, a test to see how well the church would maintain itself once he was no longer alive. The biggest observable shift in the development of the House of Prayer as a tradition was when the founding bishop died in 1960. It was said that Daddy Grace had personally chosen Walter McCollough as his successor; however, the election process did not follow church bylaws and a group of members filed a lawsuit to have him removed. Because of financial confusion and irregularities that emerged from this lawsuit, a judge ordered McCollough to step down, and he put the church into receivership. McCollough was ultimately reelected according to proper procedures, but the transition period created internal strife in the church on many levels. One group of ministers broke away from the House of Prayer during this time and

founded a new organization called the True Grace Memorial House of Prayer. In the long run, McCollough became an influential and beloved leader just as Daddy Grace had been. He downplayed some of the more ostentatious ritual elements of church life, and he encouraged programs of social awareness and development. Upon his death in 1991, he was succeeded by the third bishop, Samuel C. Madison, who fortified and continued many of McCollough’s initiatives. Concurrent with the bishoprics of McCollough and Madison, explosive growth of Pentecostalism in general caused a broader cultural change in the United States, such that during the second half of the twentieth century this tradition began to move away from the socioreligious margins. Pentecostals, however, did not really change: it was the society that changed, finding the charismatic style of worship increasingly familiar and comfortable. Regardless of its independent history, the heart of the United House of Prayer—a community of worshippers led by the Holy Spirit— keeps its religious identity squarely

SAMUEL C. MADISON (1922–2008) Samuel C. Madison became the third bishop of the United House of Prayer after the death of Walter McCollough. Originally from Greenville, South Carolina, Madison joined the church as a child and became a pastor in approximately 1940. Over the years he served in churches in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Philadelphia, ultimately being appointed to the M Street Church in Washington, D.C., in 1969 and becoming the Senior Minister of the House of Prayer in 1986. He was 69 years old when he was elected bishop in May 1991. Assuming the title of Precious Daddy, Madison followed the organizational footprint left by McCollough. In 1999 Madison was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bowie State University. He died in 2008 at the age of 86, and was survived by his wife, Elizabeth. Madison was succeeded in the bishopric by C. M. Bailey, formerly the pastor in Augusta, Georgia, and the Senior Minister of the House of Prayer.

United House of Prayer for All People | 409 within the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition, and thus it too rides the waves of these cultural and attitudinal shifts. A demographic description of the House of Prayer, either past or present, is not possible due to the lack of information publicly available. The church has always been primarily made up of African Americans, though in its earliest years it also attracted white members and a few Cape Verdeans. During Daddy Grace’s bishopric, vast generalizations were often made about members being of a low economic status and having little education, but there was never any statistically sound data collected to support such an assertion. Presently, it is clear that there are many well-educated members and that they are situated all across the economic spectrum. Genuine membership numbers are also not available, although the church claims a membership in the millions. Today, Houses of Prayer are located in 25 states and number slightly over 125; therefore, a membership in the tens of thousands is more realistic.

Beliefs and Practices The House of Prayer first arose in the 1920s when the distinctions among Holiness, Pentecostal, and Nazarene theologies were beginning to distill, and a detailed examination of its theology would show that its beliefs and practices have, over time, borne marks of each of them. Today, the House of Prayer is most theologically similar to the Pentecostal faith, as a trinitarian form of Christianity characterized by the fluidity of experiential forms of worship, rooted in the direction of the spirit, and very much connected to the significance of spiritual gifts. House of

Prayer members believe God can bestow spiritual gifts of all sorts but glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, is understood as paramount among them. The creed specifies that a person ‘‘must be born again of the Holy Ghost,’’ and tongues speaking is the evidence of a person’s true salvation; it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Stages of salvation are considered to be successive, and so only those who have been sanctified are ever able to receive the Holy Ghost. Regular worship services, as well as special events, include space for demonstration of spiritual gifts, and there is also an emphasis on music. The primary form of music in the House of Prayer, called ‘‘Shout,’’ may, in fact, be its most unique cultural contribution. Shout is a genre of lively religious music played primarily by brass instruments that specifically highlights the trombone. Its theological basis is found in Psalm 150, which calls on people to praise God with exuberant music, while its name comes from a reference in the sixth book of Joshua. Taking these two Biblical verses together, Shout music symbolizes victory of God and God’s people, and when the horns play the congregation is exhorted to respond by glorifying God. The music is God’s music, intended not only to be heard and enjoyed but to stimulate a spiritual experience: members’ catching of the Holy Spirit. Shout is as important, and sometimes more important, than any message an elder could preach, and so Shout bands are a vibrant part of church culture and are given numerous opportunities to perform. The House of Prayer seeks to create a social context for members so that they become part of church life in ways beyond mere weekly attendance. Worship services of different thematic types are offered

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several days a week, and participation in church auxiliaries is emphasized. These auxiliaries take many forms and offer religiously oriented social space for members of every age group. Types of auxiliaries range from place to place and therefore number in the hundreds, but a few examples include groups of scouts, ushers, bands, maids, treasurers, guards, and choirs. Each auxiliary is distinguished at special events by its own uniform. The biggest annual event in the House of Prayer is convocation, which signals the official end and start of each church year. Its scriptural basis is found in the books of Exodus and Leviticus. Convocation is not a single event, nor does it happen in only one place; rather, it is a series of events that occurs in every region where Houses of Prayer are located. The convocation season, therefore, lasts approximately two months and requires extensive travel by senior ministers, the bishop, and other important participants. Typically, a convocation week in a given region will involve music performances, guest speakers, a mass baptism, a visit from the bishop, and opportunities for auxiliaries to present themselves publicly in performances and/or parades. For many, baptism is the most significant part of convocation. According to the House of Prayer creed, water baptism is a ritual of purification from sin, rather than a one-time rite that designates a person as a member of the Christian church. Baptism occurs once a year in every region at the end of the convocation week. Members look forward to it as an opportunity to be forgiven for trespasses committed and to start afresh in relation to God. The House of Prayer has long been known for its practice of fire hose baptisms, a particular version of the

event that Bishop Grace introduced in the early 1930s. In this, Grace would baptize followers in one fell swoop beneath the gushing stream of a fire hose, rather than individually in a pool. The spray, adjusted to a light setting so as not to injure anyone, was directed upwards into the air, thus baptism came as the water fell down from the sky upon the faithful. By virtue of its taking place in a city street, fire hose baptisms were public events often attended by many onlookers. Outsiders sometimes found it distasteful, and in several instances ministers from other faiths considered it so offensive that they filed lawsuits to try to stop them. Certainly, fire hose baptisms were a regular source of publicity for the church in the Daddy Grace years. Under the second bishop, fire hose baptisms were largely phased out and today occur without regularity or particular public fanfare. Another somewhat controversial element of House of Prayer belief and ritual has been its approach to healing, though this was most pronounced during its early decades. While medical care is not shunned, the church also believes in divine healing, much like other religions in the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition. Bishop Grace first made his name in part by performing healings in tent meetings. The early House of Prayer practices were essentially in line with common trends in Protestant faith healing of that era; however, the church was unique in its extensive use of proxy devices. Grace creatively paired business ventures with the church, offering an extensive line of products for sale bearing his name, such as Grace Toothpaste and Grace Writing Paper. Several products members could buy were said to hold preventative and curative powers, such as the healing

United House of Prayer for All People | 411 cloth, a small square of fabric blessed by the bishop. The most significant proxy device was Grace Magazine, the official publication of the church, which came out several times a year. The magazine could be worn or carried on the body to promote physical healing, and it could be read and studied for wisdom about healing. Some people made potions of the magazine, soaking it in water and drinking it to heal their ailments. In this aspect of practice, the early House of Prayer must be counted among a select few religious groups whose unusual avenues to healing defy both precedent and easy categorization. However, through the decades Bishop Grace gradually downplayed and de-emphasized faith healing, as did the bishops who succeeded him, such that in the present day it represents only a minor element of House of Prayer theology. The other oft-cited House of Prayer belief that has garnered much controversy is the concept that the bishop is God incarnate. This belief can be traced to a particular quote found in the first academic accounting of the church, published in 1944. In it, the unidentified speaker does seem to elevate the bishop —at that time, Daddy Grace—to the level of a god figure. However, the quote was used exploitatively: it was edited, decontextualized, and improperly positioned by the author as a kind of official faith statement on the part of the church institution. It was reprinted many times, leaving readers with the impression that all House of Prayer members believed their bishop was an incarnation of God on earth, despite explicit statements to the contrary made by Daddy Grace himself. The real answer to this question is far more complicated and contoured, and must reflect the huge variety of

members who believed different things about the nature of the bishop over long periods of time. Most likely stemming from the Catholic roots of the founder, the House of Prayer believes in Apostolic succession; officially, the creed states that they believe in ‘‘one leader as the ruler of the Kingdom of God,’’ which suggests the bishop is a divinely sanctioned human leader of God’s church on earth. Some members, both past and present, further ascribe a prophetic quality to the bishop. Thus it is not uncommon to hear prayers made to the bishop as well as through the bishop, and this continues to muddy the answer to what members believe about the nature of the man who is their leader. Marie W. Dallam

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Baer, Hans A., and Merrill Singer. African American Religion: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation, 2nd ed. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002). Dallam, Marie W. Daddy Grace: A Celebrity Preacher and His House of Prayer (New York: New York University Press, 2007). Davis, Lenwood G., comp. Daddy Grace: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992). Fauset, Arthur Huff. Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944). Hodges, John O. ‘‘Charles Manuel ‘Sweet Daddy’ Grace.’’ Twentieth Century Shapers of American Popular Religion, ed. Charles Lippy (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 170 179. The Music District. VHS. Dir. Susan Levitas (California Newsreel, 1995).

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Robinson, John W. ‘‘A Song, A Shout, and a Prayer.’’ The Black Experience in Religion, ed. C. Eric Lincoln (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1974), 213 235. Sigler, Danielle Brune. ‘‘Beyond the Binary: Revisiting Father Divine, Daddy Grace, and Their Ministries.’’ Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas, ed. Henry Goldschmidt and Elizabeth McAlister (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 209 227. Sigler, Danielle Brune. ‘‘Daddy Grace: An Immigrant’s Story.’’ Immigrant Faiths: Transforming Religious Life in America, ed. Karen I. Leonard et al. (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2005), 67 78.

UNITED METHODIST CHURCH Historical Development Methodism has its roots in the ‘‘holy club’’ started by brothers John and Charles Wesley at the Christ Church College at Oxford University. At first a Christian support group and local missionary society of students in the Church of England, it grew into a well-organized movement. Over two centuries the ‘‘club’’ gained 8 million adherents and became known as the Methodist Church. During its development in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Church parented black Methodist denominations, which remain extant into the twenty-first century. The Wesleys’ ‘‘holy club’’ began holding meetings on the Oxford campus in 1726. John was a graduate and his brother Charles was by then a student. Members of the club met several times weekly for devotions and discussion of their faith as well as to serve the poor and the sick. They collected and distributed food, medicine,

and clothing for the sick and poor, visited prisoners, and taught the Bible to local children. George Whitefield, a student who arrived later, joined the holy club in 1732 and became its leader in 1735 when the Wesleys sailed for America. John and Charles Wesley were both priests in the Church of England; so, too, was their friend George Whitefield. All of them served as missionaries to America for that church. Both of the Wesleys served in Georgia, a free colony where slavery was not legal. Neither of the brothers was particularly successful in his service. Charles stayed in America only five months. John left within two years. After each of them returned to England, both Wesleys sought a deeper faith. John Wesley’s experience of coming to believe that he had attained an assured relationship with God is famously noted in Methodism. Wesley wrote in his journal that during a meeting of the faithful in Aldersgate Street he felt that his ‘‘heart was strangely warmed.’’ Charles had had a similar experience just three days before his brother. Whitefield became known as a prominent preacher of the Great Awakening. Between 1738 and 1740, he was noted to have preached to thousands and his audiences often included blacks. His exciting style of preaching brought many new converts to the faith—a large number of whom were blacks. Methodism was more than a club, a missionary service, and a renewal movement within the Anglican Church. It was a well-organized systematic approach to building pious practitioners. The term ‘‘methodists’’ arose from other Oxford students. They disparagingly referred to the strictness and methodical approach to devotion and pious activity by the holy club members. It included a system of societies, classes, and later, as the

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Wesley Chapel on John Street, New York City, home to the oldest Methodist congregation. The chapel was dedicated in 1768. Peter Williams, the black sexton, stands in doorway. (Library of Congress)

movement grew, a network of itinerant lay preachers who traveled to surrounding towns in order to deliver sermons. Sermons were often delivered from texts written by John Wesley. Within these structures, the practices and the message of Methodism were standardized. A sustained, permanent effort to grow Methodism in the English colonies of the Americas began in the 1760s. Robert Strawbridge traveled to America as an independent preacher rather than as a man supported by Wesley’s movement. He preached in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, and Maryland. Philip Embury and his cousin, Barbara Heck, were among a group from Ireland that arrived in New York. Appalled by what they saw as much riotous living, the two gathered locals for a class meeting at Embury’s house. Five converts were won

to the new religious movement. The Methodist society that formed from these first five would later be named as the John Street Society and still later, the John Street Church when it ceased to rent meeting rooms and sought to build a ‘‘meeting house.’’ History records that blacks were among the contributors. John Wesley responded to a request for dedicated personnel who would be assigned to help establish an organized effort in America in 1769. Movement leaders provided financial support to Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmore. Two years later, Francis Asbury joined them. When Methodism took hold in America, Asbury would be a key figure with regard to black Methodists. These men brought more organization to the movement. Still, Methodism was not a church denomination. Members

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HARRY HOSIER (C. 1750–1806) Harry Hosier is celebrated as one of the first black preachers in American Methodism. He is believed to be the second of the two black ministers present at the 1784 Christmas Conference that marked the beginning of American Methodism as an independent church body separated from the Church of England. What is known about Hosier comes from memoirs and journals kept by Asbury and other early Methodist leaders; Thomas Coke, another representative in America for John Wesley; Richard Whatcoat, a presid ing elder or supervisory minister; and Freeborn Garrettson, also a presiding elder known to be outspoken seeking the freedom of enslaved blacks. ‘‘Black Harry,’’ the name by which Hosier became well known, is thought to have been born into slavery near what is now Fayetteville, North Carolina. He earned a remarkable reputation, in part, because he often preached to whites. Beginning in 1781, he traveled with Francis Asbury, who was later tapped to become the first American Methodist bishop. Hosier could neither read nor write. Yet a part of his phenomenonal status among whites was his ability to accurately quote passages of Scripture he had memorized. His preaching style was touted as mesmerizing enough to move hearers to conversion.

continued in their own churches. They met in classes to study the Bible together. This small group or class system elected a leader from among themselves. Class leaders were not educated clergy; they were respected by their classmates for their holy lifestyle and pious character. In this system, blacks could become a class leader. It was in worship services where blacks’ participation was restricted and where blacks experienced segregation. Blacks sat separately from whites or were preached to in separate services. As Methodists began to organize themselves from a movement espousing holiness into established churches, one of the first issues it addressed concerning blacks was that of slavery. Methodist history affords this attention directly to John Wesley and his writings. In his 1774 pamphlet, Thoughts Upon Slavery, Wesley borrowed liberally from the writings of Anthony Benezet in A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies, in a Short Representation of the Calamitous

State of the Enslaved in British Dominions and Historical Account of Guinea. Benezet wrote against slavery and the way that it exposes hypocrisy in Christian practitioners separated from its doctrines. Benezet denied common contemporary wisdom such as the belief that blacks could withstand heat more than whites, thus providing justification for importing slaves from Africa. Benezet’s firm stance helped Wesley to state his desire to see the end of slavery. As early as 1780, the growing American Methodist movement recorded antislavery positions. Lyerly suggests that enslaved black members pressured Methodists to address the slavery issue. Methodists record having discussed a slave manumission process for its itinerant ministers in 1780, 1783, and 1784. The Methodist Discipline describes slavery as ‘‘contrary’’ to notions of humane acts as described in the Bible as well as against the vision of the newly formed American nation founded on the principles of liberty. Methodists who participated in the slave

United Methodist Church trade were to be expelled unless they were purchasing slaves for the purpose of setting them free. Wesley’s sense of organization served the Methodist Episcopal Church well in its efforts to standardize its message through sermons and teaching. And when the Church wanted to give service, its systems were equally helpful. Methodist structure of classes to churches, conferences to the episcopacy, facilitated collecting funds for use at the local, regional, and national levels. The Methodist Episcopal Church put its structural systems to use when the Church turned its mission and service interests to the needs of American blacks. The Methodist Episcopal Church began outreach to blacks in the South even before the end of the Civil War. As early as 1853, a committee of the denomination had been established to consider what Methodists would do to ‘‘promote the interests of the people of color.’’ An early action was to open Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1856. The school was named for William Wilberforce, an opponent of slavery and correspondent with John Wesley. Wesley wrote one of the last letters of his life to Wilberforce to compel him to continue in his work against the enslavement of blacks. (The Methodist Episcopal Church sold the school to the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1863.) After the Civil War, the federal government established the National Freedmen’s Bureau to address the needs of the 4 million former slaves now referred to as ‘‘freedmen.’’ The Methodist Episcopal Church joined with other denominations in this work—Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Quakers. Later, as did other denominations, the Methodists pulled out of these collaborations in order to

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provide assistance to the freedmen based on their own priorities. In 1866, the Methodists formed the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In its organizing meeting for the Society, the Methodists focused on evangelism and opportunities to grow their membership with new converts. The Methodists did more than seek new members under their Freedmen’s Aid Society. Notably, they organized schools. Ninety percent of blacks were estimated to be unlearned—without the ability to read and write. Education had been outlawed in much of the antebellum South. The first educational priority was to provide elementary level literacy skills. Beyond this level, the Society was interested in training blacks to be clergy, teachers, physicians, and dentists. Finally, the Society was interested in providing vocational skills that would allow blacks the opportunity to move from the devastating poverty in which most blacks lived after slavery. The Methodists frequently balanced their interests in aiding blacks with appeasing and respecting Southern whites. They recognized, for example, that the Civil War had devastated the entire region. Mindful of this, Methodists changed the name of their Aid Society to the Freedmen’s Aid and Southern Education Society to reflect that they planned to educate southern whites in addition to the freedmen. Even so, early Methodist efforts to uplift blacks through education established a legacy that stretched into the twenty-first century. It was common practice to name new colleges after initial large donors who sparked fundraising. This was the case with what became Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was named for Lyman Bennett, a Troy, New York,

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donor who gave $10,000 toward the school. But Bennett got its start, in earnest, in the basement of St. Matthew’s Methodist Episcopal Church in 1873, and Greensboro blacks contributed to the effort. Before the Methodist Episcopal Church gave its first support by contributing 20 acres of land, blacks from the local Methodist church gave to the school from their own sacrifices and savings. Their small donations totaled $150. It took only six years for the school to grow from its primary and secondary offerings into an educational organization offering college courses. In 1926, the college ceased to be coeducational and became a women’s college. One of the stated goals the Methodists had for blacks was to educate them in the professions—to become doctors and clergy. Two of the institutions that met those specific efforts were Meharry Medical College and Gammon Theological Seminary. Meharry Medical College began as a department of Central Tennessee College. It was known as the medical school of the college and operated under its auspices. The school was named for the Meharry brothers. One, Samuel, a minister, gave the first $500 donation. According to tradition, Samuel’s wagon had been stuck alongside a Kentucky road. When a black man happened by and helped him out of the mud, and then invited him to his home for an overnight stay, Meharry pledged that when he was in a position to do so, he would help the entire race of blacks. Responding to a group of students interested in medical education, the president of Central Tennessee College began to seek donations toward a medical program. One of his prospective

donors was Samuel Meharry. Initial donations and the interests of the students were sufficient to begin the program in 1876. The first two faculty members were the former surgeon general of the Confederate Army and a former Union soldier, both doctors. Eventually, five Meharry brothers gave $30,000. The Methodist Episcopal Church’s Freedmen’s Aid and Southern Education Society supported the effort and 20 years later of 385 black doctors in the South, 210 were Meharry graduates. A dentistry school and a pharmacy school opened in 1886 and 1889, respectively. Nursing programs were added at the turn of the century and a hospital, Mercy Hospital, had opened by 1902. The Methodists accepted grants totally $300,000 from the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations for an endowment. Meharry Medical College began operating under an independent charter in 1915. Besides medical professionals, the Methodist Episcopal Church was committed to producing trained black clergy. To that end, many of the colleges it established for the freedmen included a theological department or seminary or a biblical training arm. The Clark Theological Seminary, later to become Gammon Theological Seminary, was affiliated with Clark University in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1872, in the basement of the Loyd Street Methodist Church, as Clark University grew, all activities soon moved to its own site. One-third of the university students were enrolled in order to be trained in the theological school. In 1882, a benefactor emerged—the Reverend Elijah H. Gammon of Illinois. He provided a gift of $25,000 to endow

United Methodist Church a chair in theology. Later, he provided monies for a building on the Clark University campus. The following year, Gammon first proposed that the theological school become freestanding— operated under the guidance of the Freedmen’s Aid Society. By 1888, Gammon had given $200,000 for an endowment to be managed by the Methodist Episcopal Church with its proceeds to operate Gammon Theological Seminary. Once Gammon was established independently, the Methodists transferred most of its black theological training to the Atlanta seminary. Ministers from other denominations were being educated at Gammon. In 1958, Gammon trustees decided to move to the Atlanta University Center, a location in the city where black undergraduate schools existed near to each other. Gammon proposed to become a graduate wing of the Center. Gammon’s reputation for excellence continued to spread, and it became central to a new effort of black theological educators. The seminary entered into a plan of cooperation to locate with three black denominational seminaries in a new institution in which they would share faculty. With Gammon’s academic accreditation, $2.2 million dollars from Rockefeller-related foundations, and a vision for the graduate theological training of black clergy, the Interdenominational Theological Center (the ITC) was established in 1958. Along with Gammon’s Methodist Episcopal students, the ITC would train black Baptist, Christian Methodist Episcopal, and African Methodist Episcopal church leaders through the Morehouse School of Religion, Phillips School of Theology, and Turner Theological Seminary, respectively. The president of Gammon

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was named the first president of the new venture, and the Board of Education of the Methodist Church, seeing a wellarticulated plan for Gammon’s future, continued its financial support into the twenty-first century. The Methodist Episcopal Church’s record of providing educational support to blacks has a long history. And the Church has a history of important milestones that indicate efforts to be inclusive of blacks—nearly from its beginning. However, Methodist history also contains incidents of excluding blacks so much so that it held a service of repentance and reconciliation for its discrimination against blacks throughout its American history. Often those overt acts were committed through compromises intended to contain rancor from southern members of the Church. Unity and unification for Methodists was not unlike the occasional struggle of the federal government to maintain its Union. No mention of deeds for which the Church might have been willing to apologize would be complete if it failed to mention two of note: renunciation of the Church’s 1808 stance against slavery and the creation of the Central Jurisdiction in 1939 and its subsequent disbandment in 1968. White Methodists made an earnest step toward reuniting their separated Northern and Southern Methodist Episcopal denominations in 1939, in May of that year, those two branches along with the Methodist Protestant Church agreed to a unification plan. The plan included the formation of the Central Jurisdiction. The united church would be managed through five geographical regions; the Central Jurisdiction, however, would ‘‘encompass all ‘Negro’ conferences and missions’’

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unless those Negro members were not in a separate conference. This plank of the unification made it clear to black Church leaders that their professional opportunities would be limited only to conferences with black adherents. Seventeen of 19 black conferences voted against the 1939 unification plan. The Central Jurisdiction covered roughly the eastern half of the continental United States. The sheer size of this land mass made efficient and frequent travel by denominational supervisors and the Jurisdiction’s pastoral members difficult. In 1944, black bishops expressed their disdain into the minutes of the overall church General Conference. The Church responded that it hoped for ‘‘the ultimate elimination of racial discrimination within the Methodist Church.’’ The General Conference took no actions to change the episcopal arrangement. In 1948, the General Conference expressed the mood of its time regarding race relations in their Church: the need for patience. Gradualism, the philosophy that integration would eventually come to America, was the order of the day. Between 1948 and 1956, the Central Jurisdiction heard reports from internal study commissions whose task it was to write recommendations about blacks’ discrimination in the denomination that jurisdictional leadership would present to the General Conference. Similar commissions of the overall Church (General Conference) had been charged to study the plight of blacks in the denomination in 1948, 1952, and 1960. The 1956 General Conference brought much debate, but no action to eliminate the Central Jurisdiction. A Jurisdictional Committee of Five, headed by James S. Thomas, recommended elimination of the Central Jurisdiction. The denomination’s

Commission on Inter-Jurisdictional Relations acknowledged the racism in the continuance of the Central Jurisdiction. Still, in the 1964 General Conference, Methodists did not change their constitutional amendment, which had been established by the Central Jurisdiction. It did, however, vote to allow annual conferences to voluntarily join whatever jurisdiction they thought best. Black conferences began to join the regional jurisdictions, thus increasing integration within regions. The final meeting of the Central Jurisdiction was held in 1967. As they always had, black Methodists forged ahead with new efforts to seek full fellowship in the denomination. CyrusFranklin notes that amidst the Black Movement of the time, black Methodists saw no contradiction between their fight for full inclusion and their call to form themselves into a black caucus within the Church. To the latter end, an organizational meeting was held in Detroit in 1967. Although a black secession was discussed, the group decided instead to form a renewal effort within the Church, in the spirit of its Wesleyan origins. They called for a meeting of the National Conference of Negro Methodists to be held in February 1968 in Cincinnati, Ohio—just months before the planned merger that would create the United Methodist Church. Later the same month, a commission of the General Conference recognized the newly formed black caucus who by then called themselves the Black Methodists for Church Renewal (BMCR). The BMCR grew to support permanent staff and remains in existence into the twenty-first century with its purpose to continue to raise issues relevant to black Methodists to the national body.

United Methodist Church

Beliefs and Practices The United Methodist Church is a Christian Protestant denomination. As such, its adherents believe in a Holy Trinity: a Supreme, Father-God, the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The Supreme God created the world including humans. According to Methodist beliefs, shortly after their creation, the original man and woman rebelled against God. They believed that they could make choices initiated by their own thought outside the instructions God had established for them. In accordance with this doctrinal development, humans are subject to the laws of God. God punished the first man and woman for their sin or rebellion by expelling them from the paradisal environment God had established for them. In doing so, they were no longer under God’s complete protection from ills, but became subject to evil in the world and had the ongoing choice to appeal to their solutions or what they believed to be God’s will for them. After many generations of humans’ demonstrating that they would likely choose their own will more often than they would subject themselves to God’s will, God decided to present humans with an example of how to live according to God’s will. This earthly example became God, clothed as a human. This figure was Jesus Christ, the son of God, the second person of the triune God in whom Methodists believe. Humans are given the choice to believe that Jesus was the Son of God who was sent to the earth to be sacrificed for their redemption. Before his death and resurrection, Jesus’ work was to demonstrate how to live according to God’s will and how to live with compassion. The resurrection of Jesus after his death was also an example to humans

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that if they believed in Jesus, they too would be resurrected after their own earthly death and be afforded eternal life when God reigns over heaven and earth. As humans accept this stated doctrine, they are considered to have a reconciled relationship with God. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. This being is the supernatural presence of God who communicates God’s instructions to believers, which helps as a person strives to live life as Christ did when he came to the earth. Methodist theology also teaches the doctrine of grace. According to the Wesleyan thought that grounds these teachings, humans are made able to believe in Jesus as their Savior because God offers grace for them to do so. This form of grace is known to Methodists as ‘‘prevenient grace.’’ In it, God works on behalf of humans to make Godself known to them. This work is intended to beckon humans unto the awareness of God with the hope that humans will understand that they need God to live their lives. Once a human being has responded to the awareness of God, he/she is capable of making the choice to accept belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God. At the moment of that choice, the person is said to have experienced ‘‘conversion.’’ The person has been ‘‘converted’’ from a sinner, living outside the family of God, to a ‘‘saint,’’ who will live with God forever. God has done that for him/her because he/she has acknowledged that his/her human nature is different and subordinate to that of the deity. Other terms for this experience are ‘‘salvation’’ and ‘‘redemption.’’ In Methodist theology, God is believed to have extended a ‘‘justifying grace.’’ At the same time, God extends another form of grace, ‘‘sanctifying

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grace.’’ In this form of presence, Methodists are taught that God begins a process in which God will be present to assist the believer in holy living. This grace is the work of the Holy Spirit. Although God continues this work, the believer cooperates in his/her own acts toward the perfection that this grace offers. He/she responds as he/she has more understanding from biblical Scriptures. African Americans in the United Methodist Church do not have additional beliefs that separate them from other Methodists. Methodism does, however, support culturally relevant expressions of faith among various cultural or ethnic groups within the denomination. For example, there is an additional hymnal used by some black congregations: Songs of Zion. In 1966, there was only one song by a black composer in the denominational hymnal. Besides it, the only other black music in the hymnal included five Negro spirituals. Together, these six songs were listed as ‘‘American Folk Hymns.’’ In 1973, William B. McClain presented a paper to the denomination’s Board of Discipleship arguing that the black religious tradition was missing from worship in official Methodist documentation. In the paper, McClain recommended that the Church make available a volume from that black tradition. He spearheaded a committee that collected works that could be included. When the committee’s work was completed, a meeting was scheduled with a member of the United Methodist Publishing House. The executive remained unconvinced that the songbook was necessary despite a well-planned presentation. According to McClain, black Methodists heard theology in the gospel and traditional songs in the book—

theology of experience, theology of imagination, and theology of survival. For black Methodists the songs represented encouragement despite oppression, a sense of future freedom despite enslavement, and the ability to survive despite racism. A committee member, who had become exasperated at the executive’s unwillingness to recognize the worth of this music, suggested that members of the group sing some of the songs. The experience of the words and music moved the executive to approve its printing (1981). Beyond worship, the primary rituals or sacraments of the United Methodist Church are baptism and Holy Communion. Methodists teach infant baptism. Parents present their child before the congregation and the minister sprinkles water on the infant’s head from a font or ceremonial basin. In this ceremony, the parents vow to raise the child as a Christian. Generally, when children enter adolescence, they are taught Methodist history and beliefs in confirmation classes. At the end of these classes, they may choose for themselves whether to become Methodist adherents and may choose to affirm the beliefs they had been taught since childhood. They are not baptized again. Furthermore, Methodists do not require non-Methodists to refrain from the ritual of Holy Communion. This ritual commemorates Jesus’ willingness to die on behalf of humans in order that they might be able to choose salvation (discussed above). A minister serves bread and wine to ritual partakers. The bread represents the body of Jesus and the wine (some congregations use grape juice) represents the blood of Jesus. Partakers renew their commitment to Jesus Christ and renew their commitment to take his God-nature into themselves.

Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church They are following a tradition set out for them when Jesus served bread and wine to his 12 closest disciples. Unique within Methodism is an adherence to a concept known as ‘‘Wesley’s Quadrilateral.’’ United Methodists affirm the role and importance of Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason in helping them in their commitment to their faith. These four elements emphasize that reading and studying the Bible, understanding the history and development of rituals and practices of the Church, connecting their personal experiences of living out their beliefs, and their willingness to give rational consideration to all that they learn and experience are all part of striving to be Christians. Terri Laws

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Brawley, James P. Two Centuries of Method ist Concern: Bondage, Freedom, and Education of Black People (New York: Vantage Press, 1974). Cyrus Franklin, Victor. ‘‘Early History and Development of Black Methodists for Church Renewal’’ (unpublished paper, 2004). Del Pino, Julius E. ‘‘Blacks in the United Methodist Church from Its Beginning to 1968.’’ Methodist History 19, no. 1 (October 1980): 3 20. Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark. Churching of America, 1776 1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992). Jones, Scott J. United Methodist Doctrine: The Extreme Center (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002). Lyerly, Cynthia Lynn. Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770 1810 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

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Melton, J. Gordon. A Will to Choose: The Origins of African American Methodism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, Inc., 2007). Richardson, Harry V. Dark Salvation: The Story of Methodism as It Developed Among Blacks in America. C. Eric Lincoln Series on Black Religion (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976). Smith, Warren Thomas. ‘‘Harry Hosier: Black Preacher Extraordinary.’’ Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center 7, no. 2 (Spring 1980): 111 128. Smith, Warren Thomas. John Wesley and Slavery (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986). United Methodist Church. Songs of Zion (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981). United Methodist Church News Service. ‘‘Songs of Zion Opened Doors for ‘Songs of Soul and Soil.’ ’’ http://archives .umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=2&mid=8953 (accessed 1 October 2008). United Methodist General Conference. United Methodist Church Book of Disci pline, 2004 (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 2005). Willimon, William H. United Methodist Beliefs: A Brief Introduction (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).

UNIVERSAL HAGAR’S SPIRITUAL CHURCH Historical Development Economic instability, racial intolerance— played out in the form of lynching and other overt acts of injustice—and limited educational opportunities represented some of the factors that stimulated a movement of blacks from southern to northern regions within the United States beginning in 1916. Not only did cities like Chicago and Detroit become places where blacks could ascertain freedom

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and equality, but these industrial centers also became fertile soil in which various religious movements would sprout. The Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Churches (U.H.S.C.) symbolize one such phenomenon whose early work initiated the growth of an association with well over 35 local temples extending across every geographical region in the United States. The Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Churches began in 1923 with the founding of Temple #1 or the ‘‘Supreme Temple’’ by Father George W. Hurley in Detroit, Michigan. After two moves Temple #1 found a permanent home on Napoleon Street. It is this stability that led to the opening of the School of Mediumship and Psychology in 1924 under the direction of Father Hurley. Matriculation at this school was by invitation only, and the curriculum included spiritual communication and methods of spiritual advisement. Upon graduation, students became uncrowned mediums. However, these same mediums could earn a crown in the U.H.S.C. with the completion of the Master’s Program curriculum.

By 1938, the U.H.S.C. had grown from one to 30 temples piercing the boundaries of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and Illinois. Also during this period of growth, structural organization can be seen in the establishment of various auxiliaries. For instance, the Knights of the All Seeing Eye (K. of the A.S.E.) represents a co-ed secret auxiliary, which is structurally divided into national chapters with the two highest offices being that of the Most Royal Exalted Master and the Royal Noble Mistress. Although secrecy encompasses this auxiliary, the members make public their overarching mission, which involves racial uplift. Another prominent auxiliary is the Wiseman Board—the seven member executive branch of this ecclesiastical body. By 1943, the year of Father Hurley’s death, not only had the U.H.S.C. established temples in Delaware, West Virginia, and Illinois with the highest number remaining in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, but this body also cultivated a highly organized

FATHER GEORGE WILLIE HURLEY (1884–1943) George W. Hurley was born in Georgia. Tuskegee Institute served as a tool in the building of his ministerial education. With formal ministerial training, Father Hurley received ordina tion from the Baptist denomination. In 1919, he moved to Detroit, Michigan. It is here that Father Hurley joined Triumph the Church and Kingdom of God in Christ where he became an Elder and later the ‘‘Presiding Prince of Michigan.’’ Between 1920 and 1922 he contin ued his ministerial pursuit in the International Spiritual Church. However, in 1923, after receiving a vision, he started the Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church in Detroit, serving as the association’s spiritual leader, and a year later he founded the School of Mediumship and Psychology. Not only was Father Hurley an espouser of Ethiopianism, but he also, in 1933, began teaching members of the U.H.S.C that he was the ‘‘Black God of the Aquarian Age.’’ Under the leadership of Father Hurley, the U.H.S.C grew from one temple in Detroit to 30 temples located in various states like Ohio, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Illinois.

Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church politico-religious framework segmented along national, state, district, and local lines. The Medium’s League and Hagar’s Young People’s Union (H.Y.P.U) serve as only two examples illustrating this multitiered politico-religious system. The former not only possesses a three-tiered governing structure that includes offices on the national, district, and local levels, but it also serves as a training facility— training that includes ways in which to contact, communicate, and counsel within the boundaries of the spiritual realm—for mediums in the U.H.S.C. Composed of both male and female members, the latter represents the primary youth organization found within the U.H.S.C. Also, like the Medium’s League this youth group elects officers on the national, district, and local levels. With the development of these auxiliary groups within a highly structured politico-religious system, it is important to explore the position of women within the historic life of the U.H.S.C. Women enjoyed an egalitarian status in three of the most powerful auxiliaries in the association. For example, in the Knights of the All Seeing Eye, membership was open to both males and females; also, either a man or a woman could hold the Exalted Knight, office of presidency. This nondiscriminatory fabric manifests itself in the highest auxiliary responsible for carrying out the executive duties of the U.H.S.C., the Wiseman Board. The seven seats on the board are open to both men and women. Also, the Chief Executive Office of the Wiseman is open to female and male members of the association. Although there seems to be some autonomy of female agency in the history of the U.H.S.C., the development of specialized groups seems to produce a countercurrent against the operating

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egalitarian wave. For instance, along with the development of a politicoreligious structure, Father Hurley also initiated a group specifically for young women ages 12–18 called Sacred Sisters. Social relationships with boys were prohibited; instead the members were to focus on prayer and communal uplift via preservation of purity among female participants. However, there was no parallel group established for young males in the U.H.S.C. Mother Cassie Bell Hurley, the wife of Father Hurley, was nominated and elected to the office of spiritual leader over the U.H.S.C. in 1943 (the year Father Hurley passed away) after Reverend Thomas Surbadger, Supreme Prince and head of the Wiseman Board, refused the office in that same year. While under the spiritual leadership of Mother Hurley, additional temples were added to already existing edifices in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Also, new temples were established in both Delaware and West Virginia. The death of Mother Hurley on June 28, 1960, left the spiritual head position open and presently no other figure has been placed in the highest position in the U.H.S.C. Despite the absence of a spiritual head, the U.H.S.C., guided by the executive power of the Wiseman Board, experienced growth. For instance, the 17-year tenure of Mother Mary Hatchett as president of the Wiseman Board yielded the extension of the association into new geographical areas in the United States, specifically in the southern and western regions; new temples were implanted in South Carolina and California. After Reverend Georgia Latimer, the daughter of Father and Mother Hurley, became president of the Wiseman Board in 1977, the number of temples decreased from 41 to 35 by 1980

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MOTHER MARY HATCHETT (1908–1977) Born in 1908, Mother Mary Hatchett became known as the ‘‘Mary Magdalene of the New Age.’’ She was given this name due to her instrumental role in the growth of the U.H.S.C. on the eastern seaboard, especially New Jersey. After graduating from the Uni versal Hagar’s Spiritual Seminary in Detroit, she was appointed pastor over the only tem ple located in Hackensack, New Jersey. This small temple grew with such great rapidity that a 500 seat temple had to be constructed. It is this success on the local level of the association that elevated her to ‘‘State Princess of New Jersey.’’ In the early 1960s, Mother Hatchett, due to the death of Reverend Ronnie Tatum, was elected to the Wise man Board, the highest auxiliary in the association. While serving on this board, Mother Hatchett maintained the stability of existing temples and oversaw the further growth and development of the association with the founding of new temples in Indiana, South Carolina, and California.

mainly due to the closing of sacred edifices in Michigan and Ohio. However, in spite of this decrease she was instrumental in overseeing the extension of the U.H.S.C. into the uncharted territories of Connecticut and Florida.

Beliefs and Practices The teachings of Father Hurley served as primary material used to pour the foundation of the U.H.S.C. belief system. In 1933, Father Hurley, influenced by the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ written by Levi and Eva Dowling in 1908, began to espouse that he indeed was the ‘‘God of the Aquarian Age.’’ He positioned himself in an era following three previous eras—Taurian Age, Arian Age, and Piscean Age—in which Adam, Abraham, and Jesus, respectively, each served as a physical embodiment of the spirit of God. Thus, because of this positioning within an age of social tranquility, i.e., the ‘‘Aquarian Age,’’ these teachings portrayed Father Hurley not as a symbolic representation of God but instead as an incarnated God who, like Jesus, received confirmation from the

Holy Spirit as a child and experienced a 40-day period of purification through fasting. Accordingly, U.H.S.C. members, Father Hurley exerts, should respect the manifested knowledge revealed during the ministry of Jesus, but this reverence does not supersede the knowledge materialized by Father Hurley, for it supplants the former because he is the ‘‘God of the Aquarian Age.’’ The adopting of specific cosmological understandings as well as the development of a belief system saturated with positive social/political expressions are manifested results stemming from the teachings of Father Hurley. Cosmologically speaking, according to the belief of the U.H.S.C., heaven and hell are not properties of the afterlife—a principal espoused in the second commandment of this association—but represent present-day realities in which heaven is equated with peace/success and hell is experienced through disorder/failure. Since heaven and hell represent an earthly condition, the U.H.S.C promotes a turning away from a type of happiness that is built upon the premise of an existing heaven in the sky as well as

Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church feelings of anxiety and fear manifested on earth due to an association of a downward hell with punishment. Furthermore, under the auspices of the embodiment principle, members accept that each person in humanity embodies the Spirit of God, making them minor goddesses and gods on earth. This canon of embodiment can be attested to in the first of the Ten Commandments followed by the U.H.S.C.; it maintains that God has the ability to be contained within matter. The remaining commandments further illustrate the convoluted structure of the U.H.S.C.’s system of beliefs: 2. Thou shall ignore a sky heaven for happi ness and a downward hell for human punishment. 3. Thou shall believe in heaven and hell on Earth. 4. Thou shall believe in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 5. Thou shall believe in what you sow, you shall reap. 6. Thou shall believe that the Ethiopians and all Nations will rule the world in righteousness. 7. Thou shall believe that the Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church was revealed to Father G. W. Hurley for the blessing of all nations that believe in him. 8. Thou shall not pray for God to bless your enemies. 9. Thou shall ask God to give you power to overcome them. 10. Thou shall believe that our relatives and friends, whose spirits have departed from the body, is within our own bodies to help us overcome all difficulties in life.

Father Hurley’s early promotion of Ethiopianism created a belief system that intertwined religious sensibilities with that of the social and political. Rejection of negative expressions

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utilized to describe blacks and upholding the equating of blacks with Ethiopians, the original and chosen people of God and innovators of modern-day civilization, illustrated the U.H.S.C.’s use of religious principles to solidify a positive image of blackness in the United States. The strong current of Ethiopianism, the sixth commandment, running through the belief system of the U.H.S.C. led to the rejection of certain doctrine of Gentile Protestantism. For example, the Catholic Church was thought to not only be considered a product of the white race, but it was also believed to have a faulty foundation that is simply a syncretic product of misinterpretations of early religions; accordingly, members do not follow Gentile Protestantism because if the foundation of Catholicism is cracked, then all other doctrinal beliefs and practices are rejected because they are by-products of Catholicism. The rejection of these principles served as a catalyst in the U.H.S.C. creation of a formal Creed of Beliefs presented in 28 segments. Rituals in the U.H.S.C. can be placed in two major categories: (1) Service rituals and (2) Ritualistic celebrations. ‘‘Service’’ rituals take place within the temple and are accompanied by ritualistic symbols such as images, in the form of either pictures or statues, and candles. For instance, in the Supreme Temple in Detroit, a 6-foot statue of Father Hurley and a picture of Mother Hurley adorning the altar represent essential symbols used in service rituals. Two examples of ‘‘Service’’ rituals are meditation and healing rituals. The former is initiated with the lighting of candles in remembrance of Father and Mother Hurley and past patriarchs. Prayer represents a fundamental

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element in this ritual of meditation. Congregants move into a posture of prayer by positioning their right hand over their heart while lifting the left hand. With meditative focus on either an image or the lit candles, these prayers are directed toward intermediaries, those like Father and Mother Hurley and other imminent figures who have made a transition into the spiritual realm. They believe that their prayers will be received by these intercessors. It is important to note that Hurleyites are also required to recite a prayer constructed by Father Hurley seven times daily—four times in the morning hours and three times in the evening; the prayer maintains two primary proclamations: Father Hurley is Christ and the source of strength to succeed comes via Christ. Following the ‘‘Kingdom Prayer,’’ collective petition to Father Hurley for restoration, deliverance, and punishment of enemies, and a call to join the ritual of healing begins with the standing of members of the U.H.S.C. only; visitors are not allowed to partake in this particular ritual. A line is formed composed of only those individual members who are in need of a healing. Interaction between the Head of the Temple, or Medium, and the individual congregant, through clapping, direct contact, or stretching the hands toward the ailment, emblematizes the nucleus of this ritual. Validation of healing can be immediate or delayed.

The second form of rituals found in the U.H.S.C. appears in ritualistic celebrations. For example, instead of Christmas, Hurleyites celebrate ‘‘Hurley’s Feast.’’ The weeklong celebration occurs annually from February 11 to 17. February 17, the birthday of Father Hurley, symbolizes the apex of the celebration. Bowing in prayer at 7:00 AM, exchanging gifts, and fellowshipping through a massive dinner are only a few of the activities associated with the last day of celebration. The ‘‘Dawn of New Progression’’ is another ritualistic celebration found within the U.H.S.C. This day, February 24, symbolizes the beginning of a New Year on the association’s calendar. Margarita Simon Guillory

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Baer, Hans A. The Black Spiritual Movement: A Religious Response to Racism (Nash ville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2001). Baer, Hans A. ‘‘Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church.’’ Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements, ed. Peter B. Clarke (London and New York: Routledge, 2006). Baer, Hans A., and Merrill Singer. African American Religion: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2002). Pinn, Anthony. The African American Reli gious Experience in America (Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 2006).

V VOODOO

During the period when France controlled the massive Louisiana colony, the vast majority of Africans were slaves imported from the Senegambia region of extreme West Africa. These blacks introduced common names for charms, grisgris and zinzin, to the area. Gris-gris was the first Voodoo term to reach the written record, appearing from the mideighteenth century onward. West Central Africa was also well represented. The KiKongo word wanga, meaning a harmful charm, likely made its way into the Creole lexicon during the period of Spanish rule following the French and Indian War. Spanish slave imports were more varied, though the single largest group came from West Central Africa. The strength of the West Central African presence is further demonstrated by the presence of gods like the Grand Zombi. This deity probably began its existence as Nzambi Mpungu, the Supreme Being of the Kingdom of the Kongo’s traditional religion. Other deities likely had a Kongo origin as well. Recent scholars of Afro-Latin faiths have

Historical Development Voodoo is a Creole faith that developed in the Mississippi Valley. Its closest relatives are Vodou and Vodun. The former is a Haitian religion that influenced American Voodoo but has a distinct history and ritual system that set it apart. Vodun, also known as Vodu, is a West African faith from which both Vodou and Voodoo are descended. One would be mistaken to assume that Voodoo was simply magic. In fact, most researchers draw a sharp distinction between Voodoo and what is usually known as hoodoo, conjure, or mojo. Voodoo indisputably embraced important magical elements. At the same time, never was it magic alone. It was a full-fledged Afro-Latin religion with its own leadership structure, gods, ceremonies, and place in the African Diaspora that was practiced by African Americans living in the Mississippi Valley. 427

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also suggested that the tendency to draw parallels between African deities and Catholic saints may have a Kongo origin. From the mid-fifteenth century on, the kingdom was at least nominally Catholic. The lengthy presence of Christian beliefs among older African ones might very well have laid the foundation for New World concepts, though this assertion is far from proven. The reason for the predominance of words and deities from the Bight of Benin region is much more debatable. Neither the French nor Spanish imported a great many slaves from the region. During the brief U.S. oversight of Mississippi Valley slave importation, there was no spike in the number of arrivals from the Bight of Benin. In fact, the domestic slave trade introduced many more slaves of West Central African, Senegambian, and Bight of

Biafran origin. One possible explanation for the seeming anomaly is bias against West Central Africans by both whites and slaves, which was well attested in the U.S. South. Another possibility is that preexisting Kongo Catholicism quickly eroded West Central African traditional religion once its adherents were torn from their homeland. One influence that cannot be ignored is the late influx of thousands of refugees from the Haitian Revolution to New Orleans from 1791 to 1809. Scholars estimate that their arrival doubled the black population of the New Orleans area. Most Haitians had their own Creole religion called Vodou, which was most heavily influenced by the religions of the Fon, Ewe, and Yoruba peoples of the Bight of Benin. Whatever the origin of the Bight of Benin features, they were the most

Haitian vodou ceremony in Miami. Ingrid Llera greets the Loa at Halouba Temple. (Stefano Giovannini/Stefpix.com)

Voodoo prominent contributions of any African ethnicity. Dani and Le´bat were Fon and Ewe in origin, while Assonquer was probably Yoruba. The term Voodoo evolved from the Fon and Ewe vodu, a word used to refer to deities. Significantly, some early white authors realized that the word referred to a god or gods instead of simply describing the religion as a whole. Hoodoo was also of Ewe derivation. Modern scholars use this term to refer to African American magic, but most early references indicate that Mississippi Valley blacks used it to refer to their distinctive religion as well as pragmatic spirituality. In other words, Voodoo appears to have been the preferred white name for the religion, while blacks favored hoodoo. The word choice was appropriate, since huhndu the prototype of hoodoo, roughly means ‘‘eating vodu,’’ a name describing a specific Ewe Vodun ceremony. Most researchers describe Voodoo as an urban phenomenon tied specifically to New Orleans, Louisiana. To be sure,

Table 1

we know much more about African American Creole religion in the Crescent City than anywhere else in the United States. Voodoo was more widespread, however, appearing in areas bordering the Mississippi River and its tributaries. A few reports from Missouri confirm that a form of the religion was practiced there. William Wells Brown, an ex-slave novelist, wrote in his autobiography about attending a St. Louis Voodoo ceremony. Mary Alicia Owen, a white folklorist, also described the Voodoo ceremonies and practitioners of St. Joseph, Missouri, toward the end of the nineteenth century. The religion may well have been more widespread across the river’s drainage system. For example, blacks in Cincinnati, Ohio, performed community rituals to ward off cholera, which at least one modern author has described as Voodoo rites. Voodoo may have survived along the Gulf Coast as well. For instance, nation sacks, a form of bag charm strongly associated with Memphis, Tennessee, and

African Terms Associated with Mississippi Valley Voodoo

Mississippi Valley Term

Meaning

Equivalent African Term

African Meaning

Cultural Origin

bag charm positive charm general term for deities or the religion that honors them spirit work in general or a specific Vodu ceremony charm

Mande, Ewe Mande Ewe, Fon

gris gris zinzin Voodoo

charm positive charm religion, sometimes deities

gerregerys zinzin vodu

hoodoo

Magic or African American name for Voodoo

hudu, huhndu

wanga

evil charm

wanga, ouanga

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Ewe

Kongo, possibly Mande

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which occasionally appeared in New Orleans, could occasionally be found in Mobile, Alabama, as well. They were never to be found elsewhere, at least until recent years. The use of nation sacks was never an indispensable part of Voodoo, but they appear to have been linked to the unique magical-religious culture of the Mississippi Valley, where the religion flourished. Their existence elsewhere may indicate the presence of other elements of the faith. Some authors refer to Voodoo surviving in Texas as well. One report even has Voodoo ceremonies taking place in Key West, Florida, during the early twentieth century. The author, however, may have been confusing a local faith generally called Nan˜igo with its Mississippi Valley counterpart.

Beliefs and Practices It is impossible to determine for certain whether all of the widespread practices described as Voodoo were the same as the religion practiced in New Orleans. Though they may have been part of a different faith that whites mistook for the already-popularized Voodoo, it is likely that some version of Voodoo did exist outside of New Orleans and its immediate vicinity. For one, those who wrote of Voodoo beyond New Orleans included knowledgeable African Americans and folklorists. Moreover, the communal rituals presided over by formal leaders that the writers described resemble those of the Crescent City. In addition, the ease and frequency with which both whites and African Americans traveled up and down the Mississippi and Gulf Coast during the nineteenth century—whether voluntarily or as slaves—would certainly have facilitated the spread of their

religion. In short, it would be more surprising to find that Voodoo did not exist outside New Orleans than to discover that it did. Traditionally, the leaders of New Orleans Voodoo were known as queens in the case of women and doctors in the case of men. Upon occasion, white authors used the title king to refer to male leaders, though only one Missouri Voodooist, ‘‘King’’ Alexander, is know to have used it himself. When white observers applied royal titles to Voodoo practitioners, they were typically referring to their religious office. Whites used doctor to refer to practitioners’ magical duties. In addition, Voodooists, male and female, frequently went by the titles wangateur and wangateuse, respectively. These titles referred to their ability to make malevolent wangas. According to popular authors, women leaders were far more important to New Orleans Voodoo than were men. This assertion is likely accurate. During the antebellum era, women were disproportionately represented among the free blacks of the area. Numerous authors have noted that most Voodoo leaders and many of their followers were themselves free. Naturally, the numerically superior group seems to have supplied the leaders. Whatever their sex, Voodoo leaders presided over communal ceremonies, manufactured charms, and performed spells for paying customers. Queens were especially associated with the most famous of the rituals, the annual St. John’s Eve celebration (June 24). During it they played a central role, presiding over the activities of the religion’s devotees. Originally, the term queen probably referred only to those priestesses who officiated on St. John’s Eve.

Voodoo This possibility finds support in the reports of early observers who usually associated the title specifically with those who led the ceremonies. Moreover, nineteenth-century authors described the office of queen as passing from one leader to another. It was not until the twentieth century that writers typically referred to any female practitioner by the title. Though at least some queens collected money from their religious observance, their chief source of income was in the working of spells and the manufacture of gris-gris, zinzins, and wangas. In Missouri, practitioners also made magical items they called luck balls. Such charms might take any number of forms, though the most sought after were bag charms designed for protection, luck, or other positive purposes. These bags usually contained a mixture of magical items that usually included a combination of bones, roots and herbs, mineral curios, graveyard dirt, and the like. Leadership in the Voodoo religion was prestigious. Some practitioners reportedly became wealthy. For instance, Jean Montane´ e, better known as Dr. John, reportedly earned a sizable fortune. Many authors have claimed the same for

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Voodoo’s most famous queen, Marie Laveau. Surviving records indicate that although she occasionally had enough money to purchase slaves she struggled severely with her finances at other times. Even when wealth did not follow a Voodoo leader, power did. Testimony collected during the early twentieth century describes Laveau as a woman feared by her black contemporaries. Folklore extended her power over whites. Mary Alicia Owen reported that King Alexander ‘‘never lacked for the good things of this world’’ despite the fact that he lived a nomadic life. She went on to explain that whenever he was in the vicinity, ‘‘No cabin refused him shelter and the best bed and food it could offer.’’ Fully describing the belief system of Voodoo as it existed up to the turn of the twentieth century is impossible. The reason for the difficulty can be traced to three sources: secrecy on the part of believers, apathy on the part of serious researchers, and misinterpretation on the part of popular authors. First, believers had good reason to keep quiet about their faith. In French and Spanish colonies, laws required masters to provide at least rudimentary instruction in Catholicism, with the goal that all Africans be

MARIE LAVEAU (OR LAVEAUX) (1801–1881) Laveau was by far the best known of New Orleans’s Voodoo Queens and hoodoo practitioners. Born in 1801, she had risen to prominence by the middle of the century, appearing in newspaper articles as a Voodoo leader from 1850 onward. Laveau was best known for presiding over the annual St. John’s Eve ceremonies, from which she sup posedly retired in 1869. Though she apparently never became wealthy, she did manage to own slaves upon occasion. Sources also indicate that she was well respected in the Creole community. She died in 1881 and was lauded by the New Orleans press for her charitable works. Legend says that her daughter and possibly granddaughter took over her name and practice after her death.

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JEAN MONTANE´E (ALSO KNOWN AS DR. JOHN AND JEAN BAYOU) [?–1885] After Marie Laveau, Jean Montane´e was the most famous practitioner of hoodoo in New Orleans, though his role in the Voodoo religion is unclear. A native African, prob ably of Senegalese origin, he was known for having a ritually scarred and/or tattooed face. Before arriving in New Orleans, he had reportedly spent time as a slave in Cuba. Before the Civil War, he possessed a considerable fortune in property and perhaps slaves. He lost most of his wealth shortly after the war, reportedly to mismanagement and investment fraud. Whites periodically accused Montane´e of cheating them as well. Later stories made him into either a teacher or rival or Marie Laveau, though no contem porary sources bear this out. He died in 1885.

converted to Christianity. In addition to religious pressure, whites frowned upon and generally banned slave assembly, especially for purposes of non-Christian religious ritual. The invitation to revolt was all too evident. At the same time, those whites capable of successfully recording Voodoo beliefs felt they had little reason to do so. After all, it was the supposedly uninteresting religion of an inferior race. Finally, those who did take notice were popular authors seeking to titillate their audience with tales of devil worship, orgies, and black magic. Taken together, these hindrances rendered the documentary record exceedingly fragmentary as well as misleading. Nevertheless, one can piece together a general outline of the religion from historical scraps found in eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentiethcentury documents. Knowledge of African Traditional Religions and various Afro-Latin faiths similarly help erase misconceptions introduced by biased and ignorant writers. Without doubt, Voodoo had its own pantheon of deities as well as a collection of lesser spirits. Believers served them and sought their

aid in a variety of ceremonies, of which a few apparently reliable descriptions survive. At the same time, the spirits gave their followers the ability to work magic for practical ends. There were at least four different levels of spiritual beings in Voodoo belief. At the top was the Supreme Being. Most scholars agree that practitioners drew no sharp lines between Christianity, which most professed, and Voodoo. Thus, most Voodooists recognized a version of the Christian God as the Supreme Being. Below the Supreme Being were a variety of lesser deities who played a much greater part in Voodoo ritual than did the Christian God. The names of several deities have survived in the documentary record, though probably far more did not. The deities mentioned in Table 2 are only those that can be best authenticated. With one exception, all of them appear either in more than one source or in a single source alongside other deities who do appear in multiple sources. The exception to the rule is Samunga, a deity reported only in Missouri and who was in fact the only god whose name survived there to be recorded during the late nineteenth century.

Table 2

Deities of Voodoo and Their Origins

Name(s)

Monsieur Danny, Blanc Dani, Voodoo Magnian; Grandfather Rattlesnake Papa Le´bat, Liba, LaBas, Limba Monsieur Assonquer, Onzancaire, On Sa Tier

Grand Zombi

Monsieur Agoussou, Vert Agoussou Ve´riquite´

Dambarra Soutons

Monsieur d’Embarass

Function in Mississippi Valley

Chief god, envisioned as a snake; god of discord; defeats enemies; may have merged with Grand Zombi Trickster, doorkeeper, sometimes considered evil God of good fortune

African Name(s)

Ethnic Origin

Function in Africa

Dan˜h gbi, Da

Fon

Chief earth god, python god, father of gods, early ruler of Dahomey

Legba

Trickster, linguist Ewe, Fon; Kongo when of gods given as Limba

Likely Osanyin Yoruba or Medicinal god or Assongue´; possibly West among Yoruba alternatively may Central African, be related to the if derived from Asson, a ritual African deities; New World rattle used in Haitian Vodou origin if derived from term for rattle Nzambi Mpungu Kongo Supreme Being

Important and perhaps chief god, whose name roughly translates as ‘‘Great God’’ or ‘‘Great Spirit’’; may have merged with Blanc Dani God of love Agasu

Multiple functions, Avrikiti including causing illness May be identical to Dan˜h gbi, Da Blanc Dani

God of death; name Takes place of may indicate a several African connection to Blanc gods

Ewe, Fon

Founder of the royal line of Abomey

Ewe

Marine deity

Fon

Chief earth god, python god, father of gods, early ruler of Dahomey Takes the place Death of multiple African deities

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Table 2 (continued)

Name(s)

Jean Macouloumba

Function in Mississippi Valley

African Name(s)

Dani/Dambarra Soutons Unknown

Charlo

Child god

Samunga

Called on when gathering mud

Of the deities known by name, three stand out because of the frequency with which they appear in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century documents. Blanc Dani, also known as Voodoo Magnian, figures prominently in group rituals when he features as a leader of the lesser deities. Reports also describe him as a snake deity. If accurate, Dani was probably the same as Grandfather Rattlesnake, a spirit found in Missouri Voodoo. A second being, Papa Le´ bat, acted as a doorkeeper of the gods, opening up communication between mortals and the divine. Like Blanc Dani, he often appeared in large group ceremonies. The third deity, Assonquer, appears frequently in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sources, though rarely in context. Besides bringing his followers good luck, his function remains obscure. Documentary evidence argues in favor of the existence of other deities as well. Of these, Grand Zombi seems to have been the most important. Though mentioned only in late sources, this deity does not seem to be an invention of white authors. It is possible that he may have

Ethnic Origin

Function in Africa

Probably Louisianan or possibly Haitian in Takes the place of multiple African deities Likely West Central African

merged with Blanc Dani at some point because both deities occupied similar leadership roles among the gods and filled comparable positions in group ceremonies. Alternatively, they may have been parallel spirits who occupied the same position in different varieties of Voodoo. The other gods listed in Table 2 appear in only scattered reports, though their similarity to African deities and the fact that sources that refer to them also mention more prominent gods argues in favor of their place in historical Voodoo. Without doubt, Voodooists worshipped additional gods, though their presence is now difficult to verify. For instance, a manuscript produced by Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) worker Catherine Dillon during the 1930s refers to spirits named Maman You, Yon Sue, and Colomba. The last may be the same as Jean Macouloumba, a spirit mentioned in a novel by Helen Pitkin, who claimed to have described genuine Voodoo gods and ceremonies. In addition, during the antebellum period police seized a religious figure resembling a woman.

Voodoo Though called the ‘‘Voodoo Virgin’’ by most authors, it doubtless represented an unnamed goddess. Some scholars have suggested that it may have been Erzulie, a popular spirit of West African origin who is prominent in Haitian Vodou. Less reliable than Dillon or the suggestive Voodoo Virgin are assertions by Zora Neale Hurston, who claimed to have been instructed in the lore of spirits called the Great One, Moccasin, Kangaroo, Jenipee, and Death. As was true in other Afro-Latin faiths, Voodoo’s deities frequently had saint equivalents. For instance, Blanc Dani was Michael the Archangel. Papa Le´bat was appropriately St. Peter, keeper of the keys of heaven. Ve´ riquite´ , god of sickness, was St. Joseph. In addition, at least one New Orleans saint, named Marron, has no obvious counterpart in official Catholic belief. This VoodooCatholic syncretism developed because Louisiana’s colonial leadership actively suppressed African faiths while requiring that all slaves be instructed in Catholicism. The integration of gods and saints might have developed as a way for slaves to hold onto their traditional religions while appearing to accept Catholic teachings. Another possibility is that the merging was the logical product of an African outlook that accepted that ethnic gods would go by other names when worshipped by different peoples. The next tier in Voodoo’s spiritual hierarchy was occupied by the souls of the dead. Practitioners held onto African concepts of ancestor veneration and believed that the deceased continued to play an active role in everyday life. Those honored by the living had usually been important figures while living. For example, Madame Ducoyielle, a prominent twentieth-century believer, called

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on the spirits of Voodoo practitioners while instructing FWP workers. These included an otherwise unknown Gaston Bonnafon and Marie Laveau. Attention paid the graves of dead Voodoo leaders further demonstrates their postmortem importance. Even today, long after the names of the lesser deities have passed from living memory, believers place offerings in front of the graves of important practitioners, and visitors make ritual markings on their tombs, usually in the form of three cross marks. As was true of Voodoo practitioners, deceased medical doctors were common in Voodoo lore. Ducoyielle spoke of a Dr. Paget. A man interviewed by the Reverend Harry Middleton Hyatt in 1938 similarly described a German doctor named Crawford as important in hoodoo. Many other names of ancestral spirits appear in the written record, though they vary greatly by source. For example, Madame Ducoyielle paid particular attention to those she had known in life as well as to the prominent deceased. The same was probably true of most believers. In consequence, the list of Voodoo’s ancestral spirits must of necessity remain far more incomplete even than the enumeration of its lesser deities. In addition to the difficulties associated with the sheer number of potential ancestral spirits, determining just what was an ancestral spirit and what was not can be a daunting task. For instance, according to Madame Ducoyielle, Marie Laveau had a special place among the dead, including a throne in hell. She further stated that believers should pray to the deceased practitioner, basing their supplication on a series of formulas from a book entitled the Life and Works of Marie Laveau. It is significant to note

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that in this book, the prayers address an unnamed goddess. Based on Ducoyielle’s statement, Laveau was that goddess. Such promotion of select dead to godhead is common in both African and Afro-Latin creole religions. A similar case involves a spirit named Unkus, whose existence was recorded by Harry Middleton Hyatt. Hyatt’s informant identified him as a long-dead person. Hyatt himself determined that Unkus was the same being as the Uncle spirit. Other sources identify the Uncle as a prominent figure in the beliefs of the Spiritual churches of New Orleans, a nominally Christian denomination strongly influenced by Voodoo. Some Spiritual congregations describe the Uncle as a relative of an early church leader. Anthropologist Eoghan Ballard, however, suggests that Unkus was a spirit inhabiting magical charms. He bases his assertion on linguistic similarities to nkisi, a KiKongo word meaning ‘‘charm.’’ Spirits that inhabited charms occupied the lowest tier of the Voodoo spiritual cosmos. Specific references to these indwelling spirits are rare but not unknown. The most explicit statement of their existence was supplied by Mary Alicia Owen, who described in detail the imparting of a spirit to a luck ball. As Owen elsewhere observed, spirits of this type might be tied to specific individuals, who carried their charm-homes at all times. The Unkus spirit, if Eoghan Ballard is correct, may be a testament to the survival of a specific class of African charm spirits. Even when documents do not directly speak of indwelling spirits, the fact that charm making often incorporated tying rituals represents a widespread African concept that spirits must literally be bound to physical objects in

order to fashion charms. The fact that seemingly inanimate charms typically required feeding with blood, whiskey, or some other liquid is another indication that there was more to charms than their physical components. One type of being notably absent from the written record is animistic spirits. Practitioners of African American conjure, a creole magical practice that developed in areas originally settled by the English, spoke of spirits inhabiting trees, rivers, and other natural and man-made objects. Similar beliefs are difficult to link to Voodoo. Such animistic beliefs existed in areas where the religion existed. They have not, however, been directly linked to Voodoo. Their presence could be explained away as a comparatively late imposition of beliefs brought by the non-natives who flooded the Louisiana Territory during the decades preceding the Civil War. It is far more likely, however, that Voodoo involved animistic beliefs but that predominantly white authors did not find them sensational enough to dwell on. Voodoo’s communal and private ceremonies were legion. Mary Alicia Owen reported on three ritual dances held in north Missouri, which she called the Grandfather Rattlesnake, fire, and moon dances. The ceremonies described by observers of New Orleans Voodoo were much more varied. One class of private ceremonies went by the French name parterre, referring to the practice of laying out food and other offerings to the spirits. Marie Laveau also reportedly held small ritual dances called rehearsals on Friday evenings. Even the well-known weekly dances in Congo Square were likely religious in orientation. Two Voodoo rituals were much better documented than most. The most visible

Voodoo was the annual St. John’s Eve gathering. St. John’s Eve was an important celebration for both white and black New Orleanians. Thus, much of what has been described as Voodoo orgies may have been simple partying. On the other hand, Voodoo ceremonies certainly occurred. The first to be reported happened around 1825 in New Orleans itself. Later ones usually took place on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. During these gatherings journalists reported parterres and dances, but the central ceremony appears to have been the arrival of the queen and female attendants on a barge, which had been rented from a nearby restaurant. Following the queen’s instruction, the women would dance to the music of drums and accordions. At some point, those on the barge would enter the water and ‘‘cut’’ it with edged tools. Feasting on the shore would follow. Descriptions of the rituals refer to the spirit Limba, a variation of Le´bat, and seem to indicate that participants experienced spirit possession. Unfortunately, the exact purpose of the St. John’s Eve ceremony is not clear, though it may have been a purification ritual or simply a way to honor the spirit represented by St. John. Another set of fairly well documented ceremonies were initiations, sometimes called openings by practitioners. Several nineteenth-century newspaper articles reported initiations but offered little by way of explanation. Zora Neale Hurston described several she reportedly underwent during the late 1920s, though some scholars doubt the accuracy of her descriptions. The most reliable account came from two Federal Writers’ Project workers who took part in an opening during the late 1930s in the home of Madame Ducoyielle. Though Ducoyielle participated in the initiation, a man

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called Nome Felix performed most of the rituals. To begin the ceremony, Nome laid out offerings before a picture of St. Peter and partially disrobed. Then followed prayers in French, spoken by all involved. Next, Nome knocked three times on the floor to summon the spirits. The rest of the ceremony consisted of dancing, feet and head washing, and distributing of magical items. Throughout much of the ceremony Nome was in a trance state, apparently a form of the spirit possession. FWP investigators mentioned other types of initiations as well, though they described them in much less detail, if at all. The working of magic also had important ceremonial aspects. For example, New Orleans practitioners frequently employed altars, candles, and prayers in their work. One of the more elaborate spells associated with Voodoo was performed by King Alexander. To make a luck ball, he employed four skeins of white yarn, four skeins of white silk thread, four red clovers, four pieces of tinfoil, and four pinches of dust. Alexander used the yarn and thread to bind the other items together. With each knot he tied, he recited a lengthy prayer four times. After making the various items into a ball he sprayed a mouthful of whiskey and saliva on it, breathed on it, shed a tear on it, and named it after its intended possessor. He then sent its indwelling spirit into the nearby forest to ‘‘refresh’’ itself, later calling it to return. Once the being had reentered the ball, Alexander sprayed whiskey on the charm once more and wrapped it first in tinfoil and then in silk. At various points in the ritual, he instructed Owen to feed it with whiskey, to never tie knots around it, and to have its future owner wear it under his right arm. Many accounts of

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similarly complicated spell and charm rituals exist from throughout the Mississippi Valley. Mississippi Valley Voodoo was a complete African Diasporic religion. It had many parallels throughout Latin America. The New Orleans variety of Voodoo shared many deities with its Latin American counterparts, especially Haitian Vodou. Similarly, throughout the New World, blacks elected kings and queens to preside over important annual rituals, just as did African American residents of the Mississippi Valley. Magic was likewise an ever-present feature of religion throughout the African Diaspora. On the other hand, Voodoo was unique. Unlike Santerı´a, it was not tied to a single primary African culture. Its deities and vocabulary clearly show major contributions from three distinct regions of Africa. In addition, its adherents worshipped some deities, like Charlo and Jean Macouloumba, who have yet to be linked with specific African originals. Voodoo no longer has a substantial body of believers, unless one counts the Spiritual churches, which preserve much of the religion under a Christian exterior. Federal Writers’ Project workers recorded the last firsthand references to Voodoo deities in the 1930s. Words like zinzin and wanga have all but disappeared. To be sure, hoodoo survives, though it has blended almost indistinguishably into conjure practiced in the rest of the United States. The absence of a living faith makes the researcher’s task more difficult. Enormous gaps in the existing record make investigation even more frustrating. Still, Voodoo was a uniquely African American religion, which deserves recognition alongside its Latin American relatives. Jeffrey Elton Anderson

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Jeffrey E. Conjure in African American Society (Baton Rouge: Louisi ana State University Press, 2005). Brown, William Wells. My Southern Home: Or, the South and Its People (Boston: A. G. Brown and Company, 1880; reprint, Upper Saddle River, NJ: The Gregg Press, 1968). Cable, George Washington. ‘‘Creole Slave Songs.’’ With illustrations by E. W. Kemble. The Century Magazine 31 (1886): 807 828. Cable, George Washington. The Grandi ssimes: A Story of Creole Life (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891). Dillon, Catherine. ‘‘Voodoo, 1937 1941.’’ Louisiana Writers’ Project, folders 118, 317, and 319. Federal Writers’ Project. Cammie G. Henry Research Center, Watson Memorial Library, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, LA. Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992). Heywood, Linda M., ed. Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Hurston, Zora Neale. ‘‘Hoodoo in America.’’ Journal of American Folklore 44 (1931): 317 417. Hyatt, Harry Middleton. Hoodoo Conjuration Witchcraft Rootwork. 5 vols. Memoirs of the Alma Egan Hyatt Foun dation (Hannibal, MO: Western, 1970 1978). Jacobs, Claude F., and Andrew J. Kaslow. The Spiritual Churches of New Orleans: Origins, Beliefs, and Rituals of an African American Religion (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991). Long, Carolyn Morrow. A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality

Voodoo of Marie Laveau (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006). Me´traux, Alfred. Voodoo in Haiti, Trans. Hugo Charteris and with an Introduction by Sidney W. Mintz (New York: Schocken, 1972). Owen, Mary Alicia. ‘‘Among the Voodoos.’’ The International Folk lore Congress 1891: Papers and Transactions (London: David Nutt, 1892), 230 248. Owen, Mary Alicia. Voodoo Tales as Told among the Negroes of the Southwest. With an Introduction by Charles Godfrey Leland. With Illustrations by Juliette A. Owen and Louis Wain (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1893). Pitkin, Helen. An Angel by Brevet: A Story of Modern New Orleans (Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1904).

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Porteous, Laura L. ‘‘The Gri gri Case.’’ Louisiana Historical Quarterly 17 (1934): 48 63. Rigaud, Milo. Secrets of Voodoo, trans. Robert B. Cross (New York: Arco, 1969; reprint, San Francisco: City Lights, 1985). Rosenthal, Judy. Possession, Ecstasy, and Law in Ewe Voodoo (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1998). Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro American Art and Phi losophy (New York: Random House, 1983). Williams, Marie B. ‘‘A Night with the Voudous.’’ Appleton’s Journal: A Maga zine of General Literature 13 (1875): 404 405.

W WICCA

maintained through small, secret groups or covens, who preserved the old traditions. While highly compelling for many wiccans, this overall narrative, as well as the specific evidence presented by Gardner and Murray, has been largely (although not entirely) dismissed by scholars. Other important figures in the initial development of wicca include Alex Sanders (1926–1988), whose Alexandrian school forms the major counterpoint to Gardnerian practice, and Doreen Valiente (1922–1999), who revised Gardner’s original material into a form more open to later feminist interpretations. In the past few decades, the distinctions between Gardnerian and Alexandrian practice have largely blurred; historically, however, Gardnerian wicca tended to be more formal and more resistant to innovation and the incorporation of other traditions or practices than Alexandrian, although exceptions to—and even reversals of— these positions were found. Stewart and Janet Farrar, Vivianne Crowley, and

Historical Development While some scholars insist on a more restricted definition, wicca is increasingly used as a general term referring to a wide variety of practices in the modern West. As such, wicca may be seen as a component of contemporary neopaganism, with a focus on ritual, magic, and the divinity of the natural world. The term is also used as a synonym for European witchcraft traditions in general. From a scholarly perspective, wicca emerged in the United Kingdom in the 1940s from the writings of Gerald Gardner (1884–1964), a former civil servant with wide-ranging interest and involvement in various alternative traditions. Drawing on the work of British anthropologist Margaret Murray (1862–1963, especially her 1921 The Witch-Cult in Western Europe), Gardner presented wicca as a recovery of an ancient European tradition, driven underground by the dominance of Christianity but 441

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Zsuzsanna Budapest were also among the early writers on wicca; like Gardner, Sanders, and Valiente, these writers were also practitioners, presenting wicca from an almost exclusively emic perspective. Scholars first began to treat wicca as a subject of inquiry in a methodological way in the 1970s, with Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon (1986) providing one of the earliest overviews, and the ongoing work of, among many others, Sarah M. Pike, Tanya M. Luhrmann, Ronald Hutton, and Joanne E. Pearson providing notable insights into its history, development, and social relevance.

Beliefs and Practices While wicca clearly inherits and makes use of much material from older religious practices—from the ritual structures employed by such groups as the Order of the Golden Dawn to interpretations of the symbolic systems employed by ancient Greek, Egyptian, or various Native American cultures—such syncretic combinations are a modern phenomenon. Tending toward polytheism, many wiccan traditions see various gods and goddesses as differing manifestations of an essential pair of female and male deities. While the feminine principle is often privileged over the male, many wiccans insist the two are equal and balanced opposites. Wiccans tend to practice in smaller groups, with solitary practitioners being quite common; practice often focuses on magical workings toward both internal and external aims, employed largely through a combination of ritual action and visualization. Perhaps the most widely influential wiccan author is Starhawk (born Miriam Stamos, 1951), whose The Spiral Dance

(1979) remains a classic introductory text. Over time, Starhawk’s practice has become more socially engaged, focusing on political activism and environmentalism as integral parts of spiritual and magical practice. While a loose environmentalism characterizes much of wiccan thought, the call to activism cannot be seen as universal. African American involvement in wicca is minimal, although this is changing. One of the historical critiques of wicca has been its tendency to appropriate practices and symbolic systems from other traditions, often seemingly without consciousness of the problematic nature of such cultural assimilation. As the contemporary wiccan community becomes more sophisticated in its relationships to other traditions, it can be expected that additional engagement with African American traditions will emerge. Whether this leads to greater African American participation in wicca remains to be seen. (See the ‘‘New Age Movement’’ entry for additional information on why, in addition to the increase of participation, African Americans are likely to be seen as more central to the development of Wicca than they are currently.) Daniel M. Levine

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today (New York: Arkana, 1979). Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Lewis, James R. Witchcraft Today: An Ency clopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Tradi tions (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC CLIO Inc., 1999).

Wicca | 443 Luhrmann, Tanya M. Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contem porary England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991). Pearson, Joanne. Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age (Religion Today Tradition, Moder nity & Change) (Farnham, Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate Publishing, 2002). Pike, Sarah M. Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans

and the Search for Community (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001). Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979). Starhawk. The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004).

X XANGÔ

mention comes from a Dutch correspondent around 1635, while a report to the governor in 1769 describes religious dances by slaves from the Mina Coast of Africa, mentioning altars, idols, goats (an important sacrificial animal), and ‘‘superstitious benedictions’’ (Ribeiro 1982, 123). Despite periodic and often severe repression from the authorities continuing from the colonial period through the first half of the twentieth century, Xangoˆ survived and even flourished. Particularly successful were groups within the Nagoˆ tradition; as in other parts of Brazil, most notably Bahia, Nagoˆ achieved a high level of prestige and influence, and even in terreiros that explicitly identify with other nations, the deities are generally referred to as Orixa´s (the Nagoˆ term). Nagoˆ names have for the most part replaced the original names of the deities in other traditions (Bastide 1978). The most prominent terreiro is the Ileˆ Oba´ Ogunte´, a Nagoˆ house founded in the late nineteenth century by an African woman, Ineˆ s Joaquina da Costa.

Historical Development Xangoˆ is an Afro-Brazilian religion associated with the northeastern state of Pernambuco. ‘‘Xangoˆ’’ is a generic term that was originally used by whites to designate what historically were a diverse set of religious traditions. The term comes from the name of one of the deities venerated in Afro-Brazilian religion. Participants are more likely to identify their religion not as Xangoˆ but by referring to the nac¸a˜o, the ‘‘nation’’ from which their particular beliefs and practices come. For example, a terreiro, or worship place, might identify itself as ‘‘Nagoˆ ’’ (from what is now Nigeria), ‘‘Gegeˆ’’ (presentday Benin), or ‘‘Angola.’’ Despite significant differences between these traditions, all venerate the African deities or Orixa´s, who are celebrated in public rituals where they possess their devotees. Xangoˆ has been present in the Pernambuco region for centuries. An early

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Beliefs and Practices Central to Xangoˆ is the worship of the Orixa´s. (The following discussion of belief and ritual summarizes Bastide 1978, Carvalho and Segato 1987, and Ribeiro 1982.) While in Africa literally hundreds of divinities and spirits, often associated with specific places and lineages, were venerated, in Brazil this number was considerably reduced. In most terreiros, about a dozen Orixa´s are cultivated. Orixa´s generally are associated with the forces of nature and crucial domains of culture— Xangoˆ, for example, is the god of thunder and lightening, justice, and stoneworking. A rich mythology surrounds the various Orixa´s, and ritual dance and costume refer kinesthetically and visually to the exploits and characters of the deities. The Orixa´s historically have been associated or ‘‘syncretised’’ with various Catholic saints, though in recent years some participants have rejected this as an artifact of cultural domination. The Orixa´s are made present through spirit possession. During public rituals, drumming and singing are used to ‘‘call’’ the Orixa´s, who ‘‘descend’’ into the heads of filhas de santo (‘‘daughters of saint,’’ initiates dedicated to the Orixa´s; there also ‘‘sons of saint,’’ filhos de santo, but as elsewhere in Brazil, women make up the majority of initiates). In addition to public worship, the Orixa´s play crucial roles in individual lives, in that every person is the spiritual child of an Orixa´. The Orixa´ is not only an object of veneration and a source of protection but also in some ways it shapes the fate and character of the person. Xangoˆ encompasses a vibrant ritual life. Crucial to the preservation of tradition have been rituals associated with initiation. Much of this occurs outside of the public view. A candidate for initiation will spend weeks,

or even months, confined to the terreiro. During this period of intense learning, under the careful supervision and scrutiny of the senior leader (the ma˜e or pai de santo, mother or father of saint, respectively), she (or he) internalizes doctrine, myth, ritual, and disciplines of body and mind. This period culminates in a public ritual celebrating the initiate and the Orixa´s. The continuity of tradition and the depth and complexity of Afro-Brazilian religion testify to the efficacy of the process. Public rituals are usually referred to as festas, ‘‘festivals,’’ or toques, a reference to the crucial role of the drums, a toque being any one of a large number of rhythms played to call the Orixa´s. If animals are to be sacrificed, this is done outside of the public view, usually in the morning of the day of the festa. There is a complex etiquette overlaying a profound theology of sacrifice. To the various Orixa´s are dedicated specific congeries of animals, generally based on mythology, and there are specific methods of sacrifice, varying according to species and deity. Theologically, blood is a form of axe´, the energy of life and spirit; to shed it is to share it with the Orixa´s within the web of reciprocity fundamental to Afro-Brazilian religion, while the release of axe´ at the moment of sacrifice energizes the ritual, and the terreiro. Before the public festa can proceed, an offering must be made to Exu, the trickster deity who is the intermediary between humans and Orixa´s. The public celebration begins in the evening. For each Orixa´ a set of drum toques accompanied by singing (which may be in an African dialect or Portuguese, depending on the nac¸a˜o) is performed, calling the Orixa´s. Eventually, drumming and singing will send the deities back on their way, and the ceremony comes to a close.

Xangô | 447 The Xangoˆ of Pernambuco has received less attention from scholars than the Candomble´ of Bahia. This is largely a product of theoretical and perceptual bias. Early ethnographers and folklorists, steeped in theories of diffusion and acculturation, emphasized ‘‘survivals’’ of African cultural elements in the New World and perceived the Bahian Candomble´ as more ‘‘pure’’ and true to its African roots (Dantas 1988). Their attention, in turn, no doubt contributed to public perceptions; Xangoˆ does not occupy as prominent a place in the national popular culture as the Candomble´ of Bahia, which has become a symbol of Afro-Brazilian culture. Its leaders are not household names, like the late, revered Ma˜e Menininha, ma˜ e de santo of the reknowned Gantois Candomble´ terreiro in Salvador, Bahia. But like the Candomble´ of Bahia, the Xangoˆ of Pernambuco represents the vitality of African traditions despite centuries of

repression, the vigor of Afro-Brazilian culture, and the profound role of AfroBrazilian religion in the lives of believers. Lindsay Hale

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Inter penetration of Civilizations, trans. Helen Sebba (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). Carvalho, Jose Jorge de, and Rita Laura Segato. Culto Shango en Recife, Brasil (Caracas, Venezuela: Centro Para las Cul turas Populares Y Tradicionales, 1987). Dantas, Beatriz Go´is. Vovo´ Nagoˆ e Papai Branco: Usos e Abusos da A´frica no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Edic¸o˜es Graal, Ltda., 1988). Ribeiro, Rene´. Antropologia da Religia˜o e Outros Estudos (Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil): Editora Massangana, 1982).

Part 2

ESSAYS

African American Literature and Religion Caroline Levander Religious thought has been a central concern of African American writing since its origins in the early national period, and it continues to shape much African American writing at the present time. In fact, depicting, challenging, contesting, and affirming religious belief systems and spirituality has been one of the defining characteristics of the African American literary tradition. When we think about African American literature, we must think about the place, importance, and meaning of religious thought to it. Far from being ancillary, religion, in short, is essential to a full understanding of African American literature. While religion is a founding component of African American literary expression, it is as varied, diverse, wide-ranging and multitradition-based as are the authors who make up the African American literary canon. We can begin to get a sense of the foundational importance of religious thought to African American writing by looking at early figures like John Marrant, Phyllis Wheatley, Absalom Jones, and Richard Allen. Of these four only Phyllis Wheatley’s name can be regularly found in anthologies of American literature and African American literature. However, the writing careers of these now lesser-known African Americans illustrate the founding importance of religious belief to literary expression, and the vital role that African Americans believed writing could have in their communities. As early as 1790 African American evangelist and author John Marrant published his missionary Journal in order to describe his three-year mission to the largest all-black North American settlement in Birchtown, Nova Scotia. For Marrant, as for Wheatley, writing was an important way to disseminate religious belief to a larger audience than could be constituted in one congregation. In his Journal Marrant described in detail a covenant theology that reflected and was practiced by a particular community of exiled black Loyalists. The distinctive religious emphasis on exodus and Zionistic fulfillment that characterized the Birchtown settlement grew out of the particular needs of this African American community. The defining features of this community, in turn, became an important story that Marrant wanted to share with others. Marrant’s goal in publishing his Journal was to describe a new religious community to others, but he also used his

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firsthand involvement with the Birchtown settlement as the occasion to credential himself as a writer. As was the case with Marrant, the religious training and firsthand religious experiences of Absalom Jones and Richard Allen became the starting point for their writing. Jones and Allen were religious leaders in late eighteenthcentury Philadelphia, founders of the African Methodist Episcopal church, and authors of A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia (1794)—a published story of their community’s involvement in a yellow fever epidemic and its endurance as a spiritual Richard Allen, founder and first bishop of community in the face of disaster. Allen the African Methodist Episcopal Church. was a former slave who had converted (Payne, Daniel Alexander. History of the his owner and purchased his freedom. African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1891) Jones was a fellow ex-slave and native Philadelphian who joined Allen in founding the Free African Society in 1787 and in organizing an African Church in 1791. The leadership role that Allen and Jones played in developing the African American social and religious community in Philadelphia made them natural spokesmen against racial injustice when it erupted in 1793. Because African Americans were thought to be immune to yellow fever, the city of Philadelphia pressed them into hazardous service as nurses and gravediggers during the Philadelphia yellow fever outbreak. This human rights abuse was exacerbated by accelerating racial panic as African Americans became identified with the fever, rather than acknowledged as heroic intercessors. The 1794 Narrative that Allen and Jones published was meant to set the record straight—to correct misrepresentations of African American responsibility for the epidemic, to impugn city leaders for their racist response to the fever, to correct accusations that blacks used the epidemic as an opportunity for looting, and to reverse the mistaken idea that blacks were immune to the fever. Because of both authors’ prominence in the religious community, the Narrative became an important and widely circulated document, constituting a watershed moment in black cultural history. The authors’ religious careers and their literary activity were mutually supporting, even as they used religious metaphors and appeals to divine justice to argue their points within the Narrative. Despite the importance of their writing to African American history, Allen, Jones, and Marrant have been largely forgotten. Such was not the case with all early African American writers, however. Just as these authors made important reference to religious matter, so too did the now famous African American poet Phyllis Wheatley come under unusually virulent attack for her religious verse. Wheatley was author of such

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poems as ‘‘On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield’’ (1770) and ‘‘On Being Brought from Africa to America’’ (1773). In the first, Wheatley contemplates the spiritual power of a religious leader, and in the second she explores the possibilities and perils of religious conversion. While Wheatley declares that ‘‘ ’Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land’’ and ‘‘taught my benighted soul to understand/ That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too,’’ she cautions American religious leaders who ‘‘view our sable race with scornful eye’’ that ‘‘Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,/ May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train’’ (Wheatley 1989, 29). Challenging the racism of Christian leaders even as she endorses the superiority of Christian belief, Wheatley both upholds and abhors religious piety. Such poetry outraged not only religious but political leaders, and Thomas Jefferson asserts in Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) that ‘‘religion may have produced a Phyllis Wheatley; but it could not produce a poet’’ (Jefferson 2002, 200). Despite Jefferson’s dismissal, Wheatley has become widely accepted as a founding mother of African American and American verse. And much of the innovation as well as the appeal of her writing comes from its religious themes, subjects, and critique. When we think about African American writing in the first half of the nineteenth century, we tend to think about the famous slave narratives of writers like Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Hannah Crafts. Key to these narratives is critique of ministers who use scripture to uphold slave-owning and of religious communities that condone human injustice. Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), for example, devotes a chapter to ‘‘The Church and Slavery.’’ This chapter contains the narrative’s most sustained commentary on the hypocrisy of the church’s position on slavery. Religious instruction is used by slaveholders, according to Jacobs, in order to keep slaves from murdering their masters. When confronted with slave-owners’ widespread fear that Nat Turner’s slave insurrection was the first of many acts of slave violence, clergy decide to hold a separate Sunday service for slaves. But if Episcopal, Methodist, and Baptist churches seem to include slave as well as free, these same churches use scripture as precedent for upholding slavery as divine law and for convincing slaves to accept their servitude. Slaves are not so easily duped, and the black congregation of Rev. Mr. Pike’s church laughs quietly at his gospel preaching. Yet slaves depend upon religious instruction for strength, even as they resist coercive religious messages about their inferiority. Slaves, according to Jacobs, generally compose their own songs and hymns, some of which she includes in Incidents. In addition, they rely on scripture and on religious leaders who uphold the precept that God judges people by their hearts, not the color of their skin. Learning how to negotiate a southern pulpit all too ready to tighten the bonds of slavery is the formidable task that faces every slave. Developing spiritual strength and fortitude in the face of such opposition is not impossible, however, and Jacobs describes slaves’ heartfelt commitment to religious teachings and to the Bible. When her owner tells her that she should join the church, Jacob’s heroine responds that she would be glad to join if she could be allowed to live like a Christian woman. She quotes scripture to refute her owner’s deployment of biblical passage to justify his attempts to seduce her—biblical knowledge, as Jacobs shows, thus can become a powerful weapon against human rights abuse that cloaks itself in fallacious religious teachings. Thus religion is a theme that takes on narrative

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complexity in Incidents and allows Jacobs to display her ironic wit—both attributes of successful literature. Because of her sophisticated engagement with religious thinking and institutions, Incidents comes to exemplify the characteristics that we tend to attribute to classic literature. Like Jacobs, Frederick Douglass was overtly critical of religious hypocrisy in his writing. In his Narrative of the Life (1845) slave songs as well as religious practices and beliefs deriving from voodoo become powerful gateways into slave resistance. One of the most famous passages of Narrative focuses on the unique spirituality of slave songs. Douglass describes in detail the long, deep, loud tones of the songs and how they ‘‘breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish’’ (Douglass 1996, 38). Every note, according to Douglass, is ‘‘a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God’’ powerful enough to depress his spirit and fill every listener with ineffable sadness (Douglass 1996, 38). Douglass admits to frequently being moved to tears by slave songs that deepen his hatred of slavery more effectively than argument or entreaty. Douglass is most sorely tested when he is sold into the home of a slave owner who makes the greatest pretensions of piety and who prays morning, noon, and night, but who is cruel to his slaves. In the counsel of Sandy Jenkins, a slave with whom he becomes acquainted, Douglass agrees to seek alternative sources of strength to combat his oppression. One Sunday morning Sandy gives him a root that he claims has the power to keep a slave from being whipped. Though initially skeptical, Douglass comes to think that the root might carry some spiritual power. The virtue of the root is tested when Douglass fights his owner, rather than let himself be whipped. In Douglass’s Narrative spiritual strength to combat slavery comes from the songs and folklore of slaves, rather than from church sermons and Bible reading, but it is the strength sufficient to free those with courage and will to make use of it. Like Jacobs and Douglass, the antebellum African American writer Martin Delany saw that religion could all too easily destroy the self-reliance and independence of blacks. Delany was born of a free mother and slave father in Virginia in 1812. Because of the law that offspring followed the condition of the mother, Delany was born free rather than a slave. However, he devoted his life and his writing to advocating for antislavery not only within the United States but throughout the Americas. Slavery was not a uniquely U.S. institution. At the time that Delany began his writing career, slavery was still active in many parts of the Americas, such as Cuba and Brazil. From 1843 to 1847 Delany edited a black newspaper called The Mystery, and from 1847–1849 he co-edited The North Star with Frederick Douglass. In addition to these important editorial positions, he delivered antislavery lectures and wrote long letters to The North Star about his work. However, it was in the early 1850s that his own literary career took off. His novel Blake; or the Huts of America (1853) was inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Delany wanted to refute the image of the docile slave man at the center of Stowe’s novel and to challenge her message that slaves must exhibit religious forbearance. Like a Jesus figure, Uncle Tom sacrifices himself for the greater good of the slave community of which he is a part, and he repeatedly uses scripture and the example of Jesus to justify his self-sacrifice. Delany took issue with this image

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of black manhood under slavery by featuring an angry and rebellious black man as his protagonist. Refusing to accept Christian justifications for his own suffering, Delany’s protagonist Henry escapes to the dismal swamp to remake himself and society. Henry is literally transformed into Blake, a fugitive from slavery who travels throughout the U.S. South and Cuba to proselytize for freedom. Blake is a messiah as well as a disruptive presence for those who encounter him. His preaching is unorthodox but powerful among slaves, who protect him and the maroon community he forms from detection. Blake does not wait for whites to emancipate him—he takes his freedom and assumes it as a condition of his humanity. In so doing he becomes a religious leader for blacks throughout the Americas. When he visits Cuba and addresses a group of political leaders, he provides his listeners with a history of the religious training of his constituency: he was raised Catholic but became Baptist; his wife was raised Baptist; others in his congregations were pagan, Methodist, Episcopalian, and Swedenborgian. However, the community he forms has agreed to know no sects, no denominations, but only one religion that brings liberty. The ceremonies of this new religion come from no church or creed but have been originated by the community and adopted to its wants and needs. When Blake describes this religion and its practices to the Cuban community, his words become a prayer and sermon to which his listeners unanimously reply ‘‘amen.’’ Description of this new religion therefore becomes a religious act. His congregation is summoned into being throughout the Americas by his account of a resistant and freedom-loving faith that knows no other truth than freedom. Though slavery officially ended in the United States with the conclusion of the Civil War, African American oppression, sadly, endured in altered form. Indeed, the end of the nineteenth century saw an unprecedented number of lynchings and acts of racial violence against African Americans. By century’s end, it was clear to all that the commonly held antebellum notion that abolishing slavery would ensure freedom and equality for blacks was grossly naı¨ve. It was in an atmosphere of accelerating racism that W. E. B. Du Bois wrote arguably the most important and prescient book of the past hundred years, The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Du Bois was born in 1868 of a Dutch and African mother and French Huguenot and African father. He attended Fisk University from 1885 to 1888 and Harvard in 1890. In 1895 he became the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, after studying in Berlin for two years. Sociologist, essayist, educator, and creative writer, Du Bois was a renaissance man, and his writings reflect the complexity and range of his thinking. The idea of the soul with which Du Bois contends in Souls reflects that complexity. Trained by the pioneering psychologist William James at Harvard, Du Bois approached the idea of the self and the spirit with a scientific and distinctly modern perspective. Drawing on James’s notion that there lies within each individual a second, hidden self (what we have come to think of as the unconscious), Du Bois explores the complexity of the African American self at the turn into the twentieth century. His goal in writing Souls is to sketch the spiritual world in which the African American community lives and strives and to explore the meaning of its religion. But the first question he asks—How does it feel to be a problem?—is the question with which the first chapter, ‘‘Of Our Spiritual Strivings,’’ begins. And this is the question that illuminates what Du Bois correctly predicts

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will be the problem of the twentieth century—the problem of the color line. Du Bois asks why God made him an outcast and a stranger not only to others but to himself. Constantly aware of his own double-consciousness, the African American ever feels his twoness. The founding condition of African American consciousness is conflict— conflict born of being both American and black. As such African Americans are composed of two souls, and it is this doubleness that defines their spiritual struggle. Chapters like ‘‘The Faith of the Fathers’’ provide social commentary on the history of the black church in the U.S. North and South, the religious customs and habits during slave days, and religious feeling. The final chapter, ‘‘The Sorrow Songs,’’ is a contemplation of the old songs in which ‘‘the soul’’ of the black slave found expression. Collectively, the essays comprising Souls of Black Folk provide a sustained and wide-ranging commentary on what it means to be black in America, and at the center of that commentary is spirituality and religious meaning. Du Bois wrote prolifically throughout his life and late novels like Dark Princess (1928) continue to explore the importance of spirituality to African American social redemption. While Dark Princess was panned as an outrageously optimistic novel about black messianic liberation, it is an important marker of the trajectory of Du Bois’s thinking and carries an important final message about spiritual wholeness. Du Bois had contemplated the spiritual significance of his infant’s death in Souls, in a chapter entitled ‘‘Of the Passing of the First-Born.’’ At the end of his last novel, he turns again to a child, but this time imagines a prophetic child powerful enough to combat racism. This final answer to the problem of the color line with which Du Bois began his writing career is nothing less than a ‘‘Messenger and Messiah to all the Darker Worlds’’ (Dark Princess 2007, 311)—a redeemer for the black race. Du Bois was not the only one to turn to writing to imagine alternatives to the condition of African Americans in a post-Reconstruction United States. Nor was he the only one to find spirituality and religious precept rich idioms for writing. In the career of less well-known African American minister and novelist Sutton Griggs we can see how literary and religious callings operate in tandem. We can see how Griggs’s religious training and literary ambition worked together by considering his nonfiction and fiction writing. Born in Chatfield, Texas, in 1872, Griggs was the son of the preacher Reverend Allen Griggs, who established the first black newspaper in Texas. Father and son were both instrumental to the genesis of the American Baptist Theological Seminary, and Sutton Griggs was a preacher throughout his life. However, he was also a novelist and author of numerous nonfiction pamphlets. As Wilson Jeremiah Moses has observed, with the possible exception of W. E. B. Du Bois, Griggs was the only black novelist of his period who deliberately undertook the writing of novels as part of a definite plan to create a national Negro literature. His religious training was not incidental but essential to this literary project. Griggs believed that the art of making literature was fundamental to the successful progress of the African American people, and so he undertook novel writing as a way of elevating the race. Not only did Griggs write over ten novels and as many if not more nonfiction prose pieces, but he also printed and disseminated his own writing. Believing that the African American community needed its own press and circulation system, Griggs was author, publisher, and marketing department for African American literature in

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the late nineteenth century. His experience as a preacher was essential to his understanding of a distinctly African American literary tradition. Griggs was used to addressing a congregation of believers, and he approached literature with the same assumptions in mind. Early novels like Imperium in Imperio (1899) and Overshadowed (1901) use the rhetorical strategies of the sermonic tradition to persuade readers of the importance of African American liberation. His novels often feature a preacher protagonist, but they also include long monologues of oratory in which characters persuade listeners (and the implied readers) of the importance of African American equality. In Imperium in Imperio, the male protagonist literally is a Christ-like figure who rises from the dead after he is lynched, escapes, and forms a new African American community based on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Worthy individuals enter this hidden community through a reverse ascension into the brotherhood—a literal life after death and entry into the heaven of racial equality. In his nonfiction prose Griggs uses his position of religious prominence in order to garner the attention of readers. The Race Question in a New Light (1909), Wisdom’s Call (1910), and Beyond the End (1911), for example, draw on the oratorical tradition and the preaching style he developed while pastor of the First Baptist Church and the Tabernacle Baptist Church. Griggs’s literary career has recently become the subject of much scholarly attention. Prominent African American Studies scholar Cornel West has identified Griggs as one of the most important public intellectuals of his generation and his first novel, Imperium in Imperio, as the first major political novel written by an African American. Key to the quality and quantity of Griggs’s work is his religious training, and that religious training shapes the plot, characters, and narrative style of his writing. Griggs used his religious training and position to begin to shape a distinctly African American literary tradition, but a contemporary of Griggs’s, the African American writer Charles Chesnutt, also featured religious belief in his stories. Born in 1858 of free black southerners, Chesnutt grew up after emancipation and began his literary career in the late nineteenth century. Unlike Griggs, Chesnutt used the whitecontrolled publishing industry to disseminate his literary message. Indeed, he was the first African American writer of fiction to make effective use of it. In short stories that he published from 1899 to 1905 Chesnutt commented on different religious training and belief systems separating whites from blacks in the U.S. South. In ‘‘Po’ Sandy,’’ for example, the African American protagonist Uncle Julius tells his white listeners the story of Sandy and his wife, Tenie. Manipulating their history of slavery, Uncle Julius describes how conjuring transformed Tenie into a tree so that she could stay close to her love instead of being sold away. This story of conjure depicts slave belief systems, but it also is strategically used by Uncle Julius in order to persuade his listeners to give him the lumber from the tree to build a new African American church. By putting the religious traditions of slaves into the service of contemporary African American religious aspirations, Uncle Julius manages to secure a new building for his congregation. It is concern that the slaves’ ghosts haunt the tree that convinces his white listeners to offer the tree as building material for the church, rather than to use it as lumber for a new kitchen. When asked if Sandy’s ghost would disturb worship, Uncle Julius replies that ghosts never disrupt church services but if the spirit should stray into the meeting by mistake, the preaching would do it good.

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Uncle Julius is the storyteller throughout Chesnutt’s collection of short stories, entitled The Conjure Woman and Other Conjure Tales. These stories consistently show both the importance of conjure as a belief system for blacks during slave times and the value of that belief system for free blacks, like Julius, who must negotiate as free people with whites. Conjure, or the practice of magic, becomes not only a way for slaves to sustain their spiritual wholeness and community belief system under slavery. It additionally becomes a way for free slaves to succeed in a socioeconomic world to which they have not historically had access. African American women were also making important contributions to the literary canon during the second half of the nineteenth century in ways that innovated religious as well as literary models. Pauline Hopkins provides a prime example. Hopkins was born in 1859 and lived most of her life in Boston. She did not become a writer until she was almost 40 years old, but she then published multiple novels, in serial form, for the Colored American Magazine. Contending Forces was published in 1900, quickly followed by Hagar’s Daughter; a Story of Southern Caste Prejudice, Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest; and Of One Blood; or, the Hidden Self. Hopkins assumed a leading editorial role at the Colored American Magazine, which was a very different publishing venture from the typical magazines dominating the early twentieth-century market. Not only did the magazine target a black reading audience, but it was structured to be a cooperative, so that readers of the magazine would invest five dollars and contributors were given a cash evaluation of their submission. By asking readers and authors to invest in the venture rather than to simply buy issues of the magazine, the editors hoped to develop a community of engaged participants, rather than passive purchasers. Hopkins’s literary project dovetailed nicely with the magazine’s commitments. Her goal in undertaking the writing of novels was to encourage dramatic changes in social relations. Hoping to recreate Boston as a center of political agitation, Hopkins threw her energy into novel writing and magazine production as a way of responding to northern political apathy, race hate in the South, black disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow laws. As we have seen, African American writers often put pen to paper in direct response to social injustice. They also innovated print culture, publication dissemination, and the press as part of a sustained effort to transform how readers responded to repressive social conditions. Religion was central to this ambitious literary undertaking. Not only was it an enduring theme in African American writing from the late eighteenth century onward, but it became a sophisticated narrative device for challenging social norms and for building a self-conscious, savvy African American reading audience. Pauline Hopkins’s novels were no different. Of One Blood; or, The Hidden Self (1902) provides a powerful case in point. The novel follows the career of Reuel Briggs, a self-made medical student at Harvard. Like Du Bois, Briggs studies psychology or, more particularly, the supernatural world and mysticism. His scientific interest in the effects of the imagination—divinations, inspirations, demoniacal possession, apparitions, miraculous healing and occult powers—is exclusively secular at novel’s opening. However, his subject of study and his hidden self quickly collide as he uncovers his true racial identity. Gifted with unusual powers of perception and visions, Briggs can go further than other scientists to uncover the vast recesses of the human soul. As was the case with Du Bois, the souls

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of African Americans in Hopkins’s writing are distinctive and unique—carrying a complex duality and power that lies at the core of the narrative. When Briggs attends a concert given by the all-black Fisk University chorus and hears them sing ‘‘The Lord’s Prayer,’’ he is overwhelmed by the homage to God that is palpable in every chord. But it is when he hears a beautiful woman soloist sing ‘‘Go Down Moses’’ that he has a vision that begins his process of racial self-discovery. Briggs’s capacity to literally bring her back from the dead is a further sign that he has the powers that he studies and that these powers may derive from his undisclosed African American ancestry. When he goes to Africa on a scientific discovery mission, Briggs learns that he is descended from a race of African kings and that the unique occult powers and mysticism that he has inherited from his ancestors are a sign of Ethiopia’s greater power. Hailed as the lost king of Meroe and renamed Ergamenes, Briggs becomes the messiah and hope for Ethiopian greatness. Just as Dark Princess imagines a powerful messiah who heralds the coming of African American hegemony, so too does Of One Blood feature a savior for the African American race. Hopkins’s savior has scientific as well as sacramental power, and the combination of these two ensures that Western ways of thinking that subordinate individuals based upon the color of their skin will be successfully refuted once and for all.

Zora Neale Hurston, anthropologist and author, and prominent figure of the Harlem Renaissance. (Library of Congress)

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The literary work of Hopkins, Du Bois, Griggs, and Chesnutt was key to the African American literary movement that would come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance (1919–1930). Committed to redefining African American literary expression, writers like Alain Locke, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Jean Toomer worked to generate an African American identity characterized by self-assertiveness, racial consciousness, and articulateness. Key texts of the Harlem Renaissance include Locke’s The New Negro (1925), and the literary magazine Fire!! We correctly tend to think of the Harlem Renaissance as the flowering of African American literary innovation and expression, but it is all too easy to overlook the important role that religious expression and creativity play within it. Indeed, the Harlem Renaissance encouraged creativity integrally connected to religious and philosophical ideals. Inviting critique and reinvestigation of traditional spiritual assumptions, the writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance engaged with new forms of religious expression, including religious nationalism, storefront churches, and experimentation with new sects or cults. Du Bois opened dialogue related to spiritual values when he organized the first Pan African Congress in 1919, and key figures like Thomas Dorsey (widely acknowledged as a Father of Gospel) began to compose sacred music that blended blues and hymns. But it was in the literary production of the Harlem Renaissance that we can see the significance of these new strands of religious thinking and interrogation most clearly. In 1925 James Weldon Johnson and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson edited The Book of American Negro Spirituals, and in 1927 James Weldon Johnson wrote a play entitled God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. The play combined poetry, vivid images of slave Christianity, and biblical interpretation of African American folk religions. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) has less to do with traditional belief in God and more to do with a belief in the redemptive power of human emotion. At times in the novel, the main characters do plead with God or wonder what ‘‘He’’ has in store for them, but Hurston emphasizes the worth of humanity first and foremost. Imperfect beings, humans are nonetheless intensely bound to each other through community and brotherhood—these are the qualities that lead to ultimate human redemption. In Ralph Ellison’s National Book award–winning novel Invisible Man (1953) religious belief both promises a different world than the world of white law, but it also can be the tool for oppressing the weak or gullible. The unnamed first-person narrator describes his experience of college and the watershed moment that listening to a sermon by the prominent Reverend Homer A. Barbee occasions. The sermon about the legacy of the college’s founder inspires the narrator with a heartfelt zeal to contribute to the all-black college’s mission, but his dreams are shattered by the corruption of the college president, Dr. Bledsoe. Expelled from his southern school, the narrator heads to Harlem where he joins ‘‘The Brotherhood,’’ a community based on social protest and black power. The narrator’s effectiveness as an orator draws from the sermonic tradition that influenced him, even as his public speeches often reference religious themes. When an old black couple gets evicted from their apartment, for example, the narrator challenges the police by asking why the whites get the world but the black couple cannot have their Jesus. The narrator lives in a deeply secular world of racial violence, and survival depends upon refusal to be taken in by false

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promises of uplift and opportunity. Yet religion serves as an important reference point throughout the novel, operating as a powerful gauge of social culpability. Published in the same year as Invisible Man, James Arthur Baldwin’s first autobiographical bildungsroman Go Tell It On the Mountain was a story of hidden sin, guilt, and religious torment, and went a long way to establishing Baldwin as a writer of great promise. Born in 1924 of a single mother in Harlem, Baldwin joined the Pentecostal Church and became a Pentecostal preacher at the age of 14. His first story appeared in a church newspaper when he was only 12 years old. By the time he turned 17, however, he rejected religion, became associated with a group of freethinking artists, and began to write. Novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, and civil rights activist, Baldwin impacted a diverse range of literary projects and became friends with Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. While his writing generally deals with social injustice of racism and homophobia, Baldwin drew upon his religious experience throughout his career. His lengthy essay Down at the Cross was published in The New Yorker. Because the essay addressed the tense relationship between Christianity and the Black Muslim movement at a time of great social unrest, Time magazine did a cover story on Baldwin while he was touring the South in 1963. Baldwin’s influence has been profound on African American writers, activists, and leaders. The award-winning author Toni Morrison edited a Library of Congress twovolume edition of Baldwin’s fiction. Literary studies scholars have explored Baldwin’s influence on Morrison in detail. Both authors are concerned with the long-lasting, multigenerational impact of social injustice and abuse on individuals. Both authors seek to describe the redemptive possibilities of social activism. And both authors find religion and spirituality a rich resource for literary production. Morrison’s historical trilogy— Paradise (1998), Jazz (1992), and Beloved (1987)—explores the origins, shape, and texture of black identity through analysis of traumatic histories. In all of these novels Morrison is interested in exploring individual healing and redemption. She makes religion and spirituality central to characters’ recovery. In Beloved, for example, the female protagonist Sethe must contend with her killing of her child. Coming back to confront and haunt her, Beloved forces Sethe and the community from which she has been ostracized to root out the evil of the past and to restore Sethe’s sense of self-worth. The novel is a story of a woman’s courage, capacity to love, and ability to forgive herself. Community is a source of healing for African Americans, and religious community is generated not in bricks and mortar church buildings but when people come together in open fields with the hope and wish to love themselves and each other. Paradise, likewise, uses religious belief and spirituality in innovative ways to imagine ways of healing the trauma of history. Cultural healing in Morrison’s work often occurs amidst and because of all women communities that understand, though do not condone, the sins that women inadvertently commit in their efforts to protect themselves and their loved ones. Spiritual concepts and spiritual lore ground these communities—exorcism and alternative realities like the concept that memories are not contained within individual’s minds, but are active world-shaping forces in the present time. As we have seen, African American literature has a long and rich tradition of engagement with religious concepts, questions of faith, spirituality, and alternative

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belief systems. Integrally linked to social justice and human rights concerns, religion has provided a wide range of writers with rich opportunities for imagining creative answers to long-standing social ills. Many writers have blended their own leadership roles and faith systems into their writing, while many others have employed religion as a rich theme for contesting and critiquing race hate. Religion has provided African American authors with multifaceted opportunities to hone their literary skills as well. This literary interest in religion has drawn women as well as men, elites as well as working class, northern as well as southern, authors. It cuts across class, region, and gender differences even as it consolidates a distinctly African American literary tradition. Once we understand the prevalence, importance, and complexity of religious thought to African American writing, we get a clearer understanding of the dynamism and vitality of the African American literary legacy.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Chesnutt, Charles. The Conjure Woman and Other Conjure Tales (Durham, NC: Duke Univer sity Press, 1993). Delany, Martin. Blake; or, The Huts of America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970). Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life. The Oxford Frederick Douglass Reader (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Du Bois, W. E. B. Dark Princess: A Romance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Du Bois, W. E. B. Souls of Black Folk (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man (New York: Modern Library, 1992). Griggs, Sutton. Imperium In Imperio (North Stratford, NH: Ayer Co., 1992). Hopkins, Pauline. Of One Blood; Or, The Hidden Self. The Magazine Novels (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God (New York: Perennial Classics, 1998). Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001). Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). Moses, Jeremiah. The Golden Age of Black Nationalism: 1850 1925 (New York: Oxford Uni versity Press, 1978). Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (New York: Norton, 2007). Wheatley, Phyllis. The Collected Works (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

The African American Megachurch Phenomenon Jonathan L. Walton It is difficult to deny or ignore the prominence and prevalence of the African American megachurch phenomenon in the post–civil rights era. Colossal ecclesial edifices in the forms of mammoth steeple churches, renovated strip malls, and even redesigned former sports complexes bedeck major metropolitan areas across America. The phenomenon is prevalent in that megachurches are currently a staple of African American religious life. Because of their grandness of membership size and breadth of ministerial scope, many regard these congregations as standard bearers of congregational organization and evangelistic efficacy. Moreover, many megachurches are touted for their use of advanced media technologies. Television broadcasts over national cable networks, streaming webcasts over the Internet, and the production and distribution of audio and video recordings serve to expand exponentially both the audience and the levels of authority conferred to select congregations. For these reasons, there is no doubt that the religious activity that extends from this phenomenon directly and indirectly informs and affects the spiritual aspirations, socioeconomic opportunities, and political choices of African American religious and nonreligious persons alike.

Definition The African American megachurch phenomenon is a part of the larger Protestant, evangelical movement that has flourished in America in the final quarter of the twentieth century. Megachurches are congregations with an average weekly attendance of at least 2,000 persons. Along with weekly attendance in worship, there is a qualitative dimension to megachurches. These congregations are known for their amphitheater style buildings, spacious parking lots, and full-service orientations that include child care centers, fitness facilities, and a range of community activities. The host of ministries and events that take place beyond Sunday morning worship transforms these congregations into seven-day-a-week operations. This spiritual ‘‘one stop shopping’’ design has particularly proven attractive to the families of baby boomers, black urban professionals, and previously unchurched populations. Some have even likened

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today’s megachurches to Wal-Mart. Like the mammoth retailer, megachurches are convenient, comfortable, and comprehensive in terms of resources and services provided. An assortment of activities catering to youth, families, as well as singles offer Christian alternatives to today’s recreational lifestyles. These congregations equally provide a space for persons to either actively participate in the range of ministerial options or freely attend Sunday morning worship in pseudoanonymity. It is important to note that African American megachurches are not a monolith. These congregations represent varying denominational affiliations and theological orientations. There are traditional black mainline congregations such as Bethel AME in Baltimore and Turner Chapel AME in metropolitan Atlanta whose origins, though not necessarily as megachurches, date back to the antebellum era. Megachurch congregations constitute the Sanctified strands of Pentecostalism and Apostolic fellowships like West Angeles Church of God in Christ and the City of Refuge, both in Los Angeles. African American megachurches belong to predominantly white denominations such as Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, and Ray of Hope Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Atlanta, Georgia. And there are congregations, like Crenshaw Christian Center founded by Frederick K. C. Price, which are affiliated with the neocharismatic Word of Faith movement that is rooted in the post–World War II healing revivalism of Kenneth Hagin Sr., Oral Roberts, and Kathryn Kuhlman. Some megachurch pastors are identified by their neofundamentalist theology and conservative political stances. Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Lantham, Maryland, is the founder and chairman of High Impact Leadership Coalition, a nonprofit organization with close ties to the Moral Majority. Similar can be said of the ministry of Bishop Keith Butler, pastor of Word of Faith International Christian Center in Southfield, Michigan, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006 as a conservative Republican. Nevertheless, conservative evangelicals do not hold a monopoly on the black megachurch. The Olivet Institutional Baptist Church under the leadership of Otis Moss Jr., has a history of championing progressive issues and social justice causes. There are even megachurches like Covenant Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. and the Victory Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia, that affirm the full inclusion of gay and lesbian members. Simply put, megachurches are as diverse as they are plenty, and it is virtually impossible to present the megachurch phenomenon as a theologically homogeneous movement.

History The history of the megachurch model in the African American community is long-standing. Sociologist of religion Cheryl Townsend Gilkes warns that the recent fascination with the megachurch phenomenon may serve to obscure the particular traditions and peculiar history on which African American megachurches are constructed. She contends that like the tradition of the black church itself, the African American megachurch is, in part, a by-product of the social relations between African Americans and the dominant society that historically necessitated the existence of this type of institution (Gilkes 1998). The denial of full social involvement,

The African American Megachurch Phenomenon | 465 political access, and economic participation to blacks created an arena where blacks could not separate the triumviral spheres of social, public, and private sectors within the one institution that afforded relative levels of institutional autonomy, the black church. With the emergence of the Independent African American Church Movement in the nineteenth century, independent black congregations confronted the social ills of poverty, illiteracy, the expansion of slavery, and the legalized restrictions placed upon free blacks (Raboteau 2001). These congregations formed mutual aid and moral reform societies that included unemployment and burial insurance as well as increased educational opportunities that eventually led to the establishment of denominationally sponsored colleges and universities. As historian Gayraud Wilmore states, since their inception black congregations were forced to embrace a dual foci of religious and secular concern that has come to define the legacy of the black church in America (Wilmore 1983). Though Wilmore’s generalized claim has been problematized by subsequent generations of scholars, it is true that large congregations are identifiable at varying moments in the history of the black Christian church. And many of these churches assisted members in abating spiritual and social death under the crushing weight of a white supremacist society and encouraged black civic participation.

Group in front of the First African Church in Richmond, Virginia, 1865. (Library of Congress)

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The First African Church of Richmond, Virginia, is an early example. Church membership exceeded 3,000 persons prior to the Civil War. Not simply a place of Sunday morning worship, First African served as a site of political fervor and community accountability among black Richmonders. For a while, community activities such as political town hall meetings, entertainment festivals, and even abolitionist efforts were commonplace. But though African megachurches were identifiable in the nineteenth century, congregations like First African remained an anomaly. About 90 percent of blacks resided in the South among rural conditions, thus limiting the mobility and resources required to maintain congregations of this size (Raboteau 1978). This situation changes, however, during the first half of the twentieth century. During this period over 3 million blacks participated in a mass exodus from the southern region as a part of the ‘‘Great Migration.’’ A depressed rural economy and racial violence pushed African Americans from the South. And a growing industrial economy and increased employment opportunity in the North provided a magnetic pull. Yet this idyllic land of milk and honey that circulated through African American folklore was not necessarily paradise for all. Densely populated urban spaces and subhuman squalor placed a stranglehold on many southern transplants. Deplorable housing conditions, racial disputes with members of the white-working class and varying forms of labor exploitation dashed the dreams of many once they arrived in the North, a region that many African American Christians, dating back to slavery, had come to envisage as the ‘‘promised land’’ of Canaan as described in the Old Testament. Seeking security in an insecure urban terrain, southern migrants looked to the church as their sacred space and social center. Established African American congregations were forced to respond to the pressing needs of southern migrants. As a result, in urban areas in both the North and the South, select congregations grew in size and prestige. Churches acted as welfare agencies, social service providers, retail centers, employment bureaus, adult-education resources, and real estate investors in order to ameliorate the social chaos that characterized the Great Migration. One could argue, then, that the African American megachurch in this particular era was carved out of the urban concrete of spiritual and social necessity. The megachurches of New York City offer quintessential examples. Metropolitan Baptist Church in Harlem grew from 300 in 1914 to 3,500 in 1920. The congregation ran a grocery store, ran a hardware store, and owned properties in Harlem that it rented to church members at affordable rates (Sernett 1997). Its neighboring congregation, the famed and historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, was the largest black Baptist congregation in the East. Originally located in midtown Manhattan, Abyssinian’s prescient and pragmatic pastor, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., decided to relocate Abyssinian to Harlem where 70 percent of black Manhattan resided. Once established in Harlem, Abyssinian became a staple of the community, offering a plethora of service-based ministries. When Adam Clayton Powell Jr., an already prominent community activist and local politician, was named pastor of the congregation in 1937, the church’s membership was well over 10,000. But although Harlem was the de facto capital of black New York, megaministries were identifiable in multiple boroughs. At least four churches in Brooklyn had memberships exceeding 3,000 prior to World War II (Taylor 1994).

The African American Megachurch Phenomenon | 467 The city of Chicago also earned a national reputation for its megasized congregations. The Olivet Baptist Church, for instance, could already be considered a megachurch at the outset of World War I. Rev. E. J. Fisher pastored the congregation from 1903 to 1915 and witnessed its numbers increase to almost 4,000. Mt. Olivet reached new heights, however, under Rev. Fisher’s successor, Rev. Lacey Kirk Williams. Less than five years after Rev. Williams was named as Mt. Olivet’s pastor, the membership more than doubled. Originally, the congregation held three Sunday morning services to accommodate the swelling crowds. But within a few years Mt. Olivet needed to relocate. Taking advantage of the dwindling membership of the oldest white Baptist congregation in the city whose numbers were decimated by white flight and fear of the ‘‘browning’’ of Bronzeville, the congregation purchased the former First Baptist at a reasonable price. In the ensuing years, Mt. Olivet claimed over 8,000 members, two buildings, 42 different ministries, five assistant pastors, and 23 salaried workers on staff (Raboteau 1978). Mt. Olivet was far from alone. By mid-century at least five churches in Bronzeville had seating capacities exceeding 2,000 and congregational rolls of at least 10,000 (Drake and Cayton 1993). St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton’s classic sociological text Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City offers an apt description of the multivalent activities and aims of these early Bronzeville megachurches. In contrast to smaller congregations, the authors describe megachurches as bustling with community-based action. Throughout the week, most churches are centers of activity singing and praying in the smaller, lower status churches, and club meetings, socials, plays and concerts, movies, and mass meetings in the larger ones. Community organizations may ordinarily have access to a church building provided the church itself has nothing scheduled for the night. Bronzeville churches are centers of free speech, and many a bulletin board is just as likely to list a meeting of a left wing labor union, or even a Communist organization, as a meeting of an American Legion Post. (Drake and Cayton 1993)

To be sure, this sort of frenetic growth and community activity involved its own internal dilemmas. On the one hand, megachurches struggled to meet the challenges faced by a burgeoning urban populace. On the other hand, these congregations confronted their own institutional capacities to deal with expanding memberships and financial costs connected to building upkeep. Such tensions appear to be a common yet misrecognized factor throughout the history of megacongregations. Elsa Barkley Brown even identifies such a dynamic in the late nineteenth century with First African Baptist Church in Richmond as the church elected to refrain from holding community meetings in order to preserve their new sanctuary and allay expenses (Brown 2003). High-priced mortgages and renovation price tags saddled congregations with exorbitant debts. Several critics noted how the focus of congregations during this era shifted from social concern to monetary collection for new building projects. Some, like W. E. B. Du Bois, even suggested that the social work, which did take place, was often under the pretense of fund-raising. Hence one may surmise that large crowds and concerted social action were not necessarily commensurate (Sernett 1997).

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Characteristics of the Contemporary Phenomenon Notwithstanding the diversity and long-standing history of megachurches in the African American community, the megachurch phenomenon still appropriately describes the unprecedented proliferation of the megachurch model after the 1980s (Tucker-Worgs 2001/2002). Like their migration era forbearers, these congregations swelled rapidly in response to particular economic and population shifts among African Americans in the post–civil rights era. And similar to its broader evangelical counterpart, the African American megachurch phenomenon, in many ways, reflects the hypersuburbanization of American society. The pinch of Reagan-era policies on America’s central cities coupled with the expansion of the black middle class and increased opportunities for spatial mobility afforded and animated the African American middle-class push outward. Moreover, in what some have referred to as the ‘‘Reverse Great Migration’’ (1965–2000), there has been a great population increase of African Americans in the South and Southwest. According to census data, the South and Southwest regions gained about 3 million African Americans in the 1990s as northern cities experienced a decline in black residents (Harrison 2001b). It is no wonder, then, that the majority of black megachurches that have developed in recent decades are located in southern metropolises like Baltimore, Atlanta, Memphis, and Houston. The Sun Belt region stretching from the southeast to southwest coasts has become fertile ground to grow megaministries. In 1996, then rising evangelical superstar Bishop T. D. Jakes relocated his ministry and 50 families from Charleston, West Virginia, to Dallas, Texas, in order to plant the Potter’s House. Within a decade, the congregation claimed a membership of almost 30,000. There are other dynamics involved and advantages to this suburban shift. Accessibility is important and space for ongoing construction is critical. Unlike most downtown areas, suburban communities provide easy access to highways and major thoroughfares. Also, developing area outside of the central city affords the benefit of affordable land required to construct large sanctuaries and parking lots. For these reasons, emerging ministries are not only appealing to the outward push of African Americans, but also fighting against the landlocked nature of the inner city. To be clear, this is not to say, like the majority of predominantly white evangelical megachurches, that most black megachurches are located in the suburbs. This is not yet the case—though research reveals the increasing trend. Black megachurches remain principally in the central cities. But even when there are large numbers of megachurches in the city, such as Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles, these are all booming metropolises with high numbers of African American suburbanites. From a positive perspective, this is one way in which congregations, like Union Temple Baptist in the southeast section of Washington, D.C. and St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Newark, New Jersey, are able to garner the resources of relocated African American professionals to assist inner-city communities. Megacongregations like First AME Church in Los Angeles, St. Paul Community Baptist Church in Brooklyn, and Allen Temple AME in Jamaica Queens have indeed extended the

The African American Megachurch Phenomenon | 469 activist wing of the black church by establishing community development corporations (CDCs) that address health, housing, education, and employment issues. Through activities and facilities such as financial planning seminars, youth mentoring programs, and social service and counseling centers, African American professionals are provided an opportunity to remain rooted in and give back to their respective communities (Gilkes 1998). But the recent proliferation of megachurches are not solely reducible to economic and population shifts of black people. It is also symbiotic to the technological innovations of the information-age and the postdenominational climate of the larger religious economy in late twentieth-century America. So despite the variety of denominational affiliations among contemporary megachurches and the rootedness of the megachurch model in African American religious history, the current megachurch phenomenon can be described by a particular set of institutional and ideational values. The contemporary phenomenon can be broadly characterized by the following interrelated characteristics: a more professional and corporate identity, a technologically advanced compatibility, and ministerial and theological creativity.

Professional and Corporate Identity The increased social mobility of African Americans in the post–civil rights era reorganized the value systems and aims of the black church. Educational and occupational differentiation created a professional class of laypersons who are no longer confined to a handful of ‘‘silk-stocking’’ or elite congregations among the black mainline denominations. Black professionals populate the pews of the contemporary megachurch en masse. In turn, they have raised the proverbial bar of church volunteerism and levels of professionalism. Many of today’s megachurches eschew informal financial management, unorganized Sunday service, and clergy without formal training. Trustee boards are now often composed of professional accountants, CPAs, and financial advisors, both male and female. What were once nurses’ guilds distributing church fans and tissues have become health and fitness ministries with registered nurses and physicians organizing health fairs and disease prevention workshops. Professional gospel recording artists and high caliber musicians lead music ministries. And persons who work in film, television, and radio are able to lend their expertise to the theater caliber productions that take place on Sunday morning and television and radio broadcasts that air throughout the week. The professional advances of African American congregants have forced clergy to keep pace. Though the African Methodist Episcopal Church has always required seminary-trained pastors, clergy with advanced degrees remain typically among the minority in the black church. Yet the vast majority of Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal megachurch pastors hold Master of Divinity degrees from accredited theological institutions with a sizable number having earned doctorate degrees. The Doctor of Ministry program at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, is a popular institution for many well-respected African American clergy. This is also true of the Graduate Theological Foundation (GTF) in South Bend, Indiana. The latter’s tangential

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relationship with a summer program at Oxford University in the United Kingdom is often overtly referenced to embellish the professional biographies of prominent pastors who attended GTF yet deceptively boast Oxford. There are even those among the self-professed nondenominational or Sanctified church traditions, a group not typically known for their academic pedigree, who appear concerned with professional credentials. Word of Faith pastors Myles Munroe and Leroy Thompson, for example, are referred to by their followers as ‘‘Doctor,’’ while other Pentecostal megapastors like Clarence McClendon and Prophetess Juanita Bynum, a prominent televangelist closely aligned with the megachurch phenomenon, carry PhD after their names. Though not accredited by any licensing board, the Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Friends International Christian University based in both Florida and California have become popular sources for pastors seeking academic letters. Noted alumni/ae include megapastors Ira Hilliard of New Light World Outreach in Houston, Pastor Fred Price of Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angeles, and Bishop Paul S. Morton of the Greater St. Stephens Missionary Baptist Church in New Orleans and Atlanta. This professional composition of the megachurch phenomenon has affected its ministerial mission. A major difference between megachurches and traditional black congregations is the corporate ethos of the former. Business strategies of marketing and numerical measuring are central operational aspects of many megachurches. Church leaders often hire outside consultants to assist with both fund-raising and tapping into target demographics. And like corporations, there is a direct correlation

Choir of St. Stephens Baptist Church in New Orleans. (Bob Sacha/Corbis)

The African American Megachurch Phenomenon | 471 between numerical data and product placement. Television commercials, newspaper advertisements, and direct-mail solicitations are common marketing tools. It is not unusual to see the face of a prominent megachurch pastor plastered on everything from a freeway billboard to the side of a metro bus. Published books, preaching videos, and gospel music CDs are further means to distribute one’s message. It is arguable, if not evident, then, that success is typically measured quantitatively according to membership rolls and financial reports. For this reason, the oft-asked interclerical question, ‘‘Doc, how is the ministry coming?’’ is generally responded to with a numerical figure. This corporate ethos is also reflected in the expansionist ideology and organizational structure of the African American megachurch. Coupled with the marketing techniques of megachurches are their metropolitan wide appeals. Many, in fact, are consistent with what sociologist Nancy Ammerman refers to as niche churches (Ammerman 1999). These congregations are the opposite of traditional parishes or neighborhood churches as they seek to transcend a particular community or geographic locale. As already alluded in relation to the suburban texture of African American megachurches, these congregations attract members from across a metropolitan area with persons regularly commuting long distances on Sunday mornings. Some even choose to ‘‘partner’’ with a particular pastor or ministry from across the country by sending in financial contributions in exchange for ministry perks such as discounted audio recordings, free access to streaming webcasts, and ministry email updates. The model is thus consumerist as some megachurches view potential congregants as shoppers while appealing to a target market that is independent of context. A growing number of pastors officially refer to themselves as CEO and their megachurches as transnational corporations. Some congregations have begun to pseudofranchise the ministry by establishing multiple worship sites. One church in multiple locations is an increasingly common occurrence. In the majority of cases, this involves the establishment of multiple congregations on opposite sides of the same city. This model alleviates long commutes for parishioners, providing an option in closer proximity. But for other megaministries, satellite ministries are established nationwide, creating megachurches that traverse multiple regions of the country. World Changers Church International (WCCI), under the leadership of Pastors Creflo A. and Taffi Dollar, is one example. Originally located in metropolitan Atlanta, the ministry added a New York City congregation (World Changers Church-New York) to its many other business ventures. WCCI offers the following description of WCCNY on the church’s Web site, which appropriately describes its corporate sensibility: WCC NY is part of the World Changers Church International (WCCI) family. WCCI is the ‘‘parent’’ company of World Changers Church International (WCCI), World Changers Church New York (WCC NY), Creflo Dollar Ministries (CDM), and Creflo Dollar Minis terial Association (CDMA). Arrow Records is an affiliate member of the WCCI family of companies. Dr. Creflo A. Dollar is the CEO of WCCI and President of CDMA. Taffi L. Dollar is the CEO of Arrow Records. WCCI is responsible for all the administrative support and corporate oversight of the various entities. As a member of World Changers Church New York, you become part of a family of ministries whose impact is felt all over the world.

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With the adaptation of corporate values in the forms of targeted product placement, quantitative measurements of success, and an expansionist ideology, it is understandable that the megachurch phenomenon employs the predominant tools of a marketdriven society, advanced media technologies.

Technologically Advanced Compatibility The African American megachurch phenomenon demonstrates an abiding faith in advanced media technologies as an effective force in spreading the gospel message. Via television, radio, and the Internet, modern megachurches extend themselves locally, nationally, and even internationally. Many advocates assert that broadband networks, satellites, and the overall advent of the information age are essential components toward winning the world for Christ. To be sure, such rhetoric can be interpreted as a way to obscure marketing techniques and fund-raising efforts. But this would discredit too quickly what seems to be a very real belief in the redeeming power of mass media. The history of African Americans on record, radio, and now television, a history that extends back to the 1920s, testifies to this enduring use of mass media as a means of evangelism. The employment of advanced technology, however, is not solely a matter of outreach, as it can be evidenced within. Technologically proficient architectural structures are increasingly erected to accommodate congregants informed by the ubiquitous nature of media and the conveniences of technology. Jumbo screens are perched on each side of the sanctuary displaying live feeds of the service. These screens commonly display words to the congregational hymns (rendering hymnals obsolete), scriptural verses, and major points of the sermon in PowerPoint format. Some sanctuaries are wired for Internet access so that congregants might download sermon and/or Bible study notes directly to their laptops. And most megachurches have ceased using traditional language to describe liturgical space. Lobbies have replaced narthexes (an entrance hall in many older churches), naves (central hall in a cross-shaped church) are now worship auditoriums, and Sunday service is now led from the stage as opposed to the chancel (location near the altar in older churches). Such nomenclature speaks to the theatrical dimension of the phenomenon. When one factors in the roaming television cameras, production lights, and large soundboards that are fixtures in many megachurches, it is understandable that some have referred to the megachurch phenomenon as televangelism incarnate. Also, many megachurches have further employed the conveniences of technology in terms of intercongregational communication and monetary collection. Church Web sites provide members with personal email addresses such as john.doe @victoryforthe world.org and congregational e-updates. MP3 downloads of sermons and online Bible studies are also becoming increasingly popular. Some ministries offer online payments and/or the opportunities to have their tithes regularly deducted from a banking account, while other megachurches offer ATM machines on site that allow congregants to either withdraw cash or electronically deposit an offering. In short, megachurches offer many of the amenities and conveniences provided by major Web-based retailers.

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Ministerial and Theological Creativity The final characteristic of the African American megachurch phenomenon is tied to the dominant religious landscape in American society. For decades researchers have signaled the decline of mainline denominations in America and pointed toward a postdenominational religious economy. Though the black mainline church, particularly Baptists, continues to constitute the majority of African American megachurches, the postdenominational climate of the larger society still impacts the ministry aims and theological outlook of the phenomenon. The importance of doctrinal creeds, denominational traditions, and loyalty to one’s family church has greatly diminished in the contemporary moment. Persons appear more concerned about individual encounters with the divine and fulfilling spiritual wants and needs on a more personal level. Such an approach to the faith creates a congregational ‘‘buyer’s market’’ as persons are more willing to rescind church membership and renounce denominational fidelity in favor of aligning with a ministry they deem personally efficacious and edifying. This, of course, speaks to the reasons why megachurches appear to embrace a consumerist approach to evangelism and Christian outreach. Further, a ‘‘seeker friendly’’ environment encourages megachurches to identify innovative and ongoing ways to captivate the attention and allegiance of parishioners. Therefore, in spite of the wide array of megachurches and theologies therein, there is a common characteristic of creative theological activity among the African American megachurch phenomenon that lends itself to the experiential and experimental aspects of congregational ministry. The most common term used to describe the experiential dimensions of theological and liturgical activity within the African American megachurch phenomenon is neo-Pentecostal. C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya first used the term ‘‘neo-Pentecostal’’ to describe what they considered a newfound emphasis on experiencing the Holy Spirit by black mainline congregations. Citing the ministry of Bishop John Bryant, then pastor of Bethel AME in Baltimore who led the congregation from 500 to 6,000 members in the late 1970s and 1980s, Lincoln and Mamiya interpreted neo-Pentecostalism as a bridge connecting the experiential worship of Pentecostalism with the traditional mainline emphasis on social activism (Lincoln and Mamiya 1990). Since then, the neo-Pentecostal tag has been broadly applied to any ministry that demonstrates an increased interest in spiritual gifts, a more expressive and energetic worship style, and visible demonstrations of the divine. The ministry of Bishop Paul S. Morton offers an excellent example of the creative ecclesial reconfiguration of the megachurch phenomenon in light of the charismatic influence. In the early 1990s as the pastor of the Greater St. Stephen’s Missionary Baptist Church in New Orleans, Rev. Morton became increasingly frustrated with the manner he and other emerging megachurch pastors were being overlooked for leadership positions by the old guard of the black Baptist denominations. Morton also noticed how many African American megachurch pastors were opting to attend Bishop Carlton Pearson’s Pentecostal-led AZUSA Fellowship Conference over the annual Baptist convention meetings. The annual AZUSA conference in Tulsa was rapidly becoming the place to be among up-and-coming megachurch pastors, televangelists, and gospel

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musicians regardless of denomination. In an effort to provide an alternative, Morton extended an invitation to prominent megachurch pastors like Kenneth Ulmer, Larry Trotter, and Eddie Long to form a new Pentecostal informed yet Baptist fellowship and convention. In 1994, 25,000 persons convened at the New Orleans Superdome to inaugurate the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (FGBCF). There are three distinguishing attributes of Morton’s fellowship in relation to traditional Baptist denominations. First, the FGBCF was organized on the belief that the church must recognize the free expression of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. According to the mission statement as stated on the FGBCF Web site, ‘‘The Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship builds upon the traditional Baptist Church as its foundation. That Baptist heritage is embraced yet balanced with more charismatic influences.’’ Second, FGBCF’s affirmation of women in ministry challenges traditional Baptist teachings. Bishop Morton prescribed that gender inclusion is promoted on all ministerial levels within the fellowship. Third, the FGBCF embraced an Episcopal hierarchy establishing tiers of leadership among affiliated Baptist congregations. The FGBCF leadership structure includes the Bishop’s Council, College of Bishops, General, State, and District Overseers, Financial Assistance Council, and Senior Pastors. Morton was appointed International Presiding Bishop at their first organizational conference in 1994, and this ushered in the office of Bishop, which is now commonly conferred to Baptist megachurch pastors. Another example of theological creativity involves the appropriation of the health and wealth gospel among many African American megachurches. The prosperity gospel is principally and doctrinally identified with the Word of Faith Movement. But doctrine and denomination aside, aspects of the theology are readily found in other megaministries. In most cases, the message of prosperity is transmitted not according to claims of biblical authority or reasoned theological assertions, but through the personal narratives and aesthetic lifestyle choices of charismatic leaders. Fancy cars, clothes, expensive homes, and seemingly happy marital relationship are presented as pseudosacramental to parishioners. And by presenting such material rewards as the by-products of a committed life of discipleship, the prosperity message speaks to and satiates the spiritual strivings of African Americans with upwardly mobile aspirations. For a post–civil rights generation who witnessed their parents locked outside of America’s capitalist economy, a divinely sanctioned message of health and wealth is understandable, even if, according to some, unacceptable. The naming and renaming of megachurch congregations is further evidence of the ministerial creativity of the phenomenon in response to a postdenominational climate. Many megachurch pastors have renamed and dropped the denominational affiliation of the church as means of broadening appeal in the religious marketplace. Faithful Central Bible Church in Los Angeles was originally Faithful Central Baptist Church. The Cathedral International in central New Jersey—one church in three locations—was originally Second Baptist Church of Perth Amboy. And Victory Baptist Church of Stone Mountain is now Victory for the World. The global references of the final two congregations bespeak the previously mentioned transnational orientation and expansionist ideology that informs many of today’s African American megachurches.

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Criticisms The African American megachurch phenomenon is not without its share of critics. A common criticism involves the metropolitan-wide and national appeal of these congregations while eschewing a priestly role of care for the neighborhood. Many accuse these congregations of sucking up community resources and decimating the memberships of neighborhood congregations while investing little back into the community. The costs of regular traffic jams, ongoing construction, and worn-out roads are too high of a price for these ‘‘businesses’’ that do not contribute to the tax base and offer few jobs in relation to other retail stores. Hence, for community activists concerned about urban and suburban blight in predominantly African American neighborhoods, the sight of a one-time shopping center being replaced by a megachurch does little to allay a sense of social and economic anxiety. Another involves the issue of gender. Like the traditional black church, the vast majority of megachurches are pastored by men and heavily populated by women. To be fair, as is the case with the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship’s mission, most megachurches ordain women and affirm the role of women in ministry. But aside from a few notable exceptions, women have not shattered the ministerial stained glass ceiling that is placed above pastoral support staff. For instance, despite their protestations of gender injustice, no women sit on the 11-member executive council of the FGBCF, and only 2 sit on the other 40 seats allocated to the auxiliary bishops and state overseers. And while some might point out the number of female co-pastors of African American megachurch congregations, in almost every case, the co-pastor is the spouse of the male who first occupied the position of pastor. Thus, rather than shared governance this model is more consistent with a business model of ‘‘keeping it in the family’’ at best. At worst, this spousal ministerial team represents the popular theological image among many leading megachurch pastors of female submission to male authority. A final criticism involves the seemingly cozy relationship between Christianity and consumer capitalism found among many megachurch leaders. The corporate affinity, marketing savvy, and technological proficiency of the phenomenon have proven economically beneficial for the charismatic personality on whose image the congregation is largely constructed. Ultraluxury cars, million-dollar mansions, flashy wardrobes, and privately owned jets and helicopters are increasingly common. And the inability of certain church leaders to demonstrate economic sobriety and material modesty sparks the ire of many. The apparent obsession with membership numbers, financial profit, and hyperconsumerism have made it hard for megachurch pastors to shake the ‘‘huckster’’ image, deserving or not.

Conclusion Large congregations in the African American community antedate the Civil War and grew in number and size throughout the previous century. During the interwar period, megachurches provided spiritual and social oxygen to southern migrants asphyxiated by dire material conditions in the urban North. And important megacongregations in

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the South, like Ebenezer and Wheat Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, helped to usher in the Civil Rights Movement in America. Hence, these early megacongregations provided the organizational and aesthetic blueprint for today’s megachurches. But questions and concerns will continue to arise in response to the proliferation of the megachurch model in recent years. Most concern involves the theological, social, and political aims, ideas, and orientations of such congregations. Despite this, there are certain realities that appear to hold consistent. First, whether theologically conservative or progressive, megachurches remain hybrid institutions concerned with both spiritual and social matters. Second, in the present moment, and due to the changing internal dynamics of the African American community and larger American society, megachurches can be identified by their professional identity, media proficiency, and theological creativity. And finally, regardless of one’s appreciation or disdain for the megachurch model, all evidence suggests that it will remain a fixed and influential part of African American religious culture.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ammerman, Nancy. Congregation and Community (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999). Brown, Elsa Barkley. ‘‘Negotiating and Transforming the Public Sphere: African American Political Life in the Transition from Slavery to Freedom.’’ African American Religous Thought: An Anthology, ed. E. S. Glaude and C. West (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003). Drake, St. Clair, and Horace R. Cayton. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, Rev. and enl. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend. ‘‘Plenty Good Room: Adaptation in a Changing Black Church.’’ Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 558 (Americans and Religions in the Twenty First Century, 1998): 101 121. Harrison, Roderick J. Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001a). Harrison, Roderick J. ‘‘The Great Migration South.’’ The New Crisis (July/August 2001b). Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990). Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion: The ‘‘Invisible Institution’’ in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). Sernett, Milton C. Bound for the Promised Land: African American Religion and the Great Migration, C. Eric Lincoln Series on the Black Experience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997). Taylor, Clarence. The Black Churches of Brooklyn, The Columbia History of Urban Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). Tucker Worgs, Tamelyn. ‘‘Get on Board, Little Children, There’s Room for Many More: The Black Megachurch Phenomenon.’’ The Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center XXIX, nos. 1 and 2 (2001/2002): 177 203. Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of Afro American People, 2nd ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983).

African American Preaching and Sermonic Traditions Dale P. Andrews The centrality of preaching in black churches can be attributed to sacred core beliefs and historical exigencies alike. It is almost impossible to weigh them aside from one another. The convergence of spiritual beliefs and historical demands upon daily living represents a basic belief about preaching—God is active in human history to reveal Godself, disclose God’s aspirations for humanity, and aid us in those aspirations. This activity in preaching is not simply a passive disclosure that describes some desire or action expressed only in creation or the gospel story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel story reveals the depths of God’s love for and commitment to humanity. Preaching proclaims God’s self-revelation in human history in the ongoing context of redemption history. Redemption history is the Christian belief that God is busy working in humanity to restore humanity’s relationship with God and our human relationships directly. Preaching is part of that divine activity. It therefore carries sacred authority or divine sanction. Christian traditions in general hold that preaching not only talks about God’s activity and revelation in human history, but preaching itself constitutes part of that activity and revelation. This active view of preaching is better understood as a theological core belief of preaching. The theology of preaching holds that God speaks through and to humanity in the sermon event within worship. African American religious culture has nurtured this theological understanding of the sermon between inherited spiritual values and the historical demands in transforming Western Christianity to address immediate needs in confronting oppression. In its finest moments, preaching attempts to make sense of inherited spiritual beliefs in the sometimes harsh and sometimes mundane realities of our lives. And in its own spiritual claims, preaching attempts to discern and to proclaim God’s own revelation for the community of faith as well as the world at large.

The Theology and Authority of Preaching African American church traditions attribute sacred authority in preaching to the promise of divine inspiration. Yet, many churches diverge greatly in weighing to what

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degree divine inspiration takes place. The sermon is often referred to as ‘‘The Word’’ in the bulletins outlining the order of events in worship services. Any given order of worship establishes its order by the theological meanings given to the particular events within the service. Together these events and their meanings comprise the liturgy or liturgical theology functioning within the congregation or even denomination as a whole tradition. While this essay is not a direct treatment of liturgy, it remains important to understand the notion of divine inspiration in preaching that lies behind the liturgical nomenclature in worship services for the sermon as ‘‘The Word.’’ This label is sometimes confusing since the expression ‘‘The Word’’ also refers even more commonly to the Bible. However, the dual usage is rather illuminating. The shared language underscores a couple aspects of divine inspiration. Churches wrestle with how best to describe the sacred authority of the Bible. At one end of the continuum, the Bible is considered to be the ‘‘inerrant’’ Word of God. These churches would argue that the Bible is inerrant because they believe it literally contains the direct words of divine revelation and therefore cannot contain any error, contradiction, or temporary meaning. With inerrancy, each scriptural teaching transcends context, culture, and time. Any confusing, alarming, or oppressive contents, or internal inconsistencies, are explained by our human limitations to grasp or accept the sacred meaning and teaching. At the other end of the continuum, some churches regard the Bible as the ‘‘inspired’’ Word of God, wherein God works within and through humanity to preserve the witness and teachings of God’s activity in humanity and the world. Because God intends to impart an inspired Word, it is therefore revelation. Sacred authority is sustained; however, the sciences of historical, cultural, literary, rhetorical, form, and source criticism are instructive to discern the meaning or problems of interpreting any given biblical text. While many churches may locate themselves wholly at one of these somewhat opposing poles, most churches thrive somewhere in-between along the continuum. The continuum of the authority and theology of preaching bares quite similar poles of direct divine revelation and discerned divine inspiration, and the interior expanse between them. Black preaching traditions view the sermon event as both divine revelation and divine inspiration. God is at work revealing God’s will and care for humanity. To what degree is the sermon actually God’s direct revelation or discerned inspiration involves our appraisal of how God is active in preaching, beginning with the preparation of sermons through to their delivery. Most churches appropriately shy away from claiming ultimate inerrancy in their preaching. Equally so, most will also certainly claim more than mere human ingenuity. In both cases, however, an intricate spiritual calculation is ongoing in the authority and theology of preaching. As sermons are divine self-revelation to inspire humanity, we discover the mission of preaching in nurturing personal wholeness and faithful living in relationships of care and justice. The terms of mission can be as divergent as the sacred authority of the sermon. Preaching thrives in the context of communal worship. Therefore a major goal is to shape faith identity among those in the congregation. Most efforts to shape faith identity are held together by shared commitments to discipleship, that is to say, nurturing and teaching followers in the faith tradition. Thus, discipleship sermons

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can focus upon pastoral care, faithful practices, or even teaching doctrine. The mission is to grow in faith and relationship with God and one another. Alternatively, perhaps the mission of evangelism is even more commonly (and sometimes mistakenly) understood in preaching. Sermons also seek to lead or convert persons into the faith tradition. Evangelism has a very troubling legacy in Christian history. The mission of leading persons into accepting the faith is not an uncommon feature of many world religions. The goals can even be admirable when they seek the well-being of others, which is at least the theological intent of evangelism. Notwithstanding, we cannot escape the history of forced conversion shrouded in abusive practices. And yet, evangelism is an honored mission of preaching in that it seeks to share the discovery of a loving and grace-filled God. Recent efforts in evangelism stress the witness of faithful living and testimony to what God has done in our lives. Testimony in worship and narrative sermons underscore the promise of God seeking to reveal Godself in humanity. Our task is simply to share our discovery along with faithful practices consistent with God’s love and care for humanity. Sermons are not content, however, with a passive witness without responsive agency among the hearers. The mission of sermons seeks to proclaim divine revelation and elicit faithful responses. Preaching is also defined in part by its multivalent context. Sermons are central to the worship life of a church. Even sermons composed for a public arena still regard worship as a primary theological context. But more than implied, the Word stands in juxtaposition to the sacramental life of the Church. Sacramental theology distinguishes the presence and activity of God or Christ in certain activities as consecrated or commissioned work inherited from apostolic authority or our earliest church traditions’ witness to the gospel message of redemption in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Minimally, baptism and the Eucharist (Holy Communion) are preserved sacraments among the Christian traditions. (For some denominations, like Roman Catholicism, the sacraments extend beyond these two foundational practices.) A sacramental theological understanding of preaching places the mystery of divine presence and activity in the sermon event, all in the context of worship and mission of the Church universal. The Church is called, even biblically commissioned, to give witness to faith in Christ through proclamation, worship, the sacraments, and the witness of faithful living or faith identity. The ‘‘call’’ to preaching ministry for individuals is no less an event or commission. While a sermon may be preached by any person of the faith, the Church still confirms, trains, and commissions persons who acknowledge the impulse to preach as a vocational, divine calling upon their lives. Amidst the call or mission of the Church and the sacramental theology of preaching, the Church has developed traditions of worship practices—the liturgy of rites and rituals. Worship seeks to offer praise to God and becomes the immediate theological context of our fellowship and preaching.

The Preaching Event The worship life of black churches around preaching brings to light the importance of congregational participation in the preaching event. Congregational participation is an

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earmark of the black preaching event. It is perhaps a misguided enterprise to argue for a linear historical development of congregational participation in worship and the preaching event. The rhetorical strategies and artistry of black preaching traditions both emerge from and feed the religious culture or liturgical theology of congregational participation. From African oral cultures we gain great insights into the development of the black preaching event. Oral cultures emphasize the dialogical and dialectic experiences of relationships, fellowship, and even learning. For oratory events like black preaching, the difference between dialogic and dialectic experience is subtle, but reflexively important. Dialogic experience is the dynamic process stressing the communal exchange. It involves the mutual experiences of the exchange as persons together arrive at mutual or new understanding, even if areas of disagreement remain or occur. Dialogic exchange is interested in experience as an open event and can move to understanding through discovery as much as through argumentation. In turn, the process of argumentation is more so concerned with a dialectic experience in preaching. Dialectic exchange seeks to arrive at truth, knowledge, or change through some process dealing with conflict, contradiction, questions, or problematic issues of confusion. The dialectic experience is a mutual inquiry seeking resolution. Essentially, dialogical and dialectic experiences are spiritual values empowering black preaching. African American Christianity has been directly shaped by these inherited spiritual values. Our relatedness to God, our Creator, and our relatedness to one another and the created world seek relationship and therefore restoration when the spiritual harmony of relationship is broken or distorted. Relationships involve encounter and response— hence, the dialogical and dialectic conditions of spirituality or human experience. The experience of encounter is a critical factor in oral cultures of communication. Quite intrinsic to Pan-African religious cultures at large, rhetorical strategies of oratory and communal encounter inspire black worship and preaching traditions. Many scholars of black preaching relate the experience of worship, congregational participation, and the preaching event to the pursuit of a spiritual encounter. This encounter within preaching and worship has been variously described as conviction, illumination, confirmation, celebration, or even more broadly as a happening. The rhetorical strategies and artistry of black preaching seek some form of spiritual encounter. It is helpful, therefore, to understand worship as an event and preaching as an event internal or even central to the worship event. As spiritual encounter is the actual event, black preaching methods commonly employ rhetorical strategies seeking to engender a spiritual encounter within the congregation. The experience becomes instructive in that preachers seek a spiritual encounter in even sermon preparation to inform the composition of sermons with anticipation on the recovery or intent of that spiritual encounter within the ensuing preaching moment. Reflexively, the anticipation of the worship experience in the preaching moment becomes a tool of discernment and the craft of preaching. Black preaching traditions seek and rely on congregational participation and response—the dialogical and the dialectic—within the preaching event. While the desire for congregational response is certainly shared by all religious cultures of preaching, it is particularly central to sermon composition and the preaching moment in black churches. Black preaching is dialogical because it relies upon

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congregational participation to help compose the sermon. It is dialectic in that the proclamation of the Word is affected by the response in and the experience of worship, which mutually influences the exchange between divine revelation and spiritual formation. Probably most prominent in congregational participation in black preaching are ‘‘call and response’’ and just simply ‘‘talk-back.’’ Both features are implicitly dialogical and dialectic. In call and response the congregation is almost in conversation with the preacher, although listening remains a primary task. Yet listening elicits response, which congregations may do so subtly or explicitly. Congregants can influence the progression of sermons even though sermons have been composed with anticipated dialogue already, or even designed to elicit particular responses. Talk-back functions similarly in that the preacher receives important cues on the impact of the sermon’s argument or spiritual affect. The preacher must discern continuously if she/he should respond extemporaneously or if she/he should intentionally progress through the sermon as composed. This discernment process of course relies heavily upon the unique gifts of any preacher. Notwithstanding, the degree of successful anticipation of the spiritual encounter and congregational responses during sermon composition will also share heavily in the discernment process within the preaching moment as well. Ultimately, black preaching elicits some form of celebration, ecstatic culmination, or experiential conviction of heart. The climatic goal is not aside from the central argument or message of proclamation. In fact, it must reside within the central, synthesized

George A. Stallings Jr. conducts a mass at the chapel of Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C. The school was the temporary site of his Imani Temple. (Bettmann/ Corbis)

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proposition. The theory behind the method is that when persons experience the convergence of their personal lives, intellect, emotion, and the Spirit the proclamation of preaching results in the transformation of persons and community. Rhetorical strategies from oratory and literary disciplines sustain two principal tasks: developing a theological or ethical argument; and building persuasion. These tasks in religious cultures of preaching are consistent with disciplines of rhetoric. Classical Western rhetoric emerged from judicial (forensic) argumentation and persuasion. By the early Middle Ages, prominent Church leaders openly translated the welldeveloped sciences of rhetoric into disciplines for preaching. It is important to understand that oratory or oral culture was intrinsic to the various forms of argument and persuasion. Therefore, we should not artificially separate the historical development of rhetoric between Western literary cultures and African oral cultures. African and Pan-African oral cultures developed intricate and complex forms of rhetorical strategies in argumentation and persuasion rooted in religious cultural worldviews. African religious cultures developed intricate spiritual values in the powerful experience of the ‘‘spoken and heard’’ word in oratory and community. Pan-African Christian traditions built as much upon these traditions as upon their historical encounters with Western Christianity, both in the African continent and in the slave trade or African Diaspora. For example, a well-known aphorism in black preaching traditions reflects shared historical, classical rhetorical strategies: ‘‘Start slow, build higher, strike fire.’’ The parallel within classical rhetoric in Western Christian preaching is: ‘‘to teach, to delight, to persuade’’ as reflected in ‘‘low, moderate, and grand’’ styles of preaching, respectively. Rhetorical strategies in argument and persuasion hold together intellect and emotion, sensibility and spirituality, experience and assent. Important to the rhetorical disciplines of argument and persuasion is artistry and aesthetics. Black preaching strategies demonstrate some of the strongest traditions of oral cultures in nurturing the experience of the preaching event in forms of poetics, song, and even theater. The performance arts are not anathema to black preaching; instead, they are intrinsic to the experience of worship and preaching. Herein lives an important question: How does preaching communicate divine inspiration? The construction of theological doctrine or a theological worldview is indispensible to spiritual formation; so too is the construction and communication of beauty in life and the beauty of life. Rhetorical strategies therefore nurture beauty in content and communication in mellifluous or sonorous styles of preaching and in poetic and lyrical composition of sermons.

Biblical and Theological Hermeneutics in Preaching The term ‘‘hermeneutics’’ refers to the sciences of interpretation. For preaching these include history, culture, textual history, literature, linguistics, original authorial intent and congregational context, theology, and religious/church traditions of interpretation. These forms of interpretation are important to most religious cultures, particularly when studying sacred texts for preaching ministries. Black preaching traditions,

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however, have developed particular forms or methods of interpretation undergirding the above sciences. Actually most homiletics textbooks attempting to teach preaching and sermon construction are weighted significantly toward ‘‘homiletic hermeneutics’’ than explicit methodology. While ‘‘homiletics’’ is the study and teaching of preaching, homiletic hermeneutics presses the work of the interpretative sciences into service of preaching in addressing current human experiences and faith. Quite purposely, black preaching hermeneutics explores the tasks of interpretation through a pastoral-prophetic dialectic within the challenges and interests of black life and faith. This dialectic is concerned primarily with the struggles of living faithfully in God’s will and ways for humanity. Interpretation for black preaching begins with black experience. Pastoral aspects of preaching are deeply concerned with care for the personal needs of congregants, which include physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual needs. Pastoral care within interpretation wrestles with biblical texts, along with Church histories and theological traditions, to nurture personal well-being and spiritual wholeness. ‘‘Meaning-making’’ is one important way to comprehend personal well-being and spiritual wholeness. The tasks of meaning-making include emotional care, spiritual formation, and even existential questions into the meaning of life, death, and our relationship to God and one another. The pastoral demands placed upon preaching do not displace the call to faith or discipleship in the faith; these tasks comprise the work of personal healing and spiritual formation in preaching. Personal wellbeing and spiritual wholeness are pastoral affairs for all religious cultures, yet black preaching roots these pastoral tasks intentionally within the struggles and oppression experienced in black life. Faith identity cannot be nurtured aside from care for particular well-being and spirituality in black life. In turn, prophetic aspects of preaching are deeply concerned with care for social justice and ethics. Prophetic interpretation expands the demands of meaning-making into the more public or social realm of care for the other. Prophetic preaching is still concerned with faith identity and spiritual formation, but it is focused upon how we live in community as the people of God and our relatedness and relationships with/ within the world. The public arena of prophetic concern in black preaching, however, grows out of the church traditions of confronting or resisting the ravages of social injustice and oppression in black life. Black churches emerged from under racial injustice and oppression to develop hermeneutics of historical liberation. Prophetic black preaching attempts to interpret and speak from God’s care for justice and liberation in social contexts of human suffering and needs. The biblical witness in prophetic preaching includes the formation of faith identity as a people of God, but not one turned only inward. The biblical witness of prophetic inspiration is concerned with ‘‘justice-making’’ as part of divine care for humanity and the world. The spiritual formation of a people of God, much like the spiritual formation of persons, engages the world in preaching through the encounter with divine revelation of God’s liberating activity in humanity and care for the world of suffering. The pastoral-prophetic dialectic therefore frames black preaching to give witness to God’s care for humanity and to call us into partnership. The pastoral-prophetic dialectics of interpretation in black preaching is the biblical story and witness of redemption history in a living process.

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The inherited traditions of African spiritual values and theological worldview faced the dehumanization of historic evil in the American slave trade and racism. Assault on African religious culture induced interpretative crises even in those areas wherein the destruction of religious culture was less successful. The encounter with familiar spiritual values and sacred traditions of biblical narratives in Western Christianity replaced lost folklore and spiritual tenets. The encounter and reconfiguration was not simply a displacement and replacement of religious cultures and traditions. Black preaching was integral to the interpretation of historical experience in terms of theological worldviews and spiritual formation. Western Christianity did not simply overrun African religious culture as did racism and violent oppression. Black preaching and worship practices transformed Christianity in its application and adaption to the exigencies of black life. Translation of biblical literature and theological traditions occurred primarily through black preaching and worship practices. Preachers used sermons and rites to dismantle racist biblical interpretations and theological distortions of God’s relation to black humanity. Through the pastoral–prophetic dialectics of interpretation, a range of core beliefs emerged from essential biblical narratives and wisdom traditions. Without attempting to propose an indisputable list of core theological tenets between scholars, critical reflection on faith identity has produced a strong range of concepts in personal well-being or wholeness and the communal formation of a people of God. These principal biblical themes or tenets in black preaching range from creation in the image of God to the restoration of eternal life and the reign of God. This range reflects the domain of redemption history in Christian preaching, which includes particular emphasis on God’s sovereignty as demonstrated in biblical narratives of liberation and prophetic traditions of social justice and faithfulness. Equally critical to the domain of interpretation and transformation of Christianity is the reappropriation of the life, passion (suffering), death, and resurrection of Christ in application to the suffering, salvation, and vindication of black humanity in the face of oppression and its corresponding spiritual assault. Conversion and discipleship are not existential (philosophical) theological tenets in black preaching simply sustained in universal ethical or spiritual principles. Certainly these are always intrinsic, but black preaching interprets sacred meaning and mission in terms of historical divine revelation in both biblical literature and black life, and the struggle to transform the Church, Western Christianity, and our sociopolitical culture ensues.

Learning and Teaching Preaching Learning the art of preaching may take more than a lifetime! Some preachers and even a few homiletics scholars have argued, though quite unconvincingly, that to some extent preaching cannot be taught. Behind such a stark claim live strong views of charismatic gifts attributable to the Spirit and each distinctive preacher. But even in church traditions that do not require advanced degrees for ordination, learning to preach involves seasoned practices in mentoring and apprenticeship. Mentoring is teaching based in a deliberate relationship with a student. The form of teaching is not initiated by simply introducing theories and scholarship for the student

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to master and reproduce. Instead, mentoring is based in the practices of the discipline or profession. Theories and knowledge are introduced as they are needed for the practices required of the student to learn. Students may learn theories or acquire knowledge by way of study, but never apart from working within the intended practices. The process of teaching within mentoring is dialectic in that the resolution or management of problems and needs typically guide both the mentor and the student. In many ways a mentor is a coach, and teaching therefore can be described as intense special training. Hence, an apprentice is an on-the-job student for quite an extended period of time, hopefully. The apprentice learns as much from the mentor’s support, counsel, and fund of expertise as from scholarship and study. Consequently, the direct experiences of apprenticed practices create what is called an ‘‘inductive’’ form of teaching and learning between mentor and apprentice. The exchange between mentor and apprentice is rooted in an implicit covenant around sharing in the call to preaching ministry. A reciprocal, interpersonal relationship develops. Teaching and learning strategies are interwoven through critical reflection on preaching opportunities, which are used ‘‘as’’ the classroom seminar or lesson. The pedagogy of mentoring needs to be as inductive as the learning experiences of the apprentice. To repeat, teaching and learning to preach in apprenticeship traditions are both rooted in an exploration of preaching practices and experiences. This exploration is best described as praxis, which is the process of critical reflection on theory and practices of preaching that feed back into theory and strategies for evolving practices and developing new ones. Preaching praxis, in both theory and practices, is focused on how to communicate and share in the encounter with God or divine revelation in the preaching event. Praxis moves continuously between theory and practices or practices and theory, but never separates them. Praxis is the critical reflection and coaching between preaching theory and practices that may result in new practices and new theories. The relationship between practices and theory within preaching praxis is as reciprocal as the inductive relationship between mentor and apprentice. Exploration of preaching practices also involves mining the sermon in light of the hearers’ responses or participation in the preaching event. Quite parallel to the mentor-apprentice exchange in teaching and learning to preach, the community of faith in the ebb and flow of worship services shares in the inductive process of mentoring. The participation of the congregation, as described in the preceding section on the preaching event, becomes an operational partner as the mentor guides the apprentice through sermon composition and rhetorical strategies seeking to persuade. Therefore the anticipated encounter within the preaching event not only guides the course of discernment but also the mentoring instruction of strategy and experimentation in sermon composition and rhetorical exercises. The parallel processes of teaching and learning preaching are actually interwoven in the mentor’s exploration and the apprentice’s discovery. The mutuality or interdependency of the two processes is important for understanding black preaching traditions and sermon composition. This mutuality is not temporal to the apprenticeship period. Actually the interdependence of teaching and learning to preach reflects the distinctive characteristics of the sermon and preaching event in African American religious cultures. For sermon composition and rhetorical strategies, academic scholarship

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in historical, theological, and biblical studies, as well as in the humanities, does not displace the centrality of the anticipated or immediate experience of the faith community in worship. Black religious cultures have developed complex and intricate methods of hermeneutical criticism based in faith experience and the pastoral-prophetic dialectics of discernment. The future of theological education in homiletics faces important tasks in developing pedagogy (teaching strategies) and homiletics methodology (sermon composition and rhetorical strategies) that integrate the inductive processes of black religious cultures and preaching traditions.

Homiletics Methodologies of Sermon Construction Generally methodology refers to a working web of methods in any given field or discipline that weave together theoretical analysis of principles and practical guidelines alike. Many methodologies have been designed for constructing sermons with goals of eliciting faith, defending faith traditions, nurturing faith formation or discipleship, witnessing to the grace received, and inspiring assent to a call to action or care for others. The differences are not so much that different goals necessarily belong to distinctive methodologies (although that might be the case in some instances). Instead methodologies more often differ in theories on how to compose sermons with optimal clarity or force to gain understanding and to secure the desired responses. Scrolling through each available methodology would be a daunting introduction to homiletics methodology. However, several general genres of methodology predominate in black preaching traditions. These include inductive, narrative, deductive, expository, dialectic, and extempore methodologies. These terms are descriptive and broad enough to treat them as dominant forms of sermon construction for this review. As mentioned earlier, inductive methods to both teaching and learning preaching often predominate in black preaching traditions. Inductive methodology attempts to draw from a wide domain of human experiences in order to create more opportunity for persons to find a point of association and enter into the sermon’s ideas. The movement of such methods is somewhat to funnel many facets or perspectives of an experience into focus upon a shared proposition of God’s proclamation for humanity, inspiring faith formation, mutual care, or agency in change. Narrative methodologies are similar to inductive ones in that they thoroughly rely upon human experiences to cultivate understanding. Narrative structures or forms of storytelling and extended illustrations are the predominate methods in narrative preaching and are quite common to black preaching. The power of storytelling is the opportunity to place one’s immediate story in the context or conversation with the gospel story of redemptive history. ‘‘Telling the story’’ of Christ, redemption, and reconciliation is preaching! Narrative methods directly reflect the walk of faith that encounters struggles, problems, complex surprises, snags, crises, confusion, or wandering in the wilderness. In all these possibilities, the power of this genre lies in the ‘‘turn of the page’’ to discover revelation, meaning, resolution, restoration, clarity, understanding, or direction.

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Deductive preaching methodology begins with a central proposition. While the flow of inductive methodology ‘‘arrives at’’ a central or shared proposition proclaiming divine revelation, deductive structures instead attempt to ‘‘speak from’’ the governing proposition of the sermon. Basically, deductive sermons speak from a proposition to defend the point of faith at hand or delineate the points of understanding faith that emerge from the proposition. Deductive methods are often attractive to preachers when working with propositions ensconced directly in theological doctrine or ethics. Expository methodology could at times be considered another form of deductive structures. However, because expository preaching is particularly helpful in exploring difficult or divergent texts, it rises as a dominant form. These sermons steer carefully through the exegetical study of biblical texts, which is the critical investigation and analysis of scripture with the tools of scholarship in the modern sciences (integral in various ways to all preaching methodologies), and use points of interest, correlation, or clarification into the immediate features or internal arguments of the selected texts. Contrast and comparison between different texts is a common tactic as well. Expository sermons rely heavily upon the actual structures and contexts of the central biblical texts. Dialectic sermons are especially helpful when treating conflicting or divergent points of argument around an issue or ideal. The potential exchanges between thesis and antithesis provide the various structures of these sermons seeking understanding through synthesis. Also by raising the significant challenges or questions, the preacher may guide hearers through possible responses and transformation. The synthesis of understanding or call for transformation becomes the proclamation of dialectic sermons. Extempore methodology is in reality a misnomer in that it vitally requires more sermon preparation than does manuscript preaching. A rather common misunderstanding, and therefore malpractice, of extempore preaching is that one simply enters the pulpit with only faith that the Spirit will reveal what is needed in that moment. Faith in the promise and activity of the Spirit is critical to every methodology, however. To some extent the notion of extemporaneous preaching is erroneous to the actual theory and practice. Quite aside from the occasional experience when a preacher is not afforded the time or space in the unpredictable schedules of ministry, extempore preaching relies heavily upon planned and often rehearsed ‘‘formulaics’’ of sermon construction rooted in oratorical stratagem. The preacher composes sermons by selecting thematic and artistic formulae or arguments that when cobbled together form coherent progressions of meaning and revelation. Many preachers work through a manuscript and build into extempore preaching by editing movements of the sermon into formulaic units suited to recall and the oratory of extempore preaching. In these dominant forms of preaching methodology, the temptation to construct sermons with only the recall of divine inspiration in tow is risky business and poor stewardship of the gifts and promise of the Spirit. Methodology is not a competing voice to discernment of divine inspiration and revelation; it is a servant to discernment. It provides a blueprint to construction or a map for navigation, neither of which prohibit discernment in sermon preparation or in the preaching pulpit!

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The Practical Theology of Black Preaching and Sermonic Traditions Black preaching practices and their predominant sermonic forms in some ways epitomize the praxis of practical theology. The critical reflection on religious practices, theological worldviews, and immediate contexts or situations that present challenges to the Church or life of faith signifies practical theology. This discipline in theological education is largely focused on methodology; therefore homiletics is one of its chief subdisciplines. Homiletics methodologies attempt to interpret Scripture and inherited theological traditions for living contexts. And so, preaching seeks to interpret the life of faith and the complex situations we encounter in life. The Church stands in the middle of this interpreting enterprise for the sake of transforming lives and society. Black religious cultures developed with preaching as a core practice, facing the interpretation of faith that disturbingly participated in and even sought to legitimate the oppression of black life. In response, black preaching reinterpreted Scripture and reinterpreted inherited theological worldviews and spiritual values in ministry to black life. In this process black preaching continues to be integral to the ongoing transformation of Western Christianity itself. Preaching praxis ushers the practices of the Church into meaning-making when daily life distorts the gift of life and into justice-making when our human encounters destroy the stewardship of relations and the gift of community. The practical theology of black preaching and sermonic traditions explore the biblical cannon in dialogue with theological worldviews both thriving and struggling in the community of faith and the world at large. Discernment of divine revelation and inspiration for living faithfully into God’s care and aspirations for humanity is the sacred work of preaching.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Andrews, Dale P. Practical Theology for Black Churches (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). Andrews, Dale P. ‘‘Teaching Black Preaching: Encounter and Re encounter.’’ The African American Pulpit 9, no. 4 (Fall 2006): 8 12. Andrews, Dale P. ‘‘Black Preaching Praxis.’’ Black Church Studies, ed. Stacey Floyd Thomas et al. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007). Andrews, Dale P. ‘‘Teaching Black Preaching: Homiletic Instruction as Pre encounter.’’ The African American Pulpit 10, no. 1 (Winter 2006 2007): 22 26. Asante, Molefi K. The Afrocentric Idea (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987). Bond, L. Susan. Contemporary African American Preaching: Diversity in Theory and Style (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2003). Brown, Teresa L. Fry. Weary Throats and New Songs: Black Women Proclaiming God’s Word (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003). Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978). Cannon, Katie G. ‘‘Womanist Interpretation and Preaching in the Black Church.’’ Searching the Scriptures, ed. Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza et al. (New York: Crossroad, 1993).

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Cannon, Katie G. Teaching Preaching: Isaac Rufus Clark and Black Sacred Rhetoric (New York: Continuum, 2002). Crawford, Evans E., and Thomas H. Troeger. The Hum: Call and Response in African American Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995). Davis, Gerald L. I Got the Word in Me and I Can Sing It, You Know: A Study of the Performed African American Sermon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985). Felder, Cain Hope. Troubling Biblical Waters: Race, Class, and Family (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989). Forbes, James. The Holy Spirit & Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989). Genovese, Eugene D. Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1976). Hamilton, Charles V. The Black Preacher in America (New York: Morrow, 1972). Harris, James H. Preaching Liberation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). Harris, James H. The Word Made Plain: The Power and Promise of Preaching (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004). Hicks, H. Beecher. Images of the Black Preacher: The Man Nobody Knows (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1977). Hubbard, Dolan. The Sermon and the African American Literary Imagination (Columbia: Uni versity of Missouri Press, 1994). Iser, Wolfgang. ‘‘Interaction between Text and Reader.’’ The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation ed. Susan R. Suleiman and Inge Crosman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980). Johnson, James Weldon. God’s Trombones; Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (New York: The Viking Press, 1927). Johnson, Joseph Andrew. Proclamation Theology (Shreveport, LA: Fourth Episcopal District Press, 1977). Jones, Amos. As You Go Preach!: Dynamics of Sermon Building and Preaching in the Black Church (Nashville: Bethlehem Book, 1996). Jones, Kirk Byron. The Jazz of Preaching: How to Preach with Great Freedom and Joy (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004). LaRue, Cleophus J. The Heart of Black Preaching (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000). LaRue, Cleophus J., ed. Power in the Pulpit: How America’s Most Effective Black Preachers Prepare Their Sermons (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). Levine, Lawrence W. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Expe rience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990). Lischer, Richard. The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word That Moved America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Massey, James Earl. The Responsible Pulpit (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1974). Massey, James Earl, and William D. Thompson. Designing the Sermon: Order and Movement in Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1980). McClain, William B. Come Sunday: The Liturgy of Zion (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990). McMickle, Marvin A. Preaching to the Black Middle Class: Words of Challenge, Words of Hope (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2000).

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Mitchell, Henry H. Black Preaching: The Recovery of a Powerful Art (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990). Mitchell, Henry H. Celebration and Experience in Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990). Moyd, Olin P. The Sacred Art: Preaching & Theology in the African American Tradition (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1995). Payne, James C. The Anatomy of Black Rhetoric (Tallahassee, FL: Graphics Communications Associates, 1982). Pipes, William H. Say Amen, Brother!: Old Time Negro Preaching, a Study in American Frus tration. African American Life Series (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992). Spencer, Jon Michael. Sacred Symphony: The Chanted Sermon of the Black Preacher (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987). Stewart, Warren H. Interpreting God’s Word in Black Preaching (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1984). Thomas, Frank A. They Like to Never Quit Praisin’ God: The Role of Celebration in Preaching (Cleveland: United Church Press, 1997). Wilmore, Gayraud. Black Religion and Black Radicalism (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972). Wimberly, Edward P. African American Pastoral Care (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991). Wimberly, Edward P. Moving from Shame to Self Worth: Preaching and Pastoral Care (Nash ville: Abingdon Press, 1999). Wimbush, Vincent L., ed. African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures, with Rosamond C. Rodman (New York: Continuum, 2000). Woodson, Carter Godwin. The History of the Negro Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: The Associated Publishers, 1945).

African American Religion and the Environment Melanie L. Harris ‘‘Until the earth is free, no one is free.’’

African American religious perspectives that are inclusive of environmental concerns address at least two key points, namely, the web of life, or the interconnectedness between earth, humanity, and the sacred and divine realms in African and African American religious cosmologies; and the importance of contributing intersecting racial, social, gender, and economic analysis when examining cases of environmental racism. The web-of-life concept reflected in many African and African American religious cosmologies suggests that all things are interconnected and interrelated. That means trees are connected to the sky, plants and animals are connected to water, fire, and earth, and human beings as well as the divine and sacred realms (God, ancestors, divinities) are connected to all of the above. Seeing these points of intersection and interrelatedness through the lens of black religion reflects a kaleidoscope-like image of vivid colors, multiple religious perspectives and numerous intersections connecting the earth, humanity, and the sacred and divine. The web-of-life concept counters Western and Platonist dualistic views depicting the earth and nature as separate and apart from the human realm. Instead, African and African American cosmologies present a more holistic perspective in which the realms of nature, humanity, divinity, and spirit, are interconnected. Black religious ethicist Peter J. Paris describes the relationality expressed in the cosmology by naming each of the realms as ‘‘ontologically united and hence interdependent’’ (Paris 1995, 7). As such, Paris argues that these cosmologies embody a common moral discourse or ethical worldview about relationality shared among African diasporic peoples across the globe. This ethical worldview helps to shape black religious ethical perspectives on environmental care and earth-justice issues. Thus, any African American religious perspective that adheres to an African or African American cosmological perspective and engages the environment necessitates reflection on the interrelatedness between the realms of earth, humanity, and the sacred divine. The work of African theologian John S. Mbiti offers clear insights on how the interrelatedness of the realms in African cosmology functions. In his book, Introduction to

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A perogun (an ‘‘external’’ shrine area found in an Orisha compound). The spoons, feathers, oil, etc., indicate that ‘‘spirit work’’ has been done recently. (James Houk)

African Religions, Mbiti writes that many African societies view the earth as a ‘‘living being’’ and understand that many natural elements embody the spirit of a divine entity or spirit (Mbiti 1992). Therefore, by honoring nature, one is also honoring the essence of a spirit and/or aspect of divinity. Mbiti also writes about the important moral aspect of an African cosmological perspective. According to his work, an African cosmology embodies a belief in a natural and moral order that exists in the universe to maintain harmony. It undergirds a moral order and obligation for black peoples to take care of the earth, as well as themselves. This moral order is established by the universe and functions to guide humans on how to interact and have ultimate respect for the earth. In his book, Mbiti gives two examples of how humans honor the interrelatedness of the realms of earth, humanity, and sacred divinity. The examples show how humans use religious ritual to honor elements of nature, and, in the sense that all realms are interconnected, the ritual also serves to honor the living spirit alive in nature. African peoples regard natural objects and phenomena as being inhabited by living beings, or having a mystical life. In religious language we speak of these beings as divinities and spirits . . . For example, if people believe that there is a spirit or divinity in their local lake they will, through sacrifices, offerings or prayers, ask for the help of the divinity when fish ing in the lake or crossing it in a canoe. This gives them a feeling . . . that they are in harmony with the lake (and with the life agent personified by the lake or occupying the lake.) In some

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societies it is believed that lightning and thunder are caused by a spirit; therefore people endeavor to be in harmony with that spirit. (Mbiti 1992)

African American religious perspectives that adhere to a belief in the interconnectedness of the realms in African cosmology present this ethical imperative for harmony between all realms in the universe as a sacred aspect of everyday life. However, the emphasis on the ethical imperative to care for the earth is only one aspect that highlights the significance of African cosmology in African American religious approaches to the environment. According to Black liberation theologian Theodore Walker Jr., the interconnection between the realms of earth, humanity, and the sacred divine, expressed through the web of life in African cosmology also supports an argument that environmental justice is a part of the black liberation theological agenda. In his essay, ‘‘African-American Resources for a More Inclusive Liberation Theology,’’ found in This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (Gottlieb 1995, 309–316), Walker claims that fighting for earth justice falls within the spectrum and goal of black liberation. This goal to contribute ‘‘to the well being of all and most especially to the well-being of the poor and oppressed’’ arose out of the black power movement, which greatly influenced black theology. Walker defines black theology as ‘‘a form of liberation theology which holds that we are morally obligated to contribute to the well-being of all, and most especially to the well-being of the poor and oppressed’’ (Gottlieb 1995, 310). As such, an intrinsic goal of black liberation and well-being is the wellness of the earth and the people who live in it. A second key point that is addressed in African American religious perspectives that are inclusive of environmental concerns is the intersecting racial, social, gender, and economic analysis necessary when examining cases of environmental racism. The term ‘‘environmental racism’’ was coined by Benjamin Chavis and points to the unequal and systematic ways in which lower-income neighborhoods that many African American families call home are often chosen by governmental and regulation boards to be waste sites for air, water, and soil pollution (Bullard 1993, 3). As Chavis and other concerned African American women and male church and community leaders began taking note of the high NAACP executive director Reverend Benjamin levels of sickness and disease taking the Chavis at The United Church of Christ lives of people in their communities durheadquarters in Cleveland, where he headed ing the 1980s, they began to notice links the Commission for Racial Justice. (Taro between racial, economic, and environYamasaki/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) mental injustices.

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Together, with community organizations, activist groups, churches, and religious communities, Chavis and other environmental activists reshaped the environmental social justice movement to include more people of color in the public outcry against air, water, and soil pollution in the United States. According to ecologist Dorceta E. Taylor, author of ‘‘The Influence of Race, Class and Gender on Activism and the Development of Environmental Discourses,’’ a paper published by the U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Experiment Station, the inclusion of multiracial voices forced the environmental justice movement to examine the absence of their analysis of race and the importance that religion plays in developing earth-justice perspectives from people of color (Taylor 2002). Whereas the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 marked the beginning of the ‘‘white’’ environmental movement, and established the tenets of environmentalism helping to raise consciousness about the preservation of wildlife and forests, it was not until the 1980s that a ‘‘dramatic change in levels of participation’’ from multiracial and grassroots environmental groups joined and transformed the movement. By directing the movement’s attention to ‘‘declining air and water quality, increased toxic exposure, increased health risks and a declining quality of life in inner-city minority communities,’’ Taylor explains environmental activists of color were able to make connections between the oppressions that people of color faced and oppressions suffered by the earth. This new approach to environmental justice shined the spotlight on inconsistencies and violations of previously established environmental laws that were honored in White neighborhoods but neglected in African American neighborhoods (Taylor 2002, 29). It also highlighted the important spiritual and religious connection many peoples of color have with the earth, thus making environmental injustice a religious and moral issue. As documents, including the principles articulated by the National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, became more widely publicized, the role of nature in indigenous religious traditions, including the traditions of Native Americans and African-derived religious traditions such as Candomble´, practiced by some African Americans become more prevalent (Gottlieb 1996, 634–635). One of the most significant documents that linked the environmental justice movement with an African American religious perspective was the ‘‘United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice Report on Race and Toxic Wastes in the United States’’ issued in 1987. This study revealed the gross discrepancies between the percentages of African American and Latino communities housing toxic waste sites, as compared to White communities. Publication of the document opened the door for many subsequent studies on the impact race, class, and gender has on the decisionmaking processes regarding the placement of pollutants and toxins in the United States. It also signaled to environmental activists the importance of organizing social and political protests against environmental racism. Trying to establish a structure of accountability for companies who were heavily invested in planting dangerous sites into neighborhoods densely populated by African Americans continues to be a monumental task that must be waged on all sides. Beyond social and public protest, the environmental movement also includes lobbying the political establishment and jump-starting educational programs designed to inform African American

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communities about ‘‘going green’’ and presents preventative measures that can be taken to avoid the dangerous effects of toxic wastes. Historically black churches and religious communities have been a major avenue through which information is given and knowledge is shared about strategies to fight injustice. In traditional black Christian churches justice work has traditionally been aligned with the role of the gospel in African American church communities as illustrated in Black Liberation Theology. This form of theology, which includes attention to ethics, biblical studies, and sociology, centers the religious and theological perspectives of African American peoples, highlighting their experience and their strategies of survival. Black theology pinpoints racial justice as a primary theological issue. Rather than accepting Eurocentric norms and categories that inform and shape Christian doctrine, Black Liberation Theology infuses the radical message of racial equality with the gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that humanizes African American peoples and honors their spiritual heritage. As James H. Cone writes in his landmarks books Black Theology and Black Power in 1969 and later in God of the Oppressed initially published in 1975, the message of liberation found in the gospel is for all peoples, but especially for oppressed peoples of color. Looking back on the establishment of Black Theology, Cone describes the origin of the discipline, saying it ‘‘emerged when a small group of radical black clergy began to reinterpret the meaning of the Christian faith from the standpoint of the black struggle of liberation in the United States during the second half of the 1960s’’ (Cone 1984, 5). However, beyond the struggle for liberation for the bodies and souls of African American people, Black Liberation Theology is also concerned about the freedom, wholeness, and liberation of the earth. In his more recent essay, ‘‘Whose Earth Is It Anyway?’’ Cone states the significance of environmental justice for African American religious thought (Cone 2000). In the work he cites a number of womanist theologians and ethicists, including Delores S. Williams, Emilie M. Townes, and Karen Baker-Fletcher who also point to the ways in which caring for the earth is quite naturally included in any movement striving toward black liberation. The overarching theme of wholeness, found throughout womanist religious thought and literature, assumes that liberation based on gender, race, class, sexual orientation, ableism, and a host of other forms of identity are all important in the fight for justice. Womanist religious thought first emerged in the early 1980s as African American women scholars of religion, theologians, and ethicists began to link the oppressions of racism, classism, and sexism as a way of describing the experiences and informing theological perspectives of African American women. Katie G. Cannon, Delores S. Williams, Jacquelyn Grant, and Renita Weems are among some of the foremothers who established the fields of womanist theology and ethics. As this field developed in strength and in numbers, additional perspectives including attention to the ways environmental injustice impacts the lives of African American women began to be discussed among African American religious scholars. Calling forth these voices, as well as the imperative for earth justice interwoven in the black theological perspective, author Dianne D. Glave writes of a ‘‘black environmental liberation theology’’ as a ‘‘strand of black liberation theology’’ in her essay, ‘‘Black Environmental Liberation Theology’’ in To Love the Wind and the Rain: African Americans

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and Environmental History (Glave and Stoll 2005, 189). In this work, she claims that fighting for earth justice falls within the spectrum and goal of black liberation. Grounding for the work of the previous scholars mentioned here can be found in the traces of black religious and theological reflection about the interrelatedness between nature and humanity gleaned from slave narratives. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Douglass, first published in the United States of America by the Anti-Slavery Office 1845), Douglass credits the sacred power of a tree root given to him by an ‘‘old adviser,’’ Sandy Jenkins, with the supernatural power to defend himself and fight for freedom against the slave master, Mr. Covey. The sacred power attributed to tree roots and other elements of nature by former slaves can be viewed as examples of how remnants of African cosmology lingered in the lives of slave women, children, and men. The presence of a sacred connection between spirituality, nature, and human liberation also suggests that a foundation for black religious thought concerning the environment relies on the interconnectedness between earth, human, divine, and spirit realms. Additional traces of African American religious reflection about the environment can be found in historical accounts about the mystical connection that African American southerners shared with the earth, even in the midst of surviving the system of sharecropping. In the essay, ‘‘The Only Reason You Want to Go to Heaven . . . ’’ by Alice Walker, she recalls the foundation of her own relationship with the earth by remembering the important ways her parents cherished and honored the earth as sharecroppers and farmers. Naming the ways in which her parents would have been ostracized from their Christian community and called ‘‘pagan’’ for expressing their own deep connection to the earth, Walker explores her own spiritual journey as an African American raised in a Christian church and home, but later leaving this tradition in order to connect more deeply to life, gender, and earth-affirming spiritual practices (Walker 1988). It is in the literature, prayers, and prose of artists including Walker, Howard Thurman, and others that an African American religious sensibility to the earth and connection to environmental justice can be found. One example of literary art that highlights the connection between African American religion and environment comes from James Weldon Johnson’s ‘‘The Creation’’ in God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (Johnson 1927). In addressing the environmental and black theological question, this piece shows how the black constructive theological imagination informs understandings about the nature of God and God’s relationship to creation. Written in a linguistic style that mimics African American preaching tones and oral culture, the poem portrays the image of a black God who embodies compassion, love, and power and who expresses feelings of loneliness, sorrow, and joy. Using divine strength, the God in Weldon’s piece transforms the earth from empty space into shining dark night and smiling light. The sun is rolled around in God’s hands and flung into the sky along with the stars and the moon. Stepping onto the earth that God has created, God’s footprints mold the mountains and the valleys, and God’s mouth spits out the oceans and the seas. God’s wink of an eye creates storms and lightning, and a clap of God’s hands brings forth thunder and rain, green grass, and red flowers. Trees and forest, rivers, animals, birds, and streams all come to life as God reflects on creation, naming it all as

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‘‘good.’’ Finally, in the final stanza of the sermon verse by Johnson, God creates human beings, hoping that this last part of creation will bring an ease to God’s loneliness. God becomes a mother figure in this section, carefully kneeling over a lump of clay and forming it into a human person—a man. With a breath of life, the man becomes a ‘‘living soul’’ designed to live in, with, and among all of the creation God has made. The Negro sermon in verse is clearly an interpretation of the creation story found in the Hebrew Bible, in Genesis chapter 1. However, just as Black religious biblical scholars Cain Hope Felder and Renita J. Weems have proclaimed, African American interpretations of biblical Scripture (or biblical hermeneutics) added more than just a fresh and theologically empowering interpretation of the text. They also expressed a deep connection and cultural embodiment of the sacred texts that were widely accepted as liberating for African American peoples (Weems 2005; Felder 1991). From a black theological ecological liberation perspective these sacred texts can also be seen as important instructions on how both to understand human relationship to the divine and to facilitate and nurture human relationship with the earth. Even beyond the theological interpretations of scripture, theologies about creation and the moral imperative to take care of the earth, African American religious scholarship on the environment emphasizes the African and African American cosmology and interconnection between the realms of earth, humanity, and the sacred and divine. This interconnectedness not only serves as a model of relationality but also strengthens the ethical imperative for earth justice alive at the core of Black Liberation Theology. African American religious scholarship concerning the environment also applies interdisciplinary methods and analysis that combines theological perspectives on such concepts as God and creation, with ecological analysis of air, water, and soil pollution. In addition, it takes into account the writings, voices, and perspectives of scientists, social scientists, literary artists, and other activists engaged in the environmental movement and who make connections between justice issues facing black peoples and other peoples of color with justice issues about the earth. Some of the major topics addressed in dialogue that intersects African American religious thought and the environment include God and creation, human stewardship of the earth, eco-womanism, environmental racism, land ownership for people of color, reparations, air, water, and soil pollution in urban neighborhoods, and the impact of colonization and globalization on peoples of color. African American religious perspectives of humans’ connection to the earth are often influenced by at least three major aspects. First, one’s racial and cultural identity and experience; second, one’s historical and personal ‘‘earth story’’ and personal relationship to nature and the earth; and third, one’s understanding of the divine, the sacred cosmos, or God. Three questions that can be posed when shaping an African American religious perspective on the environment include: ‘‘How does an African American perspective uniquely inform questions of environmental concern?’’ ‘‘As descendents of slaves, sharecroppers and people who were tied to the land, what are the historical earth-stories and values about land (ownership, use) that are passed from generation to generation?’’ and ‘‘What is the eco-theology or belief system that guides one’s instruction on how to take care of and use resources from the earth?’’ The answers to these questions make African American religious perspectives

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unique, primarily because African Americans connections to the land spans far beyond human history in many African and African American religious cosmologies and far into the sacred history of sacred deities and beliefs about God as creator.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Beardsley, Edward H. A History of Neglect: Health Care for Blacks and Mill Workers in the Twentieth Century South (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987). Bullard, Robert D., ed. Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots (Boston: Southend Press, 1993). Cone, James H. For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984). Cone, James H. ‘‘Whose Earth Is It Anyway?’’ Cross Currents 50, no. 1 2 (Spring/Summer 2000): 36 48. Felder, Cain Hope. Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991). Glave, Dianne D., and Mark Stoll, eds. To Love the Wind and the Rain: African Americans and Environmental History (Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005). Gottlieb, Roger. This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (New York: Routledge, 1995). Johnson, James Weldon. God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (New York: The Viking Press, 1927). Mbiti, John. African Religions and Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Portsmouth, NH: Neinemann, 1992). Paris, Peter. The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). Taylor, Dorceta E. ‘‘The Influence of Race, Class and Gender on Activism and the Development of Environmental Discourses.’’ U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Experiment Station Paper, PNW GTR 534 (Seattle, WA, 2002). Townes, Emilie. Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006). Walker, Alice. Living By the Word (New York: Harvest Books/Harcourt Brace & Company, 1988). Weems, Renita J. Just a Sister Away: Understanding the Timeless Connection Between Women of Today and Women in the Bible (Farmington Hills, MI: Walk Worthy Press, 2005).

African American Religion and Gender Monica A. Coleman Black religion refers to more than solely religions in which persons of African descent identify. While persons of African descent practice a variety of religious practices and traditions, participation in religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Native American religious traditions do not generally fall under the rubric of ‘‘black religion.’’ In the context of the United States, the term ‘‘black religion’’ generally references two different categories of religions. The first category understands that during the experience of slavery and colonialism, Christianity and Islam took on a unique expression among persons of African descent. From this encounter comes what is commonly referred to as ‘‘the black church’’ tradition composed primarily of the historically black Christian denominations—National Baptist Convention, Progressive National Baptist Convention, African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion) Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church, Church of God in Christ (COGIC)—and secondarily the predominantly black congregations of the various Protestant denominations and Catholicism. Persons of African descent have also uniquely practiced Islam, resulting in the African and African American participation in ‘‘orthodox’’ Islam, as well as the distinctly black interpretations of Islam found in the Nation of Islam and the Five Percent Nation of Islam. One may also include the African Hebrew Israelite variation of Judaism in this category. For many black communities, the practice of Islam and Judaism were not adopted during slavery; rather they were consciously adopted and adapted at an earlier or later stage in history. In a second category fall religions that are uniquely connected to the historical and spiritual experiences of persons of African descent. This category includes African traditional religions (also commonly referred to as ‘‘African-derived religions’’) and their variations throughout the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, i.e., Santerı´a, Candomble´, Vodun (or Voodoo), Ifa, Conjure, etc. These categories are not rigid, nor are they the only ways in which scholars and practitioners might describe black religions. For example, some scholars and practitioners consider Rastafari a vibration or expression of Christianity, while others see it as a religion uniquely tied to the experiences and circumstances of persons of African (more specifically but not exclusively, Jamaican)

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descent. To further complicate categorization, the practice of black religions often transgresses categories. Many persons who practice Santerı´a or Vodun also consider themselves Catholic and regularly attend Catholic mass services. Likewise, many individuals who practice ‘‘conjure’’ also attend a black Protestant congregation. There are also several documented examples of individuals who take on leadership and ministerial roles in an African traditional religious practice and a historically black Christian denomination. Gender refers to the assumed societal and cultural differences between men and women. Biological sex identification is based on the presence of certain chromosomes (X-X for female and X-Y for male) and particular genitalia and hormones present on the human body. Gender indicates the roles, behaviors, activities, and characteristics that society assigns and validates for women and for men. One’s gender identity denotes one’s conception of being male or female, separate from one’s biological sex. To identify as being masculine or feminine is to denote gender identification and particular characteristics within the gender. In the patriarchal culture of the United States, women and the roles, the characteristics, and the behaviors associated with them are assigned lesser value than men and things associated as masculine. For example, women are soft and emotional; they cook, clean, and raise children. Men, on the other hand, are hard and rational; they are the primary (if not sole) financial provider for families. These proscribed gender roles typically assume heterosexual relations between men and women. Feminists generally agree that gender is socially constructed. That is, issues identified as masculine and feminine and most differences between men and women are characteristics ingrained into and perpetuated by society. These are not necessary characteristics of biological sex. Gender and biological sex are more generally understood as usually considered in binary categories or even in oppositions. Biological sex is generally denoted as male or female; nevertheless, there are numerous individuals—collectively referred to as intersex—who in various ways do not fall neatly into one category or the other. Intersex persons are usually assigned a gender at an early age by doctors, parents, or guardians, choosing a gender identification at a later age. Likewise, gender is generally bifurcated into the categories of male and female or masculine and feminine. When individuals or groups take on the characteristics of a gender alternatively or even consciously or unconsciously do not perform their expected gender orientation assigned by wider society properly, then they can be seen as transgressing gender boundaries. When one rejects the characteristics widely assigned to one’s gender, one might best be called a gender ‘‘nonconformist,’’ which refers to situations where a woman works in corporate America, as well as when a man wears clothing or cosmetics associated with women. When this transgression of gender boundaries extends to gender identification, individuals are often considered to be ‘‘transgender,’’ which is when an individual who is biologically male identifies as female and vice versa. While some scholars believe that this latter activity is a reification of traditional gender roles, such identification still transgresses the correlation among gender, biology, and social roles and characteristics established by the wider society. Nonheterosexual identification and relationships also threaten the rigidity of gender boundaries in patriarchal societies such as the United States.

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The Gender of God In most black religions, God is referred to in masculine terminology. Although this is not particularly tied to the theology of the religious tradition, it can be very difficult to separate a gender-neutral conception of God from written and oral texts that describe God as having a gender. In Christianity, for example, God is thought of as a ‘‘spirit’’ and does not contain any of the biological indications of sex or gender. Within Jewish and Christian scriptures, there are references to God using female and maternal language. Progressive varieties of these traditions will refer to God using both genders (Mother-Father God) or using gender-neutral language (Creator God). Nevertheless, the majority of these traditions refer to God in male language. This practice is widely understood as a product of human patriarchal interpretation of the religion. The predominantly male naming of God appears to be typical of monotheistic religions. In religious traditions that recognize divine plurality, the divine is imaged as nongendered or as gendered. For example, in Yoruba-based African traditional religions, the high God, Olodumare or Olorun, is not referenced with having one gender or another. Another category of the divine, variously referred to as orisa, orisha, or loa, maintains the genders and activities one finds among human culture. Thus there are male orisha such as Shango, the orisha associated with thunder, Ogun, the orisha of iron and war, or Elegba/Eshu, the orisha of the crossroads and major decisions. There are also female orisha such as Oya, the orisha associated with the whirlwinds, change, and family-based ancestors, Oshun, the orisha of the river, beauty, and love, or Yemanja or Yemoja, the orisha of the oceans and motherhood. While this is not an exhaustive list, this illustrates that some black religions can identify both the male and the female genders with the divine. Feminist and womanist scholars often argue that the gendered understanding of the divine both reflects and contributes to the roles that the various genders are ascribed within human society. When, for example, God is imaged as male, men have more powerful roles in human society than women. Theologically, this is enforced by the idea that humanity is made in the image of God, and thus the man was created first and is the ideal form of human being. Likewise, many black religions expect human beings to strive to live as God or God’s (usually) male representative, unite with God, or become God. When God is imaged as exclusively male, then both male and female human beings are expected to fashion their lives after a male ideal. Many persons argue that this male imaging of God is both a cause and a reflection of the gender roles that religions expect of women and men.

Gender Roles Differentiated gender roles exist in nearly all religions, black religions being no exception. At the time of the Atlantic slave trade, gender roles in West African societies were more fluid than what many Africans experienced during slavery and in their lives in Western civilization. While most West African societies were patrilineal, which

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required women to live with the husband’s family, and had political systems dominated by men, women controlled the marketplace, exercised physical labor, and had effective mechanisms of political protest. Western patriarchy held more rigid gender roles and imposed its standards upon African slaves while also refusing them the right to live into them. Among Western society, women were expected to be pure, pious, submissive, and domestic. Black slave women, like their male counterparts, were portrayed as oversexed and expected to do physical labor. Yet within the slave community and African American community, they were expected to perform more Western roles of femininity such as gardening, cooking, and child rearing. At the same time, white society did not permit African American men to live into the Western ideals of masculine behavior either. Black men were sold away from their families during slavery, forced to impregnate different women for the sake of breeding a growing slave populations, denied meaningful or substantive work, and subjected to laws that gave financial benefit to women raising children on their own. They were not able to provide physical or financial stability for their families as dictated by Western notions of masculinity. Thus many scholars argue that slavery and wider white American society emasculated black manhood. Within their religious communities, African Americans maintained more Western notions of gender roles. For example, men and women often maintain different prescriptions for attire within black religions. Women are often expected to dress modestly with more conservative traditions expecting women to cover their heads and most of their arms and legs. Other religious traditions insist that men and women sit in different areas during worship. This is as true for conservative branches of Christianity and Islam as it is for African-derived religious practices. Some traditions, such as African Hebrew Israelites, maintain very rigid distinctions between genders, including restricting women from worship with men during women’s menstruation. Within nearly all structured religious communities, more often women are assigned the tasks of cooking, cleaning, teaching, working with children, and performing secretarial duties, while men have more public leadership roles. These Western traditional gender roles tend to be amplified in black religions that permit polygyny, marriages where a man can have more than one wife. This is present mostly in the African American practice of Islam and in some traditional African religious communities. Some women find polygyny to be an abusive situation wherein men are able to take advantage of and oppress multiple women and keep them dependent upon the man. Other women find polygyny to be a liberating relationship with financial benefit, the emotional and child-rearing support of co-wives, and spiritual authentication. In the United States where polygyny is illegal, usually the first wife, if any, is the only woman who has a legal relationship with the man.

Leadership Roles Black religious communities generally reflect the patriarchal leadership patterns of a wider society that encourages and supports nearly exclusive male leadership. The religion’s dominant historical story and sacred texts are often used to maintain

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Sunday school at Holiness Church in Jackson, Mississippi, about 1935. (Eudora Welty/ Corbis)

the oppression of women and to provide a rationale for women’s exclusion from leadership roles. The Bible, Qur’an, and other sacred scriptures often discuss the silencing of women, the particular dress required of women, and the man as head of the household.

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Many black religions still struggle to maintain gender balance within their congregational constituencies. The Nation of Islam is renowned for its ability to attract, sustain, and support African American men. The same can be said of the Rastafari faith. Within African-derived religions and black Christianity, women constitute a majority of the congregation. For this reason, many African American men feel that churches are feminized spaces that do not encourage or support Western ideas of manhood and masculinity. Although black women compose the majority of black church communities (estimates often hover around 60 to 70 percent), the vast majority of the clergy are male. Although most black church denominations restricted women from ordination into the clergy until the second half of the twentieth century, women found less formal ways to operate as religious leaders. In the late eighteenth century, Jarena Lee preached in African American churches and communities without the support of and against the wishes of her husband and the bishop in the AME Church. Other documented early black women preachers include Rebecca Cox Jackson, Sojourner Truth, Zilpha Elaw, Julia A. Foote, Amanda Berry Smith, and Virginia Broughton. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, black churchwomen were increasingly silenced under male clerical leadership. Many black churchwomen founded their own societies and associations within black denominations—such as the Women’s Auxiliary Convention of the National Baptist Convention—where they were able to maintain leadership and advocate for the well-being of women, children, and the wider society. Other women became more active in the holiness and Pentecostal movements that, while maintaining strict gender roles in many instances, had a more decentralized organizational structure and permitted women’s leadership. This includes the roles of ‘‘church mothers,’’ elder laywomen who exercised significant influence within their churches. Nevertheless, the historic black churches did not begin ordaining women until 1960 when the AME Church ordained its first female preacher. The first black women ordained bishops were not in historic black denominations, but in the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church in 1984 and 1989, respectively (Leontine T. C. Kelley and Barbara Harris). In 2000, the AME Church became the first of the historic black denominations to elect a woman, Vashti McKenzie, to the episcopacy. In congregational churches, such as the Baptist and COGIC denominations, eligibility to preach and ordination are based in local churches that have the right to decide eligibility to the clerical ranks. Ordination notwithstanding, women continue to experience gender oppression and inequities in ministry. African Americans in Islam have been slower to support women’s official leadership. Ava Muhammad is the first female national spokesperson for the Nation of Islam. While there are other women in leadership positions within the Nation of Islam’s newspaper and other organizations, there are few female ministers within the Nation of Islam. Most other forms of Islam do not allow women to serve as imams. In African-derived religions, the gender of the leadership depends on the structure and context of the practice. In some practices of African-derived religions, practitioners are organized into houses (iles) headed by a priest or priestess. In these contexts, there is considerable gender equity. Other communities embrace and perpetuate exclusive male leadership insisting that only men can be initiated into

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priesthood, and women leaders must work underneath the man’s leadership. In less formal communities, women exercise leadership through the respect they garner for possessing special gifts. Healer-women, conjure-women, and seer-women serve as leaders in their communities—through respect and fear—because the religious community acknowledges that they have a special relationship with the divine that gives them the ability to heal, make predictions, or curse the lives of those around them. African American New Thought religions are the few communities within black religions with primarily female leadership. Whether independent or black congregations of predominantly white denominations such as Unity or Religious Science, many local congregations have women serving as their chief ministers. In 1974, Johnnie Colemon founded the Universal Federation for Better Living that serves as an umbrella organization for various African American New Thought congregations around the world. Across black religious traditions, women’s activity has cultivated civic and organizing skills that black women often translated into political leadership. Although they often face the same patriarchy in the political realm as they do within religious communities, African American women have been the leaders of grassroots movements within existing political structures and formed their own organizations (as in the women’s club movement of the early twentieth century) that have promulgated the civil rights of all people, especially African Americans and women.

Transgressing Gender The presence of women in leadership and religious scholarship and individuals who do not embrace the proscribed gender roles transgress the gender ideals established within and maintained by most black religions. Women in leadership force religious communities to expand and disrupt their notions of femininity and masculinity. New questions are raised: If public leadership is a masculine trait and women are leaders, are women behaving in masculine ways? Or do the definitions of ‘‘feminine’’ and ‘‘masculine’’ need to be revised, expanded, or perhaps left open for self-description? Or perhaps the issues should be completely reframed into questions of responsible moral agency regardless of gender or biological sex identification? In 1985, Katie G. Cannon borrowed author Alice Walker’s term ‘‘womanist’’ to describe the religious scholarship of black women that examines the religious lives of black women who are often oppressed by race, gender, and class. Since that time, womanist religious scholarship has researched and highlighted women’s roles within black religious traditions and advocated theological ideas that advocate for the liberation and wholeness of black women and the entire community. Womanist religious scholarship has greatly influenced the religious scholarship of black men, white men, and other women of color. Thus much progressive religious scholarship acknowledges and resists the oppression of women and people of color. Proscribed gender roles within black religions have not only served to oppress black women systemically, but they also hurt black men. Within these gender roles, black men are expected to live up to masculinist and capitalist ideals that society only deems

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viable for white men. Attempting to live into the Western masculine roles within the African American community can contribute to the abuse and mistreatment of women. In these instances, men disallow women from expressing the divinity that is within both women and men. Some men intentionally seek out ways to support women in religious leadership and balanced imagery for the divine. These men feel that it is no healthier for men to worship exclusively male images of God (especially when many of those images are white male images, as in the case of Christianity, and although rarely acknowledged, quite homoerotic for men and heteroerotic for women) than it is for women. Some men co-pastor and co-teach with women and strive to demonstrate balanced forms of leadership for their congregations. For African American lesbian women, gay men, and bisexual and transgender persons, black religious communities can be one of the most oppressive arenas of contemporary society. The official statements and dominant practices of all black religions condemn homosexuality as unacceptable in the sight of God and community. Nevertheless, many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender African Americans have historic, cultural, familial, emotional, and religious connections to black religious traditions. Within black church communities, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons, like women, have been relegated to specific arenas of activity—namely ministries of music— with the expectation that they will refrain from expressing their personal lives among the congregation, as do their heterosexual counterparts. This causes many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender African Americans to live silently and closeted within their church communities or to leave the black church, Christianity, or religious community altogether. Some join predominantly white denominations or congregations that are affirming of all persons regardless of sexual or gender identification. Others have started their own denominations, such as Carl Bean and the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, or independent local churches that affirm all persons regardless of gender and sexual identification. There are no significant movements within any black religious tradition that are fighting for the full inclusion of individuals who identify as gay, lesbian, or transgender. Although the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries gives religious communities relevant occasion to address issues of sexuality and gender, few have done more than condemn persons and behaviors that deviate from proscribed gender roles of a heterosexual and patriarchal norm. Far too often, work against the spread of HIV/AIDS in black religions tends to conflate nonheterosexual and nonconformist sexual activity with disease. Contemporary non-Christian black religions are rather adamant in their condemnation of gays, lesbians, and transgender persons. Nevertheless, the act of spirit possession in African traditional religions often involves a transgression of traditional gender boundaries. A gendered divine figure may possess a human being with a different gender identification. For example, a male orisha may possess a female human being, or vice versa. The language used during these possessions may also transgress the heterosexual relationships that are generally accepted within the tradition. In the traditional Yoruba religion, for example, an orisha can be said to mount his or her horse. The ‘‘horse’’ refers to the human being.

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The language of mounting signifies an intimate, almost sexual, relationship. Thus a male orisha may be mounting a male human being during spirit possession.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Baker Fletcher, Garth Kasimu. Xodus: An African American Male Journey (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995). Butler, Anthea D. Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). Carpenter, Delores C. A Time for Honor: A Portrait of African American Clergywomen (St. Louis: Chalice, 2001). Chireau, Yvonne. Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). Comstock, Gary C. A Whosoever Church: Welcoming Lesbians and Gay Men into African American Churches (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001). Douglas, Kelly Brown. Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999). Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend. If It Wasn’t For the Women . . . : Black Women’s Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000). Griffin, Horace L. Their Own Receive Them Not: African Americans Lesbians and Gays in Black Churches (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2006). Griffith, R. Marie, and Barbara Dianne Savage, eds. Women and Religion in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power and Performance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). Harris, Frederick C. Something Within: Religion in African American Political Activism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880 1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). Hopkins, Dwight N. ‘‘New Black Heterosexual Male.’’ Head and Heart: Black Theology Past, Present and Future (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). James, G. Winston. Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity (Washington DC: RedBone Press, 2006). Majeed, Debra Mubashir. ‘‘The Battle Has Been Joined: Gay and Polygynous Marriages Are Out of the Closet and in Search of Legitimacy.’’ CrossCurrents (Summer 2004): 73 81. Martin, Darnise C. Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church (New York: New York University Press, 2005). Matory, J. Lorand. Sex and The Empire That Is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in Oyo Yoruba Religion (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). McCloud, Aminah Beverly. African American Islam (New York: Routledge, 1995). McKenzie, Vashti M. Not Without a Struggle: Leadership Development for African American Women in Ministry (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1996). Murrell, Nathaniel Samuel, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane, eds. Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998). Riggs, Marcia Y. Plenty Good Room: Women Versus Male Power in the Black Church (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2003).

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Ross, Rosetta E. Witnessing and Testifying: Black Women, Religion, and Civil Rights (Minne apolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003). Rouse, Carolyn Moxley. Engaged Surrender: African American Women and Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). White, Deborah Gray. Ar’n’t I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1999). Wiggins, Daphne C. Righteous Content: Black Women’s Perspectives of Church and Faith (New York: New York University Press, 2004).

African American Religion, Healing, and Health

Stephanie Y. Mitchem The impact of living in America on black bodies has crafted significant health disparities from that of the white population because of chronic and acute racism and poverty. A great deal of research by such agencies as the National Institute of Health, Institute for Poverty Research, National Black Women’s Health Imperative, and various universities and medical centers have well documented these disparities. The U.S. Center for Disease Control has an Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities that, in 2007, noted the realities for black Americans. ‘‘The health disparities between African Americans and other racial groups are striking and apparent in life expectancy, infant mortality, and other measures of health status’’ (Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, 2007). But poor health conditions are nothing new for African Americans, and so understanding these current disparities must stand in light of a history that marginalized black people. In spite of these conditions, black people in America retained and developed some views of life and their own bodies that have served to provide alternative forms of ‘‘health care.’’ When these cultural views were connected with their religious beliefs or spiritualities, black Americans crafted and adopted paths to healing. Healing then, in an African American socioreligious conceptual framework, will seek to restore and achieve balance. The connections between black religions and healing practices in the United States began in history but continue today. Understandings of black religion and healing both rich and complex, sometimes misunderstood and more often misrepresented, the stories of healing and religion involve several interconnected layers. The following essay explores these aspects of the stories: (1) From the history of enslavement to the present day, African Americans retained aspects of their cultures and religious views in the face of racism to care for their bodies and affirm their humanity. (2) Religion and healing practices that can be traced to these past views continue among African Americans today.

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Historical Development, Connections with Religions When Africans were brought to colonial shores for enslavement, they were not defined as human but ‘‘cattle’’; as such, their practices were therefore misunderstood. The intelligence and cultures of black people were ignored or denigrated. The skin color of African people was an issue in the minds of white colonizers, and blackness itself came to be understood as unnatural. Theories abounded among white scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries about the origins of black skin, from breeding with monkeys to showing social Darwinism to being the sign of a lower species. Such theories by white colonizers ensured that Africans were marginalized and legally defined into a separate category by virtue of their race. This separation was not merely a legal category but, because of the predominance of Christianity in the United States, was theologically justified as the will of God. The white theology of race included justification for enslavement. For instance, the ‘‘curse of Ham’’ was mythologized in this racist theology as a proof that people of African descent were ordained by God to be enslaved by white people. The biblical text reads: Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay naked inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers about it. Shem and Japheth, however, took a robe, and holding it on their backs, they walked in backward and covered their father’s nakedness; since their faces were turned the other way, that they would not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his drunkenness and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said: ‘‘Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.’’ He also said, ‘‘Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! Let Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend Japheth, so that he dwells among the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.’’ (Genesis 9:20 27, New American Bible)

This passage is interpreted in the following way as evidence in support of slavery: Ham and all his offspring, beginning with Canaan, were cursed with enslavement to Japheth, Shem, and all their offspring. The ‘‘sign’’ of the curse under this theology was black skin. Inferiority and damnation were embedded into white views of black bodies, further justifying poor or brutal care of enslaved African people. Yet, the care of black bodies did not hinge on white views alone. Black people held onto views of themselves that affirmed their humanity. Because they were segregated, the enslaved Africans were able to retain some aspects of their own cultures and perspectives, which formed their own belief system. Central to this belief system was a cosmology, or understanding of the universe, in which all things are interconnected and interdependent. Life was understood as interconnected and interdependent areas in contrast to the Western European views held by most white Americans. In Western European views, body/soul, divine/human, male/female, black/white, and so on are discrete and detached areas of human life. As a result, one area is defined as inherently ‘‘holy’’ (the soul, divine, male, white) and the opposite as ‘‘evil’’ (body, human,

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female, black). This binary view of life locks black bodies into a total inability to become holy. But African Americans, drawing from African cultural views, did not define human life in these detached and independent areas. Instead, life was understood as interwoven and necessarily related parts of the whole. So nature/humanity, divine/world, or past/present/future were seen as part of a continuum, not completely separate yet not the same. This view is sometimes described as holistic and sometimes described as nature-based. African-derived cultures shaped positive perspectives on black bodies, as indicated by continuing beliefs about the relationships of people, nature, and the Divine. The ideas are formed by cultural beliefs about the meanings of human life as part of the web of the universe, with connections between past, present, and future generations. Family (extended, not just nuclear, as well as fictive kinship) is important in this generational interconnectedness. Because of these connections, death was not viewed as a final break with life, but instead the spirit/soul was able to interact from the next plane of existence. These ideas stood against the negative views of black humanity that were constitutive of white American society. Past and present, through human and spirit interactions, could remain connected. In the same holistic way, healing and religion were connected to each other from African perspectives. Religion was not viewed as a separate act but was focused on healing the person, the community, the earth, or past events. In this way, ‘‘religion’’ could better be understood as a spirituality, a way of being in the world, that is brought to any religious tradition but remains entwined with the person and the community. Such spirituality is embodied, reflecting the holistic while coming to reject negative views. It is important to recognize, however, that these views are not monolithic but may take many guises. For instance, such spirituality might be expressed by individuals as defiance, yet for others it is lived out in churches. This African-derived spirituality, at its core, understands the importance of healing in many forms. Some aspects of those retained healing beliefs were intertwined into religious practices of other religions and religious views that developed among the Africans and aided in supporting a holistic spirituality. The practices include hoodoo and herbal use; the religions include voodoo. While the enslaved Africans found ways to retain some of their own culturally grounded views, the beliefs changed as enslaved Africans encountered different cultures. They creatively crafted a hybridized view that would fit the needs of their communities. For instance, the use of herbs was important for healing but, because they were no longer on the African continent, information was sometimes gleaned about local herbs from Native Americans with whom they came in contact. Information on plants and herbs was important for both the holistic spirituality and healing practices. Herbs, such as asafetida, and other naturally occurring items, such as spider webs, were the medicines the enslaved communities used for their own care. Food, dance, and music carried cultural messages, brought joy, and strengthened communities. Folktales with healing and cultural practices were taken into church houses, which were the centers of many black communities. All of these connections reflected the underlying beliefs of the enslaved communities about relationships that individual

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humans had with each other, with nature, and with the divine, emphasizing holistic, embodied spirituality. Midwives and grannies were older black women with limited ‘‘value’’ as laborers in white views, but were respected members of black communities. These women, sometimes under the ‘‘supervision’’ of white people, provided accident prevention, cures for illnesses, care during childbirth, or even child care in black communities. To the plantation owner, these women’s roles were important for the care of their slave ‘‘stock.’’ Yet, these women often stood in the breach between black communities’ needs and white communities’ beliefs about black people, practicing a form of healing through their protection of their communities. African Americans developed other sets of religious practices that blended their African belief systems. Hoodoo is sometimes called conjure and Hoodoo is not a religion but a set of practices that heals illnesses coming from supernatural (such as jinxes) or natural causes. Hoodoo practitioners might also be called conjurers or root workers. Hoodoo practices are part of an African holistic mind-set. The development of hoodoo can be traced to southern colonies or states that were primarily Protestant, where enslaved Africans were forbidden to practice their religions. Yet the Africans still found ways to express their value systems through those people in the community who knew how to ‘‘work’’ the natural elements to achieve some end. Stories about someone getting a charm to avoid an overseer’s abuse or even become invisible are easily found in histories from the antebellum period. These stories are often dismissed as ignorance or superstition, but they indicate holistic African-derived belief patterns that view the universe as connected. Unlike hoodoo, Voodoo is a religion, directly blending beliefs and practices from the Congo or West Africa with those of Christianity, specifically, Catholic Christianity. Healing of both supernatural and natural illnesses are significant components of these religious practices. In primarily Catholic colonies or states of Louisiana and Florida, Voodoo developed as African people found ways to retain their religious practices with views of the universe as interconnected and whole. Part of the retention pattern was based on areas, such as the Catholic colonies, where African drumming was still permitted, drumming being central to the practices of Voodoo. These practices became part of the local ‘‘color’’ of certain regions. African-derived beliefs also helped to shape black American religious understandings of Christianity as a force for and source of healing. The patterns of such beliefs about healing went beyond churches. Overall, holistic understandings of the person connected with community, nature, and God, were retained. In other words, these practices, whether within a given religion or not, ultimately retained an embodied spirituality wherein holistic healing of a person or community was of central importance.

Religion and Healing among African Americans Today Concepts that connect religion and healing, that express an embodied spirituality, continue to surface in black communities. These beliefs point to the continued existence

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of African-derived belief systems, even in remnant, hybridized form, into the present day. Ultimately, these ideas give distinctive shapes to contemporary views and practices about health and religion held by many black Americans. Plants, stones, or water continues to hold an important presence or energy among many African Americans. The notions of the interconnections between humans and nature represent beliefs in a holistic universe, wherein it is not just the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. In these interconnected webs of people, illness or health is believed to be caused by behavior so, for example, a mother-in-law’s meanness may cause ill health, affecting herself or the people around her. A woman may believe that she ‘‘hears’’ directions from God in the flow of a river. A family may exclaim that their newly born child is actually ‘‘Uncle Joe coming back.’’ In other words, the parts are interdependent: a mother-in-law’s meanness, the sound of water, or an ancestor reborn. In addition to these continued practices, words that reflect African-based cultural healing practices such as hoodoo, juju, and mojo remain part of contemporary language. Still, there are some who consciously practice hoodoo today. Hoodoo practices may have begun in the southern United States but certainly traveled with black Americans as they emigrated to the north. Hoodoo’s influences are found among African Americans across the country. So, practices that are sometimes called ‘‘superstition’’ in African American communities have their roots in hoodoo. Examples include refusing to put a purse on the floor (might lose money) or putting some form of ‘‘protection’’ such as a broom under a child’s bed to prevent nightmares. Candle shops with hoodoo goods might

Henderson Health, a spiritual supply shop on the outer edge of downtown Bessemer, Alabama. One of its husband wife owners explained her reasons for going into the business as an attempt to combat evil witchcraft. The shop sells a wide range of herbal curios along side saint candles, oils, colognes, and other supernatural goods. (Jeffrey Elton Anderson)

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be found in larger cities. Root workers can be found in many black communities. Often advertisements are found in many black urban newspapers, inviting customers to take advantage of the ‘‘fixes’’ that Madame J can provide. Voodoo is still known to be practiced in the United States, more prevalently in some areas than others, such as Louisiana and New York. One can find ‘‘voodoo’’ tourist attractions set up in New Orleans. But the situation is more complicated by the contemporary situation. African-derived religions had historically developed in other countries, such as Cuba (Santerı´a), Haiti (Voudou), Jamaica (Obeah), or Brazil (Candomble´). As international travel becomes more accessible, black Americans learn more of these religions, and practices blend, sometimes strengthening because of the interchanges. With the holistic understanding of the world, some African Americans draw on their own views of healing to care for their communities. Welfare mothers’ groups, environmental justice workers, neighborhood gardening programs, or victims’ restitution programs quietly take place in many black urban communities. The larger movements, particularly for Civil Rights in the twentieth century, have become searches for human rights in the twenty-first century. From African Americans’ epistemologies, these represent works of healing, aiming for a better world. But these healing concepts also influence the way that black people experience religion. As relationships between people and with nature are important to health, one’s relationship with the Divine Being, no matter the tradition, is personal and part of this holistic view of reality. From this cultural perspective, the Divine is a partner, foe, or friend in daily life. In other words, these religious experiences are personal and part of a relationship with One who is not distant but acts in a person’s life. Such Divine action includes dealing with wellness and healing. The continuity of life and the connections between past and present can become points of reflection for some black people that lead away from Western organized religions and into a search for African-derived religions or into humanism. At the base, African American well-being is a spiritual matter. The health care conditions in the United States continue to affect black Americans adversely. Yet, African Americans find ways to promote their own wellness from a spiritual base. Cultural views that value African American bodies are continued as they are taught in the home. Because the home ground stands as the first educational center, patterns of nurturing black children and family members often shape awareness of personal care and concepts of healing. Folk cures may be used to treat childhood illness. The importance of dressing and presenting oneself well become lifelong lessons. Proverbs and folk tales are used to encapsulate lessons of how to view and act in the world. ‘‘Everybody got to eat a little dirt before they die.’’ ‘‘Leave the world better than you found it.’’ ‘‘God don’t like ugly.’’ ‘‘Water can only rise to its own height.’’ There are religious meanings passed on in these early teachings, connecting healing with spirituality and defining health with a state of spiritual well-being. More than nurturing or healing practices, African American views of health use varieties of practices to balance and renew life, not simply remove symptoms. For instance, sickness may be considered more than the result of germs and include the results of damaged human relationships. Black community members may believe that a person who has

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committed much evil in life would have physical evidence of that accumulated wrongdoing, from disfiguring illness to a painful death. This idea of retribution focuses less on illness as a punishment from an angry God. Instead, an African American conception will focus on illness from many possible sources, including from personal wrongdoing, oppressive conditions, or toxic environments. In other words, the holistic, interconnected view of the universe is promoted. Whatever the source, illness in this view results from an imbalance in the universe and that imbalance takes a toll on the human person. Some religions will incorporate healing into their regular religious services with the words and actions of the service or the actions of the person gifted with healing, such as a pastor or an evangelist. Some religions incorporate health consciousness into the expected practices for all members. Adherents of Islam follow specific dietary regulations. For African Americans, these regulations might be very attractive as undesirable meats are forbidden; this preference involves black Americans who eat unhealthy foods, such as pork parts (chitterlings, souse, or head cheese) with a history intertwined with enslavement. The Shrine of the Black Madonna congregations (Detroit, Houston, Atlanta) have purchased land in South Carolina to farm their own food in environmentally sound and healthy ways. In many black Christian churches, nurses and church mothers work to assist the healing of their congregations’ membership. These are but a few examples of the many ways that African Americans link healing and religion in practice. There are other links between religion and healing. Drawing from African concepts of wholeness of the individual and the interconnections between people, community uplift and repair become the work of many churches and mosques. The idea from the early twentieth century, ‘‘Lifting as We Climb,’’ is still an active concept in some black communities as churches and centers work to heal the effects of continued poverty in the United States. While the oppression that African Americans experience is not acute as it was 100 years ago, it is still chronic and even dangerous. Drawing upon positive views of black bodies and African-derived healing concepts, African American individuals and communities still find ways to exert agency in the creation of their own lives. The connections between people and the continued influence of African-derived concepts lead many black people to operate from an embodied spirituality that incorporates healing. At its core, some individuals in their families, churches, and communities celebrate the sacredness of the human person. These individuals became the healers. They do not make the problems within black communities disappear; their desire for wholeness and holiness shine a light that provides new vision, emphasizing a deeper spirituality.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Mitchem, Stephanie. African American Folk Healing (New York: New York University Press, 2007). Mitchem, Stephanie, and Emilie Townes. Faith, Health, and Healing in African American Life (Santa Barbara: ABC CLIO/Praeger, 2008).

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Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities. ‘‘Black or African American Populations.’’ February 2007. http://www.cdc.gov/omhd/Populations/BAA/BAA.htm#Ten (accessed December 28, 2008). Townes, Emilie. Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006).

African American Religion and Politics James Lance Taylor The Politics of the Sacred: From Otherworldliness to Multidimensionality Prior to the emergence of Martin Luther King Jr. and individuals in the Black Power– Black Liberation Theology intellectual movement the dominant scholarly view of African American religion and churches was that of a force committed to ‘‘otherworldly,’’ ‘‘quietest,’’ ‘‘compensatory,’’ and ethereal contemplations with regard to political life. Sociologist E. Franklin Frazier famously argued in The Negro Church in America, the Negro Church has ‘‘cast an entire shadow over the entire intellectual life of the Negro,’’ and otherwise stunted the assimilation of American Blacks into the larger society and body politic (1964, 47). Three chapters of historian Carter G. Woodson’s book, The Miseducation of the Negro, focus on the Negro church’s role (and of a majority of its ministers) in accommodating the ‘‘miseducation’’ of its African American adherents. In his criticism of middle-class African Americans who ‘‘leave the masses of Negroes’’ when they achieve some status, with educated ministers chief among them, Woodson viewed the New Deal era Negro church of his day of Euro-American religious denominations despite conceding that it is ‘‘the only institution the race controls’’ (1933, 57). The Souls of Black Folk captures historian W. E. B. Du Bois’s lifelong intellectual interest in the subject of religion in the African American experience. Central to the cultural and religious gathering life of Southern antebellum Negro religionists in ‘‘Of the Faith of the Fathers,’’ for Du Bois, was ‘‘the preacher, the music, and the frenzy.’’ He added, ‘‘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 . . . ’’ (in Nelsen et al. 1971, 30). This interest in Black religion as social and institutional phenomena was a theme repeated in other publications, including The Philadelphia Negro (1898), which contributed significantly to The Souls of Black Folk written less than five years later. He and educator Booker T. Washington simultaneously denigrated and admired Negro religionists and their institutions. Washington’s critical view of African American religiosity is captured in 517

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‘‘The Religious Life of the Negro’’ where he derisively suggests, for instance, that early Blacks in the land ‘‘came to America with the pagan ideal of his African ancestors,’’ and with what he called ‘‘the fragments of a system of thought and custom, which, in its general features, is common to the most barbarous people’’ (in Nelsen et al. 1971, 40). Washington’s personality, accommodationist social thought, and ‘‘Tuskegee Machine’’ dominated southern African American life through much of the twentieth century, including the churches; leading historian John Hope Franklin referred to the era ‘‘as the Age of Booker T. Washington’’ (40). In the Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois’s well-known chapter ‘‘Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others’’ takes note of early insurrectionary ‘‘Christian’’ radicalism represented by the likes of Gabriel Prosser, David Walker, Denmark Vesey, Peter Poyas, Maria Stewart of Boston, and Nat Turner as one of two traditions of Black ‘‘self-development.’’ The other tradition was the ‘‘new and curious attempt’’ by the likes of Richard Allen and Absalom Jones of Philadelphia to withdraw ‘‘from white churches and the formation of a peculiar socio-religious institution among Negroes known as the African church’’ (Du Bois 1969, 34). Du Bois’s criticisms of the Negro Church were especially aimed at those churches and elites that were wedded to Tuskegee’s accommodationist philosophy of political gradualism. He chronicled the social functions of several generations of the African American religious encounter in the United States during the period between post-Reconstruction and the pre–Civil Rights Movement era (Wilmore 2003). For Du Bois, this was a move away from the radical Christian narratives toward an ‘‘otherworldly’’ view of the agency of the Christian churches in speaking prophetically against the uneven, status quo social relations that devastated the lives of African Americans. After the 1822 Denmark Vesey plot, for instance, Charleston, South Carolina, authorities determined the largely autonomous African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church (also the African Church), pastored by Morris Brown, to be the primary source of the organizing and planning among several thousand individuals poised to strike against the Southern slavocracy (Hinks 1997, 25–30). This period was followed by a two-stage historical process leading to the ‘‘deradicalization of the Black church’’ and the ‘‘dechristianization of Black radicalism’’ (Wilmore 2003). The sociologists who studied the institutional life of pre–World War II Americans in Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma (1944) concluded, ‘‘the Negro church is a community center par excellence . . . the Negro church is such a good community center that it might almost be said that anyone who does not belong to a church in the rural South does not belong to the community’’ (Nelsen et al. 1971, 85). Still, Myrdal pointed to the ‘‘emotionalism’’ of southern rural Negro and of the northern storefronts, to their airs of moral laxity among congregants and ministers, who, holding a ‘‘closer relation to politics than has the white clergyman,’’ nevertheless remained committed to ‘‘otherworldly’’ concerns (Nelsen et al. 1971, 86–88). During this, the inter-War period, the dominance of the Negro church was challenged by a general air of cosmopolitan, agnosticism, and non- and anti-Christian urban organizations, including the Nation of Islam, which ironically railed its most damning criticism of Christianity, broadly, as ‘‘the white man’s religion,’’ at the very moment when Christian leaders from Benjamin E. Mays and Howard Thurman to Martin Luther King Sr. and

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later Martin Luther King Jr. themselves were engaged in often radical criticism of racial Christianity. It also aligned the mid-century southern Negro churches with the integrationist social and political philosophy that sponsored the modern Civil Rights Movement. This total process (‘‘deradicalization’’ and ‘‘dechristianization’’) does not occur without the sincere efforts of Christian intellectuals who provide Martin Luther King Jr. an intellectual and faith base in the Black church from which to operate. Between the World Wars Black church membership in general increased from 5.2 million to 5.7 million; among Black Baptists, membership increased by more than 600,000 to nearly 3.8 million in the cities by 1936. Despite noteworthy examples of the Baptists, and individual ministers and congregations, there still appeared to be a general ‘‘falling away’’ from traditional protestant Christianity among African Americans. New Deal liberalism, like Booker T. Washington’s accommodationism of the earlier period, powerfully shaped the thinking and activities of Southern and Northern churches and leaders among African Americans. The most critical assessments of the ‘‘compensatory’’ quality of African American churches among African American scholars and intellectuals occurred during this period. Nearly two decades Du Bois’s junior, Socialist turned free-thought humanist Hubert H. Harrison further exemplifies the critical examination to which the Negro churches and ministers were subjected by intellectuals and ordinary people prior to (and still after) World War II for, among other reasons, its apoliticism. ‘‘Having distanced himself from organized Christianity at 18 years old in Harlem, New York, Harrison embraced non-atheistic agnostic influences on his thought for the remaining twenty-six years of his life’’ (Perry 2001, 40–42). Harrison’s criticisms of African American religion emerge less from a clear theological turning point with a traditional Black church experience and more from a commitment to outlining several interrelated phenomena. Chief among them is its failure to live up to its radical potentials, due to its inherent ‘‘conservatism,’’ arguing, for instance, ‘‘it is a striking fact that the racial attitude has been dominantly conservative. Radicalism does not yet register to any noticeable extent the contributions of our race in this country. In theological criticism, religious dissent, social and political heresies . . . the Negro in America has taken no part’’ (Perry 43, 48). Closely related is the extralegal specter of racial lynchings of nearly 5,000 African Americans between the Civil War and late 1960s, which Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson interprets in religious terms (Patterson 1998, 173). Historian Rayford Logan estimated that during the ‘‘nadir of the Negro in America’’ (roughly 1870s–1920s), 1,554 African Americans were lynched, where the total number of lynchings declined among whites exponentially (Logan 1954, 76). The legend of this vigilantism was often attributed to the ‘‘new Negro crime’’ of rape of white women, when, in fact, Ida B. Wells’s and subsequent research demonstrated that nearly 40 percent of the victims were accused of homicide; the accusation of rape, the third most common justification behind ‘‘other reasons,’’ occurred in 19.3 percent of the cases (Patterson 1998, 175–176, 179). The hideous lynching of Mary Turner of Valdosta, Georgia, demonstrated that women, even when eight months pregnant as was she, were subject to the noose (Perry 2001, 257; Patterson 1998, 179–180). The religious tenor of the lynchings led Patterson to conclude, ‘‘these rituals . . . were sacrificial murders, possessing

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all the ritual, communal, and, in many cases, religious characteristics of classic human sacrifice’’ (Patterson 1998, 173). The works of Claude McKay (‘‘The Lynching,’’ 1922), Countee Cullen (‘‘The Black Christ,’’ 1929), and Langston Hughes (‘‘Goodbye Christ,’’ 1931) variously tap the general sense of disillusionment many migrant African Americans felt concerning the evil of Christianity in white supremacist hands. If racism and lynching were major ‘‘push’’ factors contributing to the northern movement of some 1.5 million Black Americans out of the South, economic opportunities were a ‘‘pull’’ impetus contributing to their migration patterns. St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton’s important study of southern Black migrants to the Bronzeville section of Chicago one decade later offered critical insight concerning the dominant institutional role of its nearly 500 churches, which claimed more than 200,000 members (1945, 412). Even after Black people experienced the emergence of competing secular institutions and leaders from the professions, the ‘‘Negro church was the most influential institution on the Chicago community . . . the church remained the most powerful single institution in terms of wealth and mass support’’; it accomplished this by operating as an essentially ‘‘ ‘race institution’ rather than as a purely ‘religious’ institution’’ (Drake and Cayton 1945, 398). But being a ‘‘race institution’’ is not analogous to being a militant one. A large segment of Black Chicagoans

Storefront Baptist Church during services on Easter morning in Chicago, 1941. (Library of Congress)

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(45.1 percent) was affiliated with the major Baptist denominations, which, even with the emergence of Martin Luther King Jr. in the next decade, opposed ‘‘race activism’’ among their congregations, pastors, and adherents. They had also become focused more on property management and paying off the mortgages left to them by their white counterparts than race advancement or social justice (Drake and Cayton 1945, 415). Moreover, 75 percent of them were small ‘‘storefront’’ or house to house churches with an average of less than 25 people in each (1945, 612). The maintenance concerns of African American clerics negatively affected how the Negro church was perceived (1945, 419). Moreover, the churches were also stratified along lines of social class, which often trumped the solidarity that a given racial milieu provides among American Black people. Lower status religion and churches were dominated by male, ‘‘jack leg’’ itinerant ministers, ministering mostly to female-dominated memberships replete with ‘‘shouting’’ styles of worship. Various urban cult organizations ranging from Father Divine’s Peace Mission church to Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish Science Temple to Farad and Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam also competed for the poorer and working classes of African Americans in the pre–and post–World War II period (Drake and Cayton 1945, 642). Middle class religion and church institutions tended to appeal to a combination of lower and middle class adherents led by more educated pastors who tended to be ‘‘theologically conservative’’ (Drake and Cayton 1945, 679). Mainly within the separatist and separate sphere of the National Baptist Convention, USA, which contained more than 60 percent of all Black church members in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, African American women and men experienced the Black church as a center of civic purpose (Higginbotham 1993, 6). Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham’s treatment of the Women’s Convention movement among Black Baptists over the four decades prior to the Great Depression highlights the particular ways in which, despite a tendency to focus on male ministers, ‘‘African Americans, looking now to themselves to educate the masses of their people, care for the needy, facilitate economic development, and address political concerns, tapped their greatest strength from the tradition of their churches. From the early days of slavery, the black church had constituted the backbone of the black community . . . ’’ (Higginbotham 1993, 5). E. Franklin Frazier concurs that during Jim Crow, ‘‘The Negro church was not only an arena of political life for the leaders of Negroes, but it had political meaning for the masses.’’ Indeed, the church constituted a ‘‘nation within a nation.’’ Religion in African American Christian churches, nevertheless, ‘‘continued to be other-worldly in its outlook, dismissing the privations and sufferings and injustices of this world as temporary and transient’’ (Frazier 1964, 49, 51). Frazier’s perspective has been challenged by more recent scholarship especially as Martin Luther King Jr. and the NAACP-allied churches mobilized in the Civil Rights Movement and sponsored integration among Black people. Indeed, it was among the burgeoning Black bourgeoisie that the boundaries of Blacks’ social isolation exposed a panting after integration into the White world. Devoid of any critical rootedness of their own, they were generally put off by the folk ways of lower status Blacks and were suspended between both worlds. The ‘‘otherworldly’’ reputation of the pre–Civil Rights Movement churches is a feature that misreads how ‘‘the political’’ is conceptualized. If, by ‘‘political,’’ one means

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to convey a sense of conventional, transformative systems challenging engagement, then the African American church tended toward ‘‘apolitical’’ concerns. If, on the other hand, political activity is gauged by the preparatory, educative, social, and antiracist activities of ordinary folk, then the African American church epitomized Black politics. Critical analyses of the church’s political orientation tend to dismiss the extent to which the Southern Black Codes during ‘‘the Redemption era’’ and later Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) provided legal and customary bases for incipient otherworldly orientations of Black religion throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In other words, ‘‘other-worldliness’’ was required by the laws of this world.

African American Religion and Black Political Ideologies Religion sourced the major ideological orientations of African Americans, from versions of nationalism to the Christian liberal integrationism of the Civil Rights Movement; versions of Christian socialism have played a more marginal role in Black political development. For African American thinker Harold Cruse who totally ignores religion and religious intellectuals—with the exception of a brief mention of Martin Luther King Jr.—in his tome Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, Black politics was derived of the pendular shift between these ideological orientations. Clarence Taylor found three ideological orientations among African American religionists in the Cold War–era North where African Americans were under the gaze of Jim Crow and McCarthyism. His work highlights the thoughts and policy orientations of Black Christian liberals, who represent the majority orientation of Black churches, which extended from earlier New Deal–era liberalism, Black Christian Radicals, who employed versions of Marxism in their antiracist and anticapitalist politics, and, less persuasively, Black Pentecostals who ‘‘put forth their fundamentalist vision’’ and debated from the standpoint of biblical literalism (Taylor 47). Patricia Hill Collins clarifies that because Black nationalism was ‘‘honed at the intersection of political ideology and religion, Black nationalism may have a similar utility for African Americans. Historically, Black nationalism’s flexibility has allowed African Americans to reshape it in response to the specific political challenges raised by slavery, Jim Crow segregation, industrialization, and urbanization’’ (Collins 2006, 76). Collins explains further that ‘‘one reason that religious expressions of Black nationalism have garnered support is that African Americans have long used religion and faith-based sources of resistance to racism.’’ This explains how C. Eric Lincoln, for example, can insist that ‘‘for the black masses, black religion and black nationalism are often one and the same, in effect . . . . As a result, black nationalism sometimes assumes the character of religion . . . ’’ (Lincoln 1999, 92). It is probably appropriate to suggest the same about other major political orientations, especially liberal integrationism; however, Black nationalism has tended to be less amenable to secular (or atheistic) political organization. Slavery and other legal forms of Black oppression in the United States were precipitous in forging the collective sense of destiny among African Americans, which was facilitated by their religious heritages.

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The perennial instrument of the jeremiad political sermon—named after Jeremiah the biblical prophet—episodically haunted American race relations, from the precedent of Walker’s Appeal to Malcolm X’s ‘‘jihad of words’’ (Turner 1997) and in Black Power. If ‘‘pie in the sky’’ was the preponderant political orientation of African American religion prior to the Civil Rights Movement, then the Black jeremiad’s ‘‘speak truth to power’’ orientation was a persistent exception to it. Sacvan Bercovitch describes the American jeremiad as a ritual designed to join social criticism to spiritual renewal, public to private identity, the shifting ‘sign of the times’ to certain traditional metaphors, themes, and symbols’’ (Bercovitch 1978, xi). Among American Blacks, Wilson J. Moses identifies the jeremiad with the nineteenth-century insurrectionists such as Gabriel Prosser (1800), Denmark Vesey (1822), and Nat Turner (1831) as well as David Walker (with his 1829 Appeal), Robert Alexander Young (with his 1829 Ethiopian Manifesto), and Maria Stewart of Boston. Together the Black jeremiad was ‘‘a constant warning issued by blacks to whites, concerning the judgment that was to come from the sin of slavery’’ and later forms of oppression that could lead to certain national destruction, unless the nation repents (Moses 1996, 16–17; Moses 1982, 30–31). David Howard-Pitney (1990) identifies the ‘‘Afro-American’’ jeremiad in the political careers of individuals including Frederick Douglass (epitomized in his 1858 Fourth of July speech), Ida B. Wells, Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jesse Jackson. Whether of European, New England, or Afro-American genesis (and regardless of the self-identified ideologies of those who occasionally participated in it), the jeremiad comingled broken covenants, condemnation, and restoration to the penitent nation. Or damnation comes to the nation. King’s withering criticisms of Vietnam—1967–1968—signaled a fundamental ideological shift in his thinking and preachments and epitomized the Black jeremiad; in tenor, Black Power of the 1960s echoed Walker’s Appeal of the early nineteenth century. For more than two centuries class-driven conflicts have existed in the United States, yet a sustainable class consciousness among African Americans has been undermined, among other influences, by a perennial race consciousness and by reinforcing cultural variables—such as language, religion, ethnicity, and race—that the Socialists have historically disregarded. This issue troubled important Black Socialist preachers such as Rev. George Washington Woodbey in the early twentieth century ‘‘who felt the Bible . . . could be used effectively to imbue religion with radicalism and convince the black working class of the evils of the capitalist system and the virtues of socialism’’ (Foner 1983, 3; Craig 1992, 116–120). Most significantly, his ‘‘Why the Socialists Must Reach the Churches with Their Message’’ maintained that ‘‘the Socialists cannot win without reaching the millions of working people who belong to the various churches of the country’’ (Foner 1983, 30). In Black Socialist Preacher, Woodbey urged leaders of the early twentieth-century American Socialist party to reverse the perception that ‘‘too many socialists antagonized church members by linking antireligion with socialism’’ (170). Woodbey vehemently rejected the teaching of other Socialists that Christianity and Socialism were irreconcilable and insisted that ‘‘the only way to successfully reach the church people is to show the church member that the economic teachings of the Bible and of Socialism are the same, and that for that reason he must

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accept Socialism in order to stand consistently by the teaching of his own religion’’ (1983, 261; Foner 1983). Taylor maintains that a small cohort of ‘‘Black Christian Radicals’’ in Brooklyn ‘‘identified with the grassroots and participated in militant action.’’ They did so even during the ‘‘red-baiting’’ of McCarthyism, which undermined black left individuals who embraced forms of Socialism and Communism mixed with radical interpretations of Jesus of Nazareth. ‘‘Afro-Christian liberals,’’ on the other hand, embraced a ‘‘right of center’’ orientation in ideology and politics. Chief among this group was the legendary Gardner C. Taylor of Concord Baptist Church. Weighing the strengths and weaknesses of what he calls the ‘‘opiate theory’’ (i.e., otherworldliness) and ‘‘inspirational theory’’ (i.e., engagement in concrete politics), political scientist Frederick C. Harris has provided a ‘‘multidimensionality’’ perspective that he views as ‘‘the diversity of religion as belief and expression and the potential variety of ways different religious forms might affect political participation,’’ among African Americans (Harris 1999, 4, 7). African American religion provides ‘‘resources and oppositional dispositions’’ (40). He adds, ‘‘many of the cultural resources through which blacks shape oppositional worldviews evolve from their religions,’’ and preponderantly, they have been more nationalist (Christian, ‘‘cultic,’’ and Islamic) than integrationist. African American religion is understood to be a primary cultural resource for political mobilization, protest-demand activism, and voting, for facilitating conventional and unconventional approaches to politics. While individual religiosity facilitated both political orientations, respondents were more inclined to support conventional approaches than the more high-risk protest approaches. African American religion facilitates both macro- and microlevel political resources; in the former, networks of communication, leadership, funding, and meeting spaces are activated in the interest of aggrieved groups, while in the latter, emotive, spiritual, and psychological resources interact to forge an actionable sense of political efficacy. The ‘‘multidimensionality’’ of his study is narrowly understood in Christian terms, where a more complete reading of the political influence of African American religion would warrant accounting for the diversity of traditions and belief systems among African Americans: Islamic, nontheistic, Catholic, Buddhist, Yoruba, and so forth. The study underestimated the extent to which the very act of being a non-Christian believer or agnostic among ordinary African Americans, especially in the South—is a political act in its own right; joining the Nation of Islam, for instance, was a political action against Black Christianity and for separatism from White-ruled society. Joining the Nation of Islam and changing one’s name to ‘‘X’’ or ‘‘Muhammad’’ caused great division in the Christian families of the 1950s and 1960s. Betty Sandlin (Shabazz), later known in Detroit as Betty Dean until she married Nation of Islam Minister Malcolm X, is a well-known case.

The Black Church in a Black Power Milieu The unprecedented emergence of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)-affiliated church organizations has led some to read the narrative of twentieth-century southern church activism as consisting of a

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trajectory ‘‘Before-King-and-After-King’’ (Lincoln 1974a, 114–122). Yet King himself found mobilizing southern Black churches into direct action a daunting task in the 1950s. Having been influenced by the thoughts and writings of towering religious intellectuals in the Black church, such as Benjamin Mays, Mordecai Johnson, Howard Thurman, and Martin Luther King Sr., King rejected the characteristic otherworldliness of the pre–Civil Rights era churches and ministers. Yet as much as a majority of African Americans—in and outside of the South—did not participate in the Civil Rights Movement, it is equally true of their churches. The reluctance of African American church leaders to engage in political activism during the era was one effect of the white supremacist violence that targeted them. By directing vigilante violence toward scores of churches—most famously the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in the fall of 1963—white supremacists both signaled how they viewed the churches as political symbols deserving terroristic violence and further politicized the institution that began to harbor ‘‘a mood to hear, if not yet follow, the urgings of a new leadership militantly committed to a new and sometimes disturbing expectations of itself, the Black Church, God, and society’’ (Lincoln 1974a, 109). Although a paradigmatic figure, Martin Luther King Jr. did not reformulate the ‘‘theology’’ of Christian churches as much as he ‘‘made the contemporary Black Church aware of its power to effect change’’ (114). With the church’s ‘‘awakening’’ with the many campaigns waged by SCLC—including the 1963 March on Washington—Joseph R. Washington still insisted that the churches needed to become instruments for social change if they were to remain relevant in the rapidly changing political milieu of the later 1960s (Nelsen et al. 1971, 301). For many, Black Power and the attendant uprisings, which preceded and followed, expedited the demise rather than confirmed the political significance of the Black church. The shortsightedness of this perspective is that it ignores the religious heritage of Black Power in sevMartin Luther King Jr. led the African eral critical ways. Black Power cannot American struggle to achieve the full rights be interpreted unproblematically as an of U.S. citizenship and eloquently voiced ‘‘irreligious’’ advent. Stokely Carmichael the hopes and grievances of African and Charles V. Hamilton are clear in Americans before he was assassinated in Black Power on the role of the churches 1968. His powerful speeches and message in Lowndes County during Student Nonof nonviolence have continued to inspire violent Coordinating Committee’s people of all races and generations. (SNCC) construction of the Lowndes (Library of Congress) County Freedom Organization (LCFO)

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to be a parallel Alabama party organization that would challenge the segregationist delegation of the Democratic Party. Having been disappointed by the national Democrats in Atlantic City in 1964, with its perfidy of Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), SNCC organizers dropped the word ‘‘Democratic’’ in its Alabama campaign in 1965 and 1966 and adopted the Black Panther as its symbol. Black Power had many more religious influences than secular ones, at least at its genesis. Religiosity was the major feature of its paradigmatic personalities, those who inspired Black Power: Richard Wright, Adam Clayton Powell, Ella Baker, Robert F. Williams’s The Crusader newspaper, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. King is relevant especially because he and Malcolm X were contemporaries who contested before the young activists over the best social strategy (integration and nationalism); offered alternative but similar philosophies of strategic violence (for King white violence was indispensable to his boycott and direct action approaches and for Malcolm X, the rhetoric of self-defense); and represented important religious orientations (Christianity and Islam). Ella Baker, for example, who could plausibly be considered ‘‘the mother of Black Power,’’ developed her radical egalitarian perspective while engaging in Harlem’s left critical intellectual and organizing circles in the 1930s and 1940s. As well, she worked closely with Rev. Fred L. Shuttleworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) in Birmingham, Alabama, and the United Christian Movement Inc. in Shreveport, Louisiana, in the decade leading to Black Power. Religion and the churches were integral to the early formation of the SNCC until about 1962 when ‘‘explicit references to religion gradually gave way to a more secular and militant rhetoric and nonviolence was increasingly viewed as a necessary tactic rather than a sacred philosophy’’ (Ransby 2003, 258, 279). Baker rejected unrequited nonviolence, embraced ‘‘radical humanism,’’ and advocated for local, democratic autonomy from male, ministerial elites, which she sought for students while still technically in SCLC—before King replaced her with the Rev. Wyatt T. Walker as executive director. Baker’s principled opposition to the dominance of bourgeois male leaders in SCLC and other civil fights organizations is the subtext to the fighting tone of Black Power. Through her counsel to the SNCC activists, Black Power was as much a declaration of independence from King’s leadership—at least in terms of his allegiance to Christian integrationism—as it was an affirmation of the militant self-determination that Malcolm X and Ella Baker embraced (2003, 279). After the Meredith ‘‘walk against fear’’ and the media-driven tumult over the slogan, King seemed to sense the implications of Black Power to his own dominant role in the movement and the ways in which Black Power democratized the leadership privileges he enjoyed arguing, ‘‘the government has got to give me some victories if I’m going to keep people nonviolent’’ (Marqusee 1999, 181). Harlem Congressman and Abyssinia Baptist Church pastor (1937–1970) Adam Clayton Powell Jr. ‘‘represented the militant and pragmatic side of New York City’s black freedom movement’’ (Joseph 2006, 13), which included the remnant of Garveyites (those who followed Marcus Garvey) and other religious and cultural nationalists, but is hardly treated as a major religious figure in studies of Black religion and politics.

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The focus instead tends to be on Carmichael rather than the contested religious discourse between Black Christians’ perspectives represented by the likes of King and Albert Cleage Jr. on one hand and, on the other, Nation of Islam ministers led by Elijah Muhammad and represented by Malcolm X that created space for Black Power. Added to the web of major religious influences on Black Power should be NAACP President Robert F. Williams and the residents of Monroe, North Carolina, who gained national attention in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a result of their decision to respond with self-defense to terrorist violence of the Ku Klux Klan and individual white people (Tyson 1999, 194). Propaganda in The Crusader newspaper included religious events and criticisms from Williams, his wife, Mabel, and activist Azalea Johnson among others. Where Williams did not ensconce his activism in religious terms, through Johnson, Williams’s struggles were couched in ‘‘a distinctive AfroChristian theology of liberation’’ (Tyson 1999, 200). Timothy Tyson notes, ‘‘if concerns and emphases that in the mid-1960s would be considered aspects of the Black Power movement were already reflected in The Crusader in the late 1950s and 1960s, one of the main sources was Azalea Johnson . . . [who] was producing increasingly confident and graceful essays whose central theme was a fiery Christian vision of racial and social justice’’ (Tyson 1999, 199). If the foregoing overstates the religious dimensions of Black Power, much of the literature understates them. Ransby summarizes by arguing, ‘‘the young activists of the 1960s did not invent either the radical antiracist ideas they espoused or the confrontational tactics they embraced; rather, they inherited and reconfigured them’’ (216). Equally important to the contextual and personality influences on Black Power was the Black Church’s and its intellectuals’ interpretation and response to the slogan and its tenor. Albert Cleage’s version of Black Christian nationalism was the first contemporary attempt by Christian Black nationalists to ‘‘recapture’’ the nationalist mantle from Muslim Black nationalists since the ‘‘dechristianization of Black radicalism.’’ With the exception of Marcus Garvey, who more or less syncretized Christian and Islamic beliefs, the great prophets of Black Christian nationalism were mostly nonChristian Black nationalists such as Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and H. Rap Brown of the Black Panther Party (BPP). The publication of Cleage’s Black Messiah (1968) and Black Christian Nationalism (1972) outlined the major tenets of his perspective. He named his Detroit church the ‘‘Shrine of the Black Madonna’’ and worked closely with Malcolm X and the members of the National Committee of Black Churchmen (NCBC) (formerly National Committee of Negro Churchmen), which began to promote a ‘‘Black theology of liberation’’ during the Black Power era. For James Cone, a key component to the construction of ‘‘Black theology’’ relates to ‘‘the story of black people’s struggle for liberation in an extreme situation of oppression. Consequently there is no sharp distinction between thought and practice, worship and theology, because black theological reflections about God occurred in the struggle of freedom’’ (Cone 1997, 49). The black theologian must reject any conception of God that stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples. He asserts, ‘‘either God is identified with the oppressed to the point that their experience becomes God’s experience, or God is a God of racism’’ (Cone 1969, 68). William R. Jones’s assessment of Black Liberation Theology raised

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an impassible question in his book, Is God a White Racist? Jones was concerned less with the matter of whiteness or blackness or maleness and more about divine justice, divine racism in the trajectory of African American social and political experience in the United States, from ‘‘Middle Passage,’’ and the slave plantation ‘‘invisible institution’’ to the modern ghetto. Anthony Pinn’s Why Lord? (1995) pushes further the implications of Jones’s thesis, arguing that, like King and Black Theology advocates in general, it ultimately implicates a ‘‘redemptive suffering’’ ethic that evades the critical theological problem of ‘‘divine misconduct.’’ Attempts to place the onus on white supremacist human activity sanitizes God’s potential dislike of Black people, as their contact with the Western world suggests forensically.

The Politics of African American Religion after Martin Luther King Jr. As a cultural and sociopolitical formation, Black religiosity extends the entire African American experience, and its durability is closely linked to the communal, cultural, and existential functions evident in their social and political movement strivings. This achievement gave way in the post–Civil Rights construction of the ‘‘new Black politics’’ thesis. Crystallizing in the 1980s vis-a`-vis the widespread voter registration drives that resulted from the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), the emergence of new (electoral) leadership modalities and institutional structures such as the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) led some scholars to either distance Black religiosity from developments in post–Civil Rights Black politics or express consternation concerning its ongoing influence. The church and its class of preachers, teachers, administrators, and artists became collateral or ‘‘irrelevant’’ as a result of their own accomplishment of disrupting the racial status quo and due to the resulting diversification of the leadership structures and professions among African Americans. The interaction between Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan (and their detractors, supporters, and allies) in the 1980s and 1990s decades demonstrated the continued significance of Black religion and individual-level religiosity as a resource for mass political mobilization in politics. The stunning events that centered Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ of Chicago in the 2008 presidential contest is parcel to the same phenomenon wherein religious or ‘‘organic’’ elites compete with elected leaders for the hearts, loyalties, and minds of ordinary Black people. Developments in post–Civil Rights era Black politics, from Black Power to the ‘‘resurgence’’ of interest in Malcolm X among hip-hop age cohorts to the Million Man March’s appeal among the same, and recent scholarly assessment of a more ‘‘radical’’ Martin Luther King Jr. between 1965 and 1968, make clear the integral religious structure of contemporary Black religious discourse. Scholars continue to explore the nature and functions of religion in post–Civil Rights era Black politics. Kenneth Wald and Alison Calhoun-Brown (2007) points to the recent influence of African American clerics and churches aligned with the Republican administration of George W. Bush on a set of moral issues and its ‘‘faith-based’’ initiatives. But she is skeptical that African American reticence toward, say, gay marriage, is likely precipitous to African Americans

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aligning or mobilizing in their religiously inspired social conservatism into a political form of conservatism as has occurred among White Christian evangelicals. Thus the church’s tendency to mobilize around electoral politics since the 1965 VRA has contributed to its ‘‘loss of hegemony’’ in social and political affairs because of the contested limitations of electoral politics in remedying the anomic conditions confronting poorer African Americans. For her, ‘‘tensions between religious and political imperatives, the decentralized nature of black religion, and a lack of policy consensus on key issues all contribute to the difficulties of making black churches more politically responsive to the real life social urgencies that affect people in the post-civil rights era’’ (Wald and Calhoun-Brown 2007, 293). Pinn’s (2002) study of post–Civil Rights era religion and churches finds mixed outcomes related to their status in contemporary Black life. The improvement of some African Americans’ material realities has produced a kind of secularization among the very well-to-do and equally among those discouraged by the really lived situations of poorer Black people that the church-inspired Civil Rights Movement was unable to remedy economically. This pattern is described as one of ‘‘growth and decline’’ with the latter, in the face of the atomic effects of ‘‘crack’’ and its attendant violence in the nation’s urban sector, being preponderant. Where secularization is recognized as a disentangling process in which individual and aggregate level expressions of belief and religious practice diminish in importance in society, especially in modern Europe, African Americans have been the least inclined of American social groups to embrace secularity in their politics. Nevertheless, that African Americans make up the largest segment of Muslims in post-9/11 America is simultaneously a challenge to their traditional allegiance to Protestant Christianity and to the nation’s racial and religious tolerance. For Drew Smith (2008), there is evidence of strong ‘‘oppositional tendencies’’ among African American Protestants; however, they have suffered from an inability to garner attention and visibility in national media. It very well may be that the Black church, which gained and expended tremendous social and political capital in the Civil Rights Movement in unprecedented fashion, has resorted to a world akin to the earlier stage of ‘‘deradicalization,’’ where the politics of high profile ministers and the consumerist, commodity-oriented, wealth-prosperity ideals of other prominent clerics reign.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bercovitch, Sacvan. The American Jeremiad (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1978). Cleage, Albert, Jr. The Black Messiah (New York: Sheed and Ward, Inc., 1968). Cleage, Albert, Jr. Black Christian Nationalism: New Directions for the Black Church (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1972). Collins, Patricia Hill. From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006). Cone, James. Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1969). Cone, James. God of the Oppressed (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997). Craig, Robert. Religion and Radical Politics: An Alternative Christian Tradition in the United States (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).

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Cruse, Harold. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (New York: Quill, 1967). Curtis, Edward. Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960 1975. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Drake, St. Clair, and Horace R. Cayton. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, vol. 2 (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1945). Du Bois, William Edward Burghart. The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Penguin Books, 1969 [1903]). Foner, Philip S., ed. Black Socialist Preacher: The Teachings of Reverend George Washington Woodbey and His Disciple, Reverend G. W. Slater, Jr. (Nashville: Synthesis Publications, 1983). Frazier, E. Franklin. The Negro Church in America (New York: Shocken Books, 1964). Harris, Frederick. Something Within: Religion in African American Political Activism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880 1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). Hinks, Peter. To Awaken My Sleeping Brethren: David Walker and the Problem of Antebellum Slave Resistance (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). Howard Pittney, David. The Afro American Jeremiad: Appeals for Justice in America (Phila delphia: Temple University Press, 1990). Jones, William R. Is God a White Racist? A Preamble to Black Theology (Boston: Beacon, 1998 [1973]). Joseph, Peniel E. Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt & Company, Inc., 2006). Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Church Since Frazier (New York: Shocken Books, 1974a). Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Experience in Religion (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Press, 1974b). Lincoln, C. Eric. Race, Religion, and the Continuing American Dilemma, Rev. Sub. Ed. (New York: Hill & Wang, 1999). Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Expe rience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990). Logan, Rayford W. The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson (New York: De Capo Press, 1997 [1954]). Marqusee, Mike. Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties (London: Verso, 1999). Moses, Wilson J. Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary Manipulations of a Religious Myth (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982). Moses, Wilson J. Black Nationalism from the American Revolution to Marcus Garvey (New York: New York University Press, 1996). Myrdal, Gunnar. American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New Brusnwick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996 [1944]). Nelsen, Hart M., Raytha L. Yokley, and Anne K. Nelsen, eds. The Black Church in America (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1971). Patterson, Orlando. Rituals of Blood: Consequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1998). Perry, Jeffrey B., ed. A Hubert Harrison Reader (Middletown, CT: Wesleyian University Press, 2001).

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Pinn, Anthony. Why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1995). Pinn, Anthony. The Black Church in the Post Civil Rights Era (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002). Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003). Smith, R. Drew. ‘‘Black Denominational Responses to U.S. Middle East Policy Since 9/11.’’ The Review of International Affairs 6, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 5 16. Taylor, Clarence. Black Religious Intellectuals: The Fight for Equality from Jim Crow to the 21st Century (New York: Routledge, 2002). Turner, Richard Brent. Islam in the African American Experience (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997). Tyson, Timothy. Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999). Wald, Kenneth D., and Allison Calhoun Brown. Religion and Politics in the United States, 5th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007). Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of African Americans, 3rd ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003). Woodson, Carter G. The Miseducation of the Negro (New York: Classic House Books, 2008 [1933]).

African American Religion and Popular Culture Josef Sorett Introduction During the 1960s it was common to hear claims of ample evidence marking a decline in religion in both American public life and the private worlds of the nation’s citizenry. Secularism was perceived to have dug firm roots in a democratic society whose identity was predicated upon a legal philosophy, if not the practice, of separation of church and state. Now settling into the new millennium, one would be hard pressed to find even a small portion of U.S. citizens who subscribe to this perspective. With the rise of the religious right, via the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, the Bush II presidency, the Barack Obama/Jeremiah Wright controversy of 2008, and the arguably related emergence of the megachurch as the dominant idiom (and media image) of American spirituality, religion is again one of the most popular public fixtures in the cultural landscape of the United States. Clearly, religious life within black communities in the United States has by no means been immune to these broader developments. However, even while grand theories of secularization were in vogue, and some proclaimed, ‘‘God is dead!’’ black communities were often separated out as the spiritually saturated exception to the rule of a perceived rising American irreligiosity. Whether one reads this account as a narrative of cultural decline, confirming law professor Lani Guinier’s claim that African American communities are the canaries in the coal mine of the nation’s spiritual crisis (Guinier and Torres 2003); or, if one is more of the opinion that the vibrant religiosity displayed in black life helps to define this nation as still spiritually robust, there is no denying that popular culture—in black and white—continues to be rife with ‘‘religion.’’ Moreover, as much as any period in history, black religion is as ‘‘popular’’ as any other idiom in American cultural life. Too many such claims of spiritual vitality are self-evident; and ample evidence to this fact can be found any time one turns on the television—that most central conduit of things popular. Be it on Black Entertainment Television (BET), Cable Network News (CNN), or the Word Network, stories about African American religion, as well as sermons and songs proclaimed by African American ministers and musicians, are

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indeed ubiquitous to the full spectrum of media outlets, sacred and secular. In order to substantiate this claim, this article attempts to accomplish three related tasks. First, for clarity’s sake, it attends the question of definitions: What is meant by the terms ‘‘black,’’ ‘‘religion,’’ and ‘‘popular culture’’? Second, after accounting for the important definitional concerns that will delimit this essay’s arguments, it will outline three ways for thinking about the intersections of black religion and popular culture. Third, and finally, working within these three ways, a historical narrative will be constructed to offer the reader an array of examples of black religion and popular culture in three waves. To this end, this essay is organized into two parts: (1) the Definitional, and (2) the Theoretical (within which the ways and waves will be enumerated).

Delineating Definitions: Black, Religion, and Popular Culture It is important to note that each of the central terms in this essay, both in academic communities and in everyday conversations, are not fixed categories. Rather, they are always up for grabs and are the subject of ongoing contestation. Therefore, it is necessary to establish some basic working definitions. To this end, what follows is a detailed account of how black, religion, and popular culture are conceived herein.

Black At the most basic level, the terms ‘‘African American’’ and ‘‘black’’ will be used interchangeably throughout this essay to refer to people of African descent who reside within the United States, specifically, and throughout the African Diaspora, more broadly. Recognizing both that race is socially constructed and that the religious experiences of black people in the Diaspora are incredibly diverse, one might still ask, what exactly does a black Buddhist share in common with a black Jew, with a Black Muslim, etc. (Hart 2008). To put the question most concisely, paraphrasing the cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall, ‘‘What is this Black in Black Religion?’’ (Hall 1992). According to most intellectuals concerned with race in the modern world, black identity emerges as the result of at least two distinct forces. ‘‘Black’’ is at once a signifier of race, ethnicity, and culture, and of social and political orientation. With regards to the former, there are a range of cultural practices that have been cultivated within black communities, which can be traced back through the early years of American history across the Atlantic to Africa. Of course, these ‘‘black’’ entities (i.e., intellectual and religious traditions, music, dance, etc.) are not purely ‘‘African,’’ but are the products of continuous cultural mixing with the many cultures that comprise the Americas. In this process of creolization, African Americans have also indelibly shaped the fabric of American culture, leading the critic and novelist Albert Murray long ago to identify black folks as the ‘‘Omni-Americans’’ (Murray 1970). Accenting the mixtures and exchanges that define blackness, Henry Louis Gates Jr. put it another way when he

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argued that black culture was by definition ‘‘mulattoe’’ (Gates 1989). Again, Stuart Hall puts it most concisely, ‘‘There are no pure forms at all.’’ Similarly, Lewis Gordon explores the place of ethnicity and culture in notions of blackness with his definition of ‘‘Africana.’’ For Gordon, the term ‘‘Africana’’ references ideas and practices that emerge out of the peculiar and particular experiences of black people living in Africa and its Diaspora. While a shared geographic genealogy (beginning with the African continent) is the common denominator in Gordon’s formulation, he is clear to accent the hybridity necessitated by the conditions of a Diaspora created in the context of colonization and enslavement. As such, Africana peoples, in all their hybridity and diversity, are one ethnic constituency living on the ‘‘black’’ underside of modernity, and as a part of the broader colonized world (Gordon 2000). The move toward the ethnic or cultural definition reflects a concern with reframing the racial history of white supremacy, highlighting instead the human agency and cultural practices that have descended from the traditions of Africa. This effort to reframe ‘‘black’’—most vividly valorized in the ‘‘black is beautiful’’ cries of the 1960s, and immortalized in James Brown’s song, ‘‘Say it Loud; I’m black and I’m proud!’’— points to the political as a mediating force in formulations of the ‘‘black,’’ between ethnicity and culture, on one hand, and race, on the other. That is to say, blackness is the product of forces both within and without. While it is part of a cultural tradition linked to Africa, blackness is also a political reality that results from the practices of white supremacy—of a whiteness that requires a racial other. The experiences of middle passage, enslavement, and segregation in effect forged a black people out of the various ethnic and tribal affiliations that previously defined those African peoples who were enslaved (Gomez 1998). In this regard, to be black in the United States has been to be perpetually otherized. As such, the term ‘‘black’’ can be used to locate not just those individuals who are of African ancestry. With regards to race it references all nonwhite peoples, as in the distinction that Lewis Gordon makes between ‘‘black’’ and ‘‘Africana’’ (Gordon 2000). Within the racial hierarchy of the United States, and in spite of the spectrum of skin colors within African American communities, black has registered as anything in opposition to white; and it has been measured by myriad litmus tests, including the one drop, brown paper bag, blue vein, and comb rules (Russell, Wilson, and Hall 1993). Ultimately, the term ‘‘black,’’ then simultaneously references both ‘‘inheritances’’ (i.e., African cultures and their hybrid forms) and ‘‘conditions’’ (i.e., colonization, dislocation, enslavement, segregation, etc.). It both identifies who people are (read: descendants of Africa) and who they are not (read: white). Thus, cultural legacies and political contexts, in all their diasporic diversity, combine to create ‘‘repertoires’’ that are referenced in every invocation of ‘‘black.’’ These repertoires create and contain ‘‘elements of a discourse that is different’’; and it is then that these experiences account for the blackness of a particular element in any given cultural repertoire (Hall 1992). An example is useful here. W. E. B. Du Bois, in his classic text The Souls of Black Folk (1903), makes the claim that the first uniquely American art form was also explicitly ‘‘black’’ (and religious, for that matter). The Spirituals, made popular through the international travel of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, were black not simply because they were performed on stage by African Americans.

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By Stuart Hall’s definition, the Spirituals were no less black because they had been polished up and rehearsed for a popular audience; and they would remain black if uttered out of the mouths of singers of Mediterranean or Malaysian descent. What made the Sorrow Songs ‘‘Negro,’’ to be more historically accurate, was that they issued forth from a specific experience that was undeniably black. No matter how cleaned up and commodified for the concert stage, the Negro Spirituals bore witness to the styles of the darker hued, unfree men and women who first sang them, as well as to the fact that their first performances were in the plantation fields and hush arbors of American slavery. In short, ‘‘black’’ refers not only to certain individuals, but also to an inventory of ideas and practices that emerge from the experiences of those communities in Diaspora, as hybrid and creolized as they may be, that are comprised by people of African ancestry.

Religion Given that the locus of this essay is limited to the religious experiences of African Americans, the next relevant question is then, ‘‘What is this ‘religion’ in black religion?’’ In this regard, it is helpful to keep two definitions of religion in mind. The first might be considered a layperson’s or ‘‘commonsense’’ definition. From this perspective, religion is understood to be the sets of beliefs, doctrines, ideas, liturgies, practices, rituals, etc., associated with a particular religious tradition (i.e., Islam, Christian, Judaism, etc.). While each of these traditions holds to different institutional arrangements, and each is internally diverse and dynamically evolving, they are similar in that they draw clear boundaries between themselves and other religious traditions, per se, even as those boundaries are regularly transgressed in practice. Here it is also important to note, especially within the context of the African Diaspora, that the boundaries between different, seemingly discrete, religious traditions are also the meeting spaces where new religious forms are birthed. For instance, as African traditional religions collided with Protestant and Catholic Christianities in the Atlantic world, cultures blended, and the novel creolized religions of Candomble´, Santerı´a, and Vodun (to name a few) emerged. Black religion in the Americas, to borrow from Mary Louise Pratt, is practiced in a ‘‘contact zone,’’ wherein cultures collide and contests for power persist (Pratt 1992). More recently, during the Great Migration of African Americans to the North during the first half of the twentieth century, the cultural pluralism cultivated in growing cities helped to birth new religious communities of black Jews and black Muslims, and Father Divine’s Peace Mission Movement, all of which were initially classified as ‘‘cults’’ (Fauset 1944). Nonetheless, despite the innovations inspired when different religious traditions share intimate (though often violent) space, black religion might simply be understood as those beliefs and practices nurtured within the various traditions that occupy the cultural landscape of African American communities. In addition to this more commonsense definition, a bit more academic approach is also worthy of consideration. Historian of religion Charles Long adopts a broader definition of religion in order to interpret African American culture. ‘‘For my purposes,’’ he writes, ‘‘Religion will mean orientation—orientation in the ultimate sense, that is,

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how one comes to terms with the ultimate significance of one’s place in the world.’’ Additionally, Long asserts, such ‘‘extra-church traditions’’ as ‘‘folklore, music, style of life . . . often touched deeper religious issues regarding the true situation of black communities than those of the church leaders of their time.’’ His definition of religion as orientation recognizes that religion consists of more than intellectual formulations (i.e., doctrine) or institutional arrangements (i.e., church); and that ‘‘The religion of any people is more than a structure of thought; it is experience, expression, motivations, intentions, behaviors, styles and rhythms’’ (Long 1986). Interpreting religion this way acknowledges that while Christianity is the privileged religious discourse in the United States, its prominence often occludes much of the religious and cultural work that black people perform in order to come to terms with the ‘‘ultimate significance’’ of their lives. From a lay perspective, this latter definition might fairly be compared to what often now gets classified as ‘‘spirituality,’’ reflecting the popular parlance of twenty-first-century folk, black, white, and other, who describe themselves as ‘‘spiritual, but not religious’’ (Frederick 2003). While a particular religion is tied to a specific tradition or institution, spirituality may borrow from any number of traditions or it make take form outside of institutions, and it is often more guided by the concerns of individuals than it is with maintaining loyalty to any specific ‘‘religion.’’ While it should be clear that the two terms, ‘‘religion’’ and ‘‘spirituality,’’ are not mutually exclusive—in fact, both have here been framed as ‘‘religion’’—the distinction is useful for heuristic purposes. Ultimately, in this more expansive view, ‘‘black religion’’ is understood to be the types of cultural work black people engage in and the worlds they make while seeking to come to terms with the ‘‘ultimate significance’’ of their lives as subjects, still in large part, living on the underside of modernity. Bringing Charles Long into dialogue with Stuart Hall, their analyses help to highlight black popular culture, broadly construed, as an excellent site for the study of African American religion.

Popular Culture While culture has been indirectly addressed in the preceding definitions of both Black and religion, more must be said to spell out what is meant by popular culture. As simple as it may seem—the popular is, of course, that which is popular—popular culture as a category of academic inquiry has a uniquely complicated history. Stuart Hall provides a compelling genealogical account in this regard: Throughout the long transition into agrarian capitalism and in the formation and development of industrial capitalism, there is a more or less continuous struggle over the culture of the working people, the labouring classes and the poor. This fact must be the starting point for any study, both of the basis for and of the transformations of, popular culture. (Hall 1981)

As Hall explains, the term ‘‘popular culture’’ has a genealogy that can be traced back to efforts in late-eighteenth-century Europe to create clear distinctions, for both aesthetic and political reasons, between the culture of elites and that of the masses. While the term was meant to mark culture that ‘‘grows out of a local way of life, and

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necessarily changes with it,’’ even in its early usage it was lent to myth making about the monolithic quality of the people who comprised the popular. Be it their closeness to nature, communal collectivity, or pure primitivism, these persons were described as predisposed to resist the rational machinations of modernity. Each of the myths associated with things ‘‘popular,’’ as a descendant of the terms ‘‘folklore’’ and ‘‘folk culture,’’ served to situate the sites and sounds of popular culture in the premodern world. As such, as much as it was meant to demarcate social class, it was equally employed to signify time. In drawing its boundaries at the onset of modernity, ‘‘popular culture’’ treated questions of both tradition and transformation. In short, those not belonging to the ruling class (most often raced, classed, and gendered others) were cast as inhabitants of a different cultural universe. In the modern world, the people identified as creating and constituting the ‘‘popular’’ have had their own history, but it has been told as though it were wholly distinct from and in opposition to the histories of ruling elites. While popular culture has come to be understood as simply that which is fashionable or embraced on a large scale, and made so largely via media distribution, as the term emerged it was always located in relation to persons excluded from the elite culture of the Enlightenment. Seeking to redress the oversights of this reality in accounts of American history, Howard Zinn composed his popular text, A People’s History of the United States (1980). Over its history popular culture has always been attached to politics. More precisely, for African Americans, political marginalization has often stood in direct contrast to cultural prominence (Iton 2008). Stuart Hall has described this politics as the ‘‘double movement of containment and resistance.’’ On the one hand, the term was used to contain nonelite peoples by marking them off as different; but, on the other hand, it has also functioned as a source of resistance to the othering efforts of elites. In this light, those participating in the study of popular culture have understood themselves as engaged in the twofold task of, first, identifying how the people who produce popular culture resist this ‘‘double-movement’’; and, second, of cultivating intellectual practices that help to deconstruct discourses that support the very same ‘‘double-movement’’ (Hall 1981). In this view, exemplary popular culture criticism is produced when an authentic exchange takes place between the scholar and the popular, resulting in what Johannes Fabian has described as a ‘‘moment of freedom’’ (Fabian 1998). As such, the field of cultural studies has attempted to cultivate an organic relationship with its object of inquiry, namely popular culture. Yet while primarily concerned with the production of freedom, cultural studies mirrors many of the problems inherent to popular culture, and its ties to the popular are at times tenuous. Stuart Hall put it best: Black popular culture, like all popular cultures in the modern world, is bound to be contra dictory, and this is not because we haven’t fought the cultural battle well enough. By defini tion, black popular culture is a contradictory space. (Hall 1992)

Recognizing that culture work, whether in academia or everyday life, often reinforces the very obstacles to achieving the freedom that it purports to be seeking, Hall concedes that culture is fraught with inconsistencies. Perhaps the most central

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contradiction in battles over culture is the relationship that exists between high (read: elite) and low (read: popular). While the divide between high and low developed out of a concern with marking clear social distinctions, the two have more often than not remained wedded. More specifically, culture is contradictory in that ‘‘what is socially peripheral is so frequently symbolically central’’ (Stallybrass and White 1986). Or, as Richard Iton puts it, ‘‘the outside is always inside’’ (Iton 2008). Tracing this ironic relationship between high and low, Juan Flores explicitly outlines the genealogy of terms—folklore a` popular culture a` mass culture a` public culture—that evolved as new technologies revolutionized cultural production. Flores explains that during the twentieth century, ‘‘with the advent of television, the mediated culture for the people came to eclipse and replace, in most theoretical assessments, the expressive culture of the people which had been the object of knowledge of popular culture and folklore studies in earlier generations’’ (Flores 2000). In short, popular culture was no longer that which was representative of the masses, but it was redefined as that which is distributed to the masses by way of new technologies, including the radio, television, and, more recently, the Internet. During the contemporary period of late capitalism, when culture is something so often mediated, produced, and consumed via the market, appeals to a direct communal experience as the locus of popular culture are perceived to reflect a ‘‘sign of romantic nostalgia’’ for a time prior to the creation of the culture industry. Moreover, as Flores asserts, in the hands of a host of populist movements, ‘‘the people’’ who constitute the popular have been invoked in support of an endless array of competing political visions. For example, black leaders as disparate as Marcus Garvey and Mary Mcleod Bethune, Fannie Lou Hamer and Louis Farrakhan, and Ella Baker and Barack Obama have each equally claimed to be committed to serving the interests of ‘‘the people.’’ In light of the various ideological ends to which it has been directed, popular culture (along with invocations of ‘‘the people’’) thus faces the prospect of becoming an empty term, void of clear meaning. As such, close attention must be paid to the breaks and fissures, the contradictions, inherent to engagements with popular culture. Ultimately, there is always a tension between the agency of the people who constitute the popular (whom Flores refers to as the ‘‘people people’’), those who critically dissect it (i.e., scholars), and the markets through which culture is most often mediated (Flores 2000). Thus far it should be clear that it is difficult to assign simple definitions of the respective categories of black, religion, and popular culture; they are all unstable, always up for grabs, and historically contingent. That is, they are always the subject of human struggles, both in the realm of academic inquiry and everyday activities, and they reach the contemporary moment each with its own complicated genealogy. Of course, at the most elementary level, black religion and popular culture might simply be understood as the spiritual practices of people of African descent that are made popular by virtue of their frequent circulation in a variety of media (i.e., the arts, fashion, film, music, radio, television, etc.). While respecting the intricate histories attached to these terms, it is equally important to address the manner in which black religion intersects with popular culture in particular historical moments.

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Theorizing Black Religion and Popular Culture: Three Ways/Waves Simultaneously complex entities and concrete phenomenon, there are at least three ways that one can think about black religion and popular culture: (1) black religion AND popular culture, (2) black religion IN popular culture, and (3) black religion AS popular culture. While none of these approaches exist mutually exclusive from the others (in fact, they overlap quite a bit), for heuristic purposes they help to organize the myriad ways that Black Religion and Popular Culture intersect and interact in real time. Additionally, while exploring three ways of thinking about this subject, it is also useful to outline three waves, or historical moments, in which concrete examples of Black Religion and Popular Culture take form. The example of the Spirituals, addressed earlier in this essay, and the work songs of slavery as their secular counterpart, provide the seminal moment in the tradition of black cultural expression in the Americas. While diasporic connections and commitments were cultivated in each of the following moments, focus here will be on the three most iconic movements of black cultural production in the United States: (1) the New Negro movement (or Harlem Renaissance) of the 1920s and 1930s, (2) the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, and (3) the New Black Aesthetic movement of the 1980s to the present. By no means do these three moments exhaust, or neatly encapsulate, the totality of African American cultural expressions; but placing religion at the center of each era provides the opportunity to examine the ‘‘usual suspects’’ in new light. Significantly, the aesthetic commitments in each of these moments often evinced a desire to bridge the distinction between high (i.e., literature) and low (i.e., blues, jazz, hip hop) that has defined the history of popular culture.

Black Religion AND Popular Culture The first way one can think about black religion and popular culture accents collisions between two phenomena that are often perceived as two discrete entities. On the one hand, popular culture tends to be lumped into the categories of worldly, secular, and, at times, profane, in short, anything but religious. And, on the other hand, religion is also typically marked off as separate, belonging solely in the realm of things sacred. However, in time and space there are no clear or mutually exclusive divisions between the two; sacred and secular are, in fact, permeable and constructed anew in concrete historical contexts. In this vein, emphasizing the conjunction between black religion AND popular culture elevates those cultural forms that emerge at the crossroads of sacred and secular. Such intersections, at their best have culminated in the creation of novel religious idioms, while, at a minimum, they have capitalized on a Christianizing of cultural trends. During the 1920s black religion AND popular culture was most powerfully embodied in the personages and musical careers of Thomas Dorsey, who is credited with creating the new genre of Gospel Blues, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who rose to national prominence during the 1930s (Jackson 2004). Dorsey’s transition from rent-house raconteur to music minister involved baptizing blues music—the muse of many New

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Negro artists, including such literary luminaries as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston—in the sacred verse of the Black Christian tradition. In the process he became the progenitor of Gospel music, which served as the soundtrack of what has been referred to as the ‘‘new sacred order’’ of northern black churches (Best 2005). At approximately the same time, Gospel music, along with the sermons of black preachers, such as Atlanta’s Rev. J. M. Gates, became a major force in the development of the race records industry and was brought to life in a number of Broadway plays (Higginbotham 1997). Thirty-some-odd years later, Motown’s crossover sounds were confronted by the nationalist sentiments of Black Power activists. Its artistic wing, the Black Arts Movement, led Amiri Baraka, poet and leading figure in by figures such as Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement. (Library of Larry Neal, felt it more appropriate to Congress) take cultural cues from the soulful stylings of black musicians like James Brown and the jazz improvisations of John Coltrane. Also during the 1960s, inspired by the aesthetics of Black Power, many black pastors embraced visual culture as a tool for picturing a black God. Most notably, Detroit’s Albert Cleage adorned the wall of his Congregational church with a mural that signaled their transition into the Shrine of the Black Madonna (Dillard 2007). Drawing on the rhythms of what Baraka called the ‘‘new black music,’’ adventurous church vocalists, including Andrae Crouch, Edwin Hawkins, his sister Tremaine Hawkins, and her then-husband Walter Hawkins, helped to pioneer a new Gospel sound deeply inflected with the sensibilities of Rhythm and Blues and Soul music. These artists mapped out a trajectory, eventually followed by the likes of The Winans and Commissioned, both of which included members, such as Fred Hammond and Marvin Sapp, who continue to play a significant role in black religious music circles (Weekes 2005). Finally, not long after rap music grabbed mainstream music headlines in the United States, Christian MCs, including Stephen Wiley and Michael Peace, grabbed the microphone to spark a new genre that now gets referred to as Gospel (or Holy) Hip Hop. Like Thomas Dorsey before them, Christian rappers held strong to the Christian theological content that informed Gospel music. But, rather than the blues, these rapper-ministers drew on the drum beats, bass lines, rhythmic sensibilities, and record samples that animated the form of their secular counterpart (Sorett 2006). Ultimately, it is at the nexus of black religion AND popular culture, of so-called sacred

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Hip hop pioneer Kurtis Blow MCs during mass at the Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion Church in Harlem, home of the Hip Hop Church. (David Brabyn/Corbis)

and secular, that the aesthetic innovations of the Gospel Blues, the black religious iconography of the 1960s, and the biblically based freestyles of gospel rappers emerged.

Black Religion IN Popular Culture The second way one can conceptualize black religion and popular culture is through an exploration of imagery and ideas that are explicitly religious as they appear in mainstream popular culture. Focusing upon forms of black religion IN popular culture is to attend to questions of representation. It is to ask, ‘‘How is black religion represented in the arts, music, literature, film, and television, etc.?’’ While Dorsey’s Gospel Blues quickly rose to prominence on the U.S. cultural scene, black religion, more broadly, has also been a frequent fixture in the nation’s popular imagination. Amidst the rapid changes following World War I (i.e., industrialization and immigration), black migrations contributed to anxieties about American identity and racial mixing. Within this milieu, the perceived religiosity of African Americans attracted much attention as many Americans sought to resist the spiritual crisis associated with modern cities. It is this social backdrop that at least in part accounts for the incredible popularity of the 1920s Broadway show, The Green Pastures (which also became a movie), with its primitivistic representations of the rural religion of southern black folks (Evans 2008). Here, the expressive religiosity of black people served both as America’s spiritual balm and as a reinforcement to the distance between black (primitive, emotional)

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and white (rational, modern). More generally, Judith Weisenfeld reveals, at this moment, ‘‘religion was central to American film’s representation of African Americans’’ (Weisenfeld 2007). Years later, as the strong political commitments of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements shored up black communities during the 1960s, black religion remained a site of contestation in popular culture. Lavern Baker’s 1961 hit, ‘‘I’m Saved,’’ which both satirized and celebrated the worship aesthetics of black churches, climbed to number 17 on the R&B charts. Yet, in light of the political ethos of the decade, Baker’s hit song signaled the end of an era in which caricatured representations were familiar fodder in the lyrics of black popular music (Reed 2003). Four years later, Amiri Baraka (then still Leroi Jones), in his pivotal essay ‘‘The Changing Same,’’ defined black music by its diverse spiritual core, which he claimed was equally evident in the music of artists as different as Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman. According to Baraka, all of these musicians were ‘‘God-seekers,’’ who determined that ‘‘to play strong would be the cry and the worshipful purpose of life’’ (Baraka 1991 [1966]). Yet, just a few years later, Baraka’s politically charged poetry pronounced a different verdict on the most public form of black religion, namely Afro-Protestantism. In ‘‘When We’ll Worship Jesus,’’ he portrayed a God that would remain irrelevant to black folks until it got with the nationalist, Marxist, and postcolonial commitments of him and his Black Arts compatriots. Therein Baraka wrote the following: We’ll worship Jesus When jesus do Somethin When jesus blow up the white house or blast nixon down when jesus turn out congress or bust general motors to yard bird motors (Baraka 1991 [1975])

On the heals of the racial turmoil of the 1960s, Baraka proffered a popular critique of Jesus, which demanded that the Christian deity demonstrate a decided allegiance to the cause of Black Power. While the rise of Gangsta’ rap to national prominence in the late-1980s led some critics to claim that hip hop suffered from a spiritual crisis, throughout its history representations of religion in rap music have remained robust. Moreover, hip hop has demonstrated a rich pluralism with regards to religious diversity. While Islam, in its multiple manifestations (Sunni, Nation of Islam, and Five Percent) dominated hip hop’s early years, the neonationalist new age spirituality of the Native Tongues collective (including groups like A Tribe Called Quest, Brand Nubian, Black Sheep) emerged in the aftermath of N.W.A.’s West Coast ascension. In truth, even Gangsta rap, while notorious for its elevation of misogynistic violence, was replete with religious references. In fact, the artists at the center of hip hop’s infamous East Coast– West Coast feud—Tupac Shakur and Christopher ‘‘B.I.G.’’ Wallace—were known

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for wedding their spiritual musings alongside of nihilistic meditations on the thug and drug life. One recalls Tupac’s posthumously released song and video, ‘‘I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto’’ (Shakur 1997), wherein the rapper used the Christian imagery of heaven to critique the earthly reality of racialized urban poverty. By the turn of the century, as evidenced in the prayers of DMX and the testimony of Kanye West, Christianity became the most frequently sampled spiritual tradition. West’s ‘‘Jesus Walks,’’ while paying respect to the Civil Rights Movement in one version of the video, represented a personalized Jesus who is more loyal to social outcasts (strippers, thugs, and addicts) than to any institutional form of black religion. Surprisingly, the song’s remixed Muslim version, released underground by Lupe Fiasco as ‘‘Muhammad Walks,’’ also seemed to endorse Christianity, as Fiasco offered accolades to a trio of the most popular African American Christians (a pastor and two musicians): Creflo Dollar, Smokie Norful, and Yolanda Adams. While all three are rooted in black church contexts, they each achieved vast popularity via television appearances on both secular (BET) and sacred (Trinity Broadcasting Network) media outlets, as well as through the distribution of their spiritual commodities (i.e., books, sermon and music CDs and DVDs). Additionally, caricatures of black Christians reappeared prominently during this period. For instance, one recalls Bernie Mac’s portrayal of the preacher as pimp in the first installation of Ice Cube’s Friday trilogy, and, most recently, the numerous characters brought to life in the plays, films, and television shows of Tyler Perry. For instance, Perry’s most popular character, Ma’dea, is known for digging into her purse to pull out scripture and/or her six-shooter.

Black Religion AS Popular Culture The third and final lens through which one might look at black religion and popular culture recognizes that black religion, as a discrete entity in itself (that is, African Americans practicing their faith in public, vis-a`-vis radio or television) has maintained a prominent place on the American social landscape. In contrast to intersections (AND) or representations (IN), to explore black religion AS popular culture is to insist that black religion (i.e., religious institutions, figures, practices) itself is ‘‘popular.’’ During the 1920s, as the New Negro movement was beginning to blossom in New York and elsewhere, a repertoire of religious leaders also captured the public’s attention. Mainstream Christian clergymen, such as Adam Clayton Powell Sr., of Harlem’s prestigious Abyssinian Baptist Church, Lacey Kirk Williams at Olivet Baptist in Chicago, William Holmes Borders at Atlanta’s Wheat Street Baptist, along with ‘‘cult-ish’’ preachers of the likes of ‘‘Saint’’ George Becton and Father Divine, all became familiar faces in both the black and the white presses. Moreover, the largest (read: most ‘‘popular’’) mass movement of African Americans during the period was led by the veritable vicar, Marcus Mosiah Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey and the UNIA drew heavily on the ceremonialism and liturgy of black church traditions, and his pan-Africanist religious vision made him a forerunner of the Black Theology debates that developed during the 1960s. The decade of the 1960s, perhaps more so than any other period in U.S. history, delivered the data to support the claim that black religion is popular culture. In fact, the two most iconic black images of the

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era, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., were religious leaders. By making the efforts of a committed religious minority popular, via mainstream media coverage, the modern Civil Rights Movement was able to gather the moral steam necessary to impact a majority. And Henry Hampton’s important documentary ‘‘Eyes on the Prize’’ would secure the movement’s popularity for generations to come (Hampton 1987). The perceived contrast between the mainstream middle-class embrace of Dr. King and the grassroots, mass appeal of Malcolm X to the disenfranchised black poor underscores the role of class in defining what’s popular, as well as the privileging of Christianity in the United States. Moreover, Malcolm X’s appeal, as representative of the Nation of Islam (and later Islamic orthodoxy), underscored the popularity of Islam and African-derived religious traditions at the time. Both the latter and the former gained currency, at least among African Americans, as it became popular to dismiss Christianity as ‘‘the white man’s religion.’’ Later, in the post–Civil Rights era, Malcolm X reemerged as a religious and racial exemplar (via Spike Lee’s movie and the conspicuous commercial consumption of X hats, t-shirts, and posters) to nurture the pop culture, neonationalist sensibilities of the Hip Hop Generation. At the same time, the model of Dr. King and the Civil Rights preacher waned in the wake of televangelism’s triumph as the dominant idiom and image of American Christianity in black and white. In the age of megachurches, only black celebrity pastors like T. D. Jakes, Eddie Long, and Creflo Dollar—with multiacre church campuses, transnational corporate brands, and internationally broadcast church services (via television and the Internet)—rival the recognition (read: popularity) afforded hip hop moguls like Shawn Carter, Sean Combs, and Russell Simmons, who have capitalized on the now global pop culture that is hip hop (Walton 2009). Perhaps just a shallow colloquialism, in a strange confluence of religion and popular culture, the latter two of this trio consistently close each episode of their ever-popular (and often profane) comedy brands—Combs’s Bad Boys of Comedy and Simmons’s Def Comedy Jam—with the casual farewell, ‘‘Keep God first . . . ’’ and ‘‘God Bless,’’ respectively.

Conclusion There are perhaps no two entities more inextricable to the democratic experiment that is the United States of America—a nation founded both on its commitment to ‘‘the people’’ and a quest for religious freedom—than that of race and religion. That this ‘‘city on a hill’’ was built upon the backs of enslaved Africans, along with the aid of ample biblically based theological endorsements, was part of a broader pattern that Cornel West has identified as ‘‘The Ignoble Paradox of Modernity’’ (West 2000). Throughout U.S. history religion has proven to be an ever-popular resource in arguments both for and against the humanity, citizenship, and full enfranchisement of African Americans. That Christianity has been the primary religious language in this story, as it has also been in this essay, by no means discounts the fact that multiculturalism and religious pluralism have always had an American reality (even before they were celebrated as civic virtues). As Charles Long explains, within the context of colonial contact in the Atlantic world, Christianity provides ‘‘the cultural categories of the American reality’’ (Long

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1986). To be sure, the black religious experience has been as diverse as the many different traditions that inhabit the Americas. Yet African Americans have operated well aware of Christianity’s privileged place in this cultural code, as well as the potential consequences of being rendered both a religious and a racial minority. As such, the dominant expression of black religion in the United States has been decidedly Christian (Wills 1990). It is important to note that the very politic that reproduces Christianity’s popularity as the normative religion is tied to the history that also established the category of ‘‘popular culture’’ as a marker of those people (i.e., African Americans) excluded from mainstream power. In this light, black religion is by definition popular (read: nonwhite, nonelite) culture. This account is by no means meant to be comprehensive, and there are certainly myriad more methods that could be employed to map black religion and popular culture. However, reading Black Religion AND—IN—AS Popular Culture provides a threefold opportunity to offer some preliminary coherence to what promises to remain a complex, and at times contradictory, phenomenon. At times as profane as it is profound—from the Sorrow Songs of slavery to the sounds of Gospel Blues and Gangsta Rap, from Civil Rights marches to Mosques and megachurch ministries, and from religious race records and films to the freestyles on Yo! MTV Raps and BET—black religion has remained, if nothing else, immensely popular.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Baraka, Amiri. ‘‘Black Art.’’ The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader, ed. William J. Harris (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991), 219. Baraka, Amiri. ‘‘When We’ll Worship Jesus.’’ The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader, ed. William J. Harris (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991), 251 253. Baraka, Amiri. ‘‘The Changing Same: R&B and the New Black Music.’’ The Leroi Jones/ Amiri Baraka Reader, ed. William J. Harris (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991), 186 209. Baraka, Amiri. ‘‘When We’ll Worship Jesus.’’ The Amiri Baraka Reader, ed. William J. Harris (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991), 251 253. Best, Wallace D. Passionately Human, No Less Divine: Religion and Culture in Black Chicago, 1915 1952 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). Burke, Peter. ‘‘The ‘Discovery’ of Popular Culture.’’ People’s History and Socialist Theory, ed. Raphael Samuel (London: Routledge, 1981). Dillard, Angela. Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007). Douglas, Ann. Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995). Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Signet Classic, 1995 [1903]). Evans, Curtis J. The Burden of Black Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Fabian, Johannes. Moments of Freedom: Anthropology and Popular Culture (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1998). Fauset, Arthur Huff. Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Cults in the Urban North (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971 [1944]).

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Flores, Juan. From Bomba to Hip Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). Frederick, Marla. Between Sundays: Black Women and Everyday Struggles of Faith (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003). Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). Gomez, Michael A. Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). Gordon, Lewis. Existentia Africana: Introducing Africana Thought (New York: Routledge, 2000). Guinier, Lani, and Gerald Torres. The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). Hall, Stuart. ‘‘Notes on Deconstructing ‘The Popular.’ ’’ People’s History and Socialist Theory, ed. Raphael Samuel (London: Routledge, 1981). Hall, Stuart. ‘‘What is this ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?’’ Black Popular Culture, a project by Michele Wallace, ed. Gina Dent (Seattle: Bay Press, 1992), 21 33. Hampton, Henry. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954 1964 (film) (Boston: Blackside Films, 1987). Harris, Michael W. The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). Hart, William D. Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester, and Jan Willis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. ‘‘Re thinking Vernacular Culture: Black Religion and Race Records in the 1920s and 1930s.’’ The House That Race Built: Black Americans, U.S. Ter rain, ed. Wahneema Lubiano (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997), 157 177. Iton, Richard. In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post Civil Rights Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Jackson, Jerma A. Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Long, Charles. Significations: Signs, Symbols and Images in the Interpretation of Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1986). Murray, Albert. The Omni Americans: New Perspective on Black Experience and American Culture (New York: EP Dutton, 1970). Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge, 1992). Reed, Adolph, Jr. The Jesse Jackson Phenomenon: The Crisis of Purpose in Afro American Politics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986). Reed, Teresa L. The Holy Profane: Religion in Black Popular Music (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003). Russell, Kathy, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall. The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans (New York: Anchor Books, 1993). Shakur, Tupac. ‘‘I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto.’’ R U Still Down (New York: Amaru/Jive/ BMG, 1997). Sorett, Josef. ‘‘Beats, Rhymes and Bibles: An Introduction to Gospel Hip Hop.’’ The African American Pulpit (Winter 2006 2007): 12 16.

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Stallybrass, Peter, and Allon White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986). Walton, Jonathan L. The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Religious Broadcasting (New York: New York University Press, 2009). Weekes, Melinda E. ‘‘This House, This Music: Exploring the Interdependent Interpretive Relationship between the Black Church and Contemporary Gospel Music.’’ Black Music Research Journal 25 (2005). Weisenfeld, Judith. Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). West, Cornel. ‘‘The Ignoble Paradox of Modernity.’’ The Cornel West Reader (New York: Basic Books, 2000). Wills, David. ‘‘An Enduring Distance: Black Americans and the Establishment.’’ Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America, 1900 1960, ed. William R. Hutchinson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States: 1492 present (New York: Harper Perennials, 2003 [1980]).

African American Religion in the Urban Context Michael O. Emerson In the preindustrial United States (approximately the antebellum era), the economy was agrarian based. In the South, where over 90 percent of African Americans lived at the time, the economy was not just agrarian, but dominated by large plantations. Along with this economic system, whites engineered a powerful system of racial caste oppression. Birthed during these times was a strong tradition of African Americans religious resistance and a unique set of African American religious cultures, with secret worship gatherings away from the watchful eye of whites, coded communication, and the singing of spirituals in fields and, occasionally, in black churches. Though emancipation and the end of the war brought freedom from slavery for African Americans, most remained closely tied to the rural South over the decades. Accordingly, the varieties of African American religion—now practiced almost exclusively in black houses of worship—remained overwhelmingly rural. But with the industrial expansion and shortage of labor that began with World War I, as well as the need to escape the pseudoslavery system of share cropping, movement to Southern cities and, soon, movement by the millions to northern cities transformed, in the period of a half century, an overwhelmingly rural people into one that became overwhelming urban. Today, about 90 percent of African Americans live in urban areas. Scholar of black religion Anthony Pinn is known for asking two fundamental questions: ‘‘What is religious about black religion, and what is black about black religion?’’ (e.g., 1998, 2003, 2007). In this essay, I ask, what is urban about urban black religion? In short, what difference does practicing black religions in urban environs make? Religion always exists in context: the era, the economic system, the people, the land, and so on all influence the beliefs and practices of religion. The dramatic shift from a southern rural context to an urban context undoubtedly had major implications for the religions of black Americans. It is these implications and the modern-day realities that I explore here.

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An Initial Look at Rural/Urban Context: Black Churches in the South in 1900 W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the nation’s most prolific scholars from the late 1800s until his death in the 1960s. Often ahead of his time, he edited an amazing volume entitled The Negro Church, first published in 1903, based on extensive research, interviews, and other data collections. In the volume, one chapter is devoted to examining all the black congregations in Thomas County, a rural county of Georgia. This is followed by an in-depth examination of the black churches in the city of Atlanta, home at the time to about 35,000 African Americans. Although we do not get reports of the theology in these congregations, the juxtaposition of rural and urban black churches allows us an initial view of the differences by rural/urban context at the turn of the last century. In rural Thomas County, Georgia, in 1900 lived 17,450 African Americans. Du Bois and his research team located 98 black churches, of different Protestant denominations, though Baptist was easily the most common. He estimated that they failed to locate 20 percent of the black churches in the county. Accounting for these missed congregations, he estimated one black congregation for every 150 African Americans. Carefully examining the congregations, he found that about half the congregations were founded due to normal growth and expansion, whereas the other half originated from either church splits or, as described by Du Bois, ‘‘Some brother is called to preach. This call is so thunderous, and the confidence that he can ‘make a better preach’ than the present pastor so obtrusive, till he soon finds that there is little welcome in the sacred rostrum of the old church. He therefore takes his family and his nearest relatives and moves away’’ (57). His conclusion? Most churches of Thomas County were largely family churches, made up of a preacher and extended kin. In fact, Du Bois estimates that two-thirds of the growth in the number of Thomas County churches can be accounted for in this manner. What struck Du Bois, the Harvard PhD raised in the staid Congregationalism of New England, about worship in these rural churches was the supreme emphasis on emotionalism—shouting, dancing, crying, being slain in the spirit, rhythmic sermon delivery, shrieks, contortions. In fact, to not have this type of worship would spell doom to the church. Du Bois claims that some of the more educated pastors (formal educated pastors during this time in this county were rare—some were not even literate) told him they wished to not have such emotionalism but rather more emphasis on doctrine and exposition; however, their people would not have it, and they must meet the needs of their people. The people and the churches were overwhelmingly poor. The clergy made relatively little money. In fact, Du Bois estimated that 75 percent of the pastors in this county were not even paid their promised annual salary. As such, pastors often then had outside jobs or traveled across the countryside, preaching in several congregations. The churches in the county were also of varying size. One—A.B.C. Thomasville— claimed 500 members, but most—in keeping with the extended family theme—were well under 100 members. Services were held in most congregations Sunday morning

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and evening, with the evening services often being the most well attended. As Du Bois writes, ‘‘the Negro is well-churched. It is his only institution and forms the center of his public life. He turns to it not only for his spiritual wants, but looks toward it as the center of his civilization’’ (57). In Atlanta, with an African American population about double that of Thomas County, Du Bois and his research team found 54 black churches. So whereas there was one church for every 150 Thomas County African Americans, in Atlanta there was one church for every 652 African Americans. Yet about two-thirds of the adult Atlanta black population was enrolled in a church (and about half of those were active members). Given these facts, not surprisingly, the black churches in Atlanta were larger than in Thomas County. At least 10 of the 54 churches had memberships of 500 or more, and two had memberships and regular attendance over 1,000. In short, black churches in Atlanta were typically significantly larger than the Thomas County black churches. The educational levels of the black clergy in Atlanta, especially in the larger congregations, were much higher than in Thomas County, and pastors were better paid in Atlanta. What is more, while churches sometimes began with a family, Atlanta churches could not often be characterized as family churches, since they had members from a variety of families and backgrounds. And in worship style, while there was still an emphasis on emotionalism in most congregations, much more variation was found, perhaps due to the greater variation of the African Americans in Atlanta. In fact, to the dismay of recent rural immigrants to the cities, the extremes of emotional celebration and display found in rural Thomas County were often, but not always, muted in the Atlanta churches. In response, these new immigrants to Atlanta often would form new congregations. Clearly, even this cursory look suggests differences between rural and urban black religion as practiced in congregations. But why should there be differences? And what types of impacts should ‘‘urban’’ as opposed to ‘‘rural’’ have for black religions?

The Difference “Urban” Makes: The Subculture Theory of Urbanism The larger and more densely populated an area, the more urban it is. The mere fact of putting many people in relatively close proximity to each other leads to several predictable changes in human organization and life, according to the Subcultural Theory of Urbanism (Fischer 1975, 1995), and helps us understand and predict changes for African Americans’ religions as they move from rural to urban areas. A subculture is an interconnected set of social networks. More specifically, a subculture entails a significant set of people sharing a defining trait (all like to eat sushi, for example), who associate with one another (people who like to eat sushi like to be with other people who like to eat sushi), are members of the same institutions (Sushi Eaters of the World, Sushi Houses of Worship), adhere to a distinct set of values (e.g., it is good to eat sushi twice a day, but never before 9 AM), and share a set of cultural tools—such as language, dialect, dress, and utensils to use in eating sushi.

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In short, a subculture is composed of people who take part in a common way of life—it may be fully encompassing—such as the rural subculture of Thomas County, Georgia, in 1900—or it may be just one subculture among many to which a person belongs, such as sushi eaters. From these definitions of urban and subculture, we can deduce four propositions about urban life. I outline them here, and then discuss their implications for African American religion:

PROPOSITION 1: More urban places develop more and more specialized subcultures than do less urban places, and therefore are more culturally heterogeneous. This is both because more urban places attract migrants from a wider variety of locals and because more urban places generate greater diversity through economic, spatial, institutional, and social specialization. PROPOSITION 2: More urban places develop more intense subcultures than do less urban places. Why? Because of Proposition 1, cities are more culturally diverse, and because of spatial proximity, city residents more often meet members of differ ent subcultures than do rural residents. These meetings often lead to tensions and conflicts, which in turn strengthen group boundaries. That is, people in subcultures in urban contexts become more aware of what makes them different and unique, and they work hard to maintain their uniqueness, both in terms of individual and group identity, and in establishing organizations to defend and pass on their way of life. PROPOSITION 3: At the same time that contacts between subcultures lead to reinforcing group boundaries, such contacts also lead to mutual influence. This in turn leads to innovation, as subcultures borrow from others for innovation or to create whole new subcultures. Creativity and change, then, are built into the urban context. PROPOSITION 4: The more urban a place, the higher its rates of unconventionality rela tive to the wider society. This follows from Proposition 3 and the fact that most cultural innovation is at first viewed as deviant.

In so far as these propositions are accurate, and substantial research suggests that they largely are, they have important bearing on black religions in the United States. It is to those implications that I now turn.

Implications of the Subcultural Theory for Black Religion We know that there have always been a variety of African American religions (Pinn 1998), but the subcultural theory suggests that in part due to more innovation (Proposition 3) there will be more variety of black religions (Prop 1) and more ‘‘deviant’’ black religions (Proposition 4) in urban than in rural areas. The theory also suggests that the black religious subcultures of urban areas will be more intense, its identity

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and organizational structure more complete than in rural areas (Proposition 2). We can carry this further. Given that urban areas in capitalist economies exist to create wealth, urban areas, while having poverty much like rural areas, have more people with more wealth than in rural areas. Facts such as this too will have implications for what black religions look like in urban areas compared to rural areas. After the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Benjamin Mays (a professor of Martin Luther King) and Joseph Nicholson published in 1933 what was perhaps an even more comprehensive study of black churches. They organized their sample and the book itself largely to compare rural and urban black congregations. Though the Subcultural Theory of Urbanism had not yet been proposed when they wrote their book on black churches, they lent strong support to the theory just the same. According to them, There is not the diversity of types of churches in rural areas as in urban localities. The rural churches are more nearly the same in program, organization, leadership, cost of buildings, number of churches in debt, and membership size . . . the messages of the rural minister are found to be more uniformly other wordly . . . . The rural Negro churches are primarily Methodist and Baptist. In the city, all Negro denominations are found. (230 231)

In short, in the urban areas they found more innovation and variety of congregations than in rural areas, more variety of programs, organizations, leadership, membership size, and building type. They also found that urban congregations had more social and religious programs, held more services, had greater specialization of staff, more often had youth activities, and more often offered social services because they were larger and had more money: though the cities have slightly less than 24 per cent of the churches, they have slightly more than 43 per cent of the reported membership. Since the large and more significant Negro churches are concentrated in the cities, the best trained Negro ministers are also found there . . . [and] a larger concentration of Negro wealth and finance in metropolitan areas. (99)

As such, they report that though urban congregations represent less than 24 percent of black churches, they accounted for 61 percent of the expenditures. What is more, they found that urban churches had more than double the amount of money per person than rural churches did, enabling them to do more because of both more giving members and more economically successful members. In an updated and even more complete study of black churches, C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya (1990, chaps. 5–6) help us understand rural/urban differences in the clergy of black congregations, and differences in the congregations themselves. What they report again conforms to what is predicted by the Subcultural Theory of Urbanism. In their research, they found that urban pastors were more than three times as likely to earn salaries in the highest measured category than were rural pastors, and nearly twice as likely to earn salaries in the second highest category as were rural pastors. What is more, while a majority of rural black pastors were not full-time pastors—that is, they were bivocational—the majority of urban black pastors were full-time pastors. The majority of rural black pastors also led multiple congregations, whereas the large majority of urban black pastors served only one congregation.

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Urban black congregations, on average, had nearly three times as many people on their rolls than did rural black congregations. Reflecting both the greater size of the congregations and the greater wealth of urban areas (when compared to rural black churches, urban black churches were more than six times as likely to be in the highest income category), urban black pastors, when compared to rural black pastors, were almost twice as likely to be provided housing by the congregation, more likely to have a car allowance, and more than twice as likely to have health insurance. Urban black churches, not surprisingly, also are substantially more likely to have more amenities— such as gymnasiums, outdoor basketball courts, air conditioning, multiple rooms, and athletic programs—than rural black churches.

Scene after a church service on Chicago’s South Side. (Lee Bey)

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In examining black church cooperation with social agencies and other nonchurch programs in dealing with community problems, Lincoln and Mamiya found that urban black churches are at least twice as likely (and usually much more than twice as likely) to be working in cooperation with the following: • Employment agencies and programs • Day care centers and nurseries • Drug and alcohol abuse agencies and programs • Senior citizen or elderly agencies and programs • Welfare rights and housing programs • Police/community relations • Food programs and clothing banks • Tutoring and educational programs • Health related agencies and programs • Local community crisis events • Youth agencies

In fact, the only category in which rural black churches were more likely to be involved than urban black churches was civil rights organizations (50 percent versus 41 percent), perhaps because most rural black congregations are located in the south. They are mostly located in the south due to most African Americans historically living in rural areas of the south for most of U.S. history. Most northern African Americans migrated from the south to the north during industrialization, moving to cities for jobs and family. Clearly, according to survey research and national studies of black congregations, we find greater variety in urban areas. But the subcultural theory posits also that there will be more innovation—not just more congregations of the same kind, and not just larger than more wealthy congregations, but more ‘‘deviant’’ religions and more variety overall. Sociologist Omar McRoberts conducted a multiyear ethnographic study of ‘‘Four Corners,’’ a black neighborhood in Boston. In just six-tenths of a square mile, he found 29 congregations, most located in storefronts next to or very near each other. Although nearly all the congregations were ‘‘black churches,’’ they varied in many ways. As McRoberts wrote (59), ‘‘what appeared from afar as ‘African American’ churches were actually congregations of southern migrants or native Northerners. Likewise, ‘immigrant’ churches included Haitian, Latina/o, West Indian, and mixed congregations.’’ He also found that cutting across these distinctions were at least eight religious traditions. And there were class differences. The congregations could be classified as upwardly mobile immigrants, working-class laborers, middle-class intellectuals, middle-class professionals, or working/middle-class mix. Moreover, he found that these congregations differed from each other in their constructions of peoplehood, in their narratives about being set apart from others not in the congregation, in their divergent understandings of what it means to change the world, and in their orientation to the street and immediate surrounding environment (the streets as evil, the streets as

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recruiting ground, the streets as a point of contact with people at risk, the streets as recruiting ground and point of contact). He labels this high concentration of differentiated houses of worship a ‘‘religious district,’’ by which he means a spatially dense, superficially similar (all offer religious experience), yet necessarily diverse set of institutions. The religious district is an urban phenomenon. In urban space, congregations tend to congregate in affordable areas (often poorer areas), but avoid direct competition with each other by moving from a territory model (our parishioners come from the neighborhood) to a niche model (our parishioners are working-class southern migrants looking for a more emotive service). As such, where they locate is of less importance. As one Four Corners clergy member said during an interview: ‘‘Almost everybody comes from somewhere else—nobody comes from around here.’’ He then generalized, based on his observations, ‘‘It’s funny—seems like almost every church you go to, people come from other places, and the people in that neighborhood go to other churches’’ (128). Physical distance is not what matters most in urban areas; rather, its social distance matters. Social distance implies that even if, for example, an upper-class family lived next door to a working-class family, the two families would be further apart in terms of interaction, their tastes, their social activities, their social groups, and their beliefs than would two upper-class families living many miles apart. Urban areas and modern technologies reduce the importance of physical distance and raise the importance of social distance for forming groups. This is why most urban congregations, even if they desire to attract people from the neighborhood, find it difficult to do so. Studying the 12 churches located within walking distance of the Henry Horner Homes, a black, notoriously poor housing project in Chicago, Laudarji and Livezey (2000) found that only one of the 12 churches had any participation from people at Henry Horner, even though many of them provided social services for Henry Horner residents, and even did door-to-door knocking. In short, the authors concluded that these churches found it difficult to include the isolated poor as participants as well as recipients. McRoberts, in his study of the Four Corners neighborhood of Boston, came to the same conclusion. Very few of the parishioners in the neighborhood’s 29 congregations came from the neighborhood. If social distance supplants physical distance in urban areas (this finding has the implication that congregations can and do move around in urban space given that location is of less importance), consistent with the Subcultural Theory of Urbanism, congregations must clearly and precisely define what makes them unique from the many nearby congregations, thus intensifying their identity and commitment to their particular brand of religion. As Smith and his colleagues (1998, 107) argue based on their study, ‘‘modern pluralism promotes the formation of strong subcultures and potentially ‘deviant’ identities, including religious subcultures . . . .’’ Interestingly, even the demographic processes that drive urban growth—especially migration and diversity of peoples—often intensify commitment to religion. Religion scholar R. Stephen Warner (1998, 3) notes that migrants to urban areas ‘‘bring their religions with them, and gathering religiously is one of the ways they make a life here. Their religious identities often (but not always) mean more to them away from home, in their Diaspora, then they did before . . . .’’

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And organizationally, subcultures are able to intensify in urban areas through the use of workshops, conferences, books, articles, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, revivals, establishing schools, podcasts, Web sites, the development of unique forms of music and distribution, concerts, reading clubs, and so on. It is not that such forms cannot or do not exist in rural areas. They do. But these forms overwhelmingly originate in urban areas and are highly concentrated there. So while rural areas may look forward to a yearly revival in their locale, and can access The internet and watch television, in urban areas, they are generating these products of material culture, concentrating the creative, influential class along with the wealth and other resources in urban space. They are also concentrating the products of the material culture themselves— more revivals, more concerts, more bookstores, more of each of these. Urbanism, then, is clearly associated with the intensification of religious subcultures.

Innovation and Deviance It seems clear that the move of African Americans to urban areas has led to bigger congregations, more diversity of congregations and religious practices, great innovation, and an intensification of group identity and subcultures. But does this diversity, innovation, and intensification lead to the birth, presence, and growth of ‘‘deviant’’ religions? Insofar as ‘‘deviant’’ is defined as new and/or outside the mainstream, which in the United States has traditionally meant European versions of Protestantism and, later in the nation’s history, Catholic Christianity, the answer is a resounding yes. And it occurs in good part through the process of innovation that results from mutual influence, as suggested by Proposition 3 of the Subcultural Theory of Urbanism. For example, returning to his study of the Four Corners congregations in Boston, McRoberts found that there was a good deal of ‘‘cross-pollinating,’’ that is, unique congregations getting or working together at various times. ‘‘Most churches in Four Corners regularly invited guest preachers and held events with other churches . . . . Some laypersons actually rotated between churches in various neighborhoods . . .’’ (130). What is more, ‘‘In one way or another, practically all of the churches in Four Corners fellowshipped with other churches in different parts of the city. Many churches held joint seasonal revivals’’ (131). Mutual influence and cross-pollination lead to religious innovation, often considered by many to be ‘‘deviant’’ religion. We see many instances of such innovation by black Americans occurring in urban areas. Consider the following illustrative (but by no means exhaustive) selections: • Black denominations, considered mainstream today, were religious innovations. The first black denominations were born from events in Philadelphia and, later, in New York. • The Azusa Street Revival (1906 1908) of Los Angeles was lead by William Seymour, whose theology developed in Cincinnati and later Houston. This urban revival is consid ered the birth of the modern day charismatic/Pentecostal movement. • Holiness Pentecostal churches arose in urban areas and were viewed as quite deviant for many decades.

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African American Religion in the Urban Context • Noble Prophet Drew Ali, 1913, began preaching in the streets of Newark. He preached that African Americans should shed the white man’s religion and convert to Islam. He later established temples in Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Chicago. • After attending the Azusa Street Revival, Father Divine came to believe a year later that he was the son of God, and five years after that he was himself the only true expression of God he started in Baltimore, then eventually set up full expression in the New York City area. • The Nation of Islam started in Detroit (Wallace Fard, Elijah Muhammad) and spread to other U.S. cities. • ‘‘Garveyism’’ was overwhelmingly an urban movement. • Black Mysticism was birthed in urban areas. • Black Madonna and the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church originated in urban areas. • Progressive Baptists were started by Martin Luther King and other urban pastors in response to their wish for churches to be more socially active. • New Thought Churches originated in urban areas. • Jehovah’s Witnesses, too, originated and took hold in urban areas. • Rastafarianism was born in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1930s and spread to the cities of the United States. • Fundamentalist Rastafarianism was birthed in New York City. • ‘‘Afrocentric’’ religions, such as those found among the new urban black middle class (Daniels 2000), were driven in part by urban transformations and black theology, deriving overwhelmingly from urban areas. • Vodou and Haitian Catholicism developed in the age of transnational migration to and from U.S. cities. • Hip hop churches/worship services, an urban phenomenon found in large U.S. cities, are based on the hip hop genre that itself came from urban areas. • Multiracial and multiethnic congregations are almost completely an urban phenomenon. The close proximity of many different kinds of peoples allows for the possibility of such an innovation. • Migrant congregations again are overwhelmingly an urban phenomenon. Cities have the density and size to allow for such congregations. • Storefront churches and ‘‘religious districts’’ are found across metropolitan regions of the United States, but especially in poorer (i.e., more affordable) areas of U.S. cities and inner ring suburbs.

Conclusion The massive urbanization of African Americans over the twentieth and into the twenty-first century has had profound impacts for African American religion—its organization, its influence, its physical concentration, its intensity, its creativity, its variety. The effect of the urban environment on black religion conforms closely to what is outlined by the Subcultural Theory of Urbanism.

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But diversity of religions concentrated in urban space has long been thought by scholars of religion to have other implications. Peter Berger wrote in the 1960s that for religion to be effective, it must create a ‘‘sacred canopy’’ over a people, creating a cohesive worldview that is seen as simply ‘‘how things are.’’ But this sacred canopy is ripped and ultimately shredded in the face of religious diversity. In such cases, Berger wrote, [religion] no longer legitimates the world. Rather, different religious groups seek, by differ ent means, to maintain their particular subworlds in the face of a plurality of competing sub worlds. Concomitantly, this plurality of religious legitimations is internalized in consciousness as a plurality of possibilities between which one may choose. Ipso facto, any particular choice is relativized and less than certain. (152)

Ultimately, he thought, religious pluralism would lead to the demise of organized religions. Yet since his influential work, scholars such as Finke and Stark (1992, 2000, 2005) have theorized and shown empirically that, at least in terms of worship service attendance, religious diversity is associated not with less attendance, but with more. A higher percent of people attend religious congregations as the religious diversity of an area increases. The reason, they argue, is in part because by having more to chose from, more people are drawn to religion that speaks to them and their subculture(s), and also because subcultures are free to create religious forms that serve their needs. Christian Smith and colleagues (1998) propose the subcultural theory of religious strength, arguing that in the modern world, people do not have (or need) sacred canopies. Rather, they construct ‘‘sacred umbrellas’’ for their specific religious subcultures. In this view, religious diversity, consistent with the subcultural theory of urbanism, typically serves to strengthen religious subcultural identity, as each umbrella must be clearly defined in juxtaposition to other subcultural forms. Moreover, because these identities are chosen, people are invested in them in a way they cannot be if they are simply ascribed to them and held to by everyone they know. Black religion in the United States, then, is more diverse now than it has ever been. But, despite the oft-cited ‘‘good ‘ol days of ‘ol time religion’’ lament, black religions in many ways are stronger, are more intense, have clearer identities, have more influence, and are institutionally healthier than they ever were. The move from rural to urban has had profound effects on black religion, and these effects will continue to be felt into the future. The meanings of ‘‘blackness’’ are being shaped by these changes, as are the religious practices and beliefs of its faithful. The study of black religion, then, will remain vital to understanding religion, race, and urban change.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Berger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967). Daniels, David D., III. ‘‘ ‘Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round’: The Politics of Race and the New Black Middle Class Religion.’’ Public Religion and Urban Transformation: Faith in the City, ed. Lowell W. Livezey (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 163 185.

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Du Bois, W. E. B. The Negro Church (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2003 [Orig. pub. 1903]). Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark. The Churching of America, 1776 1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992). Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University Press of California, 2000). Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark. The Churching of America, 1776 2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005). Fischer, Claude S. ‘‘Toward a Subcultural Theory of Urbanism.’’ American Journal of Sociology 80, no. 6 (1975): 1319 1341. Fischer, Claude S. ‘‘The Subcultural Theory of Urbanism: A Twentieth year Assessment.’’ American Journal of Sociology 101, no. 3 (1995): 543 577. Laudarji, Isaac B., and Lowell W. Livezey. ‘‘The Churches and the Poor in a ‘Ghetto Under class’ Neighborhood.’’ Public Religion and Urban Transformation: Faith in the City, ed. Lowell W. Livezey (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 83 105. Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Expe rience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990). Mays, Benjamin Elijah, and Joseph William Nicholson. The Negro’s Church (New York: Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1933). McRoberts, Omar M. Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003). Pinn, Anthony B. Varieties of African American Religious Experience (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998). Pinn, Anthony B. Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). Pinn, Anthony B. The African American Religious Experience in America (Gainesville: The University of Florida Press, 2007). Smith, Christian, with Michael O. Emerson, Sally Gallagher, Paul Kennedy, and David Sikkink. American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998). Stark, Rodney, and Roger Finke. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Warner, R. Stephen. ‘‘Immigration and Religious Communities in the United States.’’ Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration, ed. R. Stephen Warner and Judith G. Wittner (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1998), 3 34.

African American Religious Thought Terrence L. Johnson When W. E. B. Du Bois stumbled into a barren community some 50 miles outside of Nashville during his undergraduate years at Fisk University in the late 1880s, he discovered a unique gift among a socially marginalized group: black religion. Nestled behind the veil, that is to say beyond the purview of most whites, Du Bois was baptized in the fire of black worship experience in the black church. The wooden church swayed back and forth with each moan bellowed from the parishioners. The Negro spirituals, the black music Du Bois called the sorrow songs, gave voice to the stories of struggle, sacrifice, survival, and joy that often went unheard outside the wooden walls. The ‘‘music is distinctly sorrowful’’ and ‘‘tell[s] in word and music of trouble and exile, of strife and hiding; they grope toward some unseen power and sigh for rest in the End’’ (Du Bois 1995, 270). Each verse spoke into existence what had been buried or forgotten. The Negro spirituals, what Alain Locke called ‘‘the most characteristic product of Negro genius,’’ lifted the veil to a unique religious expression. The spirituals wove together a rich melody that provided the backdrop for poetic and prophetic black preaching. Music and words clashed at the intersection of black worship where men and women expressed themselves through extemporaneous clapping, crying, and shouting as the ‘‘spirit’’ moved in and through them. Inside the wooden church we see the emergence of a religious expression where the disinherited discovered their inheritance. In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois lifted the veil to the peculiar religious expression of rural blacks and exposed the beauty and genius of black religious expression: the preacher, the sorrow songs, and the frenzy (shouting). Du Bois’s characterization of black religion offers a guide for evaluating Black Religious Thought. His characterizations, while clearly emerging in a Christian setting, speak to the nontraditional resources developed to define the religious expression of many traditions in black religion. Instead of turning to church doctrine or theological writings to understand human existence in relationship to God and the social world, blacks often used their social location as the starting point for interpreting and investigating human existence. The theological resources represented the creations of their African past and new world existence in the Americas. The characteristics Du Bois named paint a broad picture of 561

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black religious expression: storytelling, singing, and dancing. The three forms of expression point to the traditions blacks carried with them from their homelands (primarily West Africa) and provide a sense of how blacks inserted and at times reconfigured their religious expressions to meet the demands found in their new homeland. Du Bois’s interpretation of black religion raises a central concern for those interested in Black Religious Thought in the broadest sense. Is religious expression within black churches always Christian? Du Bois’s characterization would suggest otherwise. Though the Christian God looms large in Du Bois’s rural-church encounter, there W. E. B. Du Bois, called the father of is a strange sense in his writings that pan Africanism for his work on behalf of Christianity only offers the context for the emerging African nations, devoted his black religious expression. In Du Bois’s life to the struggle for equality for African wooden church, neither the cross nor Americans and all people of color. (Library Jesus—central symbols of the Christian of Congress) faith—play a central role in black worship. What becomes central is religious expression, and in the black worship experience this expression manifests itself through preaching, singing, and shouting (see entries on the ‘‘African American Preaching and Sermonic Traditions’’ and ‘‘Worship in the African American Church Tradition’’). These expressions are informed by Christian and non-Christian traditions. It is all too often assumed that black religious expression within the black church is Christian in a strict sense. However, this is not always the case. Black religion’s engagement with canonical and noncanonical Christian sources provides the groundwork for mapping out the study of Black Religious Thought. The central concerns within Black Religious Thought include: hermeneutics (the interpretation of signs, symbols, and texts), the relationship between God and society, and the role of religious expression in grappling with issues related to racism, sexism, class, environmentalism, and sexuality. Black Religious Thought functions as a tool for examining the descriptive accounts and normative claims raised among blacks, especially among slaves and their descendants, in the Americas. The framework primarily focuses on investigations of justice, race, gender, sexuality, and class within traditions such as Christianity, humanism, Islam, liberation theology, and Africana philosophy. What one finds in Black Religious Thought is a study of the relationship between human experience and religious expression. Within the academic study of religion, black religion establishes a new religious discourse based on a relationship between existential freedom and oppression. Historian

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of religion Charles Long claims such modes of discourse ‘‘afforded a religious experience of radical otherness, a resourceful and critical moment that allowed these [black] communities to undertake radical internal criticisms of themselves, their situation, and the situation of the majority culture’’ (Long 1986, 9). Long pierces the substantive issue at hand: defining and delineating the internal mechanisms retrieved by blacks to build meaning in a meaningless world, a world in which they encounter oppressive forces. One must take seriously the roles of slavery and segregation in forming and fashioning black religious expression in particular and Black Religious Thought in general. What weaves together the otherwise competing religious traditions in Black Religious Thought are the universal efforts, substantively or not, to dismantle antiblack racism. The efforts, while singular in their fight against racism, bring to the battle a broad range of strategies in grappling with racial injustice. The focus on racial oppression distinguishes black religious expression in a peculiar way. Here the central theological problem burdening black religion is the social world’s assault against blackness. Black Religious Thought, then, emerges from an interdisciplinary framework established on a broad moral, philosophical, and theological vocabulary for investigating black responses to human existence in general and human suffering and oppression in particular. Racial solidarity, liberation, freedom, uplift ideology, and black power are representative of the marriage between black religious expression and the social world that blacks established in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America to tackle the racial injustice. For instance, David Walker’s Appeal, published in 1829, is an early example of the use of religion in efforts to dismantle slavery and black oppression. Anna Julia Cooper’s A Voice from the South, originally published in 1892, attacked gender bias and race prejudice by appealing to a universal moral code that acknowledges the intrinsic worth of all humans regardless of their gender or race. In both cases, two prominent African American figures retrieved religion and appealed to a moral code as justificatory grounds for eradicating black slavery and black women’s oppression.

Origins of Black Religious Thought Black Religious Thought emerges from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century debates on the deep relationship among Christianity, morality, and black oppression. In some sense, Black Religious Thought carries a normative task: the formation of analytic frameworks that take into consideration the rich forms of black religious expression. Black Religious Thought is rooted in slave religion, what Albert Raboteau in Slave Religion (1978) calls an ‘‘invisible institution.’’ The religion established a set of traditions that offered protection against and solutions for racial, social, sexual, and political assaults against African Americans whose ‘‘experiences had constituted them a peculiar, chosen, people.’’ I quote Raboteau at length: This identity was to remain in the midst of the chaos, disappointment, and disaster of Reconstruction a bedrock of hope for freed black Christians as it had been for them as slaves. As the one institution which freed blacks were allowed to control, the church was

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West African tradition and culture influenced the lived expression of black religion through singing, preaching, and shouting. But Raboteau argues that the ‘‘gods of Africa gave way to the God of Christianity’’ (Raboteau 1978, 92). His bold claim is representative of a rich debate in Black Religious Thought: the role, if at all, West African culture plays in the formation of black life in North America. It is rather obvious that the conversion of African slaves to Christianity created a new tradition within Christianity in general and black religion in particular. This, in part, is evident in the retrieval of the Exodus biblical narrative among African converts to Christianity. Indeed, ‘‘no single story captures more clearly the distinctiveness of African American Christianity than that of the Exodus’’ (Raboteau 1995, 28). The narrative exhibits the national and racial solidarity among newly Christianized Africans. Historian Sterling Stuckey’s examination of slave religion and culture in Slave Culture (1987) stands in tension with Raboteau’s interpretation of African American religion. Stuckey believes the African Gods remained with Africans in the New World. In fact, the conversion of Africans to Christianity, for Stuckey, illustrated a defiant and self-affirming act that deepened their links to their homeland of Africa. In this context, the relationship between Africa and Christianity, Israel and Egypt, creates a lingering dilemma in the academic study of black religion: how do we examine black religious expressions and their role in building new moral languages, traditions, and beliefs in the New World without either romanticizing or denying West African influences in black religion? The rise in black conversions to Christianity led to the establishment of independent black churches. The churches emerged in large part because many white denominations refused to grant blacks equal access to their worship spaces. The ugly face of segregation in Christianity led to what many call distinct Christianities in America. The rise of black independent churches often fostered the development of distinct worship liturgies and practices within African American religious contexts.

Black Church as Public The black church, as a collection of independent churches, emerged as a distinct tradition in American history. Benjamin Elijah Mays called the black church a ‘‘public institution,’’ the center of religious, moral, and intellectual training for those moral subjects sitting behind the veil of blackness, on the margins of the slaveholders’ world (Mays and Nicholson 1933, 58, 279). The extension of Mays’s proposition is evident in Righteous Discontent (1993) where Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham posits rather provocatively that the black church created a ‘‘counter-public sphere’’ in which the public is ‘‘distinct from and in conflict with the dominant white society and its racist institutional structures’’ (Higginbotham 1993, 11). The counterpublics formed and fashioned the intellectual, political, and moral life of a world segregated from white society. Often these

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counterpublics allowed disparate voices to emerge. For instance, black women established women’s organizations, schools, and civic groups from within the black church. As we can see, Higginbotham broadens our conception of the black church. The institution is not simply an internal, marginal organization. Instead, the black church serves as a deliberative sphere, a place where diverse moral and political persons debate and reflect on the central theological, political, and social concerns. The black church clearly produced theological responses to the political, social, and economic crises facing blacks. What is often overlooked is the black church’s role in shaping the moral vocabularies that were developed outside of the black church to eradicate antiblack racism. Racial uplift ideology is such an example. In Uplifting the Race (1996), cultural critic Kevin Gaines masterfully delineates the contours of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century racial uplift ideology, which he calls a ‘‘liberation theology’’ developed among black elites in post-Reconstruction to promote ‘‘self-help, racial solidarity, temperance, thrift, chastity, social purity, patriarchal authority, and accumulation of wealth’’ (Gaines 1996, xv). Racial uplift ideology, clearly emerging from a Puritan ethic, captured the imagination of blacks at the turn of the century and foreshadowed the liberation discourse among black preachers and academicians before and during the Civil Rights era. Racial uplift ideology is representative of the development of moral languages and traditions outside of the black church boundaries. Clearly the black church shaped the ethical framework that produced a racial uplift ideology, but its application within the social worlds hints at the development of moral traditions that are not necessarily Christian in the traditional sense. Racial uplift ideology is a kind of liberation ethic that established the conditions for a black theology of liberation.

Black Theology of Liberation Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited (1949) and Albert Cleage’s The Black Messiah (1968) paved the foundation for the development of black theology of liberation. The groundbreaking texts situated the poor and blacks at the center of Jesus’ theological concern and political interest. James Cone is the intellectual architect of North America’s black theology of liberation. Indeed, Cone builds a new tradition within black religion based on his theological concern for social justice. Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970) introduced to the academic world a Christian theology built on black interpretations of the Bible and black responses to white racism. Cone’s theology emphasizes Christian responses to and interpretation of black slavery, segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement. Cone emphasizes an unabashed belief in a liberating God who sits on the side of the oppressed. He insists that the Gospels depict Jesus Christ as the liberator of the oppressed and dispossessed, the messiah standing on the side of modern-day disenfranchised peoples. In a sweeping move, Cone transforms the Bible into a ‘‘talking Book’’ that is situated in history and engaged in dialogue with its readers. In short, Cone’s theological methodology is an effort to examine religion as it emerges in

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and from specific contexts such as black life in America. Cone’s A Black Theology of Liberation identifies six sources of black theology: black experience, black history, black culture, revelation, scripture, and tradition. Within the categories of black experience and black history, black theology of liberation grapples with human ‘‘existence [with] in a system of white racism’’ and takes into account ‘‘black persons saying no to every act of white brutality’’ (Cone 1986, 24–26). Cone’s theology examines black resistance in an antiblack society. Cone unabashedly assails the white church for what he believes to be their lackluster response to racism and failure to represent the visible manifestation of God acting justly in the world. The Cone tradition of black theology produced several notable religious scholars including Dwight Hopkins. Hopkins stands out for his work in retrieving uniquely black sources to understand black theology’s position on liberation. He extends Cone’s theology of liberation by systematically examining the political and cultural threads that are woven into the fabric of black life in America. In Shoes That Fit Our Feet (1993), Hopkins undergoes a systematic investigation into the narratives that formed and fashioned black responses to white supremacy. He examines slave autobiographies, black social protest movements, and black music in his investigation. Hopkins responds to criticisms that might too easily castigate black theology as an intrinsically Christian characterization of black life. Because of his reliance on West African indigenous practices within his conception of black theology, Hopkins wants to construct a theology that is inclusive of the countering (African) traditions and beliefs within black religion. Hopkins argues that black theology is not simply a Christian device for conceptualizing God and God’s relationship to the world. Instead, black theology includes ‘‘all segments’’ of black life: theistic and nontheistic, Christian and non-Christian (Hopkins 1993, 5). He complicates our conception of black theology by asserting two subtle but significant points. Hopkins insists that politics and culture represent the two major influences on black life in America. By bringing in politics and culture as necessary resources for examining black religion, Hopkins attempts to build a strong case for the usefulness of a theology of liberation.

Black Theology of Liberation and Its Modern Critics From the beginning of Cone’s bodacious career, critics have challenged his theology. Philosopher of religion and theologian J. Deotis Roberts calls for a theology of reconciliation to stand alongside Cone’s theology of liberation. Furthermore, Long’s Significations criticizes black theology for turning a blind eye to Africa’s influence on forming and fashioning black religious expression. In addition, Preston Williams, in 1972, criticizes Cone in ‘‘James Cone and the Problem of a Black Ethic’’ for not explicitly developing a theological ethics and denoting the ethical aspects of a black theology of liberation. Indeed, Williams blasts Cone for developing a theory of liberation that requires ‘‘divine revelation’’ to comprehend God’s liberating justice in black struggles for freedom.

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The problem of blackness poses a divine problem for black theology of liberation for scholars such as William R. Jones. In Is God a White Racist? (1973), Jones examines God’s role in eliminating evil and black suffering. He challenges the Cone-influenced black theology to explain black suffering in light of black theology’s position that Jesus Christ is the liberator of blacks and oppressed peoples. The question of divine racism emerges because of the blood and guts of black suffering. The black theologian, accordingly, must utilize evidential materials drawn from actual black experience . . . What is to be rejected are mere rational and theoretical formulations that are not substantiated by their actual history of blacks. In this connection I will contend that the liberation of non blacks, e.g., the Jews in the Exodus account, can never count decisively against the charge that God is a white racist. (Jones 1998, 78)

In a single text, Jones critically and provocatively disrupts the theological discourse steering the black theology of liberation project and the philosophical question of freedom and evil suddenly turns into the philosophical problem of freedom and evil in black theology. The problem can be addressed when black theology employs a ‘‘stronger’’ sense of human agency in its effort to acquire liberation. Situating ‘‘ultimate’’ freedom in the hands of a transcendental God opens the door to arguments against God’s sovereignty, leads to questions concerning God’s ability and/or willingness to eradicate black suffering, and eventually jeopardizes the entire project of black theology. In the three decades following the publication of Black Theology and Black Power (1969), Cone’s explosive expose´ of white Christianity’s failure to face the race problem redefined the academic study of religion by placing black experience (in the broadest sense) as a necessary lens through which religious thinkers and practitioners should examine the Bible. In recent years scholars in the field have also raised deep concerns about black theology’s failure to address substantively the roles of patriarchy, homophobia, and xenophobia in black religion. Cornel West, Emilie Townes, Victor Anderson, and Kelly Brown Douglas—to name a few—have radically reconfigured and reconceptualized the categories bandied about in black theology of liberation and developed thicker methodologies and hermeneutical lenses for examining the categories of race, religion, and liberation. West lucidly explains black theology’s dilemma. The present challenge to black theologians is to put forward an understanding of the Christian gospel in light of present circumstances that takes into account the complex ways in which rac ism (especially white racism) and sexism (especially male sexism) are integral to the class exploitative capitalist system of production as well as its repressive imperialist tentacles abroad; and to keep in view the crucial existential issues of death, disease, despair, dread, and disappointment that each and every individual must face within the context of these present circumstances. (West 1982, 106)

West’s philosophical concerns with black theology stem from his constructions of race. The encounter between peoples of African descent and Anglo-Americans, institutionally and socially, emerges from and is entangled in what West describes as the

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‘‘doctrine of white supremacy,’’ a set of metaphors and norms that place the two groups in opposition, whites as superior rational beings and blacks as barbarically inferior, irrational creatures. West’s fierce criticisms of antiblack racism within the signs and symbols in Western literature exposes the deep intellectual and moral ‘‘cracks’’ that divide blacks and whites. West is representative of a new generation of scholars in the field of Black Religious Thought. Like West, scholars now enter the study of black religion armed with new critical frameworks for investigating black religious expression. In addition to using resources like slave narratives and black church studies to interpret black religion, scholars are bringing critical race theory, gender studies, and Latino/a and Black philosophies of liberation to understand more fully black religious expression. Philosopher of religion Eddie S. Glaude Jr., for instance, argues that black theology of liberation has a ‘‘problem with history.’’ At least this is the claim raised by Glaude in the 1998 essay ‘‘Pragmatic Historicism and the Problem of History in Black Theology.’’ He criticizes black theology for constituting black religion within an iron cage historical narrative. Too often black theology posits its argument for liberation on a conspicuously thin white-black racial binary, where white supremacist practices dehumanized blacks and blacks in turn dismantled white supremacy by subverting ‘‘the master’s tools,’’ such as Christianity, to acquire liberation. The link between slavery, resistance, and liberation, in this characterization of black theology, is linear and transparent. Black theology’s grand narrative pens a triumphant history of God’s liberative hand in freeing blacks from white subjugation. Glaude challenges such parochial readings of African American history. Indeed, history is neither fixed nor one-dimensional but rather represents a contingent and complex series of events, episodes, and experiences. Glaude criticizes texts such as Hopkins’s Shoes That Fit Our Feet (1993) and Peter Paris’s The Spirituality of African Peoples (1995) for justifying theological positions based only on allegedly ‘‘authentic’’ experiential and epistemic resources in African and African American history. For Glaude, history is not a tool appropriated to justify emancipatory politics. Rather, history ‘‘is an attempt to inform our actions through the kinds of stories we tell ourselves with a bit more than a little luck’’ (Glaude 1998, 190). History represents itself in the visible and hidden narratives—such as the black church and women’s social clubs, respectively—that lead to a normative end or what Glaude calls an ‘‘ethical significance’’ in African American counternarratives. Glaude implies a subtle point: collapsing slavery into a singular narrative of the struggle for liberation erases or at least fundamentally minimizes the counternarratives buried in the world sealed off by the veil of blackness. Slavery is a critical site for evaluation and examination of black experiences. But we must read those experiences through nuanced lenses. Philosopher of religion and theologian Victor Anderson argues that black theology is a theology of crisis. In a polemical but provocative text on black theology, Beyond Ontological Blackness (1995), Anderson challenges the field’s philosophical constructions of race and racism and charges black theology is far too parochial. Anderson calls black theology a crisis theology that is bound to an ontological blackness, a notion Anderson claims undermines any attempt to explain black life in all of its

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nuances and intricacies. Anderson urges black theology to rethink its categories and normative claims given the conditions that are emerging in the so-called postmodern world. According to Anderson, black theology relies too heavily on the notion of the heroic genius, a suggestion that the tradition is uncritically loyal to racial categories. Racial identity, Anderson asserts, is lucid and representative of one characterization of human identity. Anthony Pinn attempts to disclose non-Christian and nontheistic traditions within black religion, most notably African American humanism. Following in the tradition of William R. Jones, Pinn argues for ‘‘multidimensional’’ approaches in the examination of black religion, such as ‘‘re-thinking’’ ‘‘the location of the Black (Christian) churches in relationship to the larger black religious community’’ (Pinn 1995, 20). Pinn argues that black Christianity may not possess the theoretical tools to examine substantively the problem of evil. Indeed, he asserts black Christian theology insufficiently accounts for the full range of black responses to the problem of theodicy (Pinn, 18). Pinn envisions black religion as ‘‘human ingenuity.’’ He sets out to define the black humanist tradition. Black humanism teaches first a notion of agency that holds agents accountable and responsible for the human condition and the correction of humanity’s plight. Second, black humanism rejects substantive accounts of supernaturalism; third, black humanism is commitment to individual and societal transformation; and last, the tradition calls for a moderate level of optimism that embraces both human potential for good and human potential for destruction. Pinn’s Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion (2003) offers a more substantive account of his vision of black religion. The text broadens the contours of black religious studies to include both Christian and non-Christian religious traditions, interrogates the cultural practices that undergird black religious practices, illustrates how the demonization of black bodies shape ethics and hermeneutics, and problematizes how we theorize about ‘‘religious experience’’ by making claims for the inclusion of ‘‘nonreligious’’ perspectives in ‘‘religious’’ accounts. Terror and Triumph represents a critical contribution to the burgeoning field of black religious studies by attempting to rethink the discursive framework constructed by the architects of black theology such as Cone, J. Deotis Roberts, and Gayraud Wilmore. Pinn begins the text by examining the representation of blacks in the general schema of Western history stretching from the post-Enlightenment to twentiethcentury America. His criticism is rooted in and shaped by West’s genealogy of racism that appears in Prophesy Deliverance, as well as sociologist Orlando Patterson’s theory of social death and Frantz Fanon’s theory of race. In the sweeping, albeit brief, account of the rise of modern racism in general and the legal, social, and psychological mechanisms employed to reinforce black inferiority and inhumanity in particular, Pinn sketches out the necessary discursive framework for explicating and understanding the central doctrinal concerns in black religion: those related to the amelioration of racism and eradication of discrimination in terms of access to employment, education, health care, and wealth. In Pinn’s historical account of the African American plight, black people were and continue to be persons void of subjectivity, and in the end unfold as the problem people in moral and political discourses that deal with issues related to race and racism.

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The poignant and provocative account of rituals of reference pushes toward the ‘‘nitty-gritty’’ of what constitutes the grounds for some of the deep claims of meaning and life purpose proposed by black theologians: redressing antiblack racism requires the retrieval of epistemic tools that look into how practices, rituals, and traditions constructed what Charles Taylor calls the moral frameworks that foster our identities and beliefs. In other words, antiblack racism cannot be fully addressed until the notion of blackness as a social category is interrogated. Black Religious Thought establishes itself by black Christianity and nontraditional religious resources such as literature, black spirituals, jazz, and blues. It responds to Pinn’s call for a ‘‘revitalized canon of Black religion’’ that includes theistic and nontheistic forms of expression. It also addresses what Cornel West calls black theology’s ‘‘absence of systematic social analysis’’; ‘‘lack of a social vision, political program and concrete praxis’’ that fuels liberation; and finally its insufficient attention to ‘‘existential issues such as death, disease, dread, despair and disappointment’’ (West 106).

Reimagining the Tradition: Womanist and Feminist Perspectives One of the major new fields to emerge from James Cone’s tradition of black theology of liberation is womanist thought. Womanism, an analytic category Alice Walker develops in her 1983 collection of writings, In Search of Our Mothers’ Garden, refers to black women’s perspective on politics, culture, and society. It is a concept that is committed to building and protecting black communities based on black women’s interpretation of black life. In the academic study of religion, black women retrieve the term to legitimate black women’s descriptive and normative claims as necessary epistemic resources in theology, ethics, and biblical studies. Delores Williams, Jacquelyn Grant, and Katie Cannon constructed and construed a broad theory of womanism for the academic study of religion. Their theological and ethical frameworks shaped the inquiry of religious scholars like Shawn Copeland, Clarice Martin, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, Emilie Townes, Cheryl J. Sanders, Marcia Riggs, Karen Baker-Fletcher, Kelly Brown Douglas, Linda Thomas, Joan Martin, and a host of others. In Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community (1995) Katie Cannon blends together ethics and liberation theology to build a theoretical framework for understanding womanism. Black folklore, slave autobiographies, novels, and Negro spirituals constitute the epistemic foundations for a theory of womanism. Cannon urges for the inclusion of black women in moral reasoning. Black women’s experience must become an epistemic resource within ethics. She examines the various modes of resistance and survival skills to build what she calls a ‘‘wisdom-source’’ for interpreting and explaining human existence in general and black women’s experience in particular. The wisdom-source she constructs is based on a hermeneutics that sees race, gender/sexuality, and class as interrelated and necessary points of inquiry when examining oppression. Delores Williams’s Sisters in the Wilderness (1993) raises significant doubts about the usefulness of establishing women’s liberation based on a model of a suffering

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Christ or crucified Jesus. Instead, Williams pulls the narrative of Hagar from the Hebrew Bible to build an argument for reading Christianity as a model for helping humans to survive in inhumane conditions. Williams challenges the retrieval and use of the Exodus motif bandied about in black theology. She questions whether Exodus is a fitting category for liberation in the robust sense. . . . when non Jewish people (like many African American women who now claim them selves to be economically enslaved) read the entire Hebrew testament . . . there is no clear indication that God is against their perpetual enslavement. Likewise, there is not clear opposition expressed in the Christian testament to the institution of slavery . . . Womanist theologians, especially those who take their slave heritage seriously, are therefore led to question James Cone’s assumption that the African American theologian can today make paradigmatic use of the Hebrews’ exodus and election experience as recorded in the Bible. (Williams 1993, 146 147)

Williams raises a fundamental concern for black theologians: Biblical narratives do not support claims that God stands on the side of all oppressed peoples. In response to the failure of earlier black theologians, she builds a new hermeneutical methodology— the hermeneutics of ‘‘identification-ascertainment’’ (Williams 149). The approach includes a threefold model of interpretation: subjective, communal, and objective. In sum, Williams wants black theologians to identify their own social location so they can better imagine and interpret the presuppositions and biases they bring to the Bible. The communal component of Williams’s hermeneutics enables theologians to come to terms with how Christian communities more broadly interpret and appropriate the Bible. The objective perspective illuminates the marginal figures who stand behind the heroines and heroes bandied about in Black Theology Liberation. Her objection to traditional interpretations of Biblical accounts of liberation is rather provocative. However, her proposal for redressing the oppression of the peoples who remain in bondage, those individuals ‘‘overlooked’’ by the God of the oppressed, demands further investigation. Implicit in Williams’s criticisms is the tradition’s understanding of Biblical authority and the Bible’s role in shaping and defining the paradigms of liberation in Black theology. Womanism, while used broadly in understanding literature, ethics, and religion, is rooted heavily within Christian interpretations of black women’s perspective on oppression. In White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus (1989) Jacquelyn Grant challenges feminist Christology and responds to whether Jesus’ maleness can liberate women. She shifts the feminist focus away from an abstract Christ to a womanist attention on Jesus’ embodied role in healing and redeeming the weak and disinherited. Grant links Jesus’ crucifixion with the rape, slaughter, and murder of innocent black women in an antiblack society. Cheryl Townsend Gilkes’s sociological work on black women (e.g., If It Wasn’t for the Women, 2001) focuses heavily on black women’s survival and resistance within Christian traditions. Some scholars of black women’s history and ethics raise serious concerns about the theological roots of womanism and its appropriation in the excavation of black women’s voices in black religion. In ‘‘Christian Ethics and Theology in

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Womanist Perspective’’ in Black Theology: A Documentary History Volume Two: 1980–1992, Cheryl Sanders raises serious theological concerns about the religious origins of womanism. Sanders remains committed to interpreting texts through black women’s epistemic resources, but she wants to do so within a thick Christian hermeneutical framework. Indeed, she challenges the appropriation of ‘‘the womanist concept as the prime ground and source for theological claims’’ because Walker does not employ God in addressing the plight of the poor when developing a theory of womanism. Based on the dearth of theological presuppositions within Walker’s use of womanism, Sanders asserts that woman does not depend on theological considerations when asserting descriptive and normative claims. If this is the case, how do we retrieve such a category when investigating black women’s role in the black church? In addition, Sanders challenges womanist scholars who claim black women hold the right to name their experience. Within the Christian context, Sanders claims, it is only God or Christ who holds the ultimate authority to name. Emilie Townes makes an innovative move within womanism by linking black women’s spirituality to social justice. In In a Blaze of Glory, Townes argues that womanist spirituality is a form of social witness. In her context, spirituality is not an amorphous force but rather is a ‘‘deep kneading of humanity and divinity into one breath’’ that crystallizes into a clear vision of the relationship between eradicating injustice and God’s love. As individuals fight against oppression, their love for God grows deeper because the love of God is manifested in human involvement in fights against oppression. The spirituality Townes develops here emerges from black women’s moral reasoning and wisdom. To be sure, Townes cautions us to neither valorize resistance nor see resistance as ‘‘synonymous with self-actualization.’’ Nonetheless, womanist spirituality emerges from the social conditions of black life. The search for this spirituality is perennial. It is about discovering and rediscovering the intricacies of black life. As we can see, Womanist scholars discovered the broken fragments of black women’s epistemic resources and have built a viable framework for illuminating the hidden traditions in black women’s theological thinking and moral reasoning. Black Religious Thought takes into account the countering and overlapping traditions in black religion. The field takes seriously moral, philosophical, and theological vocabularies in its exploration for explaining in substantive detail black responses to human existence and human suffering.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Cone, James. A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986). Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Signet Classic, 1995). Gaines, Kevin, Uplifting the Race (Chapel Hill: North Carolina Press, 1996). Glaude, Eddie, Jr., ‘‘Pragmatic Historicism and ‘the Problem of History’ in Black Theology.’’ American Journal of Theology and Philosophy (May 1998). Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). Hopkins, Dwight. Shoes That Fit Our Feet (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1993), 5. Jones, William R. Is God a White Racist? (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998).

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Long, Charles. Significations (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 9. Mays, Benjamin Elijah, and Joseph Nicholson. The Negro’s Church (New York: Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1933). Pinn, Anthony. Why, Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (New York: Continuum, 1995). Raboteau, Albert. Slave Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). Raboteau, Albert. A Fire in the Bones (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995). Stuckey, Sterling. Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). West, Cornel. Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro American Revolutionary Christianity (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1982), 106. Williams, Delores S. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenges of Womanist God Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993).

Education and African American Religion Ray A. Owens Harriet Ware, a white Northern missionary teaching in Port Royal, Virginia, made a striking observation regarding the religious sensibilities with which her students, all newly freed from slavery, approached their education. In a letter dated May 1862, she recounts an intriguing ritual performed over the grave of a recently deceased man. She writes, ‘‘As we drew near to the grave we heard the children singing their A, B, C, through and through again, as they stood waiting round the grave for the rest to assemble . . . . Each child had his school-book or picture book . . . in his hand,— another proof that they consider their lessons as in some sort religious exercises’’ (Pearson 1969, 65). Ware’s observation regarding the connection that her students seem to make between ‘‘their lessons’’ and their religion illumines a critical, yet underexamined, feature of the African American experience in the United States. Historically, many African Americans have viewed education and religion as united. The result of this practice has been the development of a deeply religious understanding of education on the part of many African Americans from the earliest days of their enslavement in the so-called ‘‘new world.’’ This uniquely ‘‘religious’’ dimension of black education offers a telling commentary on the scope and meaning of African American religious experience.

Education and Religion: A Historical Overview As Harriet Ware’s observations imply, the tradition of connecting education and religion dates back to the African American experience of slavery on the North American continent. Though slaves’ encounters with education were relatively limited and often conducted under clandestine circumstances, their perspectives on education are well documented in their narratives, their testimonies, and the observations of others. The narrative of Rev. John Sella Martin, for example, provides a representative expression of this tradition. Reflecting on his life in bondage, Martin tells of his having coerced a white playmate into teaching him basic literacy skills and giving him a reading primer. Building on this instruction, Martin developed literacy skills that would prove

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invaluable to him and his community. More importantly, his status as a literate slave clearly embodied religious connotations. Literacy, for Martin, promoted him to the status of religious prophet in the tradition of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. He maintains, ‘‘what I read . . . gave the most intense satisfaction . . . and elevated me to the judgment seat of a second young Daniel among them [illiterate slaves]’’ (Blassingame 1977, 711). In a similar vein, because of his ability to read, Martin described himself as ‘‘oracle among the slaves’’ (Blassingame 1977, 711–712). The implied connection between literacy and religious leadership further reinforces the deeply religious meaning of black education. Because literacy empowered one with greater access to Holy Scriptures and other insights recorded in print, blacks perceived a natural tie between reading and preaching. An ex-slave interviewed in the 1930s affirms this connection when he recalls, ‘‘If there chanced to be among the slaves a man of their own race who could read and write, he generally preached and would at times and places unknown to the master, call his fellow slaves together and hold religious services with them’’ (Cade 1935, 330). Another ex-slave informed his interviewer that, ‘‘dem what could read was most allus called on by de others for preachin’’ (Rawick 1977, 914). Janet Cornelius maintains, Literacy was one of the tools the preacher used; he or she was expected to learn to read and write in order to guide fellow slaves as they formed their religious community. Knowledge was a necessary part of resistance against the slave system and the leader was expected to provide this knowledge . . . Knowledge of the Bible, the sacred text, was a tool for attaining salvation and for living in a personal relationship with God, but the ability to read the Bible gave practical as well as spiritual benefits to a slave preacher . . . Slaves often chose their own religious leaders and chose those who could read. (Cornelius 1991, 87)

The interlocking relationship between literacy and religion was not unique to enslaved Christians. African Muslims enslaved in North America, a community commonly underexamined in antebellum literature, exhibited a similar conception. From Sylviane Diouf, author of Servants of Allah, we learn that significant numbers of enslaved Muslims arrived in the ‘‘New World’’ with impressive literacy skills in Arabic, Hausa, Wolof, and Madingo languages. In fact, ‘‘literacy became one of the distinguishing marks of the Muslims’’ (Diouf 1998, 107, 109). Like their Christian counterparts, enslaved Muslims viewed literacy as deeply imbued with religious significance. This was especially so in the case of black Muslims because living by the principles outlined in the Koran is such a critical aspect of their faith. Hence, access to this text—in the sense of both the ability to read it and the physical acquisition of the text—was a highly valued religious commodity for Muslims enslaved in the Americas. Muslims devised elaborate strategies to preserve their literacy skills and access their sacred texts even in the very limiting context of chattel slavery. Many practiced writing their Arabic characters in the sand in order to keep their reading and writing capacities alive. Such abilities, of course, were essential to perpetuating their religious faith, an aim they refused to relinquish without great struggle. In fact, many made costly sacrifices to secure copies of the Koran, their principle religious text. One slave trader records, ‘‘slaves who are evidently very poor are willing to make the greatest sacrifices

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to acquire this volume [the Koran]. They go into debt to do so and sometimes take a year to pay off the book seller. About a hundred copies of the Koran are sold every year’’ (Diouf 1998, 111–112). Other instances of the religious meaning of education among enslaved blacks are illustrated in their strong tendency to relate their educational experiences by way of religious language and categories. After emancipation, one slave describes the systematic effort to prohibit black education during slavery within the rubric of the religious doctrine of sin. John Pennington, ex-slave turned Presbyterian pastor, professed, ‘‘there is one sin that slavery committed against me which I will never forgive. It robbed me of my education’’ (Pennington 1971, 56). Noah Davis, another slave who secured his freedom and became a preacher, also casts his perspectives on education by way of religious language and imagery. He views his pursuit of education as an obligation to God. He declares, ‘‘every man is under obligation to make use of the means and opportunities which God has given him for cultivating his mind, by educating himself, that he may be useful to himself and those around him’’ (Davis 1959, 75–76). The religious meaning of black education persisted well beyond the antebellum period. Many northern missionaries commissioned to teach in the post–Civil War Common Schools noted the religious connotations that blacks assigned to their education. Having distributed spelling books to ex-slaves in Florida, Harriet Beecher Stowe remarked that they ‘‘accepted and treasured [the books] with a sort of superstitious veneration’’ (Stowe 1873, 296–297). Similarly, a former Louisiana slaveholder observed that blacks had ‘‘erected education into almost a divine institution’’ (Richardson 1986, 39). A group of blacks in Tennessee make use of religious language in their petition for educational opportunities. They complain, ‘‘the war has set us free; but as yet, we are without the means of making this freedom a blessing to us. In order to use our freedom for our own good, and the good of society, we must be educated’’ (italics mine) (Richardson 1986, 200). Josephine Turpin, a teacher and assistant to Frederick Douglass, offers a most revealing look at the religious character of black education. In an 1888 article printed in the A.M.E. Church Review, Turpin proposes criteria that she deems necessary for those who enter the profession of teaching. In her assessment there is a strong religious bent to the role and work of the educator. She declares, ‘‘teaching is a grave responsibility, and should be so regarded by those who make choice of it as a vocation. Without a feeling of awe in the contemplation of its serious and sacred duties, a prerequisite is wanting’’ (Turpin 2000, 102–103). Turpin not only views teaching as a sacred vocation, she also invokes the religious theme of moral virtue as an essential aspect of the educational process. Everywhere the duties of the preceptor partake largely of a missionary character, but espe cially is it so with us. The most of our children come form [sic] ignorant homes, from homes lacking culture and refinement, often lacking decency and morality; and the teacher who has the true interests of the pupil and the race at heart will strive to supplement, as far as in him lies, this deficient and defective home training. (Turpin 2000, 103)

Turpin’s idea of teaching as a sacred vocation to which one is called finds expression in the views of many African Americans. The prominent educator, Mary McLeod

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Bethune, founder of both the National Council of Negro Women and a school for girls that later became Bethune-Cookman College, describes her life in the teaching profession as a religious vocation for which she was called and ‘‘consecrated.’’ She recalls: I remember when dear Amanda Smith came to me one day and said: ‘‘Mary Mcleod Bethune, I have been to Africa three times; I have traveled around the world; I have been looking for someone upon whom to throw my mantle. As I walk with you, Mary Bethune, I believe you are the one to wear my mantle. Get down child, and let us pray.’’ We were in the middle of the grounds, but we dropped to our knees. This consecration that I received as a young woman . . . carried me through the years. (Butler 2001)

Education and Religion in African American Religious Scholarship The connection between education and religion in African American culture has not gone totally unnoted by scholars of religion. In her book, Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People, theologian and ethicist Cheryl Sanders attributes the apparent educational achievement gap between African American women and men to the greater tendency of black women to ground their educational desires in their religious faith. Citing a 1986 Washington Post series of articles entitled ‘‘The New Black Woman,’’ Sanders reports that the study upon which the articles were based revealed that, ‘‘with regard to education, some 60% of the blacks enrolled in colleges are women, and 70% to 80% of the blacks who graduate from college are women, indicative of a continuing trend toward more college-educated women than men within the black population’’ (Sanders 1995, 81). The Washington Post authors theorize that involvement in church is one of the factors that account for black women’s higher levels of educational achievement in comparison to their male counterparts (Sanders 1995, 81). Sanders points out that, ‘‘54% of the black female respondents (as compared with 38% of black male respondents) told Washington Post/ABC News pollsters that they attended church at least once a week’’ (Sanders 1995, 81). While Sanders’s use of the Washington Post study fails to outline exactly how the research demonstrated that church involvement functions as a significant causal variable differentiating black female and black male educational achievement, the spirit of her claim reflects the strong tie that African Americans make between education and religion. In fact, her observations are reinforced in a more recent study conducted by Mavis Sanders, an expert in education research. Her study examined the salient factors that contribute to academic achievement in adolescents. The conclusions showed that church involvement was a significant contributor to academic achievement and that one of the reasons that black girls experience greater academic success than black boys is that girls have higher levels of church involvement (Sanders 2000, 147). Cheryl Townsend Gilkes makes a similar observation in her study of women in the Sanctified Church. Countering the common belief that anti-intellectualism is a

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Wilberforce University, created by the AME Church, became a major institution in the recovery of African Americans from the years of slavery. Lithograph from about 1860. (Library of Congress)

pervasive perspective in Pentecostal and Holiness Church traditions, Gilkes contends that, historically, these churches have long promoted academic achievement and intellectual pursuits. A major commitment on the part of these groups, however, is preserving the religious and spiritual fervor that African Americans traditionally have attached to education. Townsend Gilkes refers to this principle as ‘‘acquiring the learning without losing the burning’’ (Gilkes 1990, 232). She describes the intersection between education and religion in the Sanctified Church in the following way: The Sanctified Church’s emphasis on biblical authority made learning ‘‘the Word’’ an important means for living a sanctified life. Educational goals therefore comprised general literacy, biblical literacy, advanced academic and professional achievement, and in priority after salvation and holiness. The Saints were encouraged to acquire ‘‘the learning’’ without losing ‘‘the burning.’’ (Gilkes 1990, 232)

Historian Albert Raboteau has also alluded to the religious basis that attends black education. For Raboteau, the connection between education and religion is witnessed in the way that slaves associated literacy with being able to ‘‘read the Bible for themselves’’ (Raboteau 1999, 64). The close connection between literacy and access to the fundamental religious text of the Christian faith forced a merger between education (in this case literacy) and religious faith. Janet Cornelius suggests that the ability to read

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the Bible took on what she calls a ‘‘magico-religious’’ (Cornelius 1991, 93) significance for African American slaves, echoing Raboteau’s reading of the religious implications of literacy that emerged from an intense desire to read the Bible. Missing from the scholarship on the connection between education and religion is a thorough examination and explanation of the nature and structure of this connection. What exactly is it about education that makes it a religious experience for African Americans? Is this conception limited exclusively to blacks who are Christian? If not, how do we define religion and the religious nature of black education in a way that accounts for the diverse religious traditions and expressions that comprise African American religious experience? What can a deeper understanding of this construct teach us about African American religion and its usefulness as a vehicle for attaining liberation for black people? The answers to these questions will not only deepen our understanding of African American religion and its relationship to black education, but also open a window into effective ways of thinking about the continued struggle for racial justice in North America and throughout the world. An easy answer to the riddle of the interconnectedness between education and religion might be found in the well-known notion that C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya refer to as the ‘‘Black Sacred Cosmos.’’ A central characteristic of this Black Sacred Cosmos is a vision of ‘‘the whole universe as sacred’’ (Lincoln and Mamiya 1990, 2). Many scholars have noted this highly integrative perspective as a principle derived from traditional African cultures. Peter Paris describes this concept in terms of the ‘‘broad consensus among African peoples’’ to view ‘‘the three forms of life, namely, nature, history and spirit,’’ as ontologically united and interdependent (Paris 1995, 22). That is the idea that black people have retained a deeply rooted African tradition of viewing all aspects of life as both sacred and thus interconnected. Hence, in a traditional African worldview there is no real distinction between what most Western worldviews understand as the ‘‘sacred’’ and ‘‘profane.’’ The tendency to ground their pursuit of education in their religious faith, it might be argued, simply reflects the African tradition of conflating the categories of sacred and secular. While the integrative quality of African (and thus African American) worldviews may provide a partial explanation, the religious nature of black education cannot be wholly understood by reference to the Black Sacred Cosmos concept. This principle certainly predisposes black people to make such a connection. In other words, the worldview implied by the Black Sacred Cosmos provides a conceptual framework that allows and even encourages religious expression to embody other cultural phenomenon, namely education in this case. Yet a fuller understanding of the interconnection between education and religion in black thought requires closer examination into how this integrated worldview actually promotes such a connection.

Freedom: The Tie That Binds Education and Religion Freedom, a deeply religious ideal in the African American experience, is the tie that binds education and religion in African American thought. Because freedom for African

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Americans has deep religious resonance and education, in the minds of many African Americans, is intimately associated with freedom, black education has come to take on a deeply religious meaning. Yet to build this case, let us first explore the religiosity of the term ‘‘freedom.’’ Because of their historical experience of having been denied their freedom—not only in the context of slavery but also in terms of the persistent patterns of racial injustice that continued to deny and restrict their experience of freedom—this idea emerged as the content of their ‘‘ultimate concern.’’ Historically, the notion of freedom has embodied a deep religious meaning in the consciousness of black people. Regardless of the particular historical period and attending existential realities, the idea of freedom has remained a central religious motif, evolving to address the changing conditions of black oppression. ‘‘During slavery it meant release from bondage, after emancipation it meant the right to be educated, to be employed, and to move about freely from place to place. In the twentieth century freedom means social, political, and economic justice’’ (Lincoln and Mamiya 1990, 4). Anything that hinders one’s capacity to flourish has been viewed as a threat to the notion of freedom, an inalienable right given by God. A verse from a poem written by George Moses Horton, a slave in Chatham County, North Carolina, affirms this claim: Oh Liberty! Thou golden prize, So often sought by blood We Crave thy sacred sun to rise, The gift of nature’s God! (Horton 1974, 114)

To be sure, the idea of freedom has always been a complex and fluid concept in the black experience. Hence, in order to capture better the way that the notion of freedom creates a religious dimension to black education, it is necessary to offer a working definition of what is meant by the idea ‘‘freedom.’’ In so doing, it will be helpful to acknowledge an important presupposition that we glean from Orlando Patterson’s sociological research on the concept of freedom. From Patterson we learn that freedom is an idea that is shaped by the particular experiences of slavery or oppression (Patterson 1991, 3–4). In other words, a group’s conception of freedom emerges from the particularities of their existential situation. As the context of oppression changes, the ways of understanding and defining freedom adjust accordingly. In the African American context this fluidity is demonstrated in the ways that the meaning and scope of freedom has been modified over the centuries. While emancipation from bondage was once the central vision of freedom in the minds of enslaved blacks, the notion of freedom took on new expressions when the Emancipation Proclamation failed to live up to its promise of freedom. Therefore, the understandings of freedom that we find in the minds of enslaved blacks will often differ from the particular content of freedom in the thought of African Americans of subsequent generations. However, there are some general contours that seem to capture the meaning of black freedom across the many centuries of black presence in the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. offers an understanding of freedom that encapsulates the basic contours and structure of the meaning of freedom in the African American

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experience. I employ King’s idea of freedom because it is broad enough to encompass the diversity that characterizes the various visions of freedom across the range of historical contexts, hence accommodating the insight offered by Orlando Patterson: King’s understanding of freedom is based in a Judeo Christian theological anthropology. In his view there is an inextricable link between human life and the concept of freedom. King asserts, ‘‘the very character of life demands freedom’’ (King 1986, 119). The concept of human freedom emerges from King’s understanding of the image of God. In a sermon on the doctrine of humanity King states ‘‘theologians have interpreted the image of God in many ways, and after studying all of them, I’ve come to the conclusion. The highest expres sion of the image of God in man is freedom. Man is man . . . because he’s free’’ (quoted in Garth Baker Fletcher 1993, 118). The language and thought of Paul Tillich provides King with the theological construct upon which to base the connection between freedom and the image of God. King defines freedom as the capacity for deliberation, decision and responsibility, the same three terms that Tillich uses in defining freedom. The first of these human capacities, deliberation, involves the freedom to consider and weigh one’s alternatives as to what one may become or do. Closely related to this idea is the capacity for decision, by which humans make choices based on the outcomes of their deliberations. Finally, the capacity for responsibility suggests that freedom renders humans ultimately responsible for the decisions that they make (King 1986, 119). (Owens 2002)

To follow King’s logic, racial injustice denies African Americans the freedom to deliberate, decide and take responsibility because it severely and unjustly limits the options available to them. Moreover, racial injustice not only denies the freedom of the individual, but because it is targeted at a community of people it also has strong collective implications. Hence for King, freedom is not only an individual concept, it is also a communal concept. That is why King responded to the practices of tokenism that allowed freedoms for a few blacks with these poignant words: ‘‘a piece of freedom is no longer enough for human beings nor for the nation of which Negroes are a part. They have been given pieces—but unlike bread, a slice of liberty does not finish hunger. Freedom is like life. It cannot be had in installments. Freedom is indivisible—we have it all, or we are not free’’ (King 1986, 111). King offers a vision of the meaning of black freedom. ‘‘The capacity to deliberate, decide and take responsibility in relation to the destiny of the individuals and the racial group without impediment from racist external forces’’ (King 1986, 120) speaks to the kind of freedom that African Americans historically have attached to their pursuit of education. It is a view of freedom that accounts for and transcends the diverse historical experiences of slavery and oppression. Moreover, it is the understanding of freedom that is assumed in this analysis of the religious meaning of black education.

Education and Freedom: A Historical Overview The reason education often takes on a religious character in the minds and experiences of many African Americans is that education has been widely viewed as inextricably

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linked with the deeply religious ideal of freedom. From their earliest experiences as chattel slaves, blacks developed a view that intimately linked black education with freedom. In fact, historian Albert Raboteau suggests, ‘‘in effect, learning to read and write gave concrete meaning to the notion of freedom’’ for enslaved blacks (Raboteau 1995, 1). The memoirs of Sella Martin, who successfully escaped bondage, corroborate this claim. He recalls that as a literate slave when he read to others in the slave community it ‘‘awakened the wildest hopes about freedom among my hearers’’ (Blassingame 1977, 711). Enslaved blacks quickly discerned the obvious practical connection between literacy and physical freedom from bondage. Reading and writing skills empowered enslaved blacks with abilities such as writing their own passes and reading abolitionist literature. Again, Martin offers an excellent illustration of this very practical relationship between education and freedom. Upon learning to read and write his initial thoughts were of being able to write himself a pass that would allow him to escape his situation. Joyously he writes, ‘‘This was a great day for me. When Eaton left me with the A B C ringing in my memory, I saw myself already writing a free-pass, and with it traveling to find my mother and sister; and then, with another that I should write, leading them to Canada’’ (Blassingame 1977, 710). Fugitive slave and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass admits that he, too, discerned the connection between education and escape from bondage. Upon learning that his wife had been teaching Douglass to read and write, Douglass’s owner bitterly scolded the mistress for her actions. The master made it quite clear to his wife that education made the slave ‘‘unfit’’ for his condition of bondage. Douglass would never forget this insight and nurtured it to guide his own ultimate quest for freedom. Recalling this incident, Douglas writes: This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youth ful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man’s power to per petuate the enslavement of the black man. ‘‘Very well,’’ thought I. ‘‘Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.’’ I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. (Douglass 1962, 79 80)

The story of one Florida slave helps to illumine the religiously liberating power of literacy. After the slaves returned from hearing the white preacher, this literate woman would inform the other slaves that what the minister had preached ‘‘was all lies.’’ Then the slaves would assemble for worship to ‘‘set the record straight’’ (Wilmore 1983, 36). From their own readings and interpretations of the Bible, enslaved blacks developed a theological vision of freedom and justice that they applied to their condition of bondage. The Exodus story of the Hebrew Bible, for example, became a principle religious symbol for black slaves’ quest for freedom. In large measure, the hope that this liberating ideal held for black slaves was accessible by virtue of the literacy skills of those who were able ‘‘to read the bible for themselves’’ (Cornelius 1991, 85). The indelible link between education and freedom did not dissolve with the destruction of chattel slavery. This tradition continues even as notions of freedom evolve in response to the various stages in the African American struggle for racial justice. From

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the political battles of Reconstruction, to the fight to dismantle Jim Crow, to the post– Civil Rights struggle against institutional racism, many African Americans maintain this critical link between education and freedom. The connection between education and freedom is especially evident in the priorities of those newly freed blacks during the late nineteenth-century period of Reconstruction. This era in American history, inaugurated by the Reconstruction Act of 1867, witnessed a dramatic increase in the political power and involvement of black people in the South. With this congressional act, southern states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, demanding equal protection under the law for all citizens, as a prerequisite for readmittance into the Union. Under the threat of Union military presence, southern states were forced to grant all citizenship rights to former slaves, rights that included but were not limited to property, voting, and holding public office. Thus, for a brief moment in U.S. history, political control of the South was in the hands of a largely black Republican party. One of the greatest contributions of these largely black-run Reconstruction governments was the development of free public education. Much to the dismay of the hopeful ex-slaves, their push for universal education and widespread reconstruction would be stymied by the compromise of 1877, in which President Rutherford B. Hayes removed federal troops from the South in exchange for southern electoral votes, returning the legal and political control of the South to the hands of white southerners. This move resulted in the resurgence and expansion of the southern black codes. Black codes varied from state to state but they generally involved measures that, when enforced, severely restricted the rights and freedom of black people. Some of the codes denied blacks the right to vote, own property, serve in the military, and serve on juries (Gossett 1963, 260). The absence of federal troops and northern preoccupation with western expansion and industrialization unleashed the fury of white southerners intent upon dismantling all the political gains made by black people during Reconstruction. Armed with this power, southern whites, assisted by northern acquiescence or indifference, virtually annihilated the political capacity of African Americans. The inferior political status of blacks became further solidified in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the ‘‘separate but equal’’ doctrine in the Plessey v. Ferguson case, giving legal sanction to the Jim Crow laws that relegated blacks to a second-class citizenship status. The program of free public education in the South, which was a hallmark of the black-led governments, was virtually destroyed by the implications of the ‘‘separate but equal’’ ideology and the disenfranchisement of black voters. When schooling options were available to blacks in the post–Reconstruction South, these educational opportunities were usually run by whites who held a highly narrow view of black education. The aim of black freedom in the terms that blacks understood freedom was absent in these white educators’ pedagogical perspectives. Therefore, black educational institutions that operated under this sort of white control posed critical problems to the relationship between education and freedom in African American thought. However, many black teachers refused to tolerate such instruction without resistance. Some of the black teachers who worked for various freedman’s aid societies made aggressive attempts to control the instruction of black students.

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Hezekiah H. Hunter, a black teacher with the American Missionary Association, reportedly demanded, ‘‘I believe we best can instruct our own people, knowing our own peculiarities—needs—necessities (Richardson 1986, 192). Similarly, Sallie Daffin, another black instructor, declared, ‘‘how much soever those of other races may sympathize with them [former slaves], yet none can so fully experience the strength of their needs, nor understand the means necessary to relieve them as we who are identified with them’’ (Richardson 1986, 192). Not only did blacks seek to gain control over black education within white-led institutions, they also pushed to exercise greater control over their education by supporting and attending schools organized by African Americans. Evidence of this trend is found in the Freedmen’s Record. These records document the frustration on the part of some Freedmen’s Bureau administrators who lamented over the decisions of blacks to send their children to private black-controlled schools rather than the schools run by northern whites. What they found especially troubling was the fact that these African Americans paid higher tuitions at the private black schools, and yet they preferred black schools over the less expensive white-controlled institutions. In Savannah, Georgia, blacks established their own aid society, despite the fact that several northern aid societies were operating in town. The Savannah Education Association, an all-black organization, established black-run schools with all black faculty and administration (Butchart 1980, 173). These African American efforts to maintain autonomy and control over black education reflect powerful expressions of the relationship between education and freedom in black thought. Blacks realized that white-controlled institutions failed to embrace the values and aims that they attached to education. Hence, they worked to carve out educational experiences that promoted black freedom. One of the most compelling experiences of freedom for them was the act of taking control of the construction of black knowledge. From rewriting history from black perspectives to controlling black schools and the content of black education, African Americans sought to maintain their tight connection between education and freedom.

Black Education and Religion in the 21st Century The religiously conditioned view of black education as developed in the context of systems of slavery and oppression is difficult to locate in the attitudes and actions of many African Americans today. Its absence is particularly illumined by the reality of the so-called black-white achievement gap—the perennial problem of a persistent disparity between black and white academic achievement. The expansion of educational opportunities afforded blacks in the post–Civil Rights era has not been matched by a comparable decline in the gap between black and white academic achievement (Barnes 2004, 68). When compared to their white counterparts, African Americans consistently perform at lower academic levels. In 2003 six out of ten black fourth graders performed below grade level on the reading section of the National Assessment of Educational

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Progress (NAEP) while only one in four whites performed below grade level. African American high school seniors, on average, perform at the same level of white eight graders in math and science. The reading and math skills of black students in major metropolitan areas are even more discouraging. While only 24 percent of fourth graders of all races perform below grade level in math, 67 percent of black students in the District of Columbia, 61 percent of blacks in Chicago, and 58 percent of blacks in Los Angeles scored below grade level (Barnes 2004, 68). To be sure, there is no shortage of research on the so-called black-white achievement gap. No one questions the riddling differential between black and white student achievement; this gap is recognized as a fact by all serious observers. However, questions about the likely causes of and solutions to the crisis generate pointed debates and disagreements. The debate can be characterized by a continuum between two opposing camps: the structuralists and the behaviorists (West 1994, 13). The structuralists emphasize structural forces, both historical and contemporary, that perpetuate and institutionalize racial inequity in all levels of education. Those who approach the problem from this perspective blame black academic failure on systems such as inequity in public education finance between predominantly white and predominantly black schools, lowered teacher expectations for black students, tracking programs within

Reverend Valdiveso Matthews (right) argues with University of Michigan student James Justin Wilson (left), who is holding a sign stating ‘‘Affirmative Action is Racism in Action’’ on the steps of the student union on May 14, 2002. On that day, a sharply divided federal appeals court upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s use of race as a factor in admissions, a decision one legal observer called a ‘‘stepping stone to a landmark decision’’ before the U.S. Supreme Court. (AP/Wide World Photos)

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integrated schools that admit whites to classes for the gifted and advanced students while tracking blacks into remedial programs, rollbacks in Affirmative Action programs, and the like. Derek Bell, law professor and critical race theorist, is representative of the structuralist approach. Bell is highly critical of the wave of antiaffirmative action efforts, discriminatory hiring practices of elite white colleges and universities, and chronic poverty in black communities; structural realities, he suggests, circumvent black achievement (Bell 1995, 19). On the other end of the spectrum we find the behaviorists. The behaviorists are those who see the crisis in black education as a problem of self-destructive behaviors that have become a part of the culture of many African American homes and communities. These observers are likely to point to anti-intellectual attitudes, the practice of equating academic achievement with acting white, poor work ethic, black resistance to learning, and the like. John McWhorter, in his controversial book, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America, offers a representative example of this school of thought. McWhorter contends that black academic failure grows out of what he calls ‘‘the cult of victimology.’’ African Americans who engage in victimology seek to exploit the race card in a way that exaggerates their status as victims of racial oppression. Hence they are able to employ their victimhood status as an excuse for poor performance and a license for special considerations and treatments, especially in the form of reduced expectations and preferential admissions and hiring practices (McWhorter 2000, 2–3). In my estimation both the structuralists and the behaviorists are right. It is undeniable that there are fierce systemic obstacles to black education. No reasonable person can deny that the inequity in public education—in the case of public school financing formulas, to name just one example—disproportionately distributes lower quality educational experiences to many African Americans. However, Bell and other structuralists fail to take seriously the concerns and insights raised by behaviorists like McWhorter. Their seemingly exclusive attention paid to structural issues blinds structuralists to the scope of the problem and its necessary solutions. As McWhorter rightly argues, African Americans in almost ideal learning environments often exhibit many of the same low academic performance issues as blacks in clearly under-resourced schools. Hence structural issues alone cannot account for or correct the problem. Similarly, behaviorists like McWhorter bring instructive insights to the table, yet they fail adequately to acknowledge and address the structural features of the problem. McWhorter, for example, is woefully dismissive of the structural causes of black academic failure. At one point he claims: black students do so poorly in school decade after decade not because of racism, funding, class, parental education, etc., but because of a virus of Anti intellectualism that infects the black community. (McWhorter 2000, 101 104)

By diminishing the power of structural variables in black academic failure, McWhorter, like his structuralist opponents, constructs a myopic view of both the problem and its solution. Even once cultural behaviors are positively modified, black

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academic achievement can never reach its fullest potential within the parameters of such entrenched structural injustices. Cornel West, in his popular book, Race Matters, offers a perspective on black suffering that, in my view, helps to mitigate the tension between the structuralists and behaviorists, while at the same time exposing the deeply spiritual (if not religious) nature of the crisis in black education. Painfully cognizant of the patterns of self-destructive behaviors that plague large segments of the African American population, West concludes that ‘‘the major enemy of black survival in America has been and is neither oppression nor exploitation but rather the nihilistic threat—that is, loss of hope and absence of meaning’’ (West 1994, 15). West’s idea of a ‘‘nihilistic threat’’ aptly captures those kinds of attitudes and behaviors that sabotage black educational achievement. According to West, this threat often presents itself in the form of a ‘‘sense of worthlessness and selfloathing.’’ Not only that, but ‘‘the frightening result [of the nihilistic threat] is a numbing detachment from others and a self-destructive disposition toward the world. Life without meaning, hope, and love breeds a coldhearted, mean-spirited outlook that destroys both the individual and others’’ (West 1994, 15). He describes this phenomenon as ‘‘a pervasive spiritual impoverishment,’’ which connects his notion of nihilism to the apparent absence of an adequate spiritual force. To be sure, the actions and attitudes many blacks display regarding education seem quite characteristic of the notion of a ‘‘nihilistic threat’’ as described by West. The anti-intellectualism, resistance to learning, and tendency toward dropping out of school exhibited by large numbers of black youth mirror this sense of nihilism. Interviews with African American youth offer documentation of this phenomenon. One black high school student who was questioned regarding his persistent academic failure responded in the following way: Well, we supposed to be stupid . . . we perform poorly in school ‘cause we all have it though up in our heads we’re supposed to be dumb so we might as well go ahead and be dumb . . . And we think that most of the things we learn . . . won’t help us in life anyway . . . What good is a quadratic equation gonna do me if I’m picking up garbage cans? (Berlak 2000)

John U. Ogbu, a leading expert on the black-white achievement gap, notes that even the blacks from middle-class and affluent families harbor these same destructive attitudes. In his study of black student achievement among students in an affluent Ohio suburb, Ogbu found that many black students suffered from what he calls a ‘‘low effort syndrome’’ (Ogbu 2003, 18). They intentionally choose not to work hard even though they understand the connection between academic achievement and success in life. As a result of this work ethic, these middle-class black students consistently performed lower than their middle-class white peers (Ogbu 2003, 18). One of the students interviewed in Ogbu’s study is very clear about his minimal-effort attitude toward education. When asked to rate himself as a student he admits, ‘‘I work, um enough just to get by’’ (Ogbu 2003, 18). Another student echoes this sentiment. ‘‘I mean, I’ll do homework on occasion just to make sure my grades, just to make sure

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I maintain a 3.0, but I won’t do anything overly’’ (Ogbu 2003, 19). Yet, when asked to compare their work habits with that of their white counterparts these students are equally clear about the distinction between the overall work ethic of white students in comparison to black students. When asked why are there more white students in AP courses than there are black students, a female student admitted, ‘‘there are more White students in AP classes because they work hard’’ (Ogbu 2003, 16). A second student chimes in by saying, ‘‘the White people who are in AP and honors classes . . . do work harder than the Black people who are not doing very well . . . just because their [i.e., the White students are] more motivated or something’’ (Ogbu 2003, 17). This sense of ambivalence around education illumines the kind of self-destructive attitudes that many African Americans have toward education today. Yet this attitude completely contradicts the perspective of those blacks who attached their pursuit of education to the religious ideal of freedom, many of whom endured far greater limits in their structure of opportunity and worked with much less in terms of resources. The persistence of structural barriers to black academic success not withstanding, it is clear that a significant factor contributing to the crisis in black education today lies with the lack of sufficient motivation to excel, the kind of motivation that is possible when education is linked with and reinforced by the power of religion and religious ideals.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Baker Fletcher, Garth. Somebodyness: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Theory of Dignity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993). Barnes, Julian E. ‘‘Unequal Education.’’ U.S. News and World Report, March 22, 2004. Bell, Derrick A., Jr. ‘‘Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest Convergence Dilemma.’’ Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, ed. Kimberle Crenshaw, et al. (New York: The New York Press, 1995), 12 22. Berlak, Harold. ‘‘Race and the Achievement Gap.’’ Rethinking Schools Online 14, no. 4 (2001): 1 6. http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/15 04/Race154.shtml. Blassingame, John, ed. Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977). Butchart, Ronald E. Northern Schools, Southern Blacks, and Reconstruction (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980). Butler, Anthea D. ‘‘World Rejecting, World Reforming: Church Mothers, Education, and the Club Movement: 1930 1951.’’ Paper presented at the Center for the Study of Religion of Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, Fall 2001. Cade, John B. ‘‘Out of the Mouths of Ex Slaves.’’ Journal of Negro History XX, no. 3 (September 1935): 325 342. Cornelius, Janet Duitsman. When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991). Davis, Noah. A Narrative of the Life of Rev. Noah Davis, A Colored Man, Written By Himself at the Age of Fifty Four (Baltimore: John F. Weishamel Jr., 1959). Diouf, Sylviane. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (New York: New York University Press, 1998).

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Douglass, Frederick. The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History (New York: Collier Books, 1962). Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend. ‘‘ ‘Together and in Harness’: Women’s Traditions in the Sanctified Church.’’ Black Women in America: Social Science Perspectives, ed. Micheline R. Malson et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 218 241. Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of An Idea in America (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963). Horton, George Moses. ‘‘On Liberty and Slavery.’’ Blacks in Bondage: Letters of American Slaves, ed. Robert S. Starobin (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1974), 114. King, Martin Luther, Jr. ‘‘The Case Against Tokenism.’’ A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James M Washington (San Francisco: Harper, 1986), 106 111. King, Martin Luther, Jr. ‘‘The Ethical Demands for Integration.’’ A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James M. Washington (San Francisco: Harper, 1986), 117 125. Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990). McWhorter, John H. Losing the Race: Self Sabotage in Black America (New York: The Free Press, 2000). Ogbu, John U. Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disen gagement (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003). Owens, Ray A. ‘‘Closing the Black White Achievement Gap: A Public Theology for Education Reform.’’ Koinonia (Spring 2002). Paris, Peter J. The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). Patterson, Orlando. Freedom in the Making of Western Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1991). Pearson, Elizabeth Ware, ed. Letters from Port Royal, 1862 1868 (New York: Arno Press, 1969). Pennington, James W. Events in the Life of James W. C. Pennington, Pastor of a Presbyterian Church, New York, Formerly a Slave in the State of Maryland, United States (Westport, CT: Negro University Press, 1971). Raboteau, Albert J. A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African American Religious History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995). Raboteau, Albert J. Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans (New York: Oxford Press, 1999). Rawick, George, ed. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography Slave, vol. 14 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishers, 1977). Richardson, Joe M. Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861 1890 (London: The University of Georgia Press, 1986). Sanders, Cheryl J. Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People: A Path to African American Social Transformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). Sanders, Mavis G. ‘‘Gender and the Effects of School, Family and Church Support on Aca demic Achievement of African American Urban Adolescents.’’ Schooling Students Placed at Risk: Research, Policy, and Practice in the Education of Poor and Minority Adolescents, ed. Mavis G. Sanders (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000), 141 162. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Palmetto Leaves (Boston: J. R. Osgood and Company, 1873).

Education and African American Religion Turpin, Josephine. ‘‘A Plea for the Moral Aim in Education.’’ Social Protest Thought in African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1862 1939, ed. Stephen W. Angell and Anthony B. Pinn (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2000), 102 104. West, Cornel. Race Matters (New York: Vintage Books, 1994). Wilmore, Gayraud. Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of African American People (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983).

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Psychology of African American Religious Behavior Edward P. Wimberly Historically, the psychology of black religious behavior is the scientific effort to study the phenomenon of individual religious experience among people of African descent living in the Diaspora in the Americas, particularly in the United States and the Caribbean. Psychology of religion has focused on the scientific study of individual religious behavior and experiences including beliefs, motivation, cognitions, and perceptions. These categories are regarded as psychological, and they become psychology of religion when linked with the scientific study of religion (Hood et al. 1996, 2). These categories become a psychology of black religion when linked with the scientific study of African American or black individual religious behavior and experience. Here scientific study refers to the use of empirical investigation of individual behavior using statistical assessment measurements, experimental research designs, and quantitative and qualitative research methods. Psychology of religion responded to the North American context and has been conducted primarily within the Judeo-Christian framework drawing on empirical and scientific research (Hood 1996, 2). Moreover, psychologists of religion and especially social psychologists of religion focused on the individual within the context of socialcultural forces impacting religion. The psychology of black religion takes seriously social psychology and its emphasis on meaning making as well as the social context in which religion is exercised. Consequently, the key for understanding the psychology of black religion is what religion has meant to African Americans as they tried to make sense out of their peculiar predicament in the United States. In short, a psychology of black religion is the psychological study of how individual African Americans within the Judeo-Christian tradition used their religious faith for meaning making as they lived in a world that devalued them because of their skin color. It must be pointed out that the scientific study of black religion including the psychological study of black religion has not exclusively focused on the Christian faith. This has been noted particularly in the work of C. Eric Lincoln with his studies on Black Muslims in America (1961). Nonetheless, most of the work in the psychology of black religion has been on Christians, although there has been some attention to the conversion of persons to Nation of Islam or to Black Muslim faith and the role 593

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of this faith in rehabilitation of persons (Muhommad 1990). Moreover, such studies focus on the role of the social dimensions of the faith more than the individual or psychological dimensions. William James set the stage for viewing psychology of religion by describing the varieties of religious experiences recognizing that individual religious experiences are unique from individual to individual (James 1961). While it is possible to identify culturally common personality types within particular groups, such as African Americans, the psychology of black religious behavior and experiences seeks to explain them using psychology or the social psychology of meaning. The orientation of this essay fits into a tradition of psychology of religion growing out of the William James tradition of individual psychology and its application to religion. Historical figures who were early theorists in this tradition include Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Gordon Allport, Erik Erikson, Erich Fromm, and Rudolf Otto. The psychology of religion has historically focused on the inner religious life of individuals of the intrapsychic and interpersonal nature with roots grounded in psychodynamics, psychopathology, individual social psychology, existential and humanistic psychology of individuals, developmental psychology of individuals, cognitive psychology, social psychology of meaning, and behavioral psychology. My goal is to provide a glimpse of the founding thinkers in the psychology of black religious behavior and experiences within what I call the William James tradition of psychology of religion. Several approaches to the psychological study of black religious behavior within the William James tradition will be presented. The first is from the work of Romney M. Moseley contained in Becoming a Self Before God: Critical Transformations. Moseley offers a theological critique to psychological reductionism. For him psychological reductionism is forcing religious experiences exclusively into psychological categories. He pushes for a greater role for theology in the dialogue between psychology and theology as a result. His contributions, however, fit squarely into the individual psychology of religion approach. Most of his work on religious experience came in theological communities, and it addressed the wider community beyond African Americans. He was a Caribbean black person who worked within black congregations. A second model is presented by Winston Gooden, who draws on the work of developmental psychologist Daniel Levenson. He introduces the concepts of life structure and faith work that enable a psychology of black religion to analyze individual religious behavior without reducing to exclusive theological terms. His research was on African American men, and he was the dean of the School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Third, this essay will explore womanist approaches to the psychology of black religion, particularly those taking place at the Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia. Womanist approaches to a black psychology of religion focus on the writings of African American women who take seriously the priority of African American women’s experience as well as a gender analysis of patriarchy. African American women’s experiences are distinguished from white women’s experiences in that African American women’s experiences cannot be viewed from the point of

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view of white women’s privileged place of existence within the North American context. Lesser worth and value are assigned to women of color, and this impacts the way religious meaning is formed in the lives of individual African American women. It must be added that Thomas J. Pugh taught Pastoral Counseling and Psychology of Religion at Interdenominational Theological Center since its inception in 1958, and he fit within the Boston University School of Theology tradition of pastoral counseling and the William James orientation to the psychological study of religion. There is a long tradition of the study psychology of black religion experiences at ITC (Journal of ITC), and womanist thinkers presented in this essay were taught by him. Fourth, an emerging trend within the psychology of black religious behavior and experience focusing on a possible use of traditional biblical stories for fostering the identity of African Americans will be presented. This emerging tradition draws on the psychodynamic tradition of Freud to show how the personal identity of African Americans can be shaped by cultural stories both negatively and positively. Fifth, this essay will also explore the author’s narrative approach to a psychology of black religion. The psychological study of black conversion experiences will be examined. The approach will examine the religious phenomenon of the spiritual renewal of the call drawing on the psychological narrative concept of mythology. It is also important to state the practical significance for studying the psychology of black religion. The key significance of studying the psychology of black religious experiences relates to the question of what is healthy and/or unhealthy religious experience? Healthy religion focuses on when religion is growth facilitating and when it is growth inhibiting. Growth facilitation refers to whether or not religion helps to release the liberating and growth dimensions of the individual personality in life transitions, in human stress, in crisis situations, as well as when persons face social and economic oppression (Wimberly and Wimberly 1986, 48). Healthy religion facilitates psychological maturation, positive transitions through the life cycle, development of healthy coping skills, freedom from internalized oppression, and fostering transformative responses to social, political, and economic oppression.

Romney Moseley and Theological Psychology Romney Moseley was a theological psychologist (1943–1994). He started his understanding of human nature by focusing on how each human being becomes a self. In his thinking, becoming a self took place primarily in relationship to God (1991, 88–106). For him, the theological psychology of black religion was the study of how the individual became a self by relating to the incarnate God through Jesus Christ. Thus, it was only in relationship to God that the self was constituted, and the theological psychology of black religion was the study of how the self became a self in the midst of oppression. For Moseley a theological psychology of religion was the study of repetition. Drawing on Kierkegaard’s notion of repetition, Moseley attributed several meanings to it. The first meaning of repetition was that of retaking what had already been enacted in the past (Moseley 1991, 92). The self can only become the self by repeating forward rather than

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backward. Repetition forward was in relationship to God, who drew the self into the future. God had the ability to constitute the self in the midst of change and oppression by pulling the human possibilities for becoming into actuality. More precisely, the possibility of having an essential relationship with God already existed, but this relationship must be reenacted repetitively in order to continue to be constituted as a self. It was only in reenacting this relationship with God that the self was constituted. For Moseley the psychology of black religion was the examination of two existential realities that were part of living in oppression. The first was the despair of weakness. In the despair of weakness the individual refused to participate in the demands of living (Moseley 1991, 89). The second existential reality was the despair of defiance, and here the individual refused to enter into a relationship with the power that could transform the self into a full human being in the midst of oppression. Thus, the person rejected the power that could transform his or her life (Moseley 1991, 89). It followed then that the theological psychology of black religion was the process of analyzing how people accept the despair of weakness by rejecting the very relationship that could transform them into authentic human beings. The theological psychology of black religion was also about the study of becoming a real and fully actualized self constituted by God through studying the process of repenting from sin and receiving grace through a relationship with God. For Moseley, ‘‘Sin is the result of defiantly rejecting this relationship. The relationship is recovered only by repentance and forgiveness’’ (Moseley 1991, 93). Rebirth was the result, and the process of becoming a self behaviorally, attitudinally, spiritually, and interpersonally continued. For Moseley, a psychology of black religion privileged psychological theories, concepts, and language in the study of how persons become fully actualized selves on the one hand. He also used the theological ideas of rebirth through repentance and forgiveness to explain how in the self the despair of weakness or the despair of defiance were overcome on the other hand. He fashioned a theological psychology of black religion; and he called it the study of the process of becoming a real self before God over time. When viewed from the vantage point of healthy versus unhealthy religion, Moseley’s conceptualizations were helpful. A healthy religion was fostered in relationship with God. Thus, Moseley was in the Augustinian tradition of sapient theology or wisdom that said happiness could only result from God, and that one’s relationship with God must lead to character formation and virtue (Charry 1997, 133). In fact, Moseley’s emphasis on the despair of weakness by refusing to participate in the affairs of living and the despair of defiance by refusing to enter into a transforming relationship are ways of discerning whether one’s religion is growth facilitating or growth inhibiting. Thus, religion is sick when there is the despair of weakness and the despair of defiance, and religion is healthy when these two dimensions are absent.

Winston Gooden and Life Structure and Faith Work Unlike Romney Moseley who draws his primary image for constructing his theory from theology, Winston Gooden draws his primary metaphor for the psychology of

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black religion from the psychological realm especially from the work of Daniel Levenson and his studies on the Seasons of Men’s Lives. Gooden draws on the concept of life structure and faith work to talk about the life cycle development of the lives of African American men and their faith. For Gooden, the psychology of black religion is the study of how African Americans create their own faith structure through their personal choices in key areas of their lives. For Gooden, the core motivation pushing human growth is the effort of individuals to create a life structure through the choices that they makes at crucial points throughout their adult life cycle. A life structure is a cognitive bridge enabling the individual to connect inner life with the social world through choices made with regard to marriage, occupation, key friendships, and relationship with parents, and in relationship to religion, faith, and spirituality (Gooden 1989, 63–65). As key choices are made, the life structure becomes a stable structure for a period of three to five years until it must accommodate itself to new changes brought on by new life cycle transitions. The life structure develops out of the individual’s full participation in life and through enacting particular roles and in carrying out responsibilities and activities needed to become a self. One such participatory activity is what Gooden calls faith work. Faith work is psychospiritual work according to Gooden, which is characterized by forming and living life drawing on a belief system or spiritual frame of reference (Gooden 1982, 101). It is a way of interpreting one’s life and events in light of this framework, and it involves the inner process of cognition, experiencing emotions, and creative imagination. Faith work is a process and not a life structure. It contributes to the formation of the life structure as it develops into a cognitive frame that enables one to interpret life, experiences, and events connecting one’s inner life with one’s social work. Faith work contributes to self-formation, self-definition, relating to others, and imbuing the life structure with meaning and significance. This faith work can take place through meditative and imaginative activities in solitude, and it can also take place through full participation in a broad range of social and religious activities. Faith work is also related to the psychology of black religion. Faith work is a continuous process of reshaping and integrating one’s life in accordance with the life structure or with the ‘‘overarching framework of meaning one has chosen,’’ according to Gooden (1982, 100). The psychology of black religion, then, is the psychological study of faith work of African Americans as they develop the spiritual dimensions of their life structure. More specifically, as African Americans make key choices at crucial periods in their lives, life circumstances, namely human loss and negative encounters in life, the individual must draw on the life structure for spiritual and religious meaning in order to make sense out of what they are encountering. In addition, disruptive events threaten the existing life structure, and faith work enables individuals to integrate these experiences. In the process of integrating these disruptive events, the life structure is updated. Thus, the life structure is broadened as a result of the process of faith work. The psychology of black religion from the vantage point of Winston Gooden is the study of how African Americans draw on their faith and spirituality in the process of interpreting events in their lives. In fact, faith work takes place in three phases as it

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contributes to transforming one’s life structure. According to Gooden, faith work involves increased integration of experience, development, and transformation throughout the life cycle (1982, 101–103). When crucial choices are made at critical junctures in life, faith and religion help in making the choices; and when this occurs, faith and spirituality contribute to the integration of life experience, development, and transformation of the life structure. Psychology of black religion is the study of how faith and religion help in the development of the life structure. From the vantage point of the concepts of faith work and life structure, it is possible to determine whether religion contributes to healthy growth or inhibits growth. For faith work to be healthy the work must increase integration of experience, development, and transformation throughout the life cycle. Thus, healthy faith work is how it contributes to the development of a life structure that is meaningful and that contributes to participating meaningfully in life through life’s transitions.

Womanist Approaches to the Psychology of Black Religion In An Interpersonal Approach to the Psychology of Black Religion, Carolyn McCrary, Associate Professor at Interdenominational Theological Center, presents an interpersonal approach to the socio-psycho-religious analysis of black religion. More precisely, she analyzes black women’s participation in their own oppression by internalizing patriarchal or male supremacist values along with white supremacist values. She focuses on how black women are systematically recruited into treating themselves as objects, commodities to be bought and sold, and sometimes like animals, using biblical sanctions in this process (McCrary 1998, 268–270). She raises the important question of why women participate in their own self-destruction: ‘‘Why have women seemingly cooperated for so long, in so many places in systems and structures that view and treat them as second class citizens and/or human beings?’’ She answers this question by drawing on womanist theology, interpersonal psychology, and the interpersonal theology of Howard Thurman. According to Carolyn McCrary, womanist theology is grounded in a holistic rubric that involves the analysis of the way patriarchy or male superiority along with racism or white superiority have fostered the internalization of oppression by women and especially women of faith. Thus, a womanist psychology of black religion is the study of how African American women have internalized oppression fostered by their participation in patriarchal religion (McCrary 1998, 293–294). McCrary draws on object relations dynamic psychology to study the internalization of oppression by African American women. She points out that oppression is learned by internalizing external relationships, splitting these relationships into good and bad objects, and holding onto bad relationships. These bad relations began to destroy self-confidence; they become constant internalized sources of low self-esteem. This low self-esteem convinces the person that she is worthless without depending on others for love and affection. In order to be loved and accepted many women silence their voices, and their need for dependence is exploited.

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It is the initial need as human beings to be dependent on others for acceptance and approval. This need changes as we grow, and we need interdependence with others. Interdependence is the need for genuine reciprocal relationships in order to be whole (McCrary 1998, 275). Thus, the purpose of a socio-psycho-religious analysis of woman focuses on how women can achieve interdependence. From the point of view of healthy religion versus unhealthy religion, McCrary’s focus is on dependence and interdependence. Her analysis focuses on whether religion facilitates woman’s dependence, independence, or interdependence. For her, healthy religion should produce interdependence. In A Narrative Interactive Communal Model of Psychology of Black Religion, Amy Hartsfield, who received her Doctor of Sacred Theology in Pastoral Care at Interdenominational Theological Center, analyzes identity formation and change among African American women within a religious context (1998, 85–109). For her, novels written by African American women are interpretive tools along with participation in a racially homogenous group of women for fostering African American women’s identity formation. Thus, a narrative interactive communal model of psychology of black religion is the analysis of identity formation of African American women. Identity formation takes place in three stages beginning with satisfying women’s basic physical and survival needs. The second stage is the development of the self as an active agent through the self’s reflecting on its own experience and action. Thus, the self becomes an active agent through developing a cognitive and spiritual structure whose purpose

Two women hug during a Holy Week service at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. (Allen T. Jules/Corbis)

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is to interpret experiences. Interpretation of experience also informs women’s behavior. Finally, the self grows through accepting one’s own life cycle, through developing a relationship with God, and through self-transcendence. Progressing through these three stages successfully eventuates in identity formation. In this identity formation process novels written by African American women play an important role for African American women. Novels function to enable women to identify with members of the community and small groups of women who also engaged in identity formation. Novels also enable women to access their inner experiences, which are so vital in the second and third stages of identity formation especially in forming a cognitive and spiritual structure. Novels, in addition, facilitate self and other empathy that lead to identity formation. In other words, novels facilitate identity formation by helping women to identify with people, interpret experiences, and discover self-practices. Practices of self include activities that foster identity formation such as self-reflection, reflecting on experiences, and spiritual exercises. In addition to the use of narratives and participation in small groups, identity formation also involves an inner psychological process described best by object relations psychology. As African American women participate in small groups, read novels, and care for each other, they are able to internalize the positive attitudes of others, and these positive attitudes become a source of positive self-affirmation. Positive self-affirmation becomes a major source of identity formation, and it becomes the major building block of self-esteem and the cornerstone of the cognitive and spiritual self-structure. Whereas Carolyn McCrary analyzes how women become interdependent particularly with women and men, Amy Hartsfield is interested in how women develop identity by participating in same gender groups. Moreover, both approaches take seriously the church and faith communities. Both make valuable contributions to the variety of approaches to the psychology of black religion. For Hartsfield religion must contribute to positive identity formation. For her healthy religion would facilitate the practices of self that lead to self-reflection in ways that foster self-esteem.

Using Biblical Stories to Foster Black Identity Homer Ashby (2003), Lee Butler (2008), and Arthur Pressley (2008) use the psychoanalytic concepts to focus attention on black cultural identity. For example, Homer Ashby points out that the liberation of African Americans depends on successful struggle with cultural identity, connectedness, and vision (2003, 71). He visualizes the problem facing African Americans as the loss of community, the loss of vision, and the need of a biblical narrative that can provide a vision for moving forward. Ashby believes that the story of Joshua (Biblical Book of Joshua) offers the best story with which African American religious people can draw for the development of their personal and collective identities. For him, the story of Joshua tells of their adaptive genius in the face of oppression and suffering (Ashby 2003, 91). The significance of Ashby’s work from a psychology of black religion point of view is that he recognizes how important biblical narratives have been in fostering a healthy identity of

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individual African Americans since the first time they heard biblical stories in slavery. Thus, he recognizes the Freudian understanding that cultural myths shape identity for the good or for ill. Similar to Ashby are the works of Arthur Pressley and Lee Butler. Arthur Pressley points out how, from within the psychoanalytic traditions narrative, myths and cultural stories become paradigms that shape human history and the lives of persons (2008, 87). If narratives go unexamined and unchallenged, from his standpoint they can cause havoc in the lives of people. He points out how the biblical narratives of Ham and Nimrod have been used by those who propagated slavery to enslave African Americans. Therefore, he offers an alternative interpretation of the story of Nimrod to counter what was done by whites to enslave African Americans. Lee Butler also draws on the psychoanalytic tradition to explore how reinterpreting the story of Nimrod will have positive impacts on those who identify with biblical stories. He points out how the story of Nimrod was a prototype of the ‘‘bad seed’’ in racism’s portrayal of the story, but he points out that Nimrod was blessed by God, was a worrier, and a builder. Yet, he was perceived as being cursed by God (2008, 135). He wants to lift the curse from Nimrod so that he can be seen by African Americans as one ‘‘ . . . who fought for God and the people rather than as one who stood against God and tortured the people’’ (2008, 135). The goal of Ashby, Butler, and Pressley is the healthy use of biblical narratives and stories to foster healthy identity. The role of the black church as well as its storytellers is to make sure the positive identity of African Americans is affirmed.

A Psychology of Conversion Of note is the reality that the psychological study of black religion is multidisciplinary requiring other disciplines to be used in order to adequately study the data from black religious experiences. In fact, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and theology are all necessary to understand the psychology of black religion. In addition, race and gender are key areas that have to be considered. Consequently, the psychological study of black religion must not only be multidisciplinary; it must also make an effort to put religious data from the black religious experience into its historical and social context. Studying the psychology of African American conversion also must be multidisciplinary and contextual as well. What makes the study of conversion psychological is its focus on the individual conversion experiences within the context of race relations in the United States. In fact, the focus on conversion here will be on a review of the work done by my wife and me, published in 1986 entitled Liberation and Human Wholeness: The Conversion Experiences of Black People in Slavery and Freedom. Key is the reality that conversion experiences of African American Christians have remained constant from the time of slavery up to the present. Conversion experiences have remained constant, and people continue to report them in similar ways across a long span of time. It is important to begin the study of conversion experiences in the black religion by defining what conversion means. The slave conversion experiences belong to a class of

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experiential phenomena called transcendent, transpersonal, and spiritual solitary experiences. In such experiences, normal everyday cognitive, perceptual, and visual laws of technical reasoning, consciousness, and awareness are temporarily suspended or disrupted. The person immediately becomes aware of the transcendent, spiritual dimension of reality, and this experience has profound implications for the person’s life (Wimberly and Wimberly 1986, 19). In addition to the definition of slave conversion, these experiences had seven major characteristics that provided a signature pattern (Wimberly and Wimberly 1986, 19–21). The first characteristic was that the conversion experiences were mystical in nature occurring in a twilight or semiconscious state. The second characteristic is that the content of the vision was narrative in nature and was conveyed in a stage draw acted out by players on a stage. Third, the person having a vision was an actor in the unfolding drama. Fourth, there was a great similarity between the characters, images, and themes in the conversion experience from person to person, suggesting a rich interpretive cultural environment. Closely related to the rich cultural interpretive system was the fifth factor, which was that the experience was interpreted as supernatural initiated by God. Sixth, the cultural interpretive system used to understand the conversion experience enabled the experiencing person to find his or her place and purpose in the world. Finally, and seventh, the experience had a radical impact on the life of the one experiencing the conversion, and his or her life was completely transformed and new behavior emerged. Important in the signature conversion pattern is the fact that conversion signaled that a new orientation to life had emerged for the slave and ex-slave. Key for them was the reality that, despite the presence of suffering and oppression, there was another dynamic in life at work, and they saw that God was working out God’s own agenda in the world. Thus, conversion was a radical turning to God’s own agenda, and this agenda was about freedom and justice. Thus, conversion was seen as necessary in order to envisage what God was doing in the world and for their commitment to what God was doing. Liberation and Human Wholeness explores the worldview under girding the conversion experiences of slaves and ex-slaves, precisely because it was the social interpretive context and its linguistic narrative structures that enabled the slave and ex-slave to interpret their experiences. Thus, the social interpretive system saw a holistic connection between private experiences and public life, the personal and social, the natural and supernatural, and freedom and justice. The importance of studying the worldview undergirding the slave and ex-slave conversion experiences is the reality that the inner experiences in conversion need to be interpreted to have an impact on behavior. The quality of the interpretive framework to provide the language to connect inner conversion to justice and freedom is critical not only for slaves and ex-slaves. A healthy conversion experience from the vantage point of the psychology of black conversion experiences would be one where religion provides an interpretive framework with the language that enables the person experiencing conversion to make the connections needed to promote liberation, justice, and freedom. Thus, the quality of religion needed would lead the one experiencing the conversion to envisage a connection between one’s inner conversion experiences to wider social issues.

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The Psychology of the Call The psychological study of the call to ministry is not just an academic exercise. It is a means of lifting up the significance of the religious call for life, and it will also help decipher when calls to ministry are appropriated in healthy and in unhealthy ways. The major focus of the psychology of the call in African American religious experiences draws on Recalling Our Own Stories: Spiritual Renewal for Religious Caregivers (1997). In this publication the call is defined as ‘‘our first awareness that a form of ministry would be our life’s work’’ (Wimberly 1997, 1). For the calls to ministry that are studied there is a conscious point where they can identify a time when they gave an affirmative yes to God’s call on their lives. Some were called after a period of growth and development; others were called after a period of crisis; others were called as a result of a sudden awakening to dramatic interventions from God; and others found the call as a result of being affirmed by others in religious leadership positions. The psychological concept and theory used to study the call experiences of African Americans and others is called mythology, and it comes from narrative, linguistic, and cognitive approaches to psychology. In Recalling Our Own Stories, the concepts of personal mythology and ministerial mythology are used. ‘‘Mythology’’ is a narrative term referring more to the narratives that inform one’s behavior rather than to truth or fiction. In a narrative perspective a myth is valid because it is composed of the beliefs and convictions that people hold about themselves and their relationships with others. The mythology is real to the extent that it informs how the person thinks and feels about him- or herself as well as to inform how the person behaves toward others based on their beliefs and convictions about themselves. The influence is seen clearly in the ministry mythology, which is defined as the beliefs and convictions that people have toward their roles of ministry. For example, there is the myth of the overfunctioner. The overfunctioner myth is a person who believes that he or she is indispensable in ministry and will tend to work when others do not (Wimberly 1997). Another myth is joylessness. This belief is that Christians are called to give up joy in ministry, and therefore, they find it hard to find happiness in ministry. Another ministry myth is the myth of entitlement. This myth is common, and it relates to the conviction that one is entitled to special rewards because of the sacrifices one has to endure as a result of the call. Ministry myths are formed by individuals based on their experiences primarily in their families and participation in religious communities. Often the experiences shaping a person’s ministry mythology are negative, and the creation of their myth reflects the experiences of the person and how they use religious ideas to give expression to what they believe. Significant in ministry mythology is its function to assess healthy religion and unhealthy religion. Unhealthy religion comes when an individual’s ministry mythology enslaves him or her rather than liberates him or her. The overfunction is a prime candidate for burnout. The entitlement myth of ten leads people to inappropriate behavior and irresponsibility. The myth of joylessness often leads to disenchantment and loss of vitality in carrying out ministry. A healthy call is one where one creates a

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ministry mythology that enables people to be realistic about work that needs to be done by others as well as by oneself. A healthy call also leads people to see the call as a response to God’s grace rather than an unwanted burden. A healthy religion is also one that views ministry as something that has its ups and downs, but the overall experience leads to meaning and fulfillment. The psychology of the call in black religious experiences also promotes the editing of ministry myths in ways that promote a healthy call.

Conclusion The significance of the psychological study of black religion for today lies in the fact that people continue to have inner religious experiences similar to the historical past of African Americans as well as to ancient biblical times. In other words, the psychology of black religion is a vital and viable discipline for assessing healthy and unhealthy religion in contemporary life. This essay defined the black psychology of religious behavior and experiences by placing the discipline within the William James tradition of psychology of religion. This tradition attempts to use dynamic individual psychology of the inner experiences to understand the personal religious behavior of African Americans. Moseley’s used psychology and theology to identify how human beings become selves before God. Gooden drew on the developmental psychology of Daniel Levenson to understand faith development. Womanist scholar McCrary used a womanist approach to depth psychology to explore the personality development of African American women. Hartsfield used novels from African American literature about women to give African American women a voice and a sense of personal agency. Ashby, Butler, and Pressley use biblical stories and psychodynamic personality theory to understand how to establish an African American identity. The author used the narrative approach to foster the personality growth and development of African Americans. This essay demonstrates that there is a distinct discipline called psychology of black religious behavior and experiences. The goal of this discipline is to foster healthy personality development within faith-based organizations including the church, seminary, and university settings.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ashby, H. U. Our Home Is Over Jordan: A Black Pastoral Theology (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2003). Butler, L. H. ‘‘Who Is the Man?: Nimrod Afrocentricism.’’ African American Life and the Story of Nimrod, ed. A. B. Pinn and A. D. Callahan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 133 143. Charry, E. By the Renewing of Your Mind: The Pastoral Function of Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

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Gooden, W. E. ‘‘Development of Black Men in Early Adulthood.’’ In Black Adult Development and Aging. R. Jones, editor. Berkeley, CA: Cobb and Henry, 1989, 63 89. Gooden, W. E. ‘‘Responses and Comments from an Adult Development Perspective.’’ In Faith Development in the Adult Life Cycle, ed. K. Stokes (New York: W. H. Sadlier, 1982), 84 119. Hartsfield, A. ‘‘Identity Formation/Change in African American Women.’’ The Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center (Spring 1998): 85 109. Hood, W., et al. The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach (New York: Guilford Press, 1996). James, W. Varieties of Religious Experiences (New York: Macmillan, 1902, 1961). Levenson, J. J. The Seasons of a Man’s Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978). Lincoln, C. E. The Black Muslims in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961). McCrary C. L. ‘‘The Wholeness of Women.’’ The Journal of the Interdenominational Theo logical Center (Spring 1998): 258 294. Moseley, R. M. Becoming a Self Before God: Critical Transformations (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991). Muhommad, A. ‘‘Black Muslim Care and Counseling.’’ Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990). Pressley, A. L. ‘‘The Story of Nimrod: A Struggle with Otherness and the Search for Identity.’’ African American Life and the Story of Nimrod, ed. A. B. Pinn and A. D. Callahan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 85 95. Raboteau, A. J. Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). Wimberly, E. P. ‘‘Black Issues in Psychology.’’ Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990). Wimberly, E. P. Recalling Our Own Stories: Spiritual Renewal of Religious Caregivers (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1997). Wimberly, E. P. ‘‘The Family Context of Development: African American Families.’’ Human Development and Faith: Life Cycle Stages, of Body, Mind, and Soul, ed. F. B. Kelcourse (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2004). Wimberly, E. P., and A. E. Wimberly. Liberation and Human Wholeness: The Conversion Experiences of Black People in Slavery and Freedom (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986).

Worship in the African American Church Tradition Barbara A. Holmes Worship in the Black Church is as spiritually diverse as African Diasporan people in North America. The history of the Black Church begins when captured Africans in the United States began to worship using their memory of religious practices on the continent of Africa. To this foundation, they added their experience of oppression and their encounter with Western Christianity. The phrase ‘‘Black Church’’ refers to the dynamic religious practices that resulted from that mix. Shared Black Church legacies go beyond denominational identity. One can be Pentecostal or Catholic and still participate in and understand shared legacies that include gospel music and spirituals, communal contemplation, prayers that connect the ordinary lives of struggling people to the God of the universe, and a style of preaching that combines prophetic, political, and pastoral proclamation. Although African Americans have a variety of religious traditions and practices, most remember specific aspects of Black Church worship, i.e., the usher with her white-gloved hand behind her back, guarding the aisles, the songs ‘‘raised’’ by the mother board on the front row in their white dresses, the prayers and songs that are written nowhere but can be sung without hymnals. Historically, worship in the Black Church was not isolated from everyday life. Prayer was a conversation with God that did not end when services concluded, hymns were hummed over laundry and life transitions, and social movements were born and sustained within the community of faith. Today, although liturgies and rituals differ from one congregation to another, there are worship traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation Worship in the black church provided a haven and refuge, but also prepared the community for social activism. Black churches sustained, nurtured, and helped their congregations to resist and understand the reality of discrimination in America, while loving neighbors and enemies alike. For the Black Church, worship does not begin on the pews; it starts in the hold of slave ships headed for the Americas. In this place of despair, people who were strangers to one another cried out to God. They had different native languages to express their grief and their prayers, but the cries of despair on those slave ships became the first sound of worshippers who would be the forerunners of the Black Church. 607

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Lament was the shared language that moved them toward healing. Because entry into the Americas was through the auction block, worship continued as moan and wail. Lament is a powerful declaration of faith even in the midst of siege. In communal lament we hear the tears of the individual amplified to such an extent that all who hear know that such sounds will inevitably lead to action . . . the intent to seek justice and righteousness. To lament is not simply to grieve or mourn. biblical lament, faith’s outcry to God in the grip of trouble, is a rhetoric that wails and rages, protests and interrogates, and finally whispers its hope. (Brown 2005, 35)

The whispered hope that echoes through every wail and cry of anguish is that the troubles of this world are not the end of the story. Lament carves pathways toward a different vision of life in community. It is an action that vocally, physically, or spiritually acknowledges that things are not as they should be. In the stillness that follows the wail comes the opportunity for amazement, letting go, and finally healing/resisting through an activism that prioritizes compassion and justice (Soelle 2001, 77–93). From its unstructured beginnings to the megachurches of the twenty-first century, the Black Church has been the ‘‘Ole Ship of Zion’’ that brought the community through slavery toward the outbreak of the Civil Rights Movement. Even though worship moved from clearings in the woods to buildings of wood and brick, the Black Church continued to be a hush arbor, a safe space to be human and to be in relationship with God. Creating safety was a key element in the development of African Diasporan worship practices. Accordingly, the church became that location where the community could gather to care for one another. It was also a place of refuge in an unsafe culture, and worship reflected that reality. During worship, emotions kept at bay during work could be released during worship. Until the Civil Rights Movement exposed the songs and prayer cadences, the worship practices of the Black Church were seldom known outside of the community. The safety of the community was at stake. During worship, the people reclaimed their right to exercise personal and communal freedom, if only for a short time. Although drums were banned in slave communities because they were presumed to be instruments of communication, churchgoers retrieved the sound of the forbidden instrument in the cadence of their songs. They also added participatory aspects to worship by ‘‘talking back’’ to the preachers during a sermon, which is a way of verbally joining in the sermonic moment. In worship, class and sexuality distinctions broke down, as porters served with ushers on deacon boards, musicians were valued for their talent, and women provided leadership in the churches. When worship was over, congregants would return to daily life as if nothing had happened. By doing so, they allowed the power of transformative worship to root and grow, until the time was right for social and spiritual change. During the early years of formation of the Black Church, worship had to do the practical work of sustaining the lives and spirits of the people. Liturgies and sermons had to reinforce the idea that everyone is included in God’s love and grace. Songs affirmed the fact that

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freedom is a state of mind and can be enjoyed even if chains still bind your ankles. In essence, the mantra was ‘‘you are free if God says so.’’ The tone was not defiant, it was resolute. It was the belief that the reign of God affected the lives of ordinary people regardless of race and ethnicity. In the midst of communal worship the kingdom of God became apparent to janitors, elevator operators, and school teachers. They caught the vision and became black club women and grassroots activists, voter registration supporters, and the founders of historically black colleges. In the Black Church, worshippers prayed for and imagined their freedom until it came.

Adoration Although there are various Black Church worship forms, adoration seems to be the least likely for an oppressed people. And yet adoration is a prominent feature in Black Church worship. Adoration in the Black Church was expressed in any number of ways, from the moaner’s benches to the prayer shut-ins, and sometimes during the humming of baptismal or communion music. Adoration also included connections to spirits, holy and ancestral. Robert Williams notes that ‘‘the universe of African reality’’ includes powers and principalities, ancestors and the cosmos (Williams 1985, 435). Those who live in the midst of these realities recognize the fact that they are sharing an animate life space that is fully imbued with energy and life. Although adoration was expressed in many ways, contemplative practices offered a unique style of worship. Contemplation in the Black Church is communal. It may be silent, but can also be identified in chants and musical cues, meditative dance movements, and shared prayer practices that allow the entire community to experience communion with a living God. The most important aspect of contemplative worship and adoration is the participation of the community. In the African Diasporan context, there is less focus on the individual experience of encountering Divine presence. Instead, the ‘‘inward journey’’ is a communal experience. There is no need to separate from the community, to enter the desert for a closer walk with God. Instead, an encounter with God may occur in the midst of worship, as sweaty palms grasp and hold, while feet stomp a rhythm on uneven floors, and while the choir sings another verse. This communal approach to the contemplative tradition is not unusual given the testimony of the apostles. As William Johnston points out ‘‘all through the Acts of the Apostles, we find the Spirit descending on the group, communicating gifts and filling all with [God’s] presence’’ (Johnston 1998, 214). Contemplation as a powerful option for the poor and the oppressed connects ordinary and divine realms through worship. There is the presumption that if hearts and minds are ‘‘right’’ (‘‘right’’ does not refer to purity or holiness, but rather to a mind ‘‘stayed on Jesus’’), then the Holy Spirit as representative of a living God and elder brother Jesus may descend to possess, heal, guide, and lead into all truth. Black church communities embrace the theology of a soon-coming Jesus, but include in that belief the practical realization that God is here and not here. Adoration gives the community the opportunity to have regular visitations with their Jesus in the midst of song, ritual, and dance (Johnston 1998, 140).

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Woman stands with her arms outstretched at a church revival. (Gerri Hernandez)

Worship enfolds us for a time into a way of seeing the world. It is the one hour in the week when an entire community acknowledges a world where God rules, where evil is named, where hope abounds, where the Spirit is on the move. (Witvliet 1998, 25)

In the midst of bondage, African Diasporan people acknowledged the fact that God delivered and God did not. They also recognized the freedom of God as a model for their own emancipation. During worship they offered their thanks to the God who is truly free. Worship became a celebration of the fact that no matter the circumstances, Africans in the Diaspora were loved by a free God. What a spiritual gift to enslaved people to enter into a covenant with a God who embodied liberation and offers that same option to the people. Old Testament scholar Walter F. Brueggeman puts it in this way, Thus I suggest that covenanting (and spirituality) consists in learning the skills and sensitiv ities that include both the courage to assert self and the grace to abandon self to another. (Brueggemann 1999, 8)

Brueggeman describes God as a deity who is ‘‘an endlessly live, demanding, giving, surprising, problematic, other in Israel’s life.’’ He describes the dilemma of Israel in ways that are similar to the plight of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora. He says, ‘‘my simple observation is that Israel learned to relate to this God of threat and gift by the sustained, delicate practice of praise and complaint’’ (Brueggemann 1999, 6). The mystery of God is mediated through worship. The worship style of the Black Church serves a similar function. God is beseeched and sought, but lament and

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complaint are a part of the relationship. Like the Hebrew people before them, the Black Church had to set up a counternarrative to the difficulties of everyday life. They accomplished this through a worship style that was both sensible, spiritual, and sustaining. The entire point of adoration is that it flows from the praise of the community and is like living water in a desert.

Activism Worship in the Black Church is an activist and participatory event. The people are beckoned toward their highest good and toward service in the interest of justice. The old folks used to call this praying with one eye open. To pray without an understanding of the relationship of prayer to justice would have been unusual under the circumstances. And so, worship became a way of articulating the desires of the people for salvation, the love of God, and freedom in their daily lives. For years the black church nurtured its members and preached the truth of their humanity and the potential for moral flourishing. Worship practices and songs like ‘‘You Got a Right’’ ritualized liberation and reminded oppressed people of God’s promises. As with all great social justice movements, there came a time when worship practices and communal resolve came together, and an interfaith, interdenominational, interracial community formed. The community formed because the people were willing to resist the power of apartheid in the Americas with their bodies. Communities form when members share agendas and a common purpose. These relationships need only hold together briefly before transitioning into other forms; however, while they are intact, all concerned are aware of the linkages of interior resolve that are at work. The connection between activism and worship is not always obvious. Most attribute the power of the Civil Rights Movement to the institutional black church. This is only true in part. Clearly, the black church was the womb that nurtured the hope of that social eventuality, but the spark that ignited the justice movements did not come from the hierarchical institutional black church. Rather, it was the flexible, spiritually open, and mystical center of black worship that ignited first the young people and then their elders to move from pews to the street. It was the Black Church that helped to transform private suffering into public momentum. Images and songs are seared into the memories of those who lived through that turbulent time. The social consciousness that arose from the context was integral to the worship experience. The formation of community during the Civil Rights Movement was the quintessential coming-of-age story for African Diasporan people. During a particular time in history, nonviolent initiatives seeded with contemplative worship practices became acts of public theology and activism. Black Church worship and activism were grounded in the mix of life experience and Holy Scripture. Worshippers saw direct parallels between the story of the bondage of the Hebrew people and the story of African Diasporan enslavement. In Christian liturgy, worshippers in the Black Church found unusual models of activism as a response to impossible situations. The Holy Bible talked about a praise team that preceded the army, enemies who share table fellowship, and holiness that emanates from a life of servant leadership rather than arcane purity rituals. Everywhere they looked in Holy

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Scripture they saw examples of worship that changed reality. And so, worship within the context of besieged people becomes an act of adoration and activism. Through worship, the people learned that activism and contemplation are not functional opposites. Rather, contemplation is at its heart a reflective activity that is always seeking the spiritual balance between individual piety and communal justice seeking. The genesis of the great justice movements of the twentieth century emerged from the consistent worship practices of those seeking liberation. Each activist represents not just his or her own vision, but the gifts of the co-laboring communities. The contemplative part of the Civil Rights Movement should not come as a surprise to those who survived the twentieth century. During this era, the world awakened to issues that words could not address. There is nothing that one can say about a holocaust and the poverty in South Africa and on American Indian reservations. Shouts, prayers and shut-ins, ritual enactments of the elders and ancestors all prepared the way for acts of justice seeking and activism. The activism that ignited the freedom movements had contemplative worship practices at their center. The very act of passive resistance can be described as stillness in the midst of turmoil. The marches for civil rights were contemplative processionals, moves of the spirit ‘‘for such a time as this.’’ The marches often began in churches with worship and rallies. The sacred act of walking together toward justice was usually preceded by a pre-march meeting that began with a prayer service, where preaching, singing, and

Arrested for parading without a permit, a group of 500 African American demonstrators, led by Rev. Samuel B. Wells, kneel in prayer on a sidewalk in Albany, Georgia, July 22, 1962. (Bettmann/Corbis)

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exhortation prepared the people to move toward the hope they all held. This hope was carefully explicated by the leadership as a fulfillment of God’s promises. As a consequence, the spiritual movement that began in the churches and in the resolute spirits of the people became acts of worship that energized the social protests in the streets. The marchers affirmed the faith of foremothers and forefathers, and embodied the communal belief that the same God who met them during praise service would meet them on the streets. The spiritual destination of these justice processions was the consciousness of the nation, the witness was that nonviolence was the most powerful weapon within human control, and the esteemed object was the sacred image of God in dark bodies. The rite was the act of walking in community to challenge the forces of evil and death; the vow was the unspoken commitment to redeem the sacrifices of the ancestors. The shrine was within; the merit was God’s favor extended to people of faith and obedience. These contemplative acts moved the community toward the fulfillment of one small aspect of the beloved community: the end of legally sanctioned segregation (Grimes 1993, 63; Holmes 2004, 143–146). Protestors through their silence and songs amplified their humanity for the world to see. As Grimes notes in his discussion of ritual worship practices, ‘‘processants do not occupy centralized sacred space. Instead, they carry their ‘center’ with them’’ as they move toward their destination (Grimes 1993, 64). The act of peaceful protest was a form of worship that emerged from the Black Church. Activists carried the values and wisdom of the church within them as they marched. Worship that balances spirituality and practical applications in the interest of justice has the potential to heal physical and psychic wounds; it is a catalyst for the adoration of God, who sometimes releases people from bondage and sometimes does not. Worship in the Black Church is interactive, relational, communal, and can also be a vehicle for social change. Also, worship is intimate, mystical, and boundary crossing.

Summary Worship in the Black Church goes beyond church attendance and denominational identity. Even as we move toward the future, we are linked to the past and present through the lives of elders and ancestors and the worship practices of Diasporan communities. Today, in the twenty-first century, there are rhythms and formats in the Black Church that reflect the signs of the times. They also reflect memories and traditions passed down through the generations. All worship practices are elusive when considered in retrospect, but they are a living legacy. They invite us to remember the past and to create a new future.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, Sally A., and Patrick D. Miller, eds. Lament: Reclaiming Practices in Pulpit, Pew, and Public Square (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005). Brueggemann, Walter. The Covenanted Self: Explorations in Law and Covenant (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999).

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Worship in the African American Church Tradition

Costen, Melva Wilson. African American Christian Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993). Grimes, Ronald L. Reading, Writing, and Ritualizing: Ritual in Fictive Liturgical and Public Places (Washington, DC: Pastoral, 1993). Holmes, Barbara. Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004). Johnston, William. Mystical Theology: The Science of Love (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1998). Mitchell, Henry. Black Preaching: The Recovery of a Powerful Act (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990). Soelle, Dorothee. The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001). Williams, Robert C. ‘‘Ritual, Drama, and God in Black Religion: Theological and Anthropo logical Views.’’ Theology Today 41, no. 4 (January 1985). Witvliet, John D. ‘‘Why Worship Matters.’’ Christianity Today (November/December 1998).

Chronology of People and Events

1410

1414 1436 1536 1538–1585

1619

1623 1635 1639 1641 1652 1667

1669 1672 1680

Jan Hus, founder of the Unitas Fratrum (original name of the unity that became the Moravian Church), excommunicated from Roman Catholic Church because of his beliefs that would eventually result in the formation of a new church, the Moravian Church. Hus condemned and executed. A compromise arranged between the Roman Catholic Church and the followers of Hus. First African baptized into Roman Catholic Church. Approximately 3.5 million Africans are forcibly brought to Brazil as slaves. Their religious traditions would become the basis in Rio de Janeiro of Macumba and, later, Umbanda. West Africans arrive in Virginia in the North American colonies as slaves. This marked the slave system that would dominate thought and activity within the Americas. Africans become members of the Episcopal Church. Earliest mention of African religious practices in Pernambuco. Dutch Reformed Church in New York City first baptizes Africans. Earliest recorded account of an African member of a church in Massachusetts. Protestants removed from Catholic lands and many members of the Unitas Fratrum go underground. Laws enacted that stipulate conversion of enslaved Africans in North America to Christianity does not result in physical freedom. As a result Christian slaves do not threaten the system of slavery and the economic wealth it generates. First African baptized into Lutheran Church in New York City. Maroon communities of Africans develop in Virginia. The Holy Office of the Inquisition in Brazil hears complaints of animal sac rifices associated with funerary practices, almost certainly as part of the reli gious beliefs and practices that would come to be known as Candomble´.

615

616 |

Chronology of People and Events

1688 1692

1702 1704 1726 1730s 1731 1732 1734 1735 1741 1743 1743 1747 1749 1754 1757 1758 1760 1760 1760 1760s 1764 1765 1771 1772 1773 1773 1774

1780

Quakers and Mennonites condemn slavery and create tension over the rela tionship between religion and the system of slavery. Conjure practitioners are accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch hunt in Massachusetts. This accusation speaks to the religious diversity within the colonies as well as the friction between various religious traditions. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts attempts to con vert enslaved Africans in North American colonies. Catechism school for enslaved Africans opened in New York City. Oxford graduate John Wesley and his brother and Oxford student, Charles, form a ‘‘holy club’’ to support one another in pious living. Voodoo/hoodoo terminology reportedly in use in the area near New Orleans. Missionary zeal marks the Unitas Fratrum. First Unitas Fratrum missionaries sent to the West Indies to spread the faith to Africans brought to the islands as part of the slave trade. Unitas Fratrum missionaries arrive in St. Thomas. Moravian Church established in North America First Moravian settlement in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. There are records of Africans in the North American colonies affiliating with Baptist congregations as of this date. School opened for people of African descent in South Carolina. The first organized Presbyterian effort to reach enslaved Africans were initi ated by Rev. Samuel Davies, a New Side Presbyterian. Moravian Church recognized by the Church of England. Request made for Moravian missionaries in Jamaica. First enslaved Africans baptized into the Presbyterian Church. First recorded African American Baptist Congregation established in Virginia. Fear of these practices resulted in efforts to outlaw Obeah in Jamaica. Moravian General Synod developed. African American Jupiter Hammon writes book, Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries. African Americans participate in the early Wesleyan activities in North America. First Methodist Society in North American colonies has African charter members. Moravian missionary work in Barbados. Moravian missionary work in Antigua. Phillis Wheatley publishes Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral first book of poetry produced by an African American. First meeting of American Methodists. One of the earliest African American Baptist churches is founded as the Silver Bluff Church. John Wesley’s pamphlet Thoughts Upon Slavery is widely distributed in America especially among Methodists as a critique of the system of slavery. This would make Methodism very appealing to Africans in the North American colonies. First documented condemnation of slavery in Methodism at Baltimore Conference.

Chronology of People and Events | 617 1780–1830

1782 1783 1784

1787

1787 1789 1790 1791–1815 1792 1793 1794

1794 1794 1795–1797 1796

1796 1799

1800s 1800 1800 1800

Second Great Awakening developed and was marked by religious revivals that influence religious life and impacted political reform efforts. These revivals resulted in tremendous growth in Methodist and Baptist churches as colonists, enslaved Africans, and free Africans are converted. Lemuel Hayes becomes the first African to pastor a predominately white congregation. British attempt to subjugate the religious tradition of Garifuna. Two black preachers Harry Hosier and Richard Allen are present at the official formation of Methodism in America, and this was a sign of the impor tance Africans would have in the growth of this Christian denomination. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones among blacks accosted during prayer at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. This event led to the formation of independent black Methodist denominations. Free African Society formed in Philadelphia by those who left St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church. The first General Assembly began to introduce the topic of slavery to the highest judicatory of the Presbyterian Church. Moravian missionary work in Tabago. Refugees from Saint Domingue settle in Louisiana, introducing Haitian Vodou to the region. Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and others left St. George Methodist Church in Philadelphia, forming an independent black religious society. Richard Allen publishes first autobiography by an African American. Bishop Francis Asbury dedicated Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia as the first independent, black Methodist church in the country. First African American Anglican Church African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas (Philadelphia) was founded. Some African American Methodists gather at African Zoar Church and affirm commitment to remain a part of the Methodist Episcopal church. British attack the Garifuna and those who survive are relocated to Roatan from St. Vincent. Peter Williams, James Varick, Christopher Rush, and other African Americans of the John Street Methodist Church eventually form an independent congregation. Black Methodists form a church in New York. Richard Allen was ordained as the first African Methodist deacon, marking the ability of African Methodists to better monitor and control their activities through the presence of black ministers. The tradition of batuque is noted as existing in Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). Methodist Episcopal Church authorizes as denominational policy the ordina tion of African Americans as deacons. African Americans develop the African Meeting House in North Carolina as part of the Methodist Episcopal denomination. Obeah referenced in William Earle’s novel Obi, marking one of the first references to this tradition in popular literature.

618 |

Chronology of People and Events

1801

1801 1801

1801–1805 1803 1807 1809

1809

1814 1816 1816 1816 1816 1816 1820 1821

1822

1822

1822 1827 1827 1828

‘‘African Methodist Episcopal Church’’ (AME) in New York City estab lished as another independent black Methodist church over against the church run by Richard Allen. Birth of Marie Laveau in New Orleans. She would become the most famous Voodoo Queen in North America. John Chavis becomes the first African American Presbyterian North American missionary with responsibility for bringing the denomination to enslaved and free Africans. African Americans loyal to the Methodist Episcopal Church begin develop ing their own churches in the Northeast within that denomination. North Carolina Synod of the Lutheran Church baptizes African Americans, marking the growing importance and presence of Africans in the denomination. John Gloucester founds the First African Presbyterian Church in Philadel phia, Pennsylvania. Jarena Lee (of the AME Church) claims a calling to preach, and this initiates a long debate in African Methodism concerning the proper role of women in church ministry. North Carolina Synod of the Lutheran Church encourages baptism of enslaved Africans as a way of competing with other denominations and increasing membership. African Americans limited to certain spaces within Lutheran Churches in North Carolina. African Methodist Episcopal Church denomination formed as the first African denomination in the United States. American Colonization Society formed. The Presbyterian Synod of New York and New Jersey establish the African School. Richard Allen made a bishop (AME Church) by Francis Asbury. Law in Jamaica punishes use of Obeah to do harm. Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints (LDS) reports first visitation from Divine beings. Six churches hold a conference to form a new denomination separate from the African Methodists headed by Richard Allen. It would become the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Denmark Vesey plot outside Charleston, South Carolina; Vesey’s chief lieu tenant is Gullah Jack, an East African conjurer. This points to the relation ship between religion and protest against enslavement. Presbyterian Samuel Eli Cornish, a black minister of the Northern Church becomes editor of first black newspaper, The Freedman’s Journal. Cornish also founded the First Colored Presbyterian Church in New York City. James Varick elected the first bishop or superintendent of the AME Zion Church. First African American journal Freedom’s Journal published. Hamel, the Obeah Man published as one of the first major works on Obeah. Presbyterian Theodore S. Wright becomes the first African American to graduate from a theological seminary (Princeton Seminary), and later took over Cornish’s New York congregation.

Chronology of People and Events | 619 1828 1829 1830 1830 (circa)

1830 1831 1831

1831 1831

1832 1832 1834 1834 1836 1839 1839

1840 1840 1841 1842 1843 1843 1844

1844 1845 1845 1847

Oblate Sisters of Providence is founded in Baltimore, Maryland, marking the presence of African women in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. The first Congregational Church for African Americans is founded. Marie Laveau becomes Voodoo Queen. Iyanyassoˆ and two other free Afro Brazilian women founded Iya´ Omi Ase Aira Intile´ (now known as the Casa Branca do Engenho Velho), the earliest recorded Candomble´ terreiro, in Salvador, Bahia. Joseph Smith reports revelation from God the Father and God the Son and begins the LDS Church. Maria Stewart becomes first woman to lecture publically on religiopolitical issues. Nat Turner’s revolt uses religion as a way of struggling against enslavement. This revolt would make it increasingly difficult for Africans to engage in religious activity outside the watchful eye of white citizens. The earliest black Presbyterian missionary, John Chavis, organizes a school for both whites and blacks in North Carolina. Work of Oblate Sisters of Providence recognized by the Pope. This gave their work greater visibility and authority as a dimension of the Roman Catholic Church’s ministry. Elijah Abel becomes one of the Africans early baptized into the LDS Church. He would be ordained into the priesthood four years after this date. African Lutheran Church founder was Jehu Jones, marking the growing sig nificance of Africans in this denomination. African Baptist associations begin to form, giving institutional form to the work of African Baptists. First meeting of Methodist Anti Slavery Society, an abolitionist movement. Elijah Abel ordained into the Melchizedek Priesthood. Daniel Payne ordained by the Lutherans. Daniel Alexander Payne publishes an article discussing nontheism of some enslaved Africans, demonstrating the existence of African agnostics and atheists in the United States. The American Baptist Missionary Convention formed in New York City. Founding of the American and Foreign Anti Slavery Society. AME Church Review organized as an important church run journal used to discuss religion and sociopolitical as well as economic issues of the day. Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family founded by African women as a way to further the Roman Catholic churches’ work. Walker Lewis, a free African American is ordained into the LSD priesthood. Presbyterian minister Henry Highland Garnet gives an address calling upon slaves to begin an armed struggle. Methodist Episcopal Church splits into ‘‘North’’ and ‘‘South’’ over issue of slavery, and this raised profound questions concerning the relationship between religion and the system of slavery. First African Parish (Chapel of Nativity in Pittsburgh) formed. Moravian Church organized as a new Episcopal organization. Another law enacted meant to suppress Obeah. Leader of Church of God and Saints in Christ, William S. Crowdy, born.

620 |

Chronology of People and Events

1848 1848 1849 1849

1850 (ca) 1850 1850 1852 1852

1853 1853 1854 1855

1856 1856 1856

1856

1857 1857

1858 1858 1858 1858 1859

‘‘Zion’’ added to African Methodist Episcopal Church in America to sepa rate it from the other African Methodist denomination founded in 1816. The origination of Modern Spiritualism occurs in Hydesville, New York. Brigham Young codifies the ban on African American men in the Mormon priesthood. Founding, in Salvador, Bahia, of the Gantois terreiro by Maria Ju´lia da Conceic¸ a˜ o Nazare´ , following a dispute over who should lead the Casa Branca do Engenho Velho. Casa das Minas founded. The Casa de Nagoˆ was founded somewhat later. Fugitive Slave Law passed in the United States. John Payne elected the first Bishop for Africa for Episcopal Church, demon strating a shift in the authority of Africans in the denomination. Sisters of Holy Family take canonical vows, further expressing the group’s connection to the Roman Catholic Church. J. B. Valmour operates as one of the most successful mediums in New Orleans. Because of the increased number of clients, he moved healing ses sions from his tiny apartment to a public square. Paschal Beverly Randolph openly confesses his allegiance to the spiritualist movement. Baha´’ı´ begins in Iran. James Healy ordained for African American priest in the Roman Catholic Church. By this time, Randolph is one of the most well known mediums within the movement with over 2,500 trance induced speeches and several published writings including The Triplicate Order and Waa gu Nah. The passing of a decree by the Catholic Church’s Congregation of the Inquisition that forbade the activities of spiritualism. Methodist Episcopal Church begins electing African American bishops to head missionary work. The Evangelical Association of Colored Ministers of Congregational and Presbyterian Churches (predecessor to today’s National Black Presbyterian Caucus) is organized in New York City. Bishop Daniel Payne of the AME Church establishes Wilberforce Univer sity, the first institution of higher learning established in the United States by African Americans. Four Moravian provinces developed (continental Europe, England, and two in the United States). Publication in France of Allan Kardec’s Book of Spirits, founding document of the Spiritist movement that would influence the origin and development of Umbanda. Henry Louis Rey initiates and conducts a spiritualist circle in his home. Randolph abrogates spiritualism and becomes a renowned Rosicrucian. Many Catholic priests in New Orleans openly charge Valmour with practic ing gris gris. Francis Burns becomes first black bishop ordained in Methodist Episcopal Church. He is appointed to serve the Liberian Mission. Christian zeal encouraged in Jamaica as a way to battle Obeah.

Chronology of People and Events | 621 1859–1866 1860 1860 1860s 1861 1862

1863 1863 1864 1864

1864 1865 1865 1865 1866 1866 1866

1866 1866 1866 1866 1866 1867 1867 1868 1868 1868

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby teaches Spiritual Mind Healing in Portland and Belfast, Maine. Rev. Jackson of New Bedford converts to Unitarianism during the meeting of the American Unitarian Association. According to the governmental census, there are approximately 15 spiritualist churches in the United States. Pocomania emerges in Jamaica. Because of Rey’s enlistment into the Louisiana Native Guards due to the onset of the Civil War, his spiritualist circle came to a halt. Presbyterian Mary Jane Patterson became the first black woman in the United States to graduate from college. She later served as a principal of Oberlin College from 1870 1871 and later in 1873 74. Emancipation Proclamation issued and Great Migration begins. AME Bishop Henry Turner named the first African American chaplain in the U.S. Army. St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church becomes first parish for African Americans in the United States. Methodist Episcopal Church begins systematic plan to evangelize the soon to be freed slaves, including the establishment of black missionary confer ences within the Church. AME and AMEZ churches consider merger. First Baptist association in the South organized in Louisiana. Slavery abolished in the United States. Presbyterian minister Henry Highland Garnet is first African American to give a sermon to the House of Representatives. First state wide Baptist convention forms. Prophet Cherry organizes the Church of the Living God, Pillar of Truth for All Nations. During the 1940s, the organization moved to Philadelphia. General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) meets in New Orleans, Louisiana and adopts plan to create separate General Conference for blacks. Tennessee Synod of the Lutheran churches passed legislation recommending separate churches for African American Lutherans. Founder of the African Orthodox Church, George Alexander McGuire born. Tennessee Synod licenses the first African American Lutheran pastor, Thomas Fry. First Black Seventh day Adventist Church established in Edgefield Junction, Tennessee. Methodist Episcopal Church establishes the Freedmen’s Aid Society to establish schools for former slaves. First annual conference of black Southern Methodists, the Memphis Colored Conference, held. Patrick Francis Healy becomes first African American Jesuit priest. The spiritualist circle started by Rey is revived. North Carolina Synod of the Lutheran Church licensed Michael Coble, an African American, to preach. African Americans in the Methodist Episcopal Church beginning demanding African American bishops to serve in the United States.

622 |

Chronology of People and Events

1868 1868 1869 1869 1869

1869 1870 1870 1870 1870

1870 1870

1871 1871 1872 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1877 1878 1879

1879 1879

Abojevi Zahwenu purchases land and establishes Rada related religious compound. Kentucky Colored Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, held the first session of its first meeting. Quimby disciple Warren Felt Evans begins formalizing Quimby’s teachings into a religious system. Jehovah’s Witnesses begin when founder Charles Taze Russell organizes a Bible study group in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Three additional colored annual conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, were organized in Augusta, Georgia; Hazelhurst, Mississippi; and Talladega, Alabama. Colored Cumberland Presbyterian Church organized. The number of spiritual churches increased to roughly 95. Unitarian theological school Meadville admits an African American student. Methodist minister Hiram Rhoades Revels first African American in the United States Senate. Unitarian theological school Meadville admits an African American student to train in the Unitarian tradition. In time, the Unitarians and the Universal ists would merge into the Unitarian Universalist Association. Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church formed as the third indepen dent African Methodist denomination. The Christian Index is established as the official Colored Methodist Episcopal Church publication. It becomes an outlet for debate on religious and sociopolitical issues relevant to African Christians. Fisk University Singers introduce spirituals to a larger public. Colored Methodist Episcopal Church Conferences formed in North Carolina, Virginia, and Texas. Bible Students (later ‘‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’’) founded in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Colored Methodist Episcopal Church spreads into Louisiana. Colored Methodist Episcopal Church established a General Missionary Board. Patrick Healy becomes the first African American president of a Catholic University (Georgetown University). James A. Healy becomes the first African American Catholic Bishop (Portland, Oregon). Protoprovincial Moravian organization established in Jamaica. Father Major Jealous Divine born. Synodical Conference of the Lutheran Church launches mission to former slaves. Mathilda Beasley organizes the Third Order of St. Francis Catholic order for African American nuns. Jamaica recognized as a separate and semiautonomous Moravian province, marking the institutional development of Moravians of African descent in the Caribbean. Moravian West Indies work becomes a province. Charles Russell begins publishing Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence.

Chronology of People and Events | 623 1880 1880 1880 1881 1881 1882 1883 1884 1884 1884 1885 1886 1886 1886 1886 1886 1887

1888 1889 1889 1889

1889 1889 1889 1889 1890 1890 1891

1891 1892

David Koonts first African American ordained in the Lutheran Church. Methodist Episcopal Church votes to elect a small number of African American bishops to serve outside foreign missions. The Baptist Foreign Mission Convention organized. Death of Marie Laveau. Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society established. Colored Methodist Episcopal Church founds Paine Institute (later renamed Paine College). Sojourner Truth eulogized and buried by Seventh day Adventists. Samuel David Ferguson becomes first African American bishop of the Episcopal Church. Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society incorporated, marking for many the formal start of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Membership of the AME Zion Church reaches 300,000. Jane Williams the first African American woman ordained in the Church of God (Indiana). First black Seventh day Adventist church founded in Edgefield Junction, Tennessee. F. S. Cherry founds the Church of the Living God. Augustus Tolton ordained a Roman Catholic priest. Timothy Drew (Noble Drew Ali) born in North Carolina. The American National Baptist Convention convened. Mrs. Caroline W. Poe, president of the Women’s Missionary Society of the East Texas Conference of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, success fully lobbied the General Conference to have the Society made an official auxiliary of the General Missionary Board. Abolition of slavery in Brazil. Daniel Rudd sparks conversation in Catholic Church on status of African Americans. Joseph Jordan is the first African American ordained to Universalist ministry. The African American Alpha Synod (council) formed in the Lutheran Church with David Koonts as president. This marked the presence of African American leadership in the organizational structure of the Lutheran Church. Epiphany Apostolic College founded to train African American priests. Charles Kinney becomes the first ordained black Seventh day Adventist minister. Rabbi Leon Richelieu organizes Moorish Zionist Temple in New York. Unity School of Christianity founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in Kansas City, Missouri. Number of Spiritual churches reaches approximately 334. Blessed Sacrament Sisters for Indians and Colored People organized by the Roman Catholic Church. Ellen White’s sermon ‘‘Our Duty to the Colored People’’ marks a turning point in relationship of blacks to the Seventh day Adventist General Conference by calling attention to the need to better incorporate African Americans into the workings of the Church. AME church establishes congregations in Liberia. King Haile Selassie born.

624 |

Chronology of People and Events

1893 1893 1893 1894 1894 1894 1894 1895 1895 1895 1896 1896 1896 1897 1897 1897 1897 1897 1897 1897 1898 1898 1898 1898 1898

1899 1899 1899 1900 1900

The National Spiritualist Association (NSA) is established in Chicago. William Saunders Crowdy has visions that result in the formation of the Church of God and Saints of Christ. A group of black clergy form the Afro Presbyterian Council at the First African Church of Philadelphia. Julia A. Foote becomes the first woman ordained in the AME Zion Church. C. P. Jones and Charles H. Mason found what becomes the Church of God in Christ. First North American convert to Baha´’ı´. African Orthodox Church founder moves to United States from Antigua. National Baptist Convention, USA formed. Fire Baptized Holiness Church founded by Benjamin Hardin Irwin. National Federation of Afro American Women founded. National Association of Colored Women formed. AME Church establishes congregations in South Africa. William Crowdy establishes his first organization devoted to his teachings. Southern Presbyterians create the Afro American Presbyterian Synod as a separate denomination. Schism within National Baptist Convention results in formation of the Lott Carey Baptist Home and Foreign Mission Convention. National Baptist Convention, USA incorporates the Publishing Board. National Baptist Convention, USA members demand complete separation from North Baptist Societies. Episcopal priest Alexander Crummell founds the American Negro Academy for scholarship and the arts. Afro American Presbyterian Synod formed. First Holiness Convocation called by C. P. Jones represented first attempt to present theological discourse along holiness lines. C. P. Jones attempts to officially change Mt. Helm Baptist Church to Church of Christ. Obeah Act in Jamaica unsuccessfully attempted to wipe out the practice of Obeah. Crowdy’s organization grows to more than 20 congregations. W. E. Fuller receives ordination from B. H. Irwin and becomes the superin tendent of black churches within the Fire Baptized Holiness Association. Mary Jane Small becomes first AME Zion Church female elder, an ordained minister with the ability to pastor a church, conduct marriage ceremonies, bury the dead, and consecrate the elements for communion. Divine Science founded by Malinda Cramer and Nona and Fannie Brooks in San Francisco, California, and Denver, Colorado. Baptist associations expel Jones along with other clergy involved with pro moting holiness doctrine. Crowdy’s congregations take the form of a church. Garifuna establish settlements in Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. Julia A. J. Foote becomes first female AME Zion Church elder (with the ability to pastor a church, conduct marriage ceremonies, bury the dead, and consecrate the elements for communion) to serve (although first ordained took place in 1898).

Chronology of People and Events | 625 1900 1900 1900 1901 1901 1902 1902 1902–1910

1903–1906 1903 1903 1904

1905

1905 1905 1906 1906 1906 1906 1906 1906 1907 1908

1908 1908

Reverdy C. Ransom organizes the Institutional Church and Social Settle ment House in Chicago, which is dedicated to the Social Gospel. USA has four Baha’i communities. Women’s Convention created by the National Baptist Convention. United American Free Will Baptist Church developed. Anna Knight is first black Seventh day Adventist missionary to India. C. P. Jones officially forms Christ Temple Church, nondenominational and promoting holiness doctrine. Jane Elizabeth Manning James, an important African American woman in the LSD church, adopted into the Joseph Smith family as a servant. Timothy Drew (Noble Drew Ali) travels gathering the ancient mysteries. He would use this information in the development of the Moorish Science Temple and its teachings. Formation of a camaraderie of churches known as the Church of God in Christ in which C. P. Jones served as the overseer. Building of Christ Temple Church the official meeting place of the annual holiness convocation. Eliza Healy becomes first African American superior of a Roman Catholic convent. Minnie Jackson Goins becomes first black woman to be ordained an elder in American Methodism. She was ordained in the United Brethren (which later merged with other American Methodist denominations). Joseph Franklin Rutherford, future president of the Watch Tower Society, lectures to a group of African Americans, marking a slow start to the interest in bringing African Americans into the workings of the Society. Debate in the National Baptist Convention over management of the Publishing Board. Relationship forged between Lott Carey and the National Baptist Conven tion, USA. Asuza Street Pentecostal Revival begins, marking the emergence of Pentecostalism. Apostolic Faith Mission founded in Mobile, Alabama. Mason’s Church of God renamed Church of God in Christ. The federal census shows the operation of over 450 Spiritualist churches in the United States. Roman Catholic Church organizes the Catholic Board for Mission work among Colored People. National Primitive Baptist Convention founded. Church of God in Christ splits: Church of God in Christ and Church of God in Christ Holiness USA (COCHUSA). Ze´lio de Morais founds the spiritual Center of Our Lady of Piety, cited by many Umbandistas as the first house of Umbanda. Some accounts list the date as 1920. W. E. Fuller starts the Colored Fire Baptized Holiness Church in response to division occurring along racial lines in the Fire Baptized Holiness Association. The First General Council Meeting of the Colored Fire Baptized Holiness Church and W. E. Fuller is appointed General Overseer.

626 |

Chronology of People and Events

1909 1909 1909 1909 1910s 1910 1910 1912

1913 1913 1913 1914 1915 1915 1915 1917 1917 1918 1918 1918 1919 1919 1919–1931 1920 1920 1920 1921

Seventh day Adventist establish a ‘‘Negro Department’’ to address the needs of African Americans. Knights of Peter Claver Roman Catholic fraternity formed. Louis Gregory becomes one of the first African American converts. Publishing Board of the National Baptist Convention, USA diversifies by developing the National Baptist Teacher Training Service. Spiritual churches, reportedly founded by Mother Leafy Anderson, appear in New Orleans. Founding, in Salvador, Bahia, of the terreiro, Ile´ Axe´ Apoˆ Afonja´, again fol lowing a dispute over succession at the Casa Branca do Engenho Velho. First CME Foreign Missions to Africa begin with assistance from Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Baha´’ı´ ‘Abdu’l Baha´ travels to North America giving lectures, including contact with the NAACP, and this represented early contact with African American communities. Noble Drew Ali establishes Canaanite Temple. William Phillip Thomas, founder of Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God, ordained. Mother Leafy Anderson develops Eternal Life Christian Spiritualist Church in Chicago. Friction in the Nation Baptist Convention over the publishing house threatens the structure of the Convention. National Baptist Conventions go to court over longtime dispute. National Baptist Convention of America formed through a split in the National Baptist Convention, USA. Apostolic Faith Mission renamed Apostolic Faith Mission Church of God. Headquarters for Crowdy’s organization established in Belleville, Virginia. National Baptist Convention of America established its constitution. Edward T. Demby becomes first African American bishop in Episcopal Church to serve in the United States. Death of ‘‘Aunt’’ Caroline Dye, renowned conjure woman from Newport, Arkansas. Jones relocates to Los Angeles, California, to establish a Christ Temple Church of Los Angeles. Wentworth Arthur Matthew organizes the Commandment Keepers Congregation. African Orthodox Church founded in Chicago, Illinois. First period of the Peace Mission’s development. Egbert Ethelred Brown moves to Harlem to establish a liberal religion move ment amongst African Americans. Methodist Episcopal elects two African American bishops to serve in the United States. Mother Leafy Anderson founds Eternal Life Spiritualist Church in the Crescent City (New Orleans). Charles Grace opens his second church in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and names himself its bishop. This would grow into the United House of Prayer for All Peoples.

Chronology of People and Events | 627 1921 1921 1922 1923 1923–1972

1924 1924 1924 1924 1924 1924 1925–1935 1925 1925 1926 1926 1926 1926

1926 1927–1962 1927 1927 1928 1928 1929 1930s 1930 1930

George Alexander McGuire organizes the African Orthodox Church. George Alexander McGuire made an Archbishop. Official name change from Colored Fire Baptized Holiness Church to Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas. Father Hurley starts Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church. The ‘‘Black Gods of the Metropolis’’ begin teaching New Thought principles to African Americans in urban areas such as New York, Massachusetts, and Michigan. Islamic Mission of America founded. AME Zion Church assigns a bishop to Africa. The governing body of the National Spiritualist Associations decides that African Americans should no longer be counted as members. Arnold Josiah Ford founds Beth B’nai Abraham synagogue in New York City. Formation of the School of Mediumship and Psychology by Father Hurley. Samuel M. Crouch Sr. becomes first African American radio minister. Rapid expansion of the church up and down the East coast; Grace Magazine is established; fire hose baptisms begin. The National Colored Spiritualist Association (later called the National Colored Spiritualist Association of Churches) forms in Cleveland. Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ (MSCC) founded. First meeting of the Congress of the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Inc. Formal ordination of women in the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ Inc. The United House of Prayer for All People officially takes its name in Char lotte, North Carolina. At their first annual meeting, members of the National Colored Spiritualist Association voted to accept the recognized doctrinal and belief system, includ ing the National Spiritualist Association’s ‘‘Declaration of Principles.’’ The National Spiritualist Reporter becomes the official journal of the National Colored Spiritualist Association. Career of James Spurgeon Jordan, one of the last nationally renowned conjurers. Noble Drew publishes the Circle Seven Koran, which serves as a major text for members of the Moorish Science Temple. Religious Science/Science of Mind founded by Ernest Holmes in Los Angeles, California. Noble Drew Ali’s organization renamed the Moorish Science Temple of America. National Baptist Convention of America incorporates its Foreign Missions Board, Baptist Young People’s Union, and Sunday School Publishing Board. C. Kirkman Bey takes control of the Moorish Science Temple. Spiritual supply stores become established features of twentieth century hoodoo throughout the South. Arnold Josiah Ford leaves for Ethiopia, and his church merges with the Commandment Keepers. Haile Selassie crowned emperor of Ethiopia.

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Chronology of People and Events

1930 1930 1930s 1930 1930

1930–1935 1931 1931 1931 1932 1932 1932 1932–1941 1933 1934 1934 1934 1935 1935–1943 1935 1935 1936 1937 1937 1937

1938

1938 1939

Wentworth A. Matthew’s Commandment Keepers Congregation of the Living God is incorporated. CME Church constitution, including its Articles of Religion, authorized for publication. Zora Neale Hurston studies and writes about traditions such as Obeah in Jamaica. First women are accepted as delegates to CME General Conference. Master Fard Muhammad appears in Detroit, and he begins the teachings that would come to define much of the Nation of Islam’s self understanding and its teachings. Aninha, founder of Ile´ Axe´ Apoˆ Afonja´, travels to Rio de Janeiro and founds a Candomble´ terreiro. Followers of Charles Taze Russell name their movement ‘‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’’ (Bible: Isaiah 43:10 12). Xavier University opened as first Catholic university for African Americans. High profile New Thought figures endorse Father Divine. ‘‘Golden Age of Gospel Music’’ begins when Thomas Dorsey writes ‘‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord.’’ Father Divine moves to Harlem. Louis Gregory, an African American, becomes member of Baha´’ı´ National Spiritual Assembly. Second Phase of the Peace Mission marked by consolidation of resources and programming. Father Hurley coins himself as the ‘‘Black God of the Aquarian Age.’’ Celebration of the first ‘‘Hurley’s Feast,’’ named after Father Hurley. African Orthodox Church founder dies. Establishment of Episcopal structure in the MSCC. MSCC radio program first airs on KITE in Kansas City. Federal and State Writers’ project workers collect information on conjure and other practices. Hullen Mitchel Jr. (aka Yahweh ben Yahweh), founder of the House of Yahweh, was born. Wentworth Arthur Matthew proclaims members of the Commandment Keepers are American Falashas (the Black Jews of Ethiopia). Members of Father Divine’s organization create the Righteous Government Movement to fight racial discrimination. Peace Mission begins publishing New Day. Local and national Baha´’ı´ spiritual assemblies firmly established in North America. Second Afro Brazilian Conference, held in Salvador, Bahia, where leading scholars lend support and legitimacy to Candomble´ as an authentic, rich, and valuable religious tradition. Presbyterian minister Albert B. McCoy was elected to serve as secretary of the Division of Work with Colored Persons, a new board created by National Missions. Grace’s investment strategy in high profile real estate begins. Methodist Episcopal Church, South and the Methodist Episcopal Church, North unify.

Chronology of People and Events | 629 1939 1939 1940s 1940s–1980s

1940s–1950s 1941 1941–1942 1942 1942 1942–1965 1942 1943 1944 1944 1944 1944 1945 1946 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950s–Present 1950s 1951 1953 1954 1954 1954 1955 1955 1956 1956

Central Jurisdiction established as the racial episcopacy of the reunited Methodist Episcopal Church. Race Relations Day established as second Sunday in February. Period of intense repression of Afro Brazilian religion in Recife (Brazil). Period of rapid growth and acceptance of Umbanda. Numerous federations and congresses of Umbanda and Afro Brazilian religion emerge, but none exercises real hegemony. Young ministers are nurtured to become strong leaders; structure of House of Prayer stabilizes; Grace decreases his role in day to day church operations. Joseph Oliver Brown first African American Roman Catholic bishop in the twentieth century. Father Divine’s organization incorporated as the Peace Mission Movement. Merger occurs between MSCC and Divine Spiritual Churches of the South west to create the United Metropolitan Spiritual Church of Christ. Clarence Cobbs becomes president of the United Metropolitan Spiritual Church of Christ. Third phase of the Peace Mission’s Development. Peace Mission headquarters moved to Philadelphia. Father Hurley dies in Detroit. Prophet Jones founds Universal Triumph, the Dominion of God, Inc. Establishment of Lake Region as the first black Seventh day Adventist regional conference. United Metropolitan Spiritual Church of Christ and MSCC emerge as result of schism. Baptist minister Adam Clayton Powell Jr. becomes first African American elected to Congress from New York. Bob Marley born. Francisco Mora first Santerı´a priest in the United States. Prophet Cherry dies. Lewis A. McGee founds Free Religious Fellowship as a Unitarian organization. AME Church ordains Rebecca M. Glover. Following the death of Jones, M. R. Conic is elected Senior Bishop over COCHUSA. Continued vitality of Xangoˆ and growing acceptance and influence in popu lar culture. Continued lack of African Americans in leadership positions continues to mark the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization. Afro American Presbyterian Synod disbands. Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr. founds St. Mark’s Congregational Church. CME Church begins to ordain women for church ministry. Colored M.E. Church becomes Christian M.E. Church. Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church is organized by Jim Jones in Indianapo lis as a racially integrated congregation. Peoples Temple affiliates with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Civil Rights Movement begins. Rev. Dr. Johnnie Colemon founds Christ Universal Temple in Chicago, Illinois. National Baptist Convention, USA holds symposium to discuss the best strategy for social transformation.

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Chronology of People and Events

1957 1957 1957 1957 1957 1957

1957–1958 1958 1958

1958 1958 1958 1959 1959 1960s

1960 1960s 1960s 1960s 1960 1960 1961

1961 1961

Interdenominational Theological Center founded. Central Congregational Church purchases Brewster Pilgrim Congregational Church, and it becomes home of the Shrine of the Black Madonna #1. Southern Christian Leadership Conference formed. The merged Congregation Christian churches organized as the United Church of Christ (UCC). National Baptist Convention, USA faces tension over issue of tenure for the president. Several ministers, including Martin L. King Jr. and Gardner Taylor are expelled from the National Baptist Convention, USA for opposing President Joseph Jackson. Those expelled from the National Baptist Convention, USA (the ‘‘Taylor Team’’) file suit challenging the suspension of tenure rules. National Spiritualist Association becomes the National Spiritualist Associa tion of Churches. Greenville, South Carolina, becomes the official meeting place for the quadrennial General Council Meeting of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God. National Baptist Convention, USA votes to give Joseph H. Jackson life term as president; this would spark internal debate and unrest. Sallie A. Crenshaw and Nora E. Young become first black women with full clergy rights in American Methodism. Johnnie Colemon becomes the first African American ordained by Unity School of Christianity (New Thought). Walter King becomes first African American initiated into Santerı´a priest hood (in Cuba). Jim Jones is ordained a Disciples of Christ minister. Jehovah’s Witnesses establish more open and equitable relationship to Afri can American members. Prior to this, questionable attitudes toward African Americans mark some of the literature and attitudes of the organization. Father Divine stops speaking, Mother Divine takes control of the Peace Mission Movement. Period of mass evangelism for Seventh day Adventist. Growth of a combination of Batuque and Umbanda, referred to as ‘‘Linha Cruzada.’’ African Americans make up roughly 20 30 percent of total Jehovah’s Witnesses membership. Gardner C. Taylor loses a controversial election in his bid for presidency of the National Baptist Convention, USA. Sweet Daddy Grace dies in January; Walter McCollough is elected bishop in February. Progressive Baptist Convention formed because of friction in the National Baptist Convention, USA over the proper length of service for the convention president. First African American Santerı´a priestess initiated. Lewis McGee becomes first African American to serve as senior pastor of a white Unitarian Church (Chico Unitarian Fellowship, Chico, California).

Chronology of People and Events | 631 1962 1962 1962 1962 1962–1965 1962–1965 1963 1963 1963 1964 1964 1964 1964 1964 1964 1964 1965 1965 1965 1965 1966

1966 1966 1966 1967 1967 1967 1967 1968 1968

John Burgess elected first African American Catholic bishop over a pre dominately white diocese. Document drafted by Rev. W. H. R. Powell and approved outlining the ration ale for the Progressive Baptist Convention and its structure and principles. Court ordered new election reaffirms the bishopric of McCollough; dissident group breaks away from the United House of Prayer. Progressive National Convention establishes a Women’s Auxiliary. Vatican II takes place. The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican ushers in an era of tolerance of formerly stigmatized religions, such as Candomble´. Martin L. King Jr. issues the ‘‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail.’’ The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed and four young girls were killed. Black Presbyterians began caucusing and created the Commission on Race and Religion. MSCC, Inc. establishes a church in Jamaica. Rev. Albert Cleage becomes the first African American to run for the office of governor since Reconstruction. Malcolm X leaves Nation of Islam. First Santerı´a drum dance in the United States held this year. Methodist Church assigns African American bishops to predominantly white Episcopal districts. Edler G. Hawkins becomes first African American moderator of the United Presbyterian Church (part of Presbyterian Church, USA). Baptist minister Martin L. King Jr. receives Noble Peace Prize. Malcolm X killed. Father Divine dies. Jim and Marceline Jones relocate to Mendocino County in Northern California with their children and 70 members of Peoples Temple. Trudy Trimm becomes first female pastor accepted in the National Baptist Convention. National Committee of Black Churchmen formed and provides statement on the religious importance of Black Power and the need for a theology of Black liberation. Ben Carter, leader of the African Hebrew Israelites, has a vision and begins plans to move his community to Liberia. Black Caucuses develop in numerous white denominations to address issues of race and racial discrimination. Haile Selassie visited Jamaica. Wallace Muhammad goes on Hajj. Jamaica an autonomous Moravian province. Rev. Cleage unveils painting of the Black Madonna and Child at Shrine #1 and inaugurates the Black Christian Nationalist Movement. East West Indies work recognized as a Moravian province. Martin Luther King Jr. killed. The Black Presbyterians United (BPU) was created to encourage younger and more aggressive black Presbyterian involvement in the denomination.

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Chronology of People and Events

1968 1968

1968 1968 1968 1969 1969

1969 1969 1969 1970 1970 1970 1970s 1970

1970s–1980s 1970s 1970s 1971 1971 1971 1971 1972 1972–1973 1973 1973

1974

The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren merge to form the United Methodist Church. Churches begin to respond to the ‘‘Black Manifesto’’ issued by the National Black Economic Development Conference, calling for churches to finan cially support black liberation. Ben Carter visits Liberia to prepare for relocation of his community. All black Central Jurisdiction eliminated when the United Methodist Church is disbanded. Peoples Temple begins reaching out to African Americans in San Francisco. Members of Ben Carter’s community, Hebrew Israelites, move from Liberia to Israel. Development of the Black Christian Manifesto marks the Shrine of the Black Madonna’s personae as committed to development of a Black Nation. Thomas Kilgore Jr. becomes first African American president of the American Baptist Churches in the USA. Rev. Johnnie Colemon becomes president of the Association of Unity Churches (New Thought). Clarence 13X founds the Nation of Five Percent. Rev. Cleage’s church changes its name to the Shrine of the Black Madonna and opens its first bookstore and cultural center in Detroit. Peoples Temple headquarters are moved to San Francisco, where the mem bership reaches some 3,000. Oyotunji Village founded. Batuque spreads into Argentina and Uruguay. General Conference of the CME Church approves Department of Christian Social Action and Concerns to address church policy on social, economic, and political issues. United House of Prayer leader McCollough emphasizes social gospel and self sufficiency as church focus. Some Garifuna relocate to the USA. As part of reorganization, Jehovah’s Witnesses increase attention to African Americans. William K. Jackson becomes the first ‘‘unofficial’’ African American Jehovah’s Witness on the Governing Body. Shrine of the Black Madonna develops new holy days and new rituals/liturgy. Pagan Front founded. Genesis Group founded as an officially sanctioned LDS group of African Americans. Adefunmi was initiated into the Ifa priesthood in Nigeria and later that year was proclaimed the Oba (king) of Oyotunji Village. MSCC expands to Liberia. Peoples Temple purchases land in Guyana. Dorothy Morris first female presiding elder (AME Church in Guyana), marking the movement of women into important leadership positions in the denomination. Peoples Temple builds settlement in Guyana called ‘‘Jonestown.’’

Chronology of People and Events | 633 1974 1974 1974

1975 1975 1975 1976 1976

1977 1977 1977 1977 1978 1978 1978 1978 1978 1978 1978 1978 1979 1979 1979 1979 1980 1980 1980 1980–1984 1980s–1990s

Katie Geneva Cannon becomes first African American woman ordained in the Presbyterian Church. Rev. Colemon founds the African American New Thought denomination, Universal Foundation for Better Living. Lawrence W. Bottoms becomes first African American moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (part of the Presbyterian Church, USA). The Honorable Elijah Muhammad dies and is replaced by Wallace Muhammad. Wallace Muhammad begins to reenvision the Nation of Islam, opening membership to all interested parties. Jehovah’s Witnesses reorganized (predictions of Armageddon were not realized). Joseph H. Evans, an African American, elected president of the UCC. Thelma Cornelia Adair becomes first African American woman moderator of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA (part of the Presbyterian Church, USA). Pauli Murray ordained as first African American woman Episcopal priest. Joseph L. Howze becomes first African American Roman Catholic diocesan bishop. David Dore, the Rabbi who replaced Matthews, becomes second African American to graduate from Yeshiva University. Hundreds of members move to Jonestown in response to critical media reports. Congressman Leo Ryan visits Jonestown, and he is killed returning to the United States. In Jonestown, 909 residents die in a mass homicide and suicide. Ben Carter explores the possibility of relocating the Abeta Hebrew Israel Culture Center to Liberia. Priesthood opened to all ‘‘worthy’’ male members of the LDS church regard less of race and color. Louis Farrakhan reestablishes the Nation of Islam under the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. First Pan African Synod is held; Shrine of the Black Madonna becomes the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church. A few survivors of Jonestown return to California. Congress of National Black Churches formed. Peoples Temple is placed in receivership and subsequently dissolved. Lucretia L. Smith appointed interim president of the MSCC. C. E. Bradford becomes president of the Seventh day Adventist North American Division. House of Yahweh founded by Yahweh ben Yahweh. Wallace Muhammad changes name to Warith Deen Muhammad. United Methodist Publishing House publishes a hymnal of African American music: Songs of Zion. Dr. Logan Kearse becomes president of the MSCC and moves headquarters to Baltimore. Schisms develop in MSCC over the relocation of the headquarters. Church burnings gain media headlines.

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1981 1981 1983

1983 1984 1984 1985 1986 1987 1987 1987 1988 1988

1988 1988 1988 1988

1989 1989 1989 1990 1990

1990s 1990 1991 1991

Shrine of the Black Madonna begins Beulah Land Farm. Baptist World Center built by the National Baptist Convention, USA. At the Second International Conference on the Traditions of the Orixa´s, Ma˜e Stella argues against the mixing of Candomble´ with Catholicism, igniting a movement toward a more purely African Candomble´. Cornelia Wright becomes first female presiding elder to serve an AME Church district in the United States. Ernest W. Newman becomes first black elected bishop in the South. He served the Nashville episcopacy. Leontine T. C. Kelly becomes the first African American woman to serve as a bishop within a Christian denomination. Louis Farrakhan goes on Hajj. Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith founds Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City, California. International congregations of the MSCC established in London and Ghana. Commission for Multicultural Ministries formed as the various Lutheran denominations begin their merger. National Baptist Convention of America incorporated. National Missionary Baptist Convention of America splits from the National Baptist Convention of America. African American Lutheran Association formed in the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (the result of merger between American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America). Eugene Marino elected first African American Archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church. African American Unitarian Universalist Ministries formed to serve the needs of African American members of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Vivianne and Chris Crowley found the Wicca Study Group. International expansion of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church continues with the dedication of the W. E. Fuller Headquarters and Mission House in Jamaica. National Baptist Convention, USA completes construction of the first ‘‘World Center’’ built by a black denomination. Barbara Harris elected first African American woman bishop in Episcopal Church. Joan Salmon Campbell becomes first African American woman moderator of the Presbyterian Church, USA. African American Humanist Declaration developed. George Stallings’ Imani Temple declares independence from Rome, mark ing a radical break between black consciousness and issues such as Roman Catholic teachings on sexuality and the priesthood. Growth in number of megachurches, many marked by a ‘‘Gospel of Prosperity.’’ Popularity of Umbanda begins to diminish with the rise of Pentecostal and Evangelical Protestantism. Obeah Act allows suspected practitioners of Obeah to be arrested, yet Obeah still practiced in Jamaica and elsewhere. AME Bishop Vinton R. Anderson becomes the first African American president of the World Council of Churches.

Chronology of People and Events | 635 1991 1992 1993 1995 1995 1996 1996 1997 1997 1997 1997 1998 1999 1999 1999 2000

2000 2001 2001 2002 2002 2003 2005 2005 2006 2007 2007

Schism develops leading to development of Soka Gakkai International, USA. Unitarian Universalist Association Office on Racial and Cultural Diversity founded. MSCC and the United Metropolitan Spiritual Churches work together to build an international headquarters for the MSCC. First woman ordained a bishop in the Lutheran Church. Nation of Islam Million Man March takes place. Nation of Islam World Day of Atonement established. City of Porot Alegre organizes a week of celebration for Afro Brazilian religions. Two hundredth anniversary of the Garifuna arrival to Central America. First International Headquarters of MSCC, Inc., established in Kansas City. Sheliah Edwards, an African American, elected vice general director for Soka Gakkai. Alice Walker named ‘‘Humanist of the Year’’ by the American Humanist Association. Ronnie Smith, an African American, elected vice general director for Soka Gakkai. Samuel Herd becomes first African American on the Watchtower’s Gov erning Body. Beulah Land Farm opened by Shrine of the Black Madonna in Abbeville, South Carolina. Efforts made to overturn laws against Obeah. United Methodist General Conference holds a service of repentance and rec onciliation to acknowledge racist official actions taken by the denomination throughout its history. Vashti McKenzie elected first female bishop in the AME Church. William Sinkford elected the first African American president of the Unitar ian Universalist Association. Mark Morrison Reed becomes the first Afro Canadian to head the Canadian Unitarian Council, a major organization of Unitarians in North America. Mark Morrison Reed leads the Canadian Unitarian Council in its separation from the Unitarian Universalist Association. Casa das Minas registered with the Instituto do Patrimoˆnio Histo´rico e Artı´s tico Nacional for preservation as a site of cultural and historical importance. Rear Admiral Barry Black becomes the first African American and Seventh day Adventist to hold the office of chaplain to the U.S. Senate. Dr. Ella Louise Smith Simmons, an African American, becomes first female vice president of Seventh day Adventist world church. Adefunmi, King of Oyotunji Village, dies. University of the Moorish Science Temple of America founded. Yahweh ben Yahweh dies. New Thought docu film phenomenon, The Secret, is featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live, which gave new visibility to New Thought teachings and organizations.

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Chronology of People and Events

2008 2008

United House of Prayer’s Bishop Madison dies in April; C. M. Bailey is elected bishop in May. LDS Church, led by the Genesis Group, celebrates 30 years of priesthood open to men of all races.

APPENDIX Primary Documents

The entries and thematic essays within this volume offer snapshots of religion and religious practice within the African Diaspora in the Americas. And while these discussions are helpful in outlining the look of the religious practices of people of African descent, this appendix offers two additional dimensions: (1) a few primary documents that provide more detailed and focused attention to some of the themes and concerns that emerge in the encyclopedia proper; (2) several entries that provide more focused attention on issues and topics related to traditions presented in the various entries. Limitations on the length of this encyclopedia make it impossible to provide primary documents that speak to and from all the traditions noted in this encyclopedia, although the selected bibliographies associated with each tradition provide readers with more materials for review. However, the pieces selected for inclusion do serve to provide some insight into significant concerns undergirding and informing many of the traditions present in the encyclopedia—black identity, the connections between religion and political-economic developments, discrimination within religion traditions, and the relationship between religion and ethics. An effort was also made to present documents that pull from a range of orientations—from atheism to traditional Christianity, from black nationalism to a demand for inclusion in the existing order. Furthermore, readers will find the pieces provided in the second section of the appendix a useful way to gain insight into the cultural worlds out of which these religious traditions emerge as well as the cultural practices that shape and define their basic structure. Norm Allen was asked by Paul Kurtz, the former head of the Council for Secular Humanism, to move to Buffalo and coordinate efforts to organize the humanism already present in African American communities. Allen’s work regarding this text involved documenting the presence of humanism in African American communities and

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Appendix: Primary Documents

developing structure and organizational mechanisms for the enhancement and spread of African American humanism. As part of this process, Allen worked to articulate and document the basic commitments of African American humanism as it relates to a particular philosophy of life and ethics that build the worth of African Americans. This document was issued by African Americans for Humanism to outline the nature and purpose of Black Humanism. Published in Free Inquiry, Volume 10, Issue 2 (Spring 1990): 13–15. ***

AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN HUMANIST DECLARATION Slavery and racism have taken their toll on the African-American community. It seems as though every possible solution to the problems that have resulted from these twin evils has been advocated or implemented on some level. But the problems have remained, and in some cases have worsened. Many thinkers maintain that the history of African-Americans is unique. Unlike any other group, African-Americans were kidnapped from their homeland, enslaved, and brutally victimized in every way imaginable by a strict system of segregation. Only during the past three decades has it become popular for mainstream Americans to oppose racism. Segregation was ‘‘officially’’ practiced in the South on a large scale until the 1960s. Thus slavery and segregation have characterized most of the history of African-Americans. (It must also be noted that the enslavement and segregation of a minority by a majority differs greatly from the oppression of a majority by a minority.) Many other factors have been attributed to the unique condition of African-Americans. Some have boldly stated that unless these factors are properly recognized and understood, the quest for freedom, justice, and equality will be in vain. As Lyndon B. Johnson said in 1965, ‘‘Freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, do as you desire.’’ But not everyone agrees with this analysis. Some maintain that opportunities for African-Americans have increased dramatically. They believe that the legacy of slavery and rigidly enforced segregation have been grossly exaggerated. They claim that many of the problems attributed to slavery did not arise until a hundred years after it was abolished, and that therefore slavery is irrelevant to today’s problems. They believe that racism is a relic of the past or an insignificant factor in the problems plaguing the AfricanAmerican community. They claim that liberal programs have been great failures, and further maintain that African-Americans could solve their problems if they would only modify their behavior and emulate the good habits of other ethnic groups. Moderates, liberals, radicals, socialists, conservatives, anarchists, and others who cannot be categorized, have presented many conflicting ideas regarding the past, present, future, and even the identity of African-Americans. Never in the history of the United States has a people been plagued with so many problems and so much confusion.

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Many strategies to end the confusion and solve the problems have been tried, with few positive results. But if more critical thought had gone into the planning of these strategies, they either would have been successful, or would never have been tried at all. There are still many questions that seem almost to defy answers. How much does racism affect American society today? How limited or plentiful are the opportunities for African-Americans? What effects have the distortion, destruction, and suppression of African history had on African-Americans and on the way they are viewed and treated by the rest of society? How committed is white America to equality and the elimination of racism? If racism still exists and cannot be eradicated, is there anything African-Americans can do to solve their problems? Do African-Americans have an identity crisis, and must they pursue an identity other than ‘‘American’’? These questions are uncomfortable, and even frightening to some. But they must be answered. And they are by no means the only questions that must be answered. There are arguments from all points of view and from people of all backgrounds. But the best way to determine the proper course of action of society is through the free flow of humane ideas. If an argument or proposed solution is an error, the best way to detect the error is through the use of reason. But humanism will not live up to its full potential if most of its adherents will not open their minds and honestly pursue the truth. Everyone must be willing to reexamine their beliefs and reassess the arguments they have rejected. And no Matter how bleak the present or future looks, one must never despair of the human species. When one struggles for the betterment of humanity, there is glory even in the face of defeat. Today the world needs a critical, rational, and humane approach to living. This is what humanism is all about. African-Americans in general might not be familiar with the true humanist outlook— an outlook that is essential to the modern world. Because many scholars have viewed society and history from a biased Eurocentric viewpoint, the significance of AfricanAmericans to the humanist tradition has not been widely known. Racism and racial insensitivity have affected the entire nation, humanists included. But a new initiative has been taken to broaden the humanistic world view by making humanism more attractive to African-Americans. Humanism incorporates a number of important ethical principles, including: • A commitment to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the uni verse and to the solving of human problems. • A concern with securing justice and fairness in society, and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance. • A belief in enjoying life here and now and in developing humanity’s creative talents to their fullest. • A belief in the cultivation of moral excellence. • Skepticism toward untested claims to knowledge. • Openness toward new ideas.

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Appendix: Primary Documents • A belief in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.

Historically, the churches have been the most influential institutions in the AfricanAmerican community, and African-Americans have been ardent believers. Church leaders have professed to have the solutions to the social, political, and economic ills with which African-Americans must contend. But despite their claims—or perhaps because of them—problems continue to plague the African-American community. Great strides have been made during the past forty years, but many problems have worsened, and new ones have arisen. More attention must be given to the importance of critical thinking in the quest for freedom, justice, and equality for African-Americans. The African-American community is confronted by moral dilemmas that free thought, reason, good conduct, and proper action can best help solve. Examples include: 1. Unwanted pregnancy. Many religious leaders stress abstinence and marital fidelity as panaceas for the social problems resulting from human sexuality. But most humanists believe that all rational and humane solutions must be discussed, including the use of contraceptives and abortion. Attention must also be given to education, family counsel ing, and self esteem building. 2. Alcohol and substance abuse. Alcoholism and drug abuse are major problems in the African American community. These problems are of pressing concern, and solutions may require urgent, thorough, and rational measures. African Americans as a group have been unfairly maligned by the media and targeted by police and government in the War on Drugs. Yet many white drug dealers continue to grow rich and go virtually unmo lested. Many controversial solutions have been proposed, including the decriminalization of certain drugs. Humanism can be influential in the search for solutions to these prob lems and others that may arise from them. Humanism stresses abstinence from dangerous drugs, and moderation in the consumption of alcohol. It promotes self love, and realizes that abusive and self destructive behaviors interfere with the pursuit of happiness. It acknowledges the need for Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS). 3. Economic development. Although many African Americans religious institutions have made laudable efforts toward economic development, millions of African Americans have been attracted to Bible passages that teach that the accumulation of wealth is immoral and a complete waste of time. By thinking freely and challenging long held beliefs and traditions, African Americans have always been at an economic disadvant age, many seek comfort in a possible reward in the afterlife. But fatalism is always dan gerous, and ‘‘wait for the rapture’’ is questionable advice. 4. Organ transplants. The United States has an acute shortage of vital organs. Forty percent of the people awaiting organ transplants are African Americans. But ironically and sadly, largely because of deep spiritual beliefs, African Americans are the least likely to donate their organs. Openly discussing and challenging religious beliefs may convince more African Americans to become voluntary organ donors, thereby helping potential organ recipients from all backgrounds. Further research could also be stimulated to help find

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out why so many African Americans are in need of organs. More attention must also be given to diseases such as sickle cell anemia to which African Americans are prone. Ways to improve health care and insurance should also be addressed. 5. Self reliance. Too much emphasis has been placed on faith in charismatic African Americans leaders, and not enough on individual responsibility, self confidence, and freedom of thought. Through humanism, African Americans can learn to have at least as much faith in themselves as they have in their leadership, because ultimately, individ ual choices become crucial factors in the shaping and modeling of one’s life. 6. Unity. Humanism can teach African Americans to unite around goals that are common to humanity. To unite mainly on religious grounds excludes some of the community’s greatest minds and impedes progress.

The organizational aims of African-Americans for Humanism are to: • Fight against racism in every form. • Incorporate an Afrocentric outlook into a broader world perspective. • Add depth and breadth to the study of history by acknowledging the great contributions made by people of African descent to the world, with the purpose of building self esteem among African Americans and helping to demonstrate the importance of all peoples to the development of world civilization. • Develop eupraxophy, or ‘‘wisdom and good conduct through living’’ in the African American community by using the scientific and rational methods of inquiry. • Solve many of the problems that confront African Americans through education and self reliance, thereby affirming that autonomy and freedom of choice are basic human rights. • Develop self help groups and engage in any humane and rational activity designed to develop the African American community. • Emphasize the central importance of education at all levels, including humanistic moral education, developing a humanistic outlook, and providing the tools for the development of critical reason, self improvement, and career training.

Never has a large, significant international humanist organization attracted great numbers of people of color. But this objective can be attained if we make a concerted effort to demonstrate how humanism, is, has been, and can be relevant to the entire world community.

African-Americans for Humanism Advisory Board Dave Allen, writer, Washington, DC James Anders, Professor of Mathematics, Florida State University Bonnie Bullough, Dean of Nursing, State University of New York at Buffalo Vern Bullough, Distinguished Professor of History and Sociology, State University of New York College at Buffalo Leonard Harris, Professor of Philosophy, Morgan State University, Baltimore Norman Hill, Human Rights Activist, New York City Ismael Jaffree, Attorney, Youngstown, Ohio

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Appendix: Primary Documents

William Jones, Professor of Black Studies, Florida State University Mike McBryde, Freelance Artist and Writer, Pittsburgh Emmanuel Kofi Mensah, Andrews University, Lagos, Nigeria James Moss, Psychiatrist, New York City Verle Muhrer, Penn Valley Community College, Kansas City, Missouri Hope N. Tawiah, Chairman, Rational Centre, Accra, Ghana Charles U. Ufomadu, Bigard memorial Seminary, Imo State, Nigeria David M. Washington, Artist, Chicago Fred Whitehead, Penn Valley Community College, Kansas City, Missouri Kwasi Wiredu, Professor of Philosophy, University of South Florida

The late 1960s were marked by deep and profound changes in the relationship between religion and politics. Drawing on the energy of civil rights activities, many within African American communities argued that not only had religious institutions helped challenge racism, but many of these institutions had also benefited from racism. In the following document read by James Forman at Riverside Church in New York City, a demand is made for churches to give back to the black communities they damaged. That is to say, the black manifesto demanded churches benefiting from racism compensate monetarily the black communities harmed. ‘‘The Black Manifesto,’’ April 26, 1969. James H. Cone and Gayraud S. Wilmore, editors. Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966–1979 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), 80–89. ***

THE BLACK MANIFESTO Introduction: Total Control as the Only Solution to the Economic Problems of Black People Brothers and Sisters: We have come from all over the country burning with anger and despair not only with the miserable economic plight of our people but fully aware that the racism on which the Western World was built dominates our lives. There can be no separation of the problems of racism from the problems of our economic, political, and cultural degradation. To any black man, this is clear. But there are still some of our people who are clinging to the rhetoric of the Negro, and we must separate ourselves from these Negroes who go around the country promoting all types of schemes for black capitalism. Ironically, some of the most militant Black Nationalists, as they call themselves, have been the first to jump on the bandwagon of black capitalism. They are pimps, black power pimps and fraudulent leaders, and the people must be educated to understand that any black man or Negro who is advocating a perpetuation of capitalism inside the United States is in fact seeking not only his ultimate destruction and death

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but is contributing to the continuous exploitation of black people all around the world. For it is the power of the United States Government, this racist, imperialist government, that is choking the life of all people around the world. We are an African people. We sit back and watch the Jews in this country make Israel a powerful conservative state in the Middle East, but we are concerned actively about the plight of our brothers in Africa. We are the most advanced technological group of black people in the world, and there are many skills that could be offered to Africa. At the same time, it must be publicly stated that many African leaders are in disarray themselves, having been duped into following the lines as laid out by the western imperialist governments. Africans themselves succumbed to and are victims of the power of the United States. For instance, during the summer of 1967, as the representatives of SNCC, Howard Moore and I [James Forman] traveled extensively in Tanzania and Zambia. We talked to high, very high, government officials. We told them there were many black people in the United States who were willing to come and work in Africa. All these government officials, who were part of the leadership in their respective governments, said they wanted us to send as many skilled people as we could contact. But this program never came into fruition, and we do not know the exact reasons, for I assure you that we talked and were committed to making this a successful program. It is our guess that the United States put the squeeze on these countries, for such a program directed by SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] would have been too dangerous to the international prestige of the United States. It is also possible that some of the wild statements by some black leaders frightened the Africans. In Africa today there is a great suspicion of black people in this country. This is a correct suspicion since most of the Negroes who have left the States for work in Africa usually work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or the State Department. But the respect for us as a people continues to mount, and the day will come when we can return to our homeland as brothers and sisters. But we should not think of going back to Africa today, for we are located in a strategic position. We live inside the United States, which is the most barbaric country in the world, and we have a chance to help bring this government down. Time is short, and we do not have much time and it is time we stop mincing words. Caution is fine, but no oppressed people ever gained their liberation until they were ready to fight, to use whatever means necessary, including the use of force and power of the gun to bring down the colonizer. We have heard the rhetoric, but we have not heard the rhetoric which says that black people in this country must understand that we are the vanguard force. We shall liberate all the people in the United States, and we will be instrumental in the liberation of colored people the world around. We must understand this point very clearly so that we are not trapped into diversionary and reactionary movements. Any class analysis of the United States shows very clearly that black people are the most oppressed group of people inside the United States. We have suffered the most from racism and exploitation, cultural degradation and lack of political power. It follows from the laws of revolution that the most oppressed will make the revolution, but we are not talking about just making the revolution. All the parties on the left who consider themselves

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revolutionary will say that blacks are the vanguard, but we are saying that not only are we the vanguard, but we must assume leadership, total control, and we must exercise the humanity which is inherent in us. We are the most humane people within the United States. We have suffered and we understand suffering. Our hearts go out to the Vietnamese, for we know what it is to suffer under the domination of racist America. Our hearts, our soul and all the compassion we can mount go out to our brothers in Africa, Santo Domingo, Latin America and Asia who are being tricked by the power structure of the United States which is dominating the world today. These ruthless, barbaric men have systematically tried to kill all people and organizations opposed to its imperialism. We no longer can just get by with the use of the word ‘‘capitalism’’ to describe the United States, for it is an imperial power sending money, missionaries and the army throughout the world to protect this government and the few rich whites who control it. General Motors and all the major auto industries are operating in South Africa, yet the white dominated leadership of the United Auto Workers sees no relationship to the exploitation of the black people in South Africa and the exploitation of black people in the United States. If they understand it, they certainly do not put it into practice, which is the actual test. We as black people must be concerned with the total conditions of all black people in the world. But while we talk of revolution, which will be an armed confrontation and long years of sustained guerrilla warfare inside this country, we must also talk of the type of world we want to live in. We must commit ourselves to a society where the total means of production are taken from the rich and placed into the hands of the state for the welfare of all the people. This is what we mean when we say total control. And we mean that black people who have suffered the most from exploitation and racism must move to protect their black interest by assuming leadership inside of the United States of everything that exists. The time has ceased when we are second in command and the white boy stands on top. This is especially true of the welfare agencies in this country, but it is not enough to say that a black man is on top. He must be committed to building the new society, to taking the wealth away from the rich people, such as General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, the DuPonts, the Rockefellers, the Mellons, and all the other rich white exploiters and racists who run this world. Where do we begin? We have already started. We started the moment we were brought to this country. In fact, we started on the shores of Africa, for we have always resisted attempts to make us slaves, and now we must resist the attempts to make us capitalists. It is in the financial interest of the United States to make us capitalist, for this will be the same line as that of integration into the mainstream of American life. Therefore, brothers and sisters, there is no need to fall into the trap that we have to get an ideology. We HAVE an ideology. Our fight is against racism, capitalism and imperialism, and we are dedicated to building a socialist society inside the United States where the total means of production and distribution are in the hands of the State, and that must be led by black people, by revolutionary blacks who are concerned about the total humanity of this world. And, therefore, we obviously are different from some of those who seek a black nation in the United States, for there is no way for that nation to be viable if in fact the United States remains in the hands of white racists. Then too, let us deal with some arguments that we should share power

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with whites. We say that there must be a revolutionary black vanguard, and that white people in this country must be willing to accept black leadership, for that is the only protection that black people have to protect ourselves from racism rising again in this country. Racism in the United States is so pervasive in the mentality of whites that only an armed, well-disciplined, black-controlled government can insure the stamping out of racism in this country. And that is why we plead with black people not to be talking about a few crumbs, a few thousand dollars for this cooperative, or a thousand dollars which splits black people into fighting over the dollar. That is the intention of the government. We say . . . think in terms of total control of the United States. Prepare ourselves to seize state power. Do not hedge, for time is short, and all around the world the forces of liberation are directing their attacks against the United States. It is a powerful country, but that power is not greater than that of black people. We work the chief industries in this country, and could cripple the economy while the brothers fought guerrilla warfare in the streets. This will take some long range planning, but whether it happens in a thousand years is of no consequence. It cannot happen unless we start. How then is all of this related to this conference? First of all, this conference is called by a set of religious people, Christians, who have been involved in the exploitation and rape of black people since the country was founded. The missionary goes hand in hand with the power of the states. We must begin seizing power wherever we are, and we must say to the planners of this conference that you are no longer in charge. We the people who have assembled here thank you for getting us here, but we are going to assume power over the conference and determine from this moment on the direction which we want it to go. We are not saying that the conference was planned badly. The staff of the conference has worked hard and has done a magnificent job in bringing all of us together, and we must include them in the new membership which must surface from this point on. The conference is now the property of the people who are assembled here. This we proclaim as fact and not rhetoric, and there are demands that we are going to make and we insist that the planners of this conference help us implement them. We maintain we have the revolutionary rights to do this. We have the same rights, if you will, as the Christians had in going into Africa and raping our Motherland and bringing us away from our continent of peace and into this hostile and alien environment where we have been living in perpetual warfare since 1619. Our seizure of power at this conference is based on a program, and our program is contained in the following Manifesto: We the black people assembled in Detroit, Michigan, for the National Black Economic Development Conference are fully aware that we have been forced to come together because racist white America has exploited our resources, our minds, our bodies, our labor. For centuries we have been forced to live as colonized people inside the United States, victimized by the most vicious, racist system in the world. We have helped to build the most industrial country in the world. We are therefore demanding of the white Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, which are part and parcel of the system of capitalism, that they begin to pay reparations to black people in this country. We are demanding $500,000,000 from the

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Christian white churches and the Jewish synagogues. This total comes to 15 dollars per nigger. This is a low estimate for we maintain there are probably more than 30,000,000 black people in this country. $15 a nigger is not a large sum of money and we know that the churches and synagogues have a tremendous wealth, and its membership, white America, has profited and still exploits black people. WE are also not unaware that the exploitation of colored peoples around the world is aided and abetted by the white Christian churches and synagogues. This demand for $500,000,000 is not an idle resolution or empty words. Fifteen dollars for every black brother and sister in the United States is only a beginning of the reparations due us as people who have been exploited and degraded, brutalized, killed and persecuted. Underneath all of this exploitation, the racism of this country has produced a psychological effect upon us that we are beginning to shake off. We are no longer afraid to demand our full rights as a people in this decadent society. We are demanding $500,000,000 to be spent in the following way: 1. We call for the establishment of a Southern land bank to help our brothers and sisters who have to leave their land because of racist pressure on people who want to establish co operative farms, but who have no funds. We have seen too many farmers evicted from their homes because they have dared to defy the white racism of this country. We need money for land. We must fight for massive sums of money for this Southern Land Bank. We call for $200,000,000 to implement this program. 2. We call for the establishment of four major publishing and printing industries in the United States to be funded with ten million dollars each. These publishing houses are to be located in Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York. They will help to generate capital for further cooperative investments in the black community, provide jobs and alternative to the white dominated and controlled printing field. 3. We call for the establishment of four of the most advanced scientific and futuristic audio visual networks to be located in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C. These TV networks will provide an alternative to the racist propaganda that fills the current tele vision networks. Each of these TV networks will be funded by ten million dollars each. 4. We call for a research skills center which will provide research on the problems of black people. This center must be funded with no less than 30 million dollars. 5. We call for the establishment of a training center for the teaching of skills in community organization, photography, movie making, television making and repair, radio building and repair and all other skills needed in communication. This training center shall be funded with no less than ten million dollars. 6. We recognize the role of the National Welfare Rights Organization and we intend to work with them. We call for ten million dollars to assist in the organization of welfare recipients. We want to organize the welfare workers in this country so that they may demand more money from the government and better administration of the welfare system of this country. 7. We call for $20,000,000 to establish a National Black Labor Strike and Defense Fund. This is necessary for the protection of black workers and their families who are fighting racist working conditions in this country. 8. [Revised and approved by Steering Committee] We call for the establishment of the International Black Appeal (IBA). This International Black Appeal will be funded with no less than $20,000,000. The IBA is charged with producing more capital for the

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establishment of cooperative businesses in the United States and in Africa, our Mother land. The International Black Appeal is one of the most important demands that we are making for we know that it can generate and raise funds throughout the United States and help our African brothers. The IBA is charged with three functions and shall be headed by James Forman: (a) Raising money for the program of the National Black Economic Development Conference. (b) The development of cooperatives in African countries and support of African Liberation movements. (c) Establishment of a Black Anti Defamation League which will protect our African image. 9. We call for the establishment of a Black University to be funded with $130,000,000 to be located in the South. Negotiations are presently under way with a Southern University. 10. We demand that IFCO allocate all unused funds in the planning budget to implement the demands of this conference.

In order to win our demands we are aware that we will have to have massive support, therefore: (1) We call upon all black people throughout the United Sates to consider themselves as members of the National Black Economic Development Conference and to act in unity to help force the racist white Christian churches and Jewish synagogues to implement these demands. (2) We call upon all the concerned black people across the country to contact black workers, black women, black students and the black unemployed, community groups, welfare organization, teacher organizations, church leaders and organizations explaining how these demands are vital to the black community of the U.S. Pressure by whatever means necessary should be applied to the white power structure of the racist white Christian churches and Jewish synagogues. All black people should act boldly in confronting our white oppressors and demanding this modest reparation of 15 dollars per black man. (3) Delegates and members of the National Black Economic Development Conference are urged to call press conferences in the cities and to attempt to get as many black organizations as possible to support the demands of the conference. The quick use of the press in the local areas will heighten the tension and these demands must be attempted to be won in a short period of time, although we are prepared for protracted and long-range struggle. (4) We call for the total disruption of selected church-sponsored agencies operating anywhere in the U.S. and the world. Black workers, black women, black students, and the black unemployed are encouraged to seize the offices, telephones, and printing apparatus of all church-sponsored agencies and to hold these in trusteeship until our demands are met. (5) We call upon all delegates and members of the National Black Economic Development Conference to stage sit-in demonstrations at selected black and white churches. This is not to be interpreted as a continuation of the sit-in movement of the

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early sixties but we know that active confrontation inside white churches is possible and will strengthen the possibility of meeting our demands. Such confrontation can take the form of reading the Black Manifesto instead of a sermon or passing it out to church members. The principle of self-defense should be applied if attacked. (6) On May 4, 1969, or a date thereafter, depending upon local conditions, we call upon black people to commence the disruption of the racist churches and synagogues throughout the United States. (7) We call upon IFCO to serve as a central staff to coordinate the mandate of the conference and to reproduce and distribute en masse literature, leaflets, news items, press releases, and other material. (8) We call upon all delegates to find within the white community those forces which will work under the leadership of blacks to implement these demands by whatever means necessary. By taking such actions, white Americans will demonstrate concretely that they are willing to fight the white skin privilege and the white supremacy and racism which has forced us as black people to make these demands. (9) We call upon all white Christians and Jews to practice patience, tolerance, understanding, and nonviolence as they have encouraged, advised, and demanded that we as black people should do throughout our entire enforced slavery in the United States. The true test of their faith and belief in the Cross and the words of the prophets will certainly be put to a test as we seek legitimate and extremely modest reparations for our role in developing the industrial base of the Western world through our slave labor. But we are no longer slaves, we are men and women, proud of our African heritage, determined to have our dignity. (10) We are so proud of our African heritage and realize concretely that our struggle is not only to make revolution in the United States, but to protect our brothers and sisters in Africa and to help them rid themselves of racism, capitalism, and imperialism by whatever means necessary, including armed struggle. We are and must be willing to fight the defamation of our African image wherever it rears its ugly head. We are therefore charging the Steering Committee to create a Black Anti-Defamation League to be funded by money raised from the International Black Appeal. (11) We fully recognize that revolution in the United States and Africa, our Motherland, is more than a one-dimensional operation. It will require the total integration of the political, economic, and military components and therefore, we call upon all our brothers and sisters who have acquired training and expertise in the fields of engineering, electronics, research, community organization, physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, military science, and warfare to assist the National Black Economic Development Conference in the implementation of its program. (12) To implement these demands we must have a fearless leadership. We must have a leadership which is willing to battle the church establishment to implement these demands. To win our demands we will have to declare war on the white Christian churches and synagogues and this means we may have to fight the total government structure of this country. Let no one here think that these demands will be met by our mere stating of them. For the sake of the churches and synagogues, we hope that they have the wisdom to understand that these demands are modest and reasonable. But if the white Christians and Jews are not willing to meet our demands through

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peace and good will, then we declare war and we are prepared to fight by whatever means necessary. . . . Brothers and sisters, we no longer are shuffling our feet and scratching our heads. We are tall, black and proud. And we say to the white Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, to the government of this country, and to all the white racist imperialists who compose it, there is only one thing left that you can do to further degrade black people and that is to kill us. But we have been dying too long for this country. We have died in every war. We are dying in Vietnam today fighting the wrong enemy. The new black man wants to live and to live means that we must not become static or merely believe in self-defense. We must boldly go out and attack the white Western world at its power centers. The white Christian churches are another form of government in this country and they are used by the government of this country to exploit the people of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, but the day is soon coming to an end. Therefore, brothers and sisters, the demands we make upon the white Christian churches and the Jewish synagogues are small demands. They represent 15 dollars per black person in these United States. We can legitimately demand this from the church power structure. We must demand more from the United States Government. But to win our demands from the church which is linked up with the United States Government, we must not forget that it will ultimately be by force and power that we will win. We are not threatening the churches. We are saying that we know the churches came with the military might of the colonizers and have been sustained by the military might of the colonizers. Hence, if the churches in colonial territories were established by military might, we know deep within our hearts that we must be prepared to use force to get our demands. We are not saying that this is the road we want to take. It is not, but let us be very clear that we are not opposed to force and we are not opposed to violence. We were captured in Africa by violence. We were kept in bondage and political servitude and forced to work as slaves by the military machinery and the Christian church working hand in hand. We recognize that in issuing this manifesto we must prepare for a long-range educational campaign in all communities of this country, but we know that the Christian churches have contributed to our oppression in white America. We do not intend to abuse our black brothers and sisters in black churches who have uncritically accepted Christianity. We want them to understand how the racist white Christian church with its hypocritical declarations and doctrines of brotherhood has abused our trust and faith. An attack on the religious beliefs of black people is not our major objective, even though we know that we were not Christians when we were brought to this country, but that Christianity was used to help enslave us. Our objective in issuing this Manifesto is to force the racist white Christian church to begin the payment of reparations which are due to all black people, not only by the Church but also by private business and the U.S. government. We see this focus on the Christian church as an effort around which all black people can unite. Our demands are negotiable, but they cannot be minimized; they can only be increased and the Church is asked to come up with larger sums of money than we are asking. Our slogans are:

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Father Divine taught that he was God and that God’s Kingdom is on earth, and the only legitimate Christian church, then, is the International Peace Mission Movement. Father Divine’s presence meant that traditional church structures and ritual formats were no longer necessary because the religious no longer needed to contact a distant God. Father was with them and could be contacted directly. God’s presence also meant access to profound spiritual and physical health. In 1965, Father Divine, God, left the body. However, Father Divine stopped communicating with his followers five years prior to this. Mother Divine—Edna Rose Ritchings—became the spokesperson for Father Divine and the Peace Mission Movement. In the following document, Mother Divine explains the meaning of Father Divine’s, God’s, presence in human flesh and the 1965 surrender of God’s physical body. According to Mother Divine (1925–), the taking and leaving of human flesh by God entails a great sacrifice. And, God’s sacrifice exemplifies God’s righteousness and those who are committed to God and the Movement must be willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Righteousness. Such a willingness to sacrifice oneself will result in the spread of Righteousness across the earth. Mrs. M. J. Divine (Mother Divine), The Peace Mission Movement as Explained by Mrs. M. J. Divine (Philadelphia: Imperial Press, Inc.,/Palace Mission, Inc., 1982), 44–46; 99–102. ***

EXPLAINING THE PEACE MISSION In selecting, electing and enthroning GOD as supreme in one’s life and as dwelling at the Center from which the cause and effect of one’s being and existence emanate, it is with the understanding that GOD is the Creative Force of the Universe, the Universal Mind Substance, the Fundamental Principle and Source of all Goodness—Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnilucent and Omnipresent. One recognizes that man and woman were created by GOD and in HIS Image and Likeness enjoyed HIS Presence in complete unity and oneness. By being endowed with the Divine Right to choose, Adam and Eve chose to disobey GOD, and the curse of death thereby passed upon all men. Through losing the Consciousness of GOD’S

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Presence, man deteriorated into sin, debauchery, ignorance, strife, misery, sickness and woe. The Light of GOD’S Presence has since appeared to him during his long and arduous upward trek back to his Divine ‘‘roots’’ in whatever ways and appearances were the most appropriate to reach his conscious mentality on the plane of unfoldment where he was functioning at that time. Through Mary’s virtuous Mind concentrating vividly on GOD and magnifying HIS Majesty, She mentally and spiritually contacted GOD, and Her immaculate conception of HIM gave birth to Jesus. Jesus, in the Sonship Degree, materialized and personified the CHRIST, and through the death of self, He was resurrected by the Power of CHRIST within and ascended to His Bodily At-one-ment with GOD, where as a representative of humanity He overcame the curse of sin and death. In that He came ‘‘in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,’’ He ‘‘condemned sin in the flesh.’’ (Romans 8:3) He is the Sample and Example, the Way, the Truth and the Life, by which all mankind can regain At-one-ment with GOD. ‘‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.’’ (I Corinthians 15:22) However, Jesus in the Sonship Degree knew that He did not have the power to effect the universal emancipation of man. Therefore, He had to ascend to the FATHER and come yet again in the power of the FATHERSHIP Degree of expression for this universal resurrection and complete redemption of all mankind. According to the conviction through revelation to the followers of FATHER DIVINE, HE is that One come again. HE came as a thief in the night. HE came in the ‘‘valley of the nations.’’ HE came healing the sick and raising the dead; HE came feeding the hungry and clothing the naked; HE came teaching and preaching Life and that more abundantly. HE is the Way, the Truth and the Life in this present day and in this present time, and it was revealed to twenty-two millions (estimate made at the Righteous Government Convention in New York City in 1936), who were willing to leave all that their former life and way of thinking consisted of, to embrace the New Life in the Consciousness of GOD’S Presence here on earth. FATHER DIVINE is the Person of the Impersonal. HE came in this expression of the purpose of lifting mankind out of the personal into the Impersonal. HE let everyone know it is nothing HE does as a Person to reach anyone’s condition or circumstance, but if one contacts HIM mentally and spiritually one gets the desired results, and it would not matter where one was geographically, for HE is Omnipresent and Ever Present. It is according to the faith of the individual, and with or without HIS Personal Presence HE is just the same. FATHER stressed living the Life of CHRIST and being the same in HIS Personal absence as in HIS Personal Presence. HE let HIS students and adherents know it was not necessary to come where HE was Personally to get a blessing or to live the Life. He said HE was a Sample and Example for them to copy after, coming as a free gift to the world, gratis to mankind, coming as the poorest among men, yet making many rich. HE said, ‘‘My Spirit is your spirit, if you can receive it.’’ HE admonished them to take on HIS Nature and Characteristics and be willing to be a servant of all. The Peace Mission Movement, through its organized and incorporated Churches, provides the proper spiritual climate and controlled environment that make it infinitely more possible for one to live the Evangelical Life of CHRIST within its influence than

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one would be able to do outside of its influence—although FATHER DIVINE says it is possible to do it, through bringing the body into subjection to the Consciousness of GOD’s Actual Presence. . . .

Why Father Divine Came MOTHER DIVINE: ‘‘When I think of the Sacrifice FATHER has made—that is why we rest, because the Sacrifice has been made, because nothing is a reality until the sacrifice is made to make it real! You know, we had the Declaration of Independence and it was just on paper, but it was because of the lives that were willing to be sacrificed to make it a reality that we have independence today. ‘‘And that’s the same way with FATHER and the Peace Mission and HIS Principles of Righteousness—not just those in the Peace Mission, but everybody, every person who is willing to suffer to establish a Principle or for a cause of Righteousness. You see, the willingness to suffer makes that particular Principle a reality. Isn’t that wonderful? . . . ‘‘And that’s why I know that with or without any of us, what FATHER stands for and what HE lives for and lived for and what HE sacrificed for, will be! Heaven and earth could pass away, but our GOD stands firm!’’ Professor: ‘‘MOTHER, YOU referred to FATHER having sacrificed HIS Physical Body. In the usual sense, HIS Physical Body d–d. Now I understand and believe that FATHER is with us, but do YOU feel the way some religious groups feel, that HE will return again in another Physical Form? For example, the Orthodox Jews still believe that the Redeemer has not yet come. If the Redeemer is to come, well, many Christian groups feel that CHRIST is the Redeemer. Do YOU feel that FATHER will come in another Physical Form—or would YOU care to give Your views on that?’’ MOTHER DIVINE: ‘‘Well first of all, I would like to say that FATHER DIVINE’S Sacrifice to ME began when GOD condescended to come in a Personal Bodily FORM when HE descended to our limited expression of life, and when HE descended to come in the appearance HE came. That was the Sacrifice. And as long as HE remained in that Body, in that limited expression so that we could comprehend HIM—this was a Sacrifice! ‘‘FATHER DIVINE, taking on what we call the ‘funeral expression,’ was only another degree of that Sacrifice. It all was for the redemption of man! ‘‘GOD, in reality, is without the beginning of days or the end of life. And GOD is not confined, and even the material world is not confined to what we see, because we see so limitedly. When we are lifted, we see a little more. Science bears record that there’s sound higher than what the physical ear can hear. So you can’t limit GOD, and GOD hasn’t gone anywhere! HE can’t go anywhere! HE IS! You understand this— GOD IS! It’s just an appearance of coming and going. ‘‘So FATHER DIVINE, GOD, chose to come as HE did for the reason HE did. HE alone knows HIS masterful Plan for the Redemption of man. We do know that FATHER DIVINE IS GOD! We do know HE demonstrated in HIS Physical Body, Youth, Vigor, Energy unlimited! I mean unlimited! FATHER DIVINE would stay up day and night—wear out secretaries—I mean they would serve in shifts—and

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FATHER DIVINE would be still filled with energy and looking fresh and beautiful as ever! ‘‘And the Power that FATHER DIVINE demonstrated! I mean, people can testify of that Power, especially when they saw people touch It inharmoniously. I mean, in those days in New York when there was so much hostility against FATHER—I mean it was demonstrated more—and like in Sayville when they were so hostile, you could actually see the electricity come out of FATHER’S Hands, and see FATHER bounce up like a ball! These are facts that many can testify to, so we know that FATHER DIVINE is just LIFE! Just LIFE! . . .

APPENDIX Related Topics

AFRICAN RITUAL MUSIC IN CUBA African Influences Cuban music demonstrates both African retention and the innovation of Cuban musical genres such as son, rumba, columbia, yambu´ , Latin Jazz, mambo, and the chacha-cha´. For some, the term ‘‘Afro-Cuban music’’ is a redundancy, since virtually all of Cuba’s music seems to incorporate some degree of African influence. Conversely, Cuba’s African influences have been so intertwined with Europe’s that the subsequent transculturation has made cultural purity exceedingly difficult to trace, if not suspect altogether. Music of African origins can be seen as a form of social and collective memory born of slavery, colonization, and neocolonial domination, as well as subtler forms of racism and discrimination that persist today, despite claims that differences of class, gender, and race have been eradicated. The powerful presence of African religions and music in Cuba has historical and demographic antecedents. First, more than three-quarters of all the slaves shipped to Cuba were brought in the nineteenth century, mostly due to the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804 that created the first black republic of the Americas and made Cuba the Caribbean’s major sugar producer. Second, Cuba was the last country in the hemisphere, excepting Brazil, to abolish slavery—in 1880 formally, in 1886 in practice. From the ritual music of the Yoruba, Bantu´-Congo, and Abakua´ to son, rumba, Latin Jazz, and rap, Cuba’s musical genres are one of the most creative and profound examples of Afro-diasporic dialogue in history. In the United States there have been many Cuban musicians and performers, both black (Mario Bauza´, Machito, Mongo Santamarı´a, Chano Pozo, Celia Cruz, Da´maso Pe´rez Prado) and white (Don Azpiazu´, Desi Arnaz, Chico O’Farrill, Gloria Estefan, Arturo Sandoval) who have played or made significant contributions to Afro-Cuban music. Even non-Cubans have been great disseminators of this music, including Dizzy Gillespie, Al McKibbon, Cal

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Woman rumbas to the music of a street band in Havanah, Cuba. (Daniel Laine´/Corbis)

Tjader, Stan Kenton, Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheco, and Poncho Sa´nchez.

Afro-Cuban Ritual Music Afro-Cuban ritual music falls broadly into three types: those of Yoruba, Bantu-Congo, and Abakua´ origins, each corresponding demographically speaking to the three largest cultures of Africans brought to Cuba as slaves.

Yoruba From the area of what is known today as Nigeria and Benin, the Yoruba are the most numerous and influential, both musically and religiously. Their religion, Regla de Ocha, is also known as Santerı´a because of its syncretisms with Catholic saints over the centuries. Music and singing usually accompany different types of ceremonies, which range from giving thanks to the orishas (deities or guardian spirits), to commemorating an anniversary or the feast of a saint, and to an initiation or a tribute to an orisha that has requested it. The main instruments for liturgical purposes are the three double-sided bata´ drums, which are played on both sides, placed on the drummer’s lap. The iya´ is the largest and mother drum, with the deepest tone. Its spoken rhythm is highly figurative, with a great variety of strokes, and it recreates the inflections of spoken Yoruba. The medium drum, or ito´tele, creates reiterative patterns that pertain to each orisha following the iya´’s lead, and the smallest, with the most acte sound, is the oko´nkolo, which performs the basic rhythmic pattern. Other percussion can be added, such as shakers, whistles, rattles, bells, and buzzing instruments.

Appendix: Related Topics | 657 The bata´ drums in ritual ceremonies must be blessed and the drummers (males only) must be initiates as well. The bata´s hold a secret (an˜a´), also considered to be an orisha, and therefore the drums must be propitiated. The bata´s are central to ceremonies in which orichas come down and can mount a believer or initiate. Singing is performed by a soloist (akpwo´n), male or female, who can often begin without musical accompaniment by singing, praying, or both, but most often it proceeds in a call-and-response format, with the chorus echoing the soloist or repeating short phrases. Yoruba music of Cuba has been described as the building of two sonorous planes that sometimes intersect, but not always. One could view the music as a concatenation of motifs—but not necessarily one that is ‘‘resolved’’ in a typically Western musical fashion)—that builds in astonishingly layered ebbs and flows. The iyesa´ drums are played by Yoruba peoples from the Oyo region of southwestern Nigeria, near Benin. There are four sacred drums: the caja (the tallest); two drums of equal size called segundo (second) and tercero (third); and a fourth drum that was added in Cuba called the bajo (bass). Much smaller than the bata´s and barrel-shaped, they are also double-sided, but only one side is played at any particular time. The drums are played with a stick, except the bajo, which is played with the hands. Two agogos, bell-like instruments played with a stick, add a timbre that is characteristic of iyesa´ music, and the gu¨iro (a scraper) rounds out the ensemble. Like the bata´s, the iyesa´ drums need to be consecrated. They have the an˜a´ (secret) within and must be played by drummers who are also initiates. The bembe´ is a drumming party for the orishas. The drums can be of a different size, but they are not bata´ drums, rather, stave-barreled ones. The bembe´ is not a religious ceremony, strictly speaking, and the word has passed into the Cuban vernacular as a synonym of ‘‘to party’’ (as has the word rumba).

Bantu-Congo Music Compared to Yoruba music, Bantu music is based on briefer motifs, and melodic shifts are based on fixed sounds that end or signal an end. It is tied to various religious manifestations known as Regla de Palo Mayombe, Regla de Palo Briyumba, and Regla Kimbisa. Palo (stick) musical genres employ wooden percussive instruments like the guagua´ or the cata´. The music often begins with the wooden percussion, followed by the drums, called the ngoma, now known as conga drums. In addition, other metallic instruments, such as the plow, the hoe, and the cowbell are played. In remote rural areas yuka drums are used, made from the wood of fruit trees and ox hide (instead of the usual goat skin) for the head. The largest is the caja; the mediumsized drum is the mula, called so because its constant rhythm is reminiscent of a mule’s trot; and the smallest is the cachimbo. As in Yoruba music, the largest drum executes the widest variation of figures, while the two smaller ones maintain steadier or constant rhythms. The yuka were used for the manı´ dance, which is no longer practiced. A highly pugilistic dance, it had movements similar to Brazilian capoeira, with two dancers battling within a circle. Different plantations organized teams to compete with each other and bet heavily. Although for the most part a male activity, there were wellknown women maniseras as well.

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Makuta drums, of which there are two, are rarely made anymore. The larger drum is called the caja, the smaller is the kimbandu. (In the past, three drums were often used.) The makuta is also a couples dance, with a key moment of pelvic contact among the dancers. The toque de garabatos substituted for the drums. The garabato is a branch from a tree in the form of a large check mark, with the shorter part used as a kind of hook to pick up small plants, which are then cut with a machete. When made from plants associated with magical powers they become a ritual symbol, and beating them on the ground becomes a way of attracting those powers. Several garabato players work in tandem to produce the rhythmic planes necessary for creating a song. The toques de garabatos have associations with death and are often used during funeral ceremonies. The kinfuiti, another drum used by the Congos, is played by applying internal friction. A string is played from within the drum. It is usually accompanied by three small drums. Kinfuiti drums are kept covered and played behind the curtain, and along with the makuta drums, they are the only drums used in ceremonies in which animal blood is offered in sacrifice. The kinfuiti is used to call the spirits of the dead (ndoki) that inhabit the nganga, an iron cauldron where sticks and ritual objects reside that house a spirit. The drummers for the kinfuiti and the makuta drums must be initiates (as with the bata´ and iyesa´). Drummers moisten their hands with holy water before playing. Ritual songs are called cantos de fundamento and can be prayers to begin a ceremony, prayers to make the nganga work; events that can stimulate spirit possession; and managuas or makagua, which are satirical chants, often funny, or chants that describe incongruent or enigmatic situations. Soloist and chorus function in similar ways to singing in Yoruba music. The soloist is called gallo or insunsu, and the chorus vasallo or muana. Different from the Yoruba, the rhythmic structures remain the same for the different powers or divinities being invoked. Variation occurs in the words and intent of the song or chant.

Abakuá Music The Abakua´ come from the Calabar region of southeastern Nigeria, near the Cross River, and are also known as carabalı´ in Cuba (Ejagham peoples help to form the larger Abakua´ group, along with the Efut and Efik). The Abakua´ society is an all-male secret society and has been described as a ‘‘confraternity and magical-religious esoteric society.’’ Their elaborate ritual and ceremonies, called plantes, have been compared to a religious drama, with processions, drumming, singing, mystical drawings on the ground (firmas), and the dancing of the ´ıremes, an intriguing figure who represents a soul that has reincarnated (or a supernatural being) who assists with ceremonies. The Abakua´ have two orders of drums, one that is symbolic and silent, and others that are played to accompanying songs and dances (biankomeko). The four symbolic drums are the empego´ (a signal to come to order, pay attention, and be alert), the ekuen˜ o´ n (for matters related to sacrifice), the enkrı´kamo (to call and dominate the ´ıremes), and the seseribo´ (to direct processions and marches). They are struck with a few symbolic strokes, but not played. The fundamental drum is the ekue´, which is kept

Appendix: Related Topics | 659 behind a curtain and is played by using friction; its sound imitates the magic voice Tanze (a sacred fish), central to Abakua´ mythology. The second order of drums accompanies the songs and dances of the ´ıremes. The biankomeko are also made up of four drums: the bonko´ -enchemilla´ (the largest), the biankome´, the obı´-apa´, and the kuchiyerema´. Other percussion includes two percussive sticks (itones), a cowbell (eko´n), and two sonajas (erı´-kundı´), a shaker-type instrument. The drums have feathers. The bonko´-enchemilla´ produces the talking rhythm, created by a wide variety of drumming techniques. Different rhythms are not played for different functions. There are two types of toque (beats), distinguished by the names of the two tribes divided by the Odda´n River (Cross River). The Efo´ had the secret and so the stories tell of the struggles between them and the Efı´ for the voice of Tanze. The Efı´, however, were the owners of the drum, of music. Efı´ drumming is faster, filled with figures, while Efo´ drumming is slower. The singing always alternates between a soloist and chorus. They tell the stories (or comment on them) that originated in Africa. They are passed on orally, but some old practitioners have written them down in notebooks. Many chants or songs are without musical accompaniment. The choral sections seem more isolated, and there is much that is sung without dance, since it is done among the initiates. Since the number of people who participate in the Abakua´ ceremonies is severely circumscribed and since the religion functions with a strict hierarchy of officials, one could say that Abakua´ music is carefully chosen and executed. The same people tend always to be the soloists and the chorus, with less being left to improvisation or for people to join in, as often happens in a toque of Regla de Ocha or Regla de Palo. Cuba has also been influenced significantly by the Arara´ (Fon) culture and music from Benin, mostly in the province of Matanzas. Arara´ religion is within the West African vodoun tradition. Finally, due to the presence of Haitians in Cuba, there are rada´ and gaga´ drums and music, linked to the Afro-Haitian religious practices. Alan West-Dura´n

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Daniel, Yvonne. Rumba, Dance, and Social Change in Contemporary Cuba (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1995). Eli Rodriguez, Victoria, and Ana Victoria Olivia Casanova, eds. Instrumentos de la mu´sica folclo´rico popular de Cuba, 2 vols. (Havana, Cuba: Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 1997). Evora, Tony. Orı´genes de la mu´sica cubana (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1997). Ferna´ndez, Rau´l. Latin Jazz (San Francisco: Chronicle Books and the Smithsonian, 2002). Leo´n, Argeliers. Del canto y el tiempo (Havana, Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1984). Moore, Robin. Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920 1940 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997). Ortiz, Fernando. La africanı´a de la mu´sica folklo´rica de Cuba (Havana, Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1993). Ortiz, Fernando. Los instrumentos de la mu´sica afrocubana, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Madrid: Editorial Mu´sica Mundana, 1996).

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AFRO-BRAZILIAN MUSICAL CULTURE Historical Development Black Brazilians have a long and proud history of effectively manipulating even the direst of situations in their country by using artistic/cultural expressions to construct their identities and to socially mobilize confrontations, diversions, and resistance within society. The adoption and appropriation of black cultural forms in Brazilian national culture is so pervasive that, in some respects, Africa is taken for granted in Brazil. It is so embedded in daily life and society that African influence becomes invisible to many Brazilians; that is, they may experience many things as Brazilian and not African. Historically that has allowed a cover for not acknowledging the importance of African cultural heritage. But though this is generally true of Brazil’s national culture, the core of Afro-Brazilian identity itself stands in a location removed from the main halls of national society. This core is located within the African-based religious traditions of the Northeast. Afro-Brazilian religion is frequently conceptualized as a kind of parallel, alternative world within Brazilian society that articulates and maintains a pure vision of Africa and provides the essence of Africanness in Brazil. The concept involves the idea of a powerful set of African cultural practices that resist the encroachment of non-African Brazilian elements. This essentialized view of Afro-Brazilian religion has become part of the discourse of the contemporary black movement in Brazil. In recent years, black political activists have attempted to redefine the Candomble´ religion and its symbols as pure and authentic expressions of Africa. For many of them, the music and dance associated with the religion have become strategic cultural forces in their struggle to combat the historical discrimination of black people in Brazil and the appropriation of their culture. They reject the depiction of Afro-Brazilian religion as mere ‘‘folklore’’ and something that can be appropriated and instead see it as a tool of political resistance. They also point to the history of samba and the way in which the dominant sector of Brazilian society (largely white and from the south of the country) forged national sentiment by appropriating the hillside samba of black poor people and transforming it into the primary emblem of Brazilian national identity. Clearly, the Afro-Brazilian cultural landscape is a contested terrain where musical practices, styles, and aesthetic forms are closely linked to the formation of racial identities and to the values of competing forces within Brazil. Given the historical, social, and aesthetic complexities, defining African heritage in the musical traditions of Brazil is a difficult task. One approach is to begin the discussion by identifying the three interrelated levels of African tradition in Brazil: • African musical traditions that were transplanted to and then preserved faithfully in Brazil, with little or no European influence

Appendix: Related Topics | 661 • Neo African music that, although firmly based on African models, developed into unique forms in Brazilian territories • Acculturated hybrid forms of Afro Brazilian music that were created in Brazil as the result of the blending of African and European and to a lesser degree Amerindian elements

Peter Fryer (2000), following John Storm Roberts’s ambitious work (1998) on the influence of African musical heritage throughout the Americas, has adopted this basic model and distinguished five types of neo-African music in Brazil in which ‘‘European influence is either absent or negligible’’ from acculturated styles that were central to the development of the country’s traditional and popular music. This kind of commonsense model is useful, but it creates the false perception that authentic African musical traditions and essential aesthetic qualities have been frozen in time and preserved in Brazil with little or no change since the earliest Africans arrived on the shores of South America. This misconception leads to assertions that, for instance, sacred drum rhythms have been passed down completely unchanged in Brazil for some 450 years (Fryer 2000, 12). It is more likely that some sacred African drum rhythms are treated as if they were passed down unchanged for hundreds of years. This is an important distinction involving the motivation to reproduce significant cultural practices in an orthodox manner. It is also probable that Brazilian drummers have passed down, updated, and elaborated elements of their African musical heritage over time. As new rhythms and performance practices emerged, elements of the old repertoires were likely lost, forgotten, or discarded. Although we often have sketchy historical data on such matters, it is fairly clear that a rather restricted repertoire of drum patterns based largely on Yoruba and Fon traditions from West Africa was codified in the late nineteenth century in Bahia. These patterns came to define the dominant canon of a musical orthodoxy for Candomble´ religion. Thus, many of the assumptions about the historical age and immutable nature of African practices in Brazil paint an inaccurate picture. This is not to deny the fact that members of the Afro-Brazilian community frequently treat drum patterns, song texts, and dance styles as authentic expressions of an African heritage that their ancestors maintained against all odds in Brazil. Indeed, they often do, and many people hold on to the idea that Candomble´ represents an unbroken religious tradition straight from Africa. One famous priestess of Candomble´, Ma˜e Menininha do Gantois, interrupted an important religious ceremony when she determined that one of the percussion rhythms was not being performed in a precisely accurate manner (Be´hague 1999). This kind of imposed orthodoxy leads us to realize that Afro-Brazilian religious ‘‘traditions’’ have been maintained through active guidance and oversight of the artistic elements that define African religious identity in Brazil. Drum rhythms can be quite important in this struggle to define Africa in Brazil. The African-based religions of Brazil provide what Jose´ Jorge de Carvalho (1994) has called the dominant ‘‘matrix’’ of Afro-Brazilian identity in Brazil. However, this matrix is not based on biologically or geographically determined concepts of racial identity; rather, it is founded on the aesthetic competency demanded of social participation within Afro-Brazilian religions. This cultural competency finds its primary

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Candomble´ practitioners dance to the beat of drums during a ceremony honoring various orixas or gods. (Stephanie Maze/Corbis)

expression through the modes of dancing, singing, and drumming in Candomble´. African-based religious music and dance also provide major reference points for Afro-Brazilian musical identity in the larger context of the civil society. Although the direct transfer of specific drumming patterns or melodic material from AfroBrazilian religious repertoires into mainstream Brazilian popular music has not been widespread, the general musical style of Brazilian religious ceremonies conditions many musicians from an early age. For many musicians, performing artists, and audiences throughout the country, Afro-Brazilian religious drumming, singing, and dancing are key components of their aesthetic education. Composers and musicians in Brazil constantly draw from Afro-Brazilian religious practices for their musical and spiritual inspiration. Understanding the basic nature of such practices lays the foundation for understanding Afro-Brazilian music in general.

African Root Traditions of the Northeast and Brazilian Popular Music The orthodox Afro-Brazilian religious music of Candomble´ in Bahia is a model for Afro-Brazilian musical practices in the country. The distinctly West African qualities of Candomble´ music include: • Family of drums, a metal bell, and/or a shaker, which together perform syncopated rhyth mic schemes based on multiple patterns

Appendix: Related Topics | 663 • Vocal organization that emphasizes call and response singing with a leader and chorus and frequent offbeat placement of notes • Scales of five and six pitches per octave

The importance of drumming and its integration with dancing is fundamental to Afro-Brazilian religious and secular forms of music. Many older Afro-Brazilian folk dances are traced to the Congo-Angola region of Bantu Africa. These dances are typically performed in a circle, and many include a choreographic movement known as umbigada (navel touch). Originally, most of these dances were accompanied by singing and percussion only. One early circle dance was the batuque. Although the specific dance became extinct, the term ‘‘batuque’’ and its cognates lived on as generic designations for Afro-Brazilian secular dances with powerful percussion accompaniment. For instance, in the urban environs of Rio de Janeiro, ‘‘batucada’’ became a cover term for the percussive dance music of the large baterias (percussion sections) of the samba schools. Larry Crook

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). Be´hague, Gerard. ‘‘Notes on Regional and National Trends in Afro Brazilian Cult Music.’’ Tradition and Renewal, ed. M. H. Forester (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 68 80. Be´hague, Gerard. Music in Latin America: An Introduction (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979). Be´hague, Gerard. ‘‘Patterns of Candomble´ Music Performance: An Afro Brazilian Religious Setting.’’ Performance Practice: Ethnomusicological Perspectives, ed. G. Be´hague (West port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), 222 254. ´ Behague, Gerard. ‘‘Afro Brazilian Traditions.’’ In The Garland Handbook of Latin American Music, ed. Dale A. Olson and Daniel Edward Sheehy (New York: Routledge, 1999), 352 369. Carvalho, Jose´ Jorge de. ‘‘Black Music of All Colors: The Construction of Black Ethnicity in Ritual and Popular Genres of Afro Brazilian Music.’’ Music and Black Ethnicity: The Car ibbean and South America, ed. G. Be´hague (Miami: North South Center Press at the Uni versity of Miami, 1994), 187 206. Crook, Larry. ‘‘Black Consciousness, Samba Reggae, and the Re Africanization of Bahian Carnival Music in Brazil.’’ World of Music 35, no. 2 (1993): 90 108. Crook, Larry, and Randal Johnson, eds. Black Brazil: Culture, Identity, and Social Mobilization (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, University of California, Los Angeles, 1999). Fryer, Peter. Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press and Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2000). Roberts, John Storm. The Black Music of Two Worlds: African, Caribbean, Latin, and African American Traditions (New York: Schirmer Books, 1998).

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BURIAL IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA—AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND The African Burial Ground, historically known as the Negro Burial Ground, is located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York. The burial ground was used primarily by the African population of colonial New York as a cemetery from approximately 1712 until 1795. It is estimated that some 10,000 to 20,000 people were buried in this six-acre plot of land. The African presence in New York was initiated in 1626 when the Dutch West Indies Company imported its first shipment of slaves, 11 men from today’s Congo-Angola region of Africa, to New Amsterdam. By 1644, 40 percent of the colony’s population consisted of enslaved Africans. In the mid-1770s New York had the second-highest number of enslaved Africans of any English colonial settlement and the highest ratio of slaves to Europeans of any northern settlement. Africans played a critical role in the foundation, building, and functioning of colonial New York. New York City adopted a policy of mortuary segregation in November 1697, and thus blacks were forced to look for an alternative place rather than Lower Manhattan churchyards to bury their dead. An area of common land outside the city limits was chosen. The first known historical reference to Africans burying their dead in the common land is in a letter written by Chaplain John Sharpe in 1712. Soon after, the Negro Burial Ground began to appear on local maps and is referred to in contemporary land surveys. In 1798 the African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded by Peter Williams, a black tobacconist and former sexton. African New York residents Burial 213 at the African Burial Ground in and their descendants now had a place New York City. The photo shows a brick drain to bury their dead on sacred soil. In the constructed some time in the nineteenth late eighteenth and early nineteenth cencentury extended down through the grave, turies, the city’s population growth led to removing a portion of the coffin and skeletal a northward expansion, and the blocks remains but leaving the rest of the burial overlying the burial ground were divided remarkably intact. (National Park Service) into lots for commercial and residential

Appendix: Related Topics | 665 development. By the end of the nineteenth century, the burial ground was entirely paved or built over and all but forgotten, with the exception of notation in a few historical maps and documents. In December 1990, the federal government purchased land from the city of New York to construct a 34-story office tower. The environmental impact statement for the site identified the area as a section of the Negro Burial Ground. It was initially predicted that any archaeological remnants were destroyed by nineteenth- and twentiethcentury construction. Archaeological testing began in May 1991 to determine if there were any remaining human burials. From September 1991 through July 1992, the remains of 419 individuals, approximately 93 percent African and 7 percent European and Native American, were excavated from a small section of the burial ground. This assemblage constitutes the earliest and largest collection of African American remains discovered during archaeological research to date. Excavation of the site created an intersection of clashing philosophical, political, and ethical perspectives. A struggle ensued to determine whether the spiritual, historical, scientific, or business value of the property would be prioritized and who would control the destiny of the excavated remains and artifacts. An African-descendant community joined with politicians and other concerned citizens to gain control of the fate of the burial ground. Representatives teamed with scientists to create a research design. Four goals were outlined: origins of the population; physical quality of life; biological and cultural transition from African to African American identities, and modes of resistance (LaRoche and Blakey 1997). Howard University scholars, directed by Dr. Michael Blakey, analyzed the physical remains. Analysis of the physical remains revealed how socioeconomic conditions affected the health of the enslaved Africans and provided insight into their ethnic identities. Approximately 40 percent of the individuals excavated were children, many under two years old. Child and adult skeletons exhibited signs of malnutrition, disease, and hard labor. Arthritis, rickets, and anemia were common. Skull and spinal fractures and abnormalities from carrying heavy loads were also found. The children exhibited an abnormally high rate of birth defects (Mack and Hill 1995). Dental problems, resulting from poor nutrition and a limited diet, were common. One female was found with a musket ball in her ribs, her death caused by the gunshot. One individual was recovered with an autopsied skull and may have been reinterred after an autopsy by local medical students who exhumed bodies from the burial ground for research in the late eighteenth century. As a whole, the physical remains point to physically demanding lives, poor nutrition, and premature deaths. Many of the individuals were buried facing east, the direction of Africa and Mecca. Artifacts recovered from the burials were relatively few, probably reflecting the minimal economic standing of those who made use of the cemetery. Approximately 560 artifacts were found, consisting mostly of shroud pins. Artifacts consistent with traditional West African cultural practices, such as coins placed on eyelids, seashells to return the dead symbolically back across the seas, and glass beads were found in some burials. Some skeletons have filed teeth, which follows a contemporary coming-of-age ritual practiced in some West African cultures. In total, 155 beads were recovered at the burial ground. One adult female with glass and cowry waistbeads and

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a bracelet was found; dental modification suggests that she was probably born in Africa. A fired glass bead was found at another burial site; its discovery was highly significant because fired glass bead making is an African tradition and the bead is one of very few artifacts excavated at a diasporal site that can be directly tied to Africa. The African Burial Ground received National Historic Landmark status on April 19, 1993. The skeletons were reinterred on October 4, 2003. A memorial is located at the site.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Blakey, Michael. ‘‘The New York African Burial Ground Project: An Examination of Enslaved Lives, a [Page 156] Construction of Ancestral Ties.’’ Transforming Anthropology 7, no. 1 (1998): 53 58. Hansen, Joyce, and Gary McGowan. Breaking Ground, Breaking Silence (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998). Harrington, Spencer. ‘‘Bones and Bureaucrats: New York City’s Great Cemetery Imbroglio.’’ Archaeology (March/April 1993): 28 38. LaRoche, Cheryl, and Michael Blakey. ‘‘Seizing Intellectual Power: The Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground.’’ Journal of Historical Archaeology 31, no. 1 (1997): 85 96. Mack, Mark E., and Cassandra Hill. ‘‘Pathologies Affecting Children in the African Burial Ground Population.’’ Newsletter of the African Burial Ground and Five Points Archaeo logical Projects 1, no. 7 (1995): 4. Pittman, Chandra. ‘‘If Bones Could Speak.’’ Transforming Anthropology 7, no. 1 (1998): 59 63. ***

BURIAL IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA—BURIAL, AFRICAN PRACTICES IN THE AMERICAS African burial practices in the Americas include traditions and practices honoring the dead through retained and adapted cultural forms between Africa and the Americas. The retentions and transformations of African burial practices in the Americas provide the greatest amount of evidence about how the African past has influenced ethnic identity formations of African people in the New World. The most salient characteristic of this influence involves the so-called ancestors, that is, the ‘‘living dead.’’ Africanist anthropologists, ethnographers, and historians agree that traditional African cosmology concerning death incorporated a continuum between the natural and spiritual worlds. African ontology, a holistic understanding of existence based on Africans’ belief in this continuum of experiences, provided practical reinforcement. As a result, the continuum between life and death in African societies was most immediate and relevant in their funeral rituals. Africans’ relationships with the deceased symbolized the significance of the continuum. Dead people had power either to interfere maliciously or to intervene benevolently in earthly matters. Therefore, comforting the living during their bereavement

Appendix: Related Topics | 667 was somewhat secondary to honoring the departed, because satisfied souls would find no reason to be malevolent toward survivors. Consequently, proper respect to the deceased shaped some behaviors of the living. Acceptable burials meant large attendance, food offerings, performance of appropriate dirges, interring personal objects belonging to the deceased, and elaborate funeral processionals. These funerary behaviors secured this connection between the living and the dead, exhibiting African practicality within spirituality. In fact, homage to their deceased represented the most common manifestation of how the sacred and secular coexisted within African burial practices. Misunderstood by early European observers from the Coins and other tokens litter the tomb of fifteenth century as ancestor worship, Marie Laveau, New Orleans’ vodou queen, the reverence assigned to deceased famat the St. Louis Cemetery in New Orleans. ily or clan members had to do with an (Shubert Ciencia) adulation of the deceased via an acceptance of their newly acquired power as otherworldly beings. Involuntary migration across the Atlantic World and chattel slavery in the Americas did not destroy the continuation of African cosmological orientations manifested in burial practices, especially the centrality of respect for the departed through funerary displays. The ‘‘first burials’’ among Africa’s dispersed people were aboard slave ships. Suicide, slave revolts, despondency, and disease made death at sea common occurrences for human cargo. The ‘‘watery grave’’ of the Atlantic Ocean, or Middle Passage, was also a metaphorical conduit away from horrific peril. Water, in some African societies, signifies the divide between life and death. For example, as soon as funerary rites had been concluded, a departed soul began its journey across the river that marked the boundaries of life and death. The Ga and Lodagaa peoples of Ghana and the Bakongo from Angola, in particular, represented death as the voyage of a soul who had crossed a river, believing the end of human life was a voyage through the waters of death that separated the unseen world of the living from the world of the departed. Therefore, dying at sea could have been seen as a pilgrimage or departure to another existence as well as an escape from a horrific experience; hence, while those who survived the Middle Passage had crossed over into bondage, those who died had joined their ancestors, going back to a spiritual, African existence. Slave cemeteries eventually replaced the aquatic tombs that the initial, dispersed Africans had created. Whether enslaved Africans died on islands such as Barbados, Antigua, or the Bahamas or on plantations in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana, enslaved people retained their humanity and

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customs by culturally responding to human death. Traveler accounts, memoirs, and interviews with freedpersons all confirm that across both the antebellum South and the islands of the Americas, enslaved people insisted on observing their customary funerary rites. In fact, few slaveholders made the mistake of denying their human property the options of paying proper attention to their dead. Furthermore, urban archaeological finds in major U.S. cities such as New York and Dallas, as well as studies in folk beliefs about death, have all confirmed taboos concerning proper burial among West Indians and southern blacks, particularly in the cultures of the Sea Islands. For example, Africans from the continent and American-born Africans believed that grave dirt was also a common element in magic, healing, and witchcraft. The dirt from a grave was believed to be so powerful that taboos and superstitions regarding its usage abounded, dictating the very steps of those in the funeral processions as well as the movements of gravediggers and other mourners. Evidence of similarities between Africans on the continent and their descendants dispersed across the Atlantic can still be seen when modern visitors frequent slave cemeteries. Specifically, enslaved people, like their African predecessors, also customarily interred personal items with the deceased. People believed that the deceased could become a restless spirit who resented the possibility of other people coveting their possessions and, therefore, returned to the world of the living to access and use his or her own belongings. As a result, some dispersed Africans adhered to a cultural practice of burying personal items as an obligation in the best interest of the family. Similarly, utilitarian grave decorations from St. Louis, Missouri, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Jacksonville, Florida, and throughout the Caribbean prove that Africans across the Atlantic World placed at grave sites functional paraphernalia like bottles, tea- and flowerpots, broken dishes, tools, cigar boxes, lamps, weapons, and even gold. Such items reflect Africans’ traditional practicality regarding the continuum between life and death. In addition to the influence of the departed on interment and grave decorations, mourning rituals and funeral displays of Africans in the Atlantic Diaspora also reference the African past. The actual funeral services for an enslaved person, however, did not have to follow immediately after their death or burial. Time off work had to be provided by slaveholders to attend slave funerals because forced labor dictated the events of dispersed Africans’ lives. Consequently, enslaved people commonly held night funerals during the antebellum period. These gatherings were traditionally attended by large numbers of people regardless of relation or local residence, and two burial practices legitimized the slave community’s last rites: the presence of a slave preacher who would offer a flattering eulogy and the participation of lamenting slave women. African women in certain Akan societies and enslaved women of the antebellum South both demonstrated intense emotive displays. The funeral dirges of the Akan women in Ghana serve as sufficient comparisons to the mourning exhibitions of grieving enslaved women. In Africa, such a showing of grief would be an appropriate and expected behavior; also, these expressions of bereavement could be cited as a refutation against possible accusations of witchcraft or wrongdoing in the death, especially the death of a husband. Across the Atlantic, such female funeral displays confirmed the worth of the deceased and conferred upon the community the permission to acknowledge the significance of its personal loss regardless of the slaves’

Appendix: Related Topics | 669 supposedly powerless positions. A dead slave had neither productive nor reproductive benefit for slaveholders. Before slavery was abolished throughout the New World, these burial practices had already assisted in the formation of a distinct diaspora, the African Atlantic. The growing number of burial societies and mutual aid associations on behalf of bereaved families during the postslavery period prove that funeral rites were considered essential characteristics of freedom. In the United States and Brazil, especially, African American and Afro-Brazilian communities institutionalized traditional burial practices after emancipation by organizing different types of benevolent groups. Even the poorest community member could join a benevolent society, especially those mutual aid organizations sponsored by local churches. Benevolent societies had memberships that included undertakers. The ‘‘society undertaker’’ provided professional death care for those individuals, families, and groups who joined burial associations. African American morticians, or society undertakers, were paid in cash from the dues and membership fees of society members, making death-care providers the wealthiest and most socially mobile members of the African American community. Benevolent societies, consequently, represented an embryonic equivalent of modern-day insurance companies. In fact, African-influenced burial practices should be cited as the root of the African American insurance and funeral industries. LaTrese Evette Adkins

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Creel, Margaret Washington. ‘‘A Peculiar People’’: Slave Religion and Community Culture among the Gullah (New York: New York University Press, 1988). Godboldte, Catherine I. ‘‘Ancient African Traditional Funeral Ceremonies and the Funeral Cer emony of the Historic African American Church’’ (PhD dissertation, Temple University, 1995). Mbiti, John S. African Religions and Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Heinemann, 1989). Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion: The ‘‘Invisible Institution’’ in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). Wright, Robert Hughes, and Wilber B. Hughes III. Lay Down Body: Living History in African American Cemeteries (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1996). ***

MUSIC OF THE CARIBBEAN Historical Development Caribbean music, like music anywhere in the world, is more than entertainment. During the pre-Columbian period, music was an integral part of indigenous Amerindian life, and in the past 500 years, the music of the Caribbean has reflected, and continues to reflect, the melting pot of peoples, cultures, and religions that the region became after Columbus’s 1492 arrival.

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Pre-Columbian Music Before Europeans arrived, the indigenous Taı´no and Carib peoples used music to express and reinforce their spiritual view of the world and of their place within it. Their music was an integral part of their philosophy of life, as it was in their original homeland of South America. They used singing and chanting to maintain ideas of community, praising ancestors and the spirits of the forest. The shape of musical instruments and the sounds they made often replicated different types of birds, the ultimate spirit familiar that represented the soul of the shaman as he journeyed up into the supernatural realm. Drums could summon ancestors and, when combined with fasting, induced ritual trance in shamans and audience alike. Amerindian singing, chanting, whistling, percussion, and dancing connected social life to the spiritual breath that permeated the universe. Human breath had magical power to summon spirits, and shamans blew protective and purifying spells over people and food alike. Typical of Amerindian music and its close associations with shamanism and spirituality is the case of the Warao of the Orinoco river delta opposite Trinidad. For the Warao, songs and chants have a numinous quality that can protect the singer from malign spirits. Warao shamans use several types of rattles, deer-bone flutes, cane flutes, conch trumpets, as well as more recent introductions such as violins and small guitars called cuatros. The most important Warao rattle is the hebu mataro or calabash rattle, some 70 cm long with a wooden handle, slits, and decorated with red and yellow feathers of the cotora parrot. Inside the rattle are several small quartz fragments that glow when the rattle is shaken at night. Shamans use the hebu mataro to cure illness, the glowing light of the quartz helping to convince the patient of the shamans’ powers. Curing songs accompany these performances, while other shamanic songs provide help in childbirth, canoe paddling, and traveling on foot through the jungle. Warao society illustrates how embedded music is in their rituals, practices, and mythology. This distinctively Amerindian attitude to music was in all probability broadly similar during pre-Columbian times throughout the Caribbean region and beyond. The integrated nature of music, religious life, and worldview for pre-Columbian peoples is seen most clearly for the Island Caribbean in the Taı´no areı´to—a social and political ceremonial event that featured singing, music, dancing, and feasting. Like all Amerindians, the Taı´no had no stringed instruments, playing rattles, rasps, drums, whistles, and flutes instead. In early encounters, the Spanish were welcomed and entertained by the Taı´no who arranged areı´tos in their honor as a type of elite hospitality. Areı´tos usually took place in the plaza or cleared area fronting the chief’s house, temple, and zemı´ images, suggesting perhaps that areı´tos were associated in some way with ancestor worship. While only the remains of bone or ceramic flutes and conch-shell trumpets are found archaeologically, rare drawings made by European explorers and chroniclers provide an insight into a musical world that has largely disappeared. Perhaps the most famous scene is that included in the written works of Gonzalo Ferna´ndez de Oviedo y Valde´s, which shows a Taı´no H-drum, so-called because of the distinctive cuts made into the surface of a hollowed-out log. Similarly shaped drums are known from Mexico and Costa Rica. The Carib of the Lesser Antilles had many of the same type of instruments, including

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A fresco from a Maya tomb at Bonampak in present day Mexico depicts a procession of musicians, eighth century CE. (Charles & Josette Lenars/Corbis)

calabash rattles, flutes made from bamboo and from bone, panpipes, conch-shell trumpets, and snail-shell rattles tied to arms and legs. The Caribbean Maya of the Yucata´n also played flutes, rattles, and drums, and these are known archaeologically and from early Spanish accounts that describe their use in religious ceremonies. Most information on pre-Columbian music, however, comes from central and western Mexico and the great culture area of Peru that lay beyond the Caribbean basin. Nevertheless, the shared nature of Amerindian worldview and musical practices can be assumed, as depicted in the colorful murals of the Classic Mayan city of Bonampak that depict Mayan men dressed in animal costumes and playing a variety of musical instruments.

Historical and Modern Music The arrival first of Europeans, and then Africans, transformed the musical world of the Caribbean. The introduction of stringed instruments, and then African percussion and chanting, combined to produce a dazzling variety of local musical styles—an inventiveness that continues today in Jamaican reggae, French Caribbean zouk, Trinidadian steel-drum orchestras, Cuban rumba, and merengue from the Dominican Republic, to mention just a few.

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Beliefs and Practices African-Caribbean music is often intimately associated with the great syncretic religious movements such as Santerı´a, Vodoun, and Orisha/Shango. Before emancipation, slaves often used mundane items such as ceramic pots, sticks, and iron hoes as impromptu musical instruments that also had a role in Obeah witchcraft unsuspected by the European slave owners. Music in the Dominican Republic is described as creole and has moved away from earlier Spanish influences to incorporate African forms. At Saints’ festivals the Salve is a sung rosary and is mainly performed by women, although different versions have evolved in different parts of the island. The merengue is a symbol of the creole nature of Dominican society and culture. This typical dance music is played on an accordion, tambora, and marimba, and blends European, African, and possibly Taı´no influences. In Puerto Rico, the sung rosary (rosario cantato) is an important local musical tradition. There are various types, some sung within a church and others outside, though mostly they are all accompanied by the cuatro. An African form is known as the bomba, and originated among slaves and ex-slaves at birthdays, weddings, and the end of the harvest. Typical of the Puerto Rican creole tradition is the de´cima, a combination of poetry and music, though the largest quantity of music belongs to the genre known as seis. Perhaps beginning as early as the mid-sixteenth century, seis incorporates African influences in its rhythms, and is played by several cuatro players and a singer of de´cimas. A final form is the plena, which developed as dance music around 1900, with guitar, concertina, and tambourine, with singing added after a few years. Until the recent resurgence of interest in Cuban music, Jamaican reggae and its predecessor, ska, had dominated the international music scene in terms of Caribbean music since the late 1960s. Reggae was made famous internationally by Jamaica’s first superstar, Bob Marley, and his group, the Wailers. Blending African rhythms and electronic music with lyrics of social comment, reggae is strongly associated with Rastafarianism—the Jamaican religion that regards the late emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie (or Ras Tafari), as divine. Nicholas J. Saunders

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Austerlitz, P. Merengue: Dominican Music and Dominican Identity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977). Behague, G. H., ed. Music and Black Ethnicity: The Caribbean and South America (Miami: University of Miami, North South Center, 1994). Berrian, B. F. Awakening Spaces: French Caribbean Popular Song, Music, and Culture (Chi cago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Cornelius, S., and J. Amira. The Music of Santerı´a: Traditional Rhythms of the Bata´ Drums (Crown Point, ID: White Cliffs Media, 1992). Hill, D. R. Calypso Calaloo: Early Carnival Music in Trinidad (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1993).

Appendix: Related Topics | 673 Manuel, P. Essays on Cuban Music: Cuban and North American Perspectives (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990). Manuel, P., K. Bilby, and R. Largey. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995). Pacini Herna´ndez, D. Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995). Potash, C., ed. Reggae, Rasta, Revolution: Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub (New York: Schirmer Books/Prentice Hall, 1997). Whylie, M., and M. Warner Lewis. ‘‘Characteristics of Maroon Music from Jamaica and Suri name.’’ Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic, and Historical Perspectives, ed. E. K. Agorsah (Kingston: Canoe Press, 1994), 139 148. ***

SLAVERY, PLANTATIONS, AND AFRO-CARIBBEAN CULTURE Historical Development The world of the European plantation system—the engine that drove slavery—created a new Afro-Caribbean culture and left an indelible mark on the archaeological record. During the sixteenth century, the labor shortage created by the collapse of the Amerindian population led to the importation of increasing numbers of African slaves, mainly from West Africa. Between 1550 and 1575, Spain’s American colonies took in about 25,000 African slaves, most destined to work in the burgeoning sugarcane industry. From the 1640s, when sugar finally took over from tobacco, slavery increased dramatically, and by the last quarter of the century, about 175,000 African slaves had been brought to the British Caribbean alone. By the end of the eighteenth century, around 80,000 slaves a year were being transported to the Americas. The relationship between slaves and plantation profits was clear: Jamaica had 300,000 slaves in 1797 and produced 100,000 tons of sugar in 1805. Despite appalling mortality rates during the Atlantic crossings, over 9 million slaves were shipped to the Americas between 1551 and 1870. Plantations were often like small towns, with the overseer’s house, offices, hospital, sugar-cane-grinding mill, boiling house, and slave quarters all lying in the shadow of the estate owner’s Great House. However, not all plantations were for growing sugarcane. Coffee, cacao (cocoa), tobacco, and indigo were also produced by slave workers. These different kinds of activities required different machinery and buildings, the remains of which still lie scattered across the islands of the Caribbean. Although different kinds of plantations existed, to date it is the sugarcane estates that have attracted most attention from historians and historical archaeologists. One aim of such investigations into the material remains of slavery is to throw light on the everyday lives, habits, and beliefs of those who were disenfranchised and least able to record their own lives in their own words. Such investigations have revealed how

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An engraving from about 1670 of a West Indies sugar cane refinery, an industry made possible by the plantation system and slave labor. (Library of Congress)

many influences, reactions, and compromises helped create a distinctive kind of AfroCaribbean culture, not simply African societies transplanted intact from Africa. African spiritualism was influenced by Christianity and the faint echoes of Taı´no shamanic beliefs to produce new hybrid religions such as Vodoun (voodoo), Santerı´a, and Obeah. Vodoun priests and Obeah sorcerers often had fearsome reputations, though the malignant aspects of their religious activities were often exaggerated due to the cruel conditions they and their fellow slaves had to endure. In many cases, they were also healers, ritual experts, and keepers and interpreters of traditional knowledge. These new religions were in one sense a form of resistance to the white-dominated society that had enslaved them. A more dramatic reaction was running away from plantations and taking refuge in the mountains or remote areas. This act was called ‘‘marronage,’’ and escaped slaves were known as Maroons. Throughout the Caribbean region, Maroon communities sprang up and, like Nanny Town in Jamaica, developed their own variation of culture and tradition—heavily African in character but also distinctively Caribbean. Maroon societies formed the most obvious and strident kind of resistance to slavery. The changing lives of African slaves and free laborers have been documented at many plantations throughout the region, such as Galways Plantation on Montserrat and Betty’s Hope on Antigua. The eighteenth-century sugar plantation of Drax Hall, Jamaica, has yielded a mix of historical and archaeological information. Comparing the slave quarters and the Great House has illustrated differences in architecture and the changing use of pottery from original West African earthenware

Appendix: Related Topics | 675 to the use of European ceramic styles and the resulting uniquely Caribbean AfroJamaican forms. On St. Croix, similarly, research has identified a distinctive AfroCruzan style of pottery that avoided European techniques and features and produced traditional African hand-molded and unglazed items. Some of these creolized pottery forms were also a subtle form of resistance, used as magical objects in Obeah rituals but unrecognizable as such by Europeans. On Barbados, investigations have shown how the practices of slave burials at Newton Plantation changed over time, from traditional African ways of disposing of the dead to west-facing burials influenced by Christian ideas. More subtle perhaps has been the recent recognition of how slave religions such as Vodoun and Shango were incorporated into what Europeans at the time regarded as straightforward activities. Many Afro-Caribbean blacksmiths forged wrought-iron gates and fences for the white plantocracy in foundries that also served as locations for African religious activities in which iron making was traditionally associated with supernatural powers. It is becoming increasingly clear that between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, slave societies of the Caribbean were far more than master-and-slave phenomena. The creole children of original African slaves negotiated a new sense of identity through language, religion, and material culture, thereby reaffirming their African heritage in a Caribbean context. During the nineteenth century, after slavery’s eventual abolition, other peoples came to the Caribbean, often to replace the slaves who had previously served as laborers. Hindus and Sikhs from India came as indentured labor, and many subsequently decided to stay. Muslims came from the Middle East and Chinese workers from Asia. Each in their own way has shaped the cultural landscape of the Caribbean. Nicholas J. Saunders

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). ´ Behague, Gerard. ‘‘Notes on Regional and National Trends in Afro Brazilian Cult Music.’’ Tradition and Renewal, ed. M. H. Forester (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 68 80. Be´hague, Gerard. ‘‘Patterns of Candomble´ Music Performance: An Afro Brazilian Religious Setting.’’ Performance Practice: Ethnomusicological Perspectives, ed. G. Be´hague (West port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), 222 254. Carvalho, Jose´ Jorge de. ‘‘Black Music of All Colors: The Construction of Black Ethnicity in Ritual and Popular Genres of Afro Brazilian Music.’’ Music and Black Ethnicity: The Caribbean and South America, ed. G. Be´hague (Miami, FL: North South Center Press at the University of Miami, 1994), 187 206. Fryer, Peter. Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press and Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2000).

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SPIRIT POSSESSION Spirit possession, the intrusion or influence of an external spirit, is closely related to shamanism (religious practices meant to mediate between the physical world and the spiritual world), but the nature of this relationship is debated. Some scholars believe that spirit possession is a type or attribute of shamanism, whereas others believe that spirit possession and shamanism are essentially different though related phenomena. The degree of their relationship depends to a large degree on how each is defined. Spirit possession, like shamanism, is used to describe a wide range of ethnographic phenomena, and the term is often used in imprecise ways. It is not easy to provide a definition of spirit possession that will apply in all cultural contexts. The most general definition speaks of the concept of spirit possession as a cultural explanation for perceived changes in a human being in terms of the intrusion of an external spirit. Changes in other animate or inanimate beings or things may also be explained in this manner—thus perceived changes in an animal or even a plant or object such as a stone may be explained in terms of spirit intrusion. Most studies of spirit possession, however, focus on possession experienced by human beings. Similarly, whereas an alien spirit may possess a dead human body, most studies are interested in the possession of a living person. The form and degree of spirit intrusion may vary greatly. The intrusion may be viewed as the spirit’s inhabiting the human body and even taking it over completely, so that the actions and speech of the possessed human is that of the spirit rather than that of the human being. However, possession can also be viewed simply as the spirit’s exerting control or influence over a person, which leads to states, abilities, or actions that the person would not otherwise exhibit. Erika Bourguignon observed that possession can involve ‘‘alterations in consciousness or in capacity’’ (1973, 15). Hence possession is often used as an explanation for illness, fortune or misfortune, and the like, as well as for altered forms of consciousness. Many scholars of possession use the term ‘‘trance’’ to refer to altered consciousness, but as Vincent Crapanzano pointed out, trance is merely the most common form of altered consciousness associated with spirit possession, not the only form (1977, 7–8). Altered states of consciousness, including trance, however, are not always explained as possession. Scholars have noted that there are mystical, supernatural, or religious explanations as well as nonmystical, naturalistic, nonreligious explanations, and that both can coexist in the same culture. Nonmystical explanations include modern Western psychiatric and psychological or physiological explanations, but nonmystical interpretations can also be found in indigenous non-Western cultures. For instance, Ioan Lewis pointed out that the East African Samburu interpret certain trance states exhibited by young warriors as an emotional expression of assertive masculinity (as do other related groups such as the Masai) (Lewis 1989, 35–36).

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A Kabbalah possession in Trinidad. The individual’s attire (the one sitting) reflects the gender of the possessing entity. (James Houk)

Many scholars have observed that the most common type of mystical explanation besides spirit possession is that of the absence or journey of the affected individual’s soul, an aspect of it, or (in cases in which humans are believed to possess multiple souls) one of the individual’s souls. This explanation is often connected with shamanism. Lewis pointed out that the explanations of possession and soul loss can both exist in the same culture, and that in some cases at least some degree of soul loss may be seen as necessary for possession to take place. In the case of Haitian Voudou, for example, a possessing spirit is believed to displace one aspect of the human soul known as the gros bon ange (big good angel). Lewis disagreed, however, with Luc de Heusch’s suggestion that soul loss, or a depossession of the self, is always a precondition for possession (Lewis 1989, 40). Spirits that engage in possession include a wide range of spirit types and characters. They include the souls or ghosts of once living people, both ancestors and unrelated persons from both inside and outside the society. Some are supernatural entities that have never been human beings. These spirits may be conceived as benevolent or malevolent (such as angels or demons), though many are more ambiguous in character, being harmful in some circumstances and helpful in others. Many can bring their human associates supernatural gifts of healing, divination, and ability to communicate and interact with the spiritual realm and to manipulate fortune and misfortune to achieve their desires for themselves and others.

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There are also various ways that societies view and deal with spirit possession, often depending on the character of the spirit involved. In some cases, possession is sought or encouraged as part of the group’s essential public religious practices. This is often the case where the spirit is seen as benevolent, as with possession by the Holy Spirit in some Christian Protestant denominations (e.g., the Pentecostals), though in some cases possession by demons is also desirable in certain ritual contexts (e.g., Balinese religion). Spirit possession may also be sought if the possessed acts as a spirit medium, who can communicate messages to and from the spiritual world. If a spirit comes uninvited, however, especially to private individuals in nonritual contexts, the response may vary considerably. If the spirit is seen as malevolent or otherwise undesirable, it is often exorcised (forced to leave the person). On the other hand, if the spirit can be useful, a relationship may be cultivated with the spirit. In many cases the spirit may be initially harmful to the human victim, but the nature of the relationship can be changed. Hence the spirit is often kept but tamed or domesticated so that it can be used for beneficial purposes, or at least no longer harms its human associate. The latter is also trained how to be the host of the spirit and often learns how to be a spirit medium. Possession is important, not only in many indigenous religions, but also in many syncretic religions that have developed from the interaction of world religions with indigenous religious concepts. Among these are a number of syncretic possession cults that have developed from the interaction of Christianity and Islam with indigenous African spirit beliefs and practices. In Latin America and the Caribbean, new AfroAmerican religions of great creativity and vitality have resulted from the combination of African, and some Native American, religious traits with Catholicism. Among the best known are Voudou (often referred to as voodoo) in Haiti, Santerı´a in Cuba, and a number of Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomble´, Xangoˆ, and Umbanda. The importance of these religions (sometimes considered cults) is often underestimated. They play a major role in Latin American and Caribbean society. For example, almost all of the Haitian population practices Voudou, and in 1977 O’Gorman estimated that one third of the Brazilian population practiced some form of Afro-Brazilian religion (O’Gorman 1977, 25). In addition, many of these neo-African religions have taken root in New York City, Miami, and some other cities in the United States. Syncretic African spirit cults have also developed in Islamic contexts, including sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and to some extent in the Middle East, where they have been carried by African slaves or immigrants. Examples include the bori cult among the Hausa in Nigeria and Niger, the zar cult in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt, the holle cult of the Songhay/Zarma in Niger, the sheitani or pepo cult among the Swahili of the East African coast, and certain Islamic brotherhoods (tariqa) like the Hamadsha in Morocco. Often these cults do not have distinct boundaries but merge with one another. They are not mere pre-Islamic survivals but represent a creative synthesis with Islamic and Middle Eastern concepts concerning spirits, saints, and religious ritual, as well as with the trance practices of the Islamic Sufi brotherhoods. Orthodox Islam is often hostile to spirit cults. Muslim authorities usually believe that spirits exist (since they are mentioned in the Qur’an) and that they can possess people, but maintain that these spirits must be exorcised rather than bargained with or

Appendix: Related Topics | 679 cultivated. Hence, unlike the situation in the Caribbean or Latin America, only a minority of the people, or certain segments of the population, belong to such cults, although many others make use of the services of practitioners as mediums and healers. There are a number of common elements that can be found in these Africaninspired possession cults. Spirits are called by drumming, dancing, special songs, and sometimes certain incenses or libations. Each type of spirit has its own distinctive rhythm and dance style. Often it also has distinctive colors, attire, and other insignia. Spirits require offerings of their appropriate foods and beverages as well as the blood of animal sacrifice. In the Americas, African gods or spirits are often integrated with Catholic saints; for example, the Haitian Voudou god Ogun is also seen as Saint Peter. In North Africa, possessive spirit cults are sometimes integrated with Islamic saint cults. Whereas this is not often true in other Islamic African areas, certain types of possessive spirits are equated with Islamic spirit categories and viewed as devout Muslims. Another characteristic of possessive spirits in both Africa and the New World is that they often represent certain ethnic groups or cultural areas that have played a role in the history of the society, both internally and externally. In Haitian Voudou, spirits belong to different nations that reflect ethnic groups or regional areas in Africa, for example, Igbo, Kongo, Wangol (Angola); in Brazilian Candomble´ there are spirit groups that are Old Indians and Black Slaves; and in Africa there are often various spirits of foreign ethnicity, including Europeans. Personal case histories and treatments also follow common patterns. Generally a person can acquire a possessive spirit in a number of ways. It may be inherited from ancestors, or it may simply like the person. Frequently spirits can also be sent by witchcraft. On the other hand, a spirit sometimes attacks indiscriminately if someone passes the place where it resides. A spirit may immediately take over the person’s body as its own vehicle of expression. During these possessive episodes, the spirit is often said to ‘‘climb,’’ ‘‘ride,’’ or ‘‘sit’’ on the person. Thus in Haitian Voudou the possessed are called ‘‘horses of the gods,’’ whereas in the Swahili pepo cult and the northeast African zar, the possessed is referred to as the ‘‘chair’’ of the spirit. It is more usual, however, for the first signs of possession to be physical or mental illness, barrenness, bad luck, or other misfortunes. Hence these types of spirit complexes are often called ‘‘cults of affliction.’’ The patient is usually sent to a medium or diviner for diagnosis. If spirit possession is diagnosed, the patient is sent to a specialist for treatment, who may recommend exorcism or appeasement. These two opposite types of treatment, however, are sometimes accomplished in very similar ways, with the spirit being enticed to speak through the patient or the attending spirit medium and say what it wants in terms of an offering of food, drink, and other desired items (e.g., flowers, incense), sacrifice, dress, or ceremonial or musical performance. If a permanent relationship is envisioned, these desires should continue to be met periodically. In such cases, the relationship between the spirit and its human associate is basically contractual and is often envisioned as a marriage. If such a spirit is one that normally interacts with its human associates through possession trance, it will also usually ask for initiation into an organized spirit cult group, generally requiring an elaborate and expensive ceremony that lasts at least

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several days and sometimes much longer. Often possessed people are reluctant to do this because of the cost of such a ceremony as well as the ritual obligations it will bring, but will concede to the spirit’s demands once they are reminded through additional illness or other troubles that initiation is necessary for their well-being. After initiation, the spirit may want further rank within the cult, which entails the payment of fees, special ceremonies, and demonstration of competency in healing and divining. Cult members may eventually reach the stage where they head their own cult groups. Although most members of modern Western societies view spirit possession as exotic and unusual, spirit possession was not all that uncommon in the past. Possession beliefs were found in ancient Greece, the best-known cases being the possession trance of the Delphic oracle at the temple of the god Apollo and the wild ecstatic behavior of the devotees of the god Dionysus. Many of the ancient peoples of the Middle East, including the Jews and early Christians, believed in possessive demons. In the New Testament, one finds both negative and positive possession, the former as illnesscausing demons that Jesus cast out, and the latter in the possession of the disciples by the Holy Spirit, which resulted in their speaking in unknown tongues. Exorcism of demons, or the Devil, continued in Christianity, especially within the Catholic tradition, where it still occasionally takes place. Possession by the Holy Spirit has often received less emphasis due to its revolutionary potential, but it has been common during certain revival periods, including the transatlantic Protestant revival of the early eighteenth century, the formation of independent Pentecostal and Holiness churches in the early twentieth century, and the more recent Pentecostal and charismatic movements. Mediumistic possession by spirits of the dead also appears in the Spiritualist tradition, which gained a large following for a period of time in nineteenth-century United States and Europe. In France a unique form of spiritualism known as Kardecism also developed during the nineteenth century (Bourguignon 1973; Taves 1999). Western conceptions of spirit possession have often caused misunderstanding of spirit possession in other societies. The Christian emphasis on the exorcism of demons has made it difficult to understand that in many non-Western traditions possessive spirits are often not viewed as demonic and that treatment often involves appeasement or negotiation rather than exorcism. Similarly, Christians often fail to see the similarities between Christian possession by the Holy Spirit and spirit possession in other contexts, especially because it is often not the Supreme Deity who possesses but other, often intermediary, spirits. One of the most misunderstood religions in this regard is Haitian Voudou, perhaps because of its obvious syncretism with Christian Catholicism. Nonmystical explanations of possession in Western society have also led to questionable interpretations. Possession has often been explained as psychological pathology. Possessed people were described as ‘‘mad’’ or ‘‘crazy,’’ and as the fields of psychology and psychiatry developed, those who were possessed were described as suffering from weak nervous integration, or mental problems of neurosis (quite often hysteria) or psychosis (e.g., paranoia, schizophrenia, or multiple personality disorder). Many more recent psychologists and anthropologists suggest that instead of being pathological, possession beliefs and practices may be psychotherapeutic. Moreover, many have pointed out that in cultures where possession is seen as a normal and expected occurrence, it should not be viewed as abnormal (e.g., Bourguignon 1973;

Appendix: Related Topics | 681 Crapanzano 1977. See Lewis 1989, chapter 7, for a useful discussion of possession and psychiatry.) Psychological interpretations have often been combined with sociological observations about the role that possession plays in various societies and the social positions of those who usually undergo possession. Bourguignon observed from statistical studies that possession trance was correlated with large complex societies with a high degree of social stratification and rigid social roles (Bourguignon 1973). Many others have focused on internal social correlations, pointing out that many possession cults are primarily associated with women and secondarily with lower-class members of highly stratified societies. The explanatory theories offered for these latter associations tend to focus on one central argument: that such cults act as therapeutic outlets for psychological frustrations and socioreligious exclusion suffered by marginal members of the society (e.g., Kennedy 1967; Crapanzano and Garrison 1977). Some scholars have pointed out that although possession may serve sociological or psychological functions for certain individuals or subgroups in certain circumstances, possession cannot be explained adequately in functional analyses that do not also address spirit possession as a symbolic system that conveys meaning. A number of scholars have stressed possessive events as communicative texts and applied various techniques of textual and semiotic analysis. Many have also stressed that the idiom of these texts, possession, is culturally constructed, and adopts the model elaborated by Clifford Geertz (1972) of the cultural text, as stories that the society tells itself about itself. Since the language of possession is highly symbolic, it can convey many different levels of meaning and personal interpretation. Moreover, it can reflect unavowed aspects of society that could not be expressed through other means, and expresses them in powerful metaphorical dramas, enacted in human form but attributed to the spirits. Some scholars have noted that those possessed often occupy a position in society that makes them culturally appropriate to play this role, to become mediums for the expression of the unexpressed. Hence spirit possession can be seen as a positive social role rather than an indication of social deprivation, and possession itself can be seen as ‘‘an integral part of the whole culture’’ (Lambek 1981, 83). Various studies have proposed certain core messages that are expressed through possession in specific societies, often pertaining to societal, cultural, or cosmic contradictions. Others see the messages as more diverse, expressing many different aspects of cultural identity as well as historical consciousness, where different spirits represent the various internal and foreign influences that have impacted the society and the wider world connected with it (see, e.g., Giles 1999). Some scholars have thus viewed possession as ‘‘a form of knowledge’’ as well as ‘‘a way of knowing’’ through embodiment (Boddy 1994, 424). The possessed person knows not only the spirit world but also the knowledge encoded through it, by embodying spirits. A number of studies have examined how possession relates to modernity and the new global society. Far from disappearing, possession seems to be increasing, serving as a means of interpreting and sometimes contesting sociocultural change and globalization (Behrend and Luig 1999). Another recent line of inquiry concerns how the self is perceived, how it is viewed as an agent of action, and, once again, how this relates to

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the body. In possession, neither the body nor the self are self-contained, and the self as acting subject (possessing spirit) is also divorced from the self as object (person possessed), hence presenting a very different model from that usually found in modern Western culture.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Behrend, Heike, and Ute Luig. Spirit Possession, Modernity, and Power in Africa (Madison and Oxford: University of Wisconsin Press and James Currey, 1999). Belo, Jane. Trance in Bali (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969). Boddy, Janice. ‘‘Spirit Possession Revisited: Beyond Instrumentality.’’ Annual Review of Anthropology 23 (1994): 407 434. Bourguignon, Erika, ed. Religion, Altered States of Consciousness and Social Change (Columbus: Ohio State University, 1973). Brown, Karen. Mama Lola: A Voudou Priestess in Brooklyn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). Crapanzano, Vincent, and Vivian Garrison, eds. Case Studies in Spirit Possession (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1977). Geertz, Clifford. ‘‘Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.’’ Daedalus 10, no. 1 (1972): 1 37. Reprinted in Geertz, Clifford. Interpretation of Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1973). Giles, Linda L. ‘‘Spirit Possession and the Symbolic Construction of Swahili Society.’’ In Spirit Possession, Modernity, and Power, ed. Heike Behrend and Ute Luig (London: James Curry, 1999), 142 164. Kennedy, J. G. ‘‘Nubian Zar Ceremonies as Psychotherapy.’’ Human Organization 26 (1967): 185 194. Lambek, Michael. Human Spirits: A Cultural Account of Trance in Mayotte (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Lewis, Ioan M. Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1989). O’Gorman, Frances. Aluanda: A Look at Afro Brazilian Cults (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco Alves Editora, 1977). Rouget, Gilbert. Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relations between Music and Possession. Revised and translated from the French by Brunhilde Biebuyck (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985; originally published in French as La Musique et la trance by Editions Gallimard, 1980). Taves, Ann. Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). Walker, Sheila. Ceremonial Spirit Possession in Africa and Afro America (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972). Wilson, P. J. ‘‘Status Ambiguity and Spirit Possession.’’ Man 2, no. 4 (1967): 366 378.

About the Editors and Contributors

THE EDITORS Anthony B. Pinn is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. He is the author/editor of twenty books, including Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion and African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of Nimrod. Associate Editor Stephen C. Finley is assistant professor of religion and African American Studies at Louisiana State University. His academic interests revolve around questions of African American religious cultures and embodiment. Assistant Editors Torin Alexander teaches at St. Olaf College (Minnesota). His areas of research include African American religion and religious experience, postmodernism(s), critical theory, and continental/neopragmatist philosophy of religion. Paul Easterling is a PhD candidate in Rice University’s Religious Studies department. His research interests include African and African American religious culture, African American Islam, as well as popular culture and religion. Derek S. Hicks is assistant professor of religion and culture at Lancaster Theological Seminary (Pennsylvania). His research interests are in African American Christian History & Religious Thought, Theology, and Hermeneutics. Margarita Simon Guillory is a PhD candidate of Rice University. Her overall scholarly interest involves the utilization of depth psychology, anthropology, and sociology to illustrate ways in which African American religious traditions, like that of Spiritual(ist) Churches, serve as therapeutic places. 683

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THE CONTRIBUTORS LaTrese Evette Adkins received her PhD from Michigan State University and is the author of Who Has the Body: Death and Identity in African American History. Torin Alexander teaches at St. Olaf College (Minnesota) and is a PhD candidate at Rice University. Norm R. Allen Jr. is Executive Director of African Americans for Humanism, the Council for Secular Humanism (New York). Jeffrey Elton Anderson is Assistant Professor of History at Middle Georgia College (Georgia). Dale P. Andrews is the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology at Boston University School of Theology. Stephen W. Angell is the Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies at Earlham School of Religion (Indiana). Wallace Best is Professor of Religious History in the Religion Department at Princeton University (New Jersey). Adam L. Bond is Assistant Professor of Historical Studies at Virginia Union University (Virginia). Firpo Carr is an author, university instructor, and media personality in Los Angeles (California) who has written extensively on the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Alston Barrington Chevannes is Professor of Social Anthropology and former Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus (Jamaica). Mary Ann Clark is an instructor at Yavapi College, teaching courses on the Western philosophical tradition and new religious movements. Kamari Maxine Clarke is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Yale University (Connecticut). Monica A. Coleman is Associate Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religions at Claremont School of Theology (California). Larry Crook is Associate Professor of Music and Co-director of the Center for World Arts at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Marie W. Dallam is on faculty at Temple University and is the author of Daddy Grace: A Celebrity Preacher and His House of Prayer (2007).

About the Editors and Contributors Mrs. M. J. Divine, ‘‘Mother Divine,’’ maintained the vision and work of Father Divine and remains central to the work and teachings of the International Peace Mission Movement. Carol B. Duncan is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada). Paul Easterling is a PhD student in Religious Studies at Rice University (Texas). Michael O. Emerson is the Allyn and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life at Rice University (Texas). Noel Leo Erskine is Associate Professor of Theology at Ethics at Candler School of Theology, Emory University (Georgia). Ina J. Fandrich formerly taught at Louisiana State University and is the author of The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux (2005). Janice W. Fernheimer is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of Language, Literature, and Communication at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Stephen C. Finley is Assistant Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Louisiana State University (Louisiana). James Forman (1928–2005) was a major figure within the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. He was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In addition to teaching at American University (D.C.), he remained involved in issues of social justice. Linda L. Giles is an Independent Scholar whose work covers areas such as spirit possession. Ann Gleig is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Rice University (Texas). Lindsay Hale is on the faculty of the University of Texas, Austin. Melanie L. Harris is Assistant Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University (Texas). Derek S. Hicks is Assistant Professor of Religion and Culture at Lancaster Theological Seminary (Pennsylvania). Clifton L. Holland is President of IDEA Ministries and Director of The Latin American Socio-Religious Studies Program in San Jose´, Costa Rica.

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About the Editors and Contributors

Barbara A. Holmes is Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean at Memphis Theological Seminary (Tennessee). James Houk is Associate Professor of Religion and Anthropology at the Lady of the Lakes College (Louisiana). Leslie R. James is Associate Professor of Religion and Director of Black Studies at DePauw University (Indiana). Terrence L. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Religion at Haverford College (Pennsylvania). Terri Laws is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Rice University. Lori Lee is a professor of sociology and anthropology at Syracuse University. Caroline Levander is the Carlson Professor of Humanities and Professor of English, as well as the Director of the Humanities Research Center at Rice University (Texas). Daniel M. Levine is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Rice University (Texas). Lawrence A. Mamiya is Professor of Religion on the Paschall-Davis Chair at Vassar College (New York). Darnise Martin is on faculty in African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University (California). Lorna A. McDaniel is the founding editor of the journal New Directions: Readings in African Diaspora Music, and prior to her retirement, she was on the faculty of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Michigan). J. Gordon Melton is the Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion. Monica Miller is a PhD candidate in religion and culture at Chicago Theological Seminary (Illinois). Stephanie Y. Mitchem is Professor of Religion and Director of African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. Ray A. Owens is affiliated faculty at Philips Theological Seminary (Oklahoma), where he holds the position of assistant professor of Christian Social Ethics and Black Church Studies. Anthony B. Pinn is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University (Texas).

About the Editors and Contributors Alton B. Pollard III is Dean and Professor of Religion and Culture at Howard University Divinity School (DC). Nicholas J. Saunders is Lecturer in Material Culture in the Department of Anthropology, University College London. Mary Sawyer is Professor-in-Charge of Religious Studies at Iowa State University (Iowa). Margarita Simon Guillory is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Rice University (Texas). Josef Sorett is Assistant Professor of Religion at Columbia University (New York City). Robert H. Stockman is Coordinator of the Institute for Baha’I Studies and instructor in Religious Studies at DePaul University (Michigan). James Lance Taylor is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco. He is also the President-elect of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. Anjulet Tucker is a recent graduate of Emory University (Georgia), Graduate Division of Religion. Seneca D. Vaught is Assistant Professor of History at Niagara University (NewYork). Jonathan L. Walton is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of California, Riverside. Maureen Warner-Lewis is Professor of African-Caribbean languages and orature at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus (Jamaica). Steve Weaver is on faculty at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus (Jamaica). Alan West-Dura´n is a member of the faculty at Northeastern University (Massachusetts). Edward P. Wimberly is Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling and Vice President of Academic Affairs/Provost at the Interdenominational Theological Center (Georgia).

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Index

Note: Page numbers in bold indicate main entries in the volumes. AAH (African Americans for Humanism), 22–24, 638 AAH Examiner (newsletter), 23, 24 Abakua´, 655, 658, 658–659 Abbot, Robert, 101 A. B. C. Thomasville, 550–551 ‘Abdu’l-Baha´, 91, 93–94, 95, 98 Abel, Elijah, 234 Abel (Genesis), 202 Abernathy, Ralph, 334 Abolition, 47, 69–70 Abyssinian Baptist Church, 466, 526– 527, 544 Activism. See Politics and religion Acts of the Apostles, 88, 315, 609 Acupuncture, 270 Adam (Genesis), 168, 202, 650–651 Adams, Alger, 34 Adams, Yolanda, 544 Addictions, 22, 50, 640 An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves (Allen and Jones), 61 Adechina (Remigio Herrera), 352

Adefunmi, Oba Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Alladahunu, I, 292, 293, 293–294, 296, 297, 353–354 Adefunmi, Oba Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Alladahunu, II, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296 Adesoji, Ayaba Olubunmi, 292, 297 Adeyemi, Chief Adelagbara, 292, 297 Adler, Margot, 442 Adoption, 50 Adoration, 609–611, 610 (photo) Adventism, 195, 363–366 Affirmation, Treatment and Meditation (ATM), 277–279 Affirmative Action, 317, 586 (photo), 587–588 Africa for Africans, 341 Africana, 535 ‘‘African American,’’ defining, 534–536, 539 The African American Catholic Congregation (Imani Temple), 54– 55, 481 (photo) African-American Humanism: An Anthology (Allen), 23

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Index

An African-American Humanist Declaration, text, 638–642 African American literature. See Literature African American Lutheran Association, 10 African American mysticism, 3–7 African American religious thought, 561–572 black church as public, 564–565 central concerns, 562 criticism of, 566–570 described, 562–563 Du Bois’s interpretation of black religion, 561–562 identification-ascertainment, 571 liberation theology, 565–570 origins, 563–564, 566 radical otherness, 563 womanist and feminist perspectives, 570–572 ‘‘African-American Resources for a More Inclusive Liberation Theology’’ (Walker), 493 African Americans and the Lutheran Church, 7–12 African Americans and Religious Humanism, 12–20 African Americans and Secular Humanism, 20–25 African Americans for Humanism (AAH), 22–24, 638 African Americans in the Episcopal Church, 25–38 African Americans in the Presbyterian Church, 38–48 African Americans in the Roman Catholic Church, 48–58 African Baptist Missionary Society, 256–257, 259 African Burial Ground (Negro Burial Ground), 664–666 African burial practices in the Americas, xxi, 664–669, 675 African-Caribbean music, 669–672

African-derived religions, described, 499–500 African Liberation movements, 647 African Lodges of Freemasonry, 225 African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), 58–66 African Burial Ground (Negro Burial Ground), 664–665 beliefs and practices, 63–66 clerical training, 469 Denmark Vesey plot, 518 historical development, 58–63, 67, 73, 452, 664 ordination of women, 504 overview, 137 African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion Church), 66–73 Allen, Richard, 452 (photo) AME Church vs., 62 beliefs and practices, 19, 70–73 education programs, 71–72 historical development, 65, 66–70, 138 ordination of women, 71, 72 overview, 137 Wilberforce University, 579 (photo) Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society, 72–73 African Mystery Temples, 371 African oral cultures, 480, 482 African Orthodox church, 32, 73–76 African slave trade. See Slaves/slavery African Theological Archministry (ATA), 294, 298, 299 Afrocentrism, 45, 54–55, 558 Agape International Truth Center, 281–282 Age of Aquarius, 267 Agnosticism/agnostics, 12, 14–15 Agontime, Na, 387–388 Agyeman, Jaramogi Abebe (Albert B. Cleage Jr.), 367–369, 370, 371–372, 527, 541, 565 Ajamu, Chief Adenibi Ifamuyiwa S., 292, 296

Index Ajanaku family, 292 Akan women, 668 Akwaaba Community Center, 369 Albanese, Catherine, 266, 268 Alcohol and substance abuse, 640 Alegria-Pons, Jose Francisco, 193 Alexander, Archibald, 40 Alexander, Daniel William, 75 Alexander, James, 198 Alexander, King, 431, 437–438 Alexandrian school of wicca, 441–442 Al-Faatir, Masjid, 84 Ali, Muhammad, 84 Ali, Noble Drew, 222, 223, 224, 558 Alkebu-lan Academy Youth Centers, 369 Allen, Norm R., Jr., 22–23, 24, 25, 637–641 Allen, Richard, 27, 57, 58–61, 67–69, 451, 452 (photo), 452, 518 Allen Temple AME, 468–469 Allen University, 62 Alpha Evangelical Synod of Freedmen, 9 AMA (American Missionary Association), 401 Ambidwile, Cardinal Aswad Yusef, 370, 374 Ambroise, Pe`re, 382, 384 AME. See African Methodist Episcopal (AME) AME Church Review (periodical), 60, 62 American Baptist Theological Seminary, 456 American Baptist Union, 256–257 ‘‘American Buddhism: What Does It Mean for People of Color’’ (Rainbowdharma.com), 119–120 American Colonization Society, 65 An American Dilemma (Myrdal), 518 American Indian Movement, 317 American Missionary Association (AMA), 401 American Muslim Mission, 77–87, 247 beliefs and practices, 82–87 Clara Muhammad School, 78, 86

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Committee to Remove All Images of the Divine (C.R.A.I.D.), 83–84 cooperative buying program (AMMCOP), 83 disbanding, 84 historical development, 77–82, 83, 86 name change, 81, 83, 86 See also Nation of Islam American National Baptist Convention, 257 American Negro Academy, 33 American Revolutionary War, xvii, 324 The Americas, described, xiii–xiv Amerindian population, 673 El-Amin, Imam Mustafa, 86 Amistad Committee, 401 Amos, Sharon, 317 Ancestor worship, 176, 195, 208, 666– 667, 670 Ancient Order of Ethiopia, 343 Anderson, Charles, 69 Anderson, Victor, 567, 568–569 Andrew, Bishop James Osgood, 138 Anglican Church, 25–26, 27 Angola, xxi, xxix, 445, 667, 679 Animal sacrifices: Batuque, 106 Candomble´, 133 freedom of religion, 360 Kumina, 207 Orishas, 289 Palo Monte, 307 pinaldo (cuchillo), 357 Santerı´a, 360 Xangoˆ, 446 Aninha (Eugeˆnia Ana dos Santos), 127 Antebellum period, 256, 430, 455–456, 549, 575–577, 668 Antigue, 229–230 Antoine, Robert, 339–340 Apocalyptic/Millennial movement, 267 Apoliticism, 519 Apostle’s Creed, 43 Apostolic Faith Mission Church of God (AFM), 88–90, 150, 162

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Index

Apostolic Faith Mission Newsletter (AFM), 89 Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God, 89 Appeal (Walker), 523, 563 Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ (Dowling), 424 Arara´ (Fon) culture, 428–429, 658 Arkansas Baptist College, 157–158 Arrow Records, 471 Asafetida, 511 Asbury, Bishop Francis, 58, 67, 413, 414 Ashanti, 283–284 Ashby, Homer, 600–601, 604 Ashe, 355 Asian medical practices, 270 Asimov, Isaac, 22 Assimilation, 517 Association for Global New Thought, 282 Association of Evangelical Luther Church, 10 ATA (African Theological Archministry), 294, 298, 299 Atheism/atheists, 12, 15–16, 20 Atlanta University Center, 417 Atlantic Slave Trade. See Slaves/slavery ATM (Affirmation, Treatment and Meditation), 277–279 Augsburg Confession, 11 Austin, H. Elsie, 96, 101 Automatic writing, 380, 382, 385 Avant, Albert, 337 Awolowo family, 292 Axe´ Apoˆ Afonj, 127 Ayer, Sir A. J., 22 AZUSA Fellowship Conference, 473–474 Azusa Street Revival, 88, 145, 148, 149– 150, 160–163, 557, 558 The Ba´b, 91–93 Babalawos, 106, 357, 361 Back to Africa Movement, 341 Bad Boys of Comedy (Combs), 545

Baer, Hans, 276 Baha´’ı´ Faith, 91–103 ‘Abdu’l-Baha´, 91, 93–94, 95, 98 the Ba´b, 91–93 Baha´’u’lla´h, 91, 92–93, 95, 96 beliefs and practices, 93, 95–103 Effendi, Shoghi, 91 historical development, 91–95, 100 Shoghi, Effendi, 94–95, 97, 101 women within, 96, 97 Bahia, Brazil, xxix Bailey, Alice, 267 Bailey, C. M., 408 Bailey, Thurl, 232 Baker, Ella, 526, 539 Baker, George. See Divine, Father Major Jealous Baker, Lavern, 543 Baker, Moses, 324 Baker-Fletcher, Karen, 495 Bakke case, 317 Bakongo, 667 Bakr, Abu, 83 Balas, Marie Madeleine, 50 Baldwin, James, 6, 461 Balinese religion, 678 Ballard, Eoghan, 436 Banks, Dennis, 317 Banks, Thomas E., 202–203 Bantu, xxv, 212, 213, 392, 655, 657–658 Baptism: Apostolic Faith Mission Church of God (AFM) on, 89 Catholic rites, 56–57 Fire Baptized Holiness Association, 189 fire hose baptisms, 410 Holiness Movement on, 147, 149 Methodist Church/Methodists, 420 Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., 335 of slaves, xix, xxvi, xxvii, 26, 39, 48 Spiritual Baptists, 378 United House of Prayer for All People, 410

Index Baptists: Articles of Faith, 264 Baptist Liberation Day, 377–378 First Great Awakening, xxviii, 27, 412 ‘Merikens, 376 Missionaries, 227 See also specific churches by name Baraka, Amiri (Leroi Jones), 541 (photo), 541, 543 Barbados, 229–230, 375, 675 Barbara, Saint, 132 Barham, John Foster, 231 Barr, Edmond and Rebecca, 150 Bastide, Roger, 128, 211 Batuque, xxx, 104–106, 663 Bean, Carl, 506 Beanes, Scipio, 63 Beaufort, South Carolina, 290 Beckwith, Rev. Dr. Michael, 281, 281–282 Becoming a Self Before God: Critical Transformations (Moseley), 594 Becton, ‘‘Saint’’ George, 544 Bedward, Alexander, 328, 343 Beebe, Joseph A., 140 The Belief Factor and the White Superiority Syndrome (Bell), 24–25 Belize, 194, 195 Bell, Christopher C., Jr., 24–25 Bell, Derek, 587 Beloved (Morrison), 6, 461 Ben Ammi ben Israel, 112 Benedict XV, Pope, 52 Benevolent societies, 669 Benezet, Anthony, 414 Benin, xxvi, 197–198, 351, 428, 445. See also Dahomey; Yoruba religion Ben Levy, Rabbi Levi, 171 Ben Levy, Rabbi Sholomo, 171 Ben Lewi, Rabbi Zechariah, 173 Bennett, Lyman, 415 Bennett College, 415 Ben Yehudah, Rabbi Bezzalel, 173 Bercovitch, Sacvan, 523 Berger, Peter, 559

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Bermudez, Professor Armand Andres, 182 Bernal, Martin, xiv Beth B’nai Abraham Ethiopian Congregation and Hebrew School, 171, 172 Bethel African Methodists, 58–59, 464, 473 Bethel Bible College, 160 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 523, 539, 578 Beulah Land, 368, 369, 370, 374 Beyond Ontological Blackness (Anderson), 568–569 Beyond the End (Griggs), 457 Bible. See New Testament (Christian Bible); Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) Big Drum Ritual, 107–111 Bight of Benin, 197–198 Bight of Biafra, 197–198 Big Sur, California, 267 Bilalian News (Nation of Islam), 83 Bilal Ibn Rabah, 82–83 Birchtown settlement, 451–452 Birmingham, Alabama, 525 The Bishop Payne Divinity and Industrial School, 31, 33, 34 Bishop William Edward Fuller, Sr., Highway, 187 Bivens, Abba, 112–113 Black, Barry, 365 ‘‘Black,’’ defining, 534–536, 539 Black Anti-Defamation League, 647, 648 Black Arts movement, 540, 541 Blackburn, Gideon, 40 Black Caribs (Garı´funa Religion), 193– 196 Black Christian Nationalism, 372 Black Christian Nationalism (Cleage), 367, 527 Black Christian Nationalist Church, 368 Black churches: Civil Rights Movement, 611–613 criticized by religious humanism, 15

693

694

|

Index

described, 607 organizing and recruitment by activists within, 17 social activism of, 607 worship in the Black Church, 607–613 worship in the Black Church, adoration, 609–611, 610 (photo) worship in the Black Church, ‘‘Shout,’’ 375, 377–378, 409, 521, 561, 612 worship in the Black Church, songs, 608 worship in the Black Church, ‘‘talking back,’’ 608 worship in the Black Church, as activist and participatory event, 611–613, 612 (photo) Black Clergy Caucus, 53 Black Consciousness, 127, 244 ‘‘Black Environmental Liberation Theology’’ (Glave), 495–496 Black Freemasonry, 225 Black Gods of the Metropolis (Fauset), 309 Black Hebrew Israelite tradition, 111– 115, 169, 499, 502, 536. See also specific movements by name The Black Humanist Experience: An Alternative to Religion (Allen), 25 The Black Jews of Harlem (Brotz), 174 Black Judaism: Story of an American Movement (Landing), 170, 174 Black Liberation Theology, 565–570 conceptions of God, 527–528 criticism of, 18, 566–567, 566–570, 571 described, 495 environmental issues, 497 historical development, 517, 565–566 racial uplift ideology, 565 redemptive suffering ethic, 528 role of black churches, 495 Black Manifesto (Forman), 17, 642–650 The Black Messiah (Cleage), 367, 372, 527, 565

Black Methodists for Church Renewal (BMCR), 418 Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (Drake and Cayton), 467 Black Muslims. See Islam Black Mysticism, 558 Black Nationalism: African Orthodox Church, 73–76 Biblical basis for, 64 the Black Manifesto on, 642–643 Cleage, Albert B., Jr., 367 historical development, 522 led by non-Christian Black nationalists, 527 Nation of Islam, 239, 245 Oyotunji African Village and, 296–298 Black Panther Party: Black Manifesto (Forman), 17 Clements as chaplain for, 50 Counterintelligence Program vs., 249 history of, 17, 21, 526 human-centered viewpoint, 17–18, 21 photograph of Newton and Seale, 21 Black Power and Urban Unrest: The Creative Possibilities (Wright), 35 Black Power movement, 292, 340, 523, 525–526, 541, 543 Black Power movement (Carmichael and Hamilton), 525–526 Black Presbyterians United (BPU), 41–42 Black Realism, 16 Black Sacred Cosmos, 580 Black Sheep, 543 Black Socialist Preacher (Woodbey), 523–524 Black theological ecological liberation perspective, 497 Black Theology: A Documentary History Volume Two (Sanders), 572 Black Theology and Black Power (Cone), 495, 565–566, 567

Index A Black Theology of Liberation (Cone), 565–566, 567 Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus (BUUC), 397 Blackwell, Annie Walker, 72 Blair, Thelma, 47 Blake, Charles E., 165 Blake; or the Huts of America (Delany), 454–455 Blakey, Dr. Michael, 665 Blow, Kurtis, 542 (photo) Blues music, 13, 540–541 BMCR (Black Methodists for Church Renewal), 418 B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League, 247 Boardman, Richard, 413 Board of Education, Brown v., 34, 36 Bobo community, 349 Bodhisattva, 116 Boegue, Rosine, 50 Bohemia, 226–227 Bomefree, Isabella, 5 Bongo, 178–179 Bongo Jerry, 179 Bongo Sam, 179 Bonnafon, Gaston, 435 Book of Acts, 88, 315, 609 The Book of American Negro Spirituals (Johnson and Johnson), 460 Book of Certitude (Baha´’u’lla´h), 93 Book of Concord, 10–11 The Book of Mormon, 237 The Book of the Covenant (Baha´’u’lla´h), 93 Boone, James Otis, 203 Booth, Lavaughn Venchael, 262, 337 Booth, William D., 337 Borders, W. H., 332, 544 Bori cult, 678 Boston, Massachusetts, xvii Boswell, Elder Leviticus L., 219, 220 Bourguignon, Erika, 676, 681 Bowles, Charles, 363 Boyd, Richard H., 252–254, 258–259, 260

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BPU (Black Presbyterians United), 41–42 Bradford, C. E., 364 Bragg, George Freeman, Jr., 30, 32, 33, 35 Brand Nubian, 543 Brazil: African influence, xxix, 660 Afro-Brazilian religion, described, 660 Batuque, xxx, 104–106, 663 burial practices, 669 Candomble´, 125–133 Candomble´, historical development, xxix, 125–128 Candomble´, photographs of, 129, 662 Candomble´, prominence in popular culture, 212, 395, 447 Candomble´, terreiro, xxix Candomble´, within Umbanda, 391 Candomble´, women’s roles, 131–132 Candomble´ , beliefs and practices, 105, 106, 128–133, 388, 394, 494, 660–663, 679 capoeira, 657 Catimbo´, 135–136 described, 660 independence, xxix Macumba, 211–214, 213 (photo), 392 music, 660–663, 662 (photo) Roman Catholic Church during colonial period, xxix slavery, xvii, xx, xxii, xxiv, xxix, 104, 303 Tambor de Mina, xxx, 387–389 Umbanda, 105, 135, 211, 213, 388– 389, 391–395 Xangoˆ, 445–447 Brent, George Wilson, 64 Br’er Rabbit stories, 13 Bridgeforth, Ruffin, 236 Bridges, Richard, 55 British Methodist Episcopal Church (BME), 61 British Virgin Islands, 230 (photo) Britten, Emma, 381

695

696

|

Index

Broadway plays, 541 Brodie, Fawn McKay, 234 Brooks, Charles D., 364 Brotz, Howard, 174 Brown, C. S., 259, 260 Brown, Diana, 391 Brown, Donice, Sr., 89 Brown, Egbert Ethelred, 397–399 Brown, Elsa Barkley, 467 Brown, James, 535, 541 Brown, John Mifflin, 60, 61 Brown, J. Richard, 204 Brown, Morris, 60 Brown, Sterling, 21 Brown, William Montgomery, 32, 67 Brown, William Wells, 429 Brown v. Board of Education, 34, 36 Brueggeman, Walter F., 610–611 Brujeria, 351 Bryant, Bishop John, 473 Bryant, William F., 149 Budapest, Zsuzsanna, 442 Buddhism, 20, 115–122 Budzinski, Henry, 84 Buford, Teri, 317 Burgess, Esther, 35 Burgess, John, 35 Burial practices, xxi, 664–669, 675 Burroughs, Nannie Helen, 262 (photo), 263, 336–337 Bush, George W., 250, 528, 533 Bustamante, Alexander, 344 Butler, Addie, 10 Butler, Bishop Keith, 464 Butler, Lee, 600, 601, 604 Butler, Octavia, 6 Butler, Tubal Uriah ‘‘Buzz,’’ 377 BUUC (Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus), 397 BUUCVine (BUUC), 397 Byard, Lucy, 364 Byars-Beckwith, Rickie, 281 Byington, John, 364 Bynum, Juanita, 470 By the Light of My Father’s Smile (Walker), 6

Cabildos, 304, 352, 353 Cable, George Washington, 198 Caboclos, 388–389, 394 Cachac¸a, 135 Caddy, Eileen, 267 Cailloux, Andre´, 383 Cain, Richard, 65 Cain (Genesis), 235, 237 Cairnes, William, 28 Calhoun-Brown, Alison, 528–529 Calixto Garcia Museum, Holguin, Cuba, 306 (photo) Calvin, John, 226–227 Campbell, Colin, 267–268 Canaanite Temple, 222 Canaan (son of Ham), xv–xvi, 64, 225, 510 Canada: AME Zion Church, 70 British Methodist Episcopal Church (BME), 61 immigration system, 378 slavery, xvii, xx, 61, 69 Spiritual Baptists, 378 Candomble´, 125–133 beliefs and practices, 105, 106, 128– 133, 388, 394, 494, 660–663, 679 historical development, xxix, 125–128 photographs of, 129, 662 prominence in popular culture, 212, 395, 447 terreiro, xxix within Umbanda, 391 women’s roles, 131–132 Cane Ridge Revivals, 402–403 Cane (Toomer), 21 Cannon, Katie G., 47, 495, 505, 570 Canonical Law, 56 Canty, Elder Frank C., 186–187 Capitalism, 642–650 Capoeira, 657 Carey, Lott, 252, 254, 260 Caribbean, 669–671; African Orthodox Church, 75, 76 Garı´funa Religion, 193–194

Index immigration from, 378 Maroons, xxi, 214–218, 674 music, 669–672 Obeah, 283–285 Sanctified Church tradition, 376 shamans, 284 slavery, xxii, xxv–xxvii, 673–674 Caricatures of black Christians, 544 Caridade (charity), 393 Caries, Zacharias George, 231 Carmichael, Stokely, 35, 525–526, 527 Carnegie Foundation, 416 Carneiro, Edison, 127, 131 Carnivals, 327–328 Carr, Firpo, 202 Carriacou, 107–111 Carson, Ben, 365 Carson, Rachel, 494 Carter, Ben (Ben Ammi ben Israel), 112 Carter, Nathaniel, 11 Carter, Shawn, 545 Cartwright, Andrew, 70 Carvakas, 20 Carvalho, Jose´ Jorge de, 661 Casa Branca do Engenho Velho, 126 Cascudo, Luis da Camara, 135 Cashwell, G. B., 150 Castro, Fidel, 304, 353 Catechism of the Metropolitan Spiritual Church of Christ (MSCC), 221 Cathedral International, 474 Catholic Church/Catholics, 48–57; Afrocentric perspectives, 54–55 beliefs and practices, 55–57 Black Clergy Caucus, 53 Canonical Law, 56 Catholic Board of Negro Mission, 52 Civil Rights Movement, 53–54 colonial period, xxix, 48–49 Council of Constance, 226 Counter-Reformation, 227 Cuba, xxv within Dominican Republic, 192 Estebam (slave), 48 Eucharist, 226 exorcism, 680

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First Vatican Council, 55 fusion with African-based traditions, xxvi–xxvii within Haiti, 192 historical development, 48–55 Hus reforms, 226 infallibility of the Pope, 55–56 Inquisition, 125–126 Kongo, 303, 304–305 Luther on, 10–11 Macumba influenced by, 212, 213 missionary work, xxvi Oblate Sisters of Providence, 50 ordination of African Americans, 54 ordination of Africans, 50–51 Orisha religion in Trinidad, 285–287 popular Catholicism, xxix Saint Domingue (Haiti), xxv–xxvi slaves and, 48–51, 126 syncretism, 198, 376–377, 388, 427, 435, 446 within Umbanda, 391 Vatican II, 53, 57, 127 Catimbo´, 135–136 Caution, Tollie, Sr., 33 A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies (Benezet), 414 Cayton, Horace, 467, 520 CCW (Conference of Church Workers among Colored People), 32, 33 CDCs (Community development corporations), 469 CED (Christian Education Department), 72 Cemeteries. See Burial practices Central American, 194, 195 Central Congregational Church, 367 Central State University, 60 Central University, 140 Chambers, T. M., 332 ‘‘The Changing Same’’ (Baraka), 543 Channeling, 270 Chapel of the Nativity, 49 Charismatics, 557, 680. See also Pentecostal movement

697

698

|

Index

Charity (caridade), 393 Charlo, 438 Chavis, Rev. Benjamin, 493 (photo), 493–494 Cherry, Benjamin, 167 Cherry, F. S., 111–112, 152, 167–168 Chesnutt, Charles, 457–458 Chevannes, Barry, 324, 325 Chew, Benjamin, 57 Chicago, Illinois, 467, 520–521, 556, 585–586 Chicago Ethical Society, 398 Chichi from Spanish Town, 329 Chiles, C. C., 186 Chiles, Mother L. E., 186 Chinese workers in the Caribbean, 675 Christ Church College, 412 Christian Bible. See New Testament Christian Coalition of America, 533 Christian Education Department (CED), 72 Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME), 136–143 beliefs and practices, 142–143 historical development, 73, 136–141 Christian Union, 148–149 Christmas celebrations, 426 Christ Missionary Industrial College, 146 Christopher, Jim, 22 Christ Temple Church, 145 Christ Universal Temple, 280 Chronology of people and events, 615–636 Churches. See Black churches Church of Christ Holiness USA (COCHUSA), 144–148, 163 Church of God and Saints of Christ, 112, 152–156, 162, 164–165 Church of God (Cleveland), 148–152 Church of God Evangel (Church of God [Cleveland]), 150 Church of God in Christ (COGIC), 145, 148, 157–165, 163 (photo), 504

Church of God of Prophecy, 152 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). See Mormon Church Church of the Living God, Pillar of Truth for All Nations, 111–112, 166–168 Church of the Lucumı´ Babalu Aye (CLBA), 354, 360 Church of the Nazarene, 195 Church on the Rock of the Apostolic Faith, 405 Cimarro´n, 214 Cincinnati, Ohio, 429, 557 Cities. See Urban black religion ‘‘The City of Women’’ (Landes), 131 Civil Rights Movement: Baha´’ı´ Faith, 102 black Baptists, 330–331, 333–334, 518–519, 521 black Methodists within, 418 on black music, 543 Catholics involved in, 53–54 church activism during, 524–528, 611–613 civil disobedience method, 334 criticism of, 244 Episcopalians within, 34, 35, 36 Freedom Rides, 23 Free Religious Fellowship association with, 398–399 leaders, 23 March on Washington, 525 mass appeal of, 545 megachurches, 476 Peoples Temple as mini-version of, 314 political activity prior to, 521–522, 528–529 Presbyterian Church members, 41 reluctance of church leaders to engage in political activism, 525 St. Mark’s Congregational Church, 367 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 17, 35, 525– 526, 643

Index white supremacist violence vs., 525 women’s activity, 505 Civil War (U.S.): AME role, 61, 73, 138 black regiments, 61 church affiliations of African Americans following, 29–31 Creole spiritualism, 382–383, 384–385 Emancipation Proclamation, 61 megachurches, 475 Reconstruction Era, 138–140, 308– 309, 563–564, 584 Clara Muhammad School, 78, 86 Clark University, 416–417 CLBA (Church of the Lucumı´ Babalu Aye), 354, 360 Cleage, Albert B., Jr. (Jaramogi Agyeman), 367–369, 370, 371–372, 527, 541, 565 Cleaver, Eldridge, 232 Clements, George, 50, 53 Clergy: African Methodist Episcopal Church requirements for, 469 gender roles, 504 literacy of, 576 ministry mythology, 603–604 ordination of homosexuals, 36 ordination of women, Episcopal Church, 36, 71, 72, 504 ordination of women, Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (FGBCF), 474, 475 ordination of women, Holiness Movement, 64–65, 186, 188 ordination of women, Lutheran Church, 10 ordination of women, Methodist Church/Methodists, 59 ordination of women, Nation of Islam on, 247–248 ordination of women, Presbyterian Church, 47 ordination of women, Church of God and Saints of Christ, 164

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professional credentials, 470 psychology of call to ministry, 603–604 spousal ministerial teams, 475 training, 469–470, 484–486 See also Preaching and sermonic traditions Cleveland, E. E., 364 Clinton, Bill, 85 CME Church, 62 Cobbs, Reverend Clarence H., 219–221 Code Noir, xxvi CODESH (Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism), 22 Cojo, Juan el, 352 Coke, Thomas, 414 Coker, Daniel, 59, 63 Coleman, John A., 505 Coleman, Ornette, 543 Colemon, Johnnie, 280–281 Collection of Selected Prayers (Kardec), 183 Colley, Rev. William W., 257 Collins, George, 69 Collins, Patricia Hill, 522 Colomba, 434 Colonial America: African-based practices developed alongside Protestantism, xxvii First Great Awakening, xxviii Islam in, xxviii scholarship on origins of black skin, 510 See also Slaves/slavery Colored American Magazine. Contending Forces (magazine), 458 Colored Fire Baptized Holiness Church, 185, 186 Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. See Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME) Coltrane, John William, 76, 541 Combs, Sean, 545 The Commandment Keepers (Glicksman), 174 Commandment Keepers of Harlem, 169–174

699

700

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Index

Commissioned, 541 Commission of Home Missions to Colored People, 30 Commission on Religion and Race, 41 Communion, 57 Communism/Communists, 15–16, 17, 398, 522, 524 Community development corporations (CDCs), 469 Community programs, 469, 514, 515, 555, 556, 669 The Complete Writings (Quimby), 274 Conceic¸a˜o, Maria Ju´lia da, 126 ‘‘Conditions’’ of African Americans, 535 Cone, James H., 64, 495, 527, 565–566, 567, 570, 571 Conference of Church Workers among Colored People (CCW), 32, 33 Confession, 57 Confucius/Confucianism, 20 Congo, xxv, 303, 658 Congregational Christian Churches, 402 Congregationalism, 401–404 Congregation of the Holy Ghost, 51 Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), 528 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 23 Conic, Bishop Major Rudd, 146 Conjure, xxviii, 174–176, 175 (photo), 197–198, 427, 512 The Conjure Woman and Other Conjure Tales (Chesnutt), 458 Consolidated American Baptist Missionary Convention, 257 Contemplative worship, 609, 612 Conversion (experiential phenomena), 601–602 Converted (Spiritual Baptist faith), 375 Converts/conversion, 479 Convince (Jamaica), 178–179 Cook, Charles C., 62 Cooper, Anna Julia Haywood, 32, 563 Cordell, Rick, 317 CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), 23

Cornelius, Janet, 576, 579–580 Cornish, Samuel E., 40–41, 46 Coromantin slaves, 323 Cosmology, 510–511, 513 Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH), 22 Council for Secular Humanism, 22, 25 Council of Constance, 226 Counter-Reformation, 227 Covenant Baptist Church, 464 Covince, 325 Crafts, Hannah, 453 Crapanzano, Vincent, 676 Crawford, Florence, 162 ‘‘The Creation’’ (Johnson), 496–497 Crenshaw Christian Center, 464 Creoles, 109–110, 382–383, 384–385, 672. See also Voodoo Crick, Francis, 22 Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (Cruse), 522 Crossed Spiritism (Espiritismo Cruzado), 182–183 Crouch, Andrae, 164, 541 Crouch, Sandra, 164 Crowdy, William Saunders, 112, 152–156 Crowley, Vivianne, 443 Crummell, Alexander, 28, 29, 30, 31– 32, 33, 35, 36–37 The Crusader (newspaper), 526, 527 Cruse, Howard, 522 Cuba: Bantu, xxv cabildos, 304, 353 Castro, Fidel, 304 Catholic Church, xxv Cuban Revolution, 304, 353 Gaga, 191 independence, 353 Kongolese people, 303–304 music, 652, 655–659, 656 (photo), 671 slavery, xvi, xxii, xxv, 353, 655 Yoruba people, xxv See also Santerı´a

Index Cuchillo (pinaldo), 357 Cudjoe, Chief, 215, 216 Cudjoe, Dr. Dale, 146 Cullen, Countee, 520 ‘‘The cult of victimology,’’ 587–588 Cureton, Dr. S. C., 263 Cushites, 225 Cushmeer, Bernard, 246 Cyrus-Franklin, Victor, 418 Da Costa, Ineˆs Joaquina, 447 Daffin, Sallie, 585 Dahomey, 192, 283–284, 339, 387. See also Benin Dallam, Marie, 311 Dance: batuque, 663 Big Drum Ritual, 107–111 Brazilian capoeira, 657 Candomble´, 133 contemplative worship, 609 exemplars of mysticism, 5–6 Garı´funa Religion, 195 for healing, 511 Kumina, 207–208 Oyotunji African Village and, 299 Palo Monte, 307 Pocomania, 327, 330 of possession cults, 679 Pukumina, 322–323 Rada, 340 Rastafari, 345 rumba, 655, 656 (photo), 671 of slaves of Mina Coast of Africa, 445 umbigada (navel touch), 663 Voodoo, 436 Dancy, Shelvia, 119 Dani, Blanc, 429, 434, 435 Daniel (Hebrew Bible), 576 Dark Princess (Du Bois), 456, 459 Darrow, Clarence, 21 Darwinism, 510 David, Edmond, 288 David, King, 342 Davies, Rev. Samuel, 39 Davis, Cyprian, 51

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Davis, David Brion, xv, xvii Davis, Noah, 577 Davis, Sarah Frances, 65 Death rituals, 664–669, 675 ‘‘The Debate Hour Show’’ (Finley), 24 Deductive preaching methodology, 487 Def Comedy Jam (Simmons), 545 Delany, Henry, 32–33 Delany, Martin, 454–455 Demby, Edward, 32–33 Democratic Republic of the Congo, 303 De Morais, Ze´lio Fernandes, 392, 395 Denmark, 227, 229–230 Desbrosses, Nelson, 381 Deveney, John Patrick, 268, 272 Deviant religions, described, 557 Dialectic sermons, 487 Diaspora theology, 6 Dillon, Catherine, 434–435 Diloggun divination, 356–357 Diop, Cheikh Anta, xiv Diouf, Sylviane, 576 Discipline (AME Zion Church), 69 Divine, Father Major Jealous: Azusa Street Revival, 558 biographical information, 309–310 criticism of, 275–276 death, 650, 652 Explaining the Peace Mission, text, 650–653 Jim Jones influenced by, 316 photograph of, 311 popularity, 544 as Sweet Daddy Grace’s rival, 311–312 See also Peace Mission Movement Divine, Mrs. M. J. (Mother Divine), 312, 650–653 Divine, Peninniah, 311 Divine racism, 527–528, 567 Divine Science, 275 Division of Work with Colored Persons, 46 DMX, 544 Dober, Leonhard, 229 Dollar, Creflo, 273, 279, 471, 544, 545

701

702

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Index

Dollar, Taffi, 471, 544 Dominican Republic: Catholic Church within, 192 Gaga, 191–93 music, 671, 672 See also Hispaniola Dore, Rabbi David, 169, 172–173 Dorsey, Dorothy, 77 Dorsey, Thomas, 460, 540–541, 542 Douglas, Kelly Brown, 567 Douglas, William J., 203 Douglass, Frederick: as AME Zion lay minister, 69–70 education, 583 Farrow as niece of, 161 Foy’s ministry, 363 jeremiad political sermons, 523 Narrative of the Life, 453, 454, 496 The North Star (newspaper), 454 writings incorporated by Presbyterians, 45 Dowling, Levi and Eva, 424 Down at the Cross (Baldwin), 461 Downing, Robert, 247 Drake, St. Clair, 83, 467, 520 Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr. Memorial Health Center, 369–370 Draper, Rev. William H., 204 Drawing Down the Moon (Adler), 442 Dresser, Annetta Seabury, 274 Dresser, Julius, 274 Drew, Timothy (Noble Drew Ali), 222, 223, 224, 558 Druillard, Nellie, 365 Drums. See Music Du Bois, Nina Gomer, 101 Du Bois, W. E. B.: biographical information, 455, 561 Bragg and, 30 education style, 31 Episcopal Church criticized by, 32 as father of pan-Africanism, 562 (photo) Griggs and, 259 jeremiad political sermons, 523 literature, 6, 455–456, 459, 517, 518, 535, 550–551, 561–562

Niagara Movement, 30 Pan African Congress, 460 photograph of, 562 on social work of churches, 467 Ducoyielle, Madame, 435, 437 Dunkley, Archibald, 342, 345 Dunmore, Samson, 139 Durkheimian theory, 289 Dutch West Indies Company, 664 Dwight, John, 171 Dye, ‘‘Aunt’’ Caroline, 177 The Early History of the Presbyterian Church in the USA among Negroes (pamphlet), 39 Earthenware, 674–675 Earth justice, 493 East African Samburu, 676 Ebenezer and Wheat Street Baptist Church, 476 Economic development, 640, 642–650 Education, 575–589 academic performance of African Americans, 585–589 access to religious texts via, 576, 579–580 Adventists, 365 Affirmative Action, 317, 586 (photo), 587–588 AME Zion Church programs, 71–72 the Black Manifesto on, 646, 647 Black Sacred Cosmos, 580 DuBois’s classical style, 31 freedom and, 580–585 free public education, 584 historical overview, 575–578 Methodist Church established colleges, 62, 415–417 Oyotunji African Village and, 299 PNBC support for, 336 post-Reconstruction, 584–585 private black schools, 585 in religious scholarship, 578–580 teaching as a sacred vocation, 577–578 training of clergy, 469–470, 484–486 21st century, 585–589

Index Washington’s (Booker T.) industrial style, 31, 62, 252 of women, 578–579 See also Clergy Edwards, Sheilah, 119 Edward Waters College, 62 Effendi, Shoghi, 91 Efı´, 658 Efik, 658 Efo´, 658 Efuchen˜a Rosalı´a of El Cerro, 357, 358 Efut, 658 Egbe Akinkonju men’s society, 301–302 Egbe Moremi women’s society, 301, 302 Egypt, 678 Egyptian (Kemetic) Mystery System, 225 Eikerenkoetter, Frederick J., II (Rev. Ike), 275 (photo), 275–276, 279–280 Ejagham peoples, 658 Elaw, Zilpha, 4 Electoral politics, 528–529, 584 Eliot, John, xxvii Ellison, Ralph, 460–461 Ellsberg, Daniel, 317 Emancipation Proclamation, 61 Embury, Philip, 413 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 396 Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People (Sanders), 578 ‘‘Empowerment: One Denomination’s Quest for Racial Justice, 1967– 1982,’’ 396 Energy work, 270 Engenho Velho, 126–127 England, xvii, 108, 194, 207, 208, 215, 216, 441 Enlightenment, 20–21, 158, 538 Entitlement myth, 603 Environment, 491–498, 513 Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA), 25–37; beliefs and practices, 36–37 historical development, 25–36 ordination of women, 504 outside of the United States, 29, 35

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Protestant Episcopal Freedmen’s Mission, 30–31 Sewanee plan, 31–32 Union of Black Episcopalians, 35 women’s ordination, 36 Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity (ESCRU), 34 Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (Baha´’u’lla´h), 93 Erskine, Noel, 324, 325 Erzulie, 435 Esalen, 267 ESCRU (Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity), 34 Espiritismo, 181–183 beliefs and practices, 182–183 historical development, xxvi, 181– 182, 212 Macumba associated with, 212 Misa Espiritual, 182 (photo) Santerismo, 182, 361–363 Estebam (slave), 48 Ethiopia/Ethiopians: 1938 revolt, 343–344 Black Jews as descendents of, 170 Ethiopian Hebrew Rabbinical College, 169, 171 Ethiopian Independent Church, 63 Ethiopianism, 83, 422, 425 Ethiopian Manifesto (Young), 523 Ethiopian Masonic Lodge, 343 Ethiopian Overcoming Church of God, 89 Ethiopian Salvation community, 344 Falashas (Ethiopian Jews), 172 Garvey on, 343–344 Haile Selassie I (Ras Tafari), 342– 344, 345, 349, 672 zar cult, 678 Eucharist, 226 European exploration, xiii–xiv Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 9, 10, 11–12 Evangelicals, 59, 463, 472, 479. See also specific denominations by name

703

704

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Index

Evans, Warren Felt, 274 Eve (Genesis), 168, 202, 650–651 The Evening Light Saints, 161 Evers, Medgar, 461 Ewe people, xxix, 428–429 Exodus biblical narrative, 166, 564, 567, 571, 583, 611 Exorcism, 680. See also Spirit possession Exposition of Freemasonry (Morgan), 233 Expository preaching methodology, 487 Extempore methodology, 487 ‘‘Eyes on the Prize’’ (Hampton), 545 Fabian, Johannes, 538 Faithful Central Bible Church, 474 Falashas (Ethiopian Jews), 172 F. and F. Botanica and Candle Shop, 199 (photo) Fanon, Frantz, 569 Fard, Wallace D. See Muhammad, Wallace (Wali) Dodd Fard (Farrad) Farmer, James, Jr., 23 Farrakhan, Donna, 248 Farrakhan, Louis, 245–251 Betty Shabazz and, 248–249 biographical information, 246–247 charismatic personality, 79, 80, 245 commitment to ‘‘the people,’’ 539 controversy, 243, 247 illness, 86, 250–251 Imam Mohammad’s acceptance of, 86 Jesse Jackson and, 528 Malcolm Shabazz Masjid renaming ceremony, 79 Malcolm X and, 243, 249 Million Man March, 243, 248, 250, 528 Millions More Movement, 250 move to Chicago, 80 name change, 243 Nation of Islam revived by, 85, 250

Ramadan, 250 Warith Deen Muhammed and, 243, 245–246 World Friendship Tour, 250 Farrar, Stewart and Janet, 443 Farrow, Lucy, 161 Fauntroy, Walter E., 334 Fauset, Arthur Huff, 309 Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), 434, 435, 437, 438 Felder, Cain Hope, 497 Felder, Wilton, 201 Felix, Nome, 437–438 Felix, Oscar, 198 Feminists. See Womanist and feminist religious thought Ferguson, Plessy v., 522, 584 Ferguson, Samuel D., 29 Ferna´ndez de Oviedo y Valde´s, Gonzalo, 670 Festas (festivals), 132–133, 298–299 Festival of Iemanja, 129 FGBCF (Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship), 474, 475 Fiasco, Lupe, 544 Fieldien, Mother Frances, 49 (photo) The Final Call News (Nation of Islam), 247 The Final Call to Islam (Nation of Islam), 247 Findhorn Community, Scotland, 267 Finke, Roger, 559 Finley, Reginald (the Infidel Guy), 24 Fire Baptized Holiness Association, 185, 186, 188–189 Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas, 185–188, 185–189, 188–189 Fire hose baptism, 410 Fire! (magazine), 460 First African Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia, 465 (photo), 466, 467 First AME Church, 468–469 First Amendment, 360 First Church of Deliverance, 219–220

Index First Congregational Church, Atlanta, Georgia, 404 First Great Awakening, xxviii, 27, 412 First Maroon War, 215, 216 First Vatican Council, 55 Fisher, Charles Lewis, 157–158 Fisher, Rev. E. J., 467 Fisk Jubilee Singers, 535–536 Fisk University, 561 Fitzpatrick, Charles, 203 Fitzpatrick, Michael, 249 Five Percent Nation of Islam, 499, 543 Flores, Juan, 539 Florida, xv, 48, 512 FNATCS (Fuller Normal Advanced Technology Charter School), 187–188 Focolare Movement, 85 FOI (Fruit of Islam), 82, 240, 246 Folklore, 538–539 Fon people, 428–429, 658 Foote, Julia A. J., 4, 71, 72 Ford, Arnold Josiah, 166, 169, 171–172 Foreign Mission Convention, 257, 258, 259, 261 Forman, James, 17, 396, 642 Foster, William, 231 Four Corners, Boston, 555–556, 557 Fourteenth Amendment, 584 Fox, Kate and Margaret, 381 Foy, William Ellis, 363 France: Code Noir, xxvi colonial era, xiii–xiv, xx, xxvi, 194, 197, 229–230, 427, 431–432 French and Indian War, 427 French Revolution, 229–230 Kardecism, 680 Treaty of Versailles, 108 Francis, Patrick Francis, 51 Franklin, John Hope, 518 Franklinton Literary and Theological Christian Institute, 402 Frazier, E. Franklin, 517, 521 Frazier, Patrick L., 187 Free African Society, 27, 57, 58, 452

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Freedman’s Journal (newspaper), 47 Freedmen’s Aid and Southern Education Society, 415, 416, 417 Freedmen’s Record, 585 Freedom of religion, 360 Freedom Rides, 23 Freedom’s Journal (newspaper), 40 Free Inquiry (journal), 22, 24 Freemasons, 225, 233, 234 Free Religious Fellowship, 398–399 French and Indian War, 427 French Caribbean zouk, 671 French Guiana, 216–217 French Revolution, 229–230 Freud, Sigmund, 595, 601 Friday (trilogy), 544 Friendship Baptist Church, 258 Friends International Christian University, 470 Frivolous Songs, 109 Frost, James M., 253 Fruit of Islam (FOI), 82, 240, 246 Fryer, Peter, 661 Fuller, Sister Johnnie E., 186 Fuller, William Edward, Jr., 186, 187 Fuller, William Edward, Sr., 185–186, 187 Fuller Normal Advanced Technology Charter School (FNATCS), 187–188 Fuller Normal Industrial Institute, 185, 187 Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (FGBCF), 474, 475 Fund-raising, 470–472 Funerals. See Burial practices The Future of Africa (Crummell), 36 FWP (Federal Writers’ Project), 434, 435, 437, 438 Gaga, 191–193 Gaia Hypothesis, 270 Gaines, Kevin, 565 Gammon, Reverend Elijah H., 416–417 Gammon Theological Seminary, 416–417

705

706

|

Index

Gangsta’ rap, 543–544 Ganja (marijuana), 346–347 Gantois, 126–127 Ga people, 667 Garcı´a, Filmento, 352 Gardiner, Theophilus Momulu, 29 Gardner, Gerald, 441–442 Garı´funa Religion, 193–196 Garnet, Henry Highland, 46 Garrettson, Freeborn, 414 Garvey, Marcus Mosiah: Christian and Islamic beliefs syncretized by, 527 commitment to ‘‘the people,’’ 539 deportation, 223 Garveyism as urban movement, 558 Garveyites within black freedom movement, 526 ideology as ‘‘front runner’’ to the Moorish Science Temple of America, 225 Malcolm X’s father’s allegiance to, 242 mass appeal of, 544–545 Matthew influenced by, 169 Pan-Africanism, 74, 75 Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church, 368 Parish of St. Ann’s, 329 Rastafari guided by, 341–342 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 32, 74–75, 171, 172, 225, 341, 544–545 Gary, G. G., 186 Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 534–535 Gates, Rev. J. M., 541 Gautama, Siddhartha, 115–116, 122 Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) communities, 36, 464, 500, 506, 528–529, 567 Geertz, Clifford, 681 Gegeˆ, 445 Gender, 499–507 defined, 500 of God, 501 roles, 501–505

transgressing gender, 500, 505–507, 677 (photo) A Voice from the South (Cooper), 563 See also Womanist and feminist religious thought; Women General Motors, 644 General Sense New Age, 267–268, 269–272 General Synod, 8 The Genesis Group, 236 George, Bryant, 47 George, David, 256 Georgia, xv, xxviii, 412 Germany, 226–227 Ghana, 70, 220, 667, 668 Gibson, Amos, 95 Gil, Gilberto, 127 Gilead, 203 Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend, 464–465, 571–572, 578–579 Gillespie, John Birks (‘‘Dizzy’’), 102, 103 Givens-El, John, 222, 223 Glaude, Eddie S., Jr., 568 Glave, Dianne D., 495–496 Gleen, G. W., 185 Glicksman, Marlaine, 174 Globalization, xv Glossolalia. See Speaking in tongues Gloucester, Jeremiah, 40 Gloucester, John ‘‘Jack,’’ 38, 39–40, 40 (photo) Glover, Rebecca M., 64 God: Black Theology on, 64 divine racism, 527–528, 567 gender of, 501, 506 images of, 83–84 race of, 168, 341–342, 506 Redemption history, 477, 486, 488 United House of Prayer for All People on bishop as God incarnate, 411 ‘‘God of the Aquarian Age,’’ 422, 424 God of the Oppressed (Cone), 495

Index Godparents, 360–361, 362 God’s Trombones (Johnson), 460, 496–497 Goldman, Peter, 82 Gonc¸alves, Antam, xvi Gooden, Winston, 594, 596–598 Good Friday, 193 Goopher dust, 176 GOP (Republican Party), 528 Gordon, Lewis, 535 Gospel music, 45, 540–541, 542 Go Tell It on the Mountain (Baldwin), 6, 461 Government aid for the disadvantaged, 555, 556, 645–646 Gow, Francis Herman, 63 Grace, Charles M. ‘‘Sweet Daddy,’’ 275–276, 311–312, 405–408, 406 (photo), 409, 410–411 Grace Magazine (United House of Prayer for All People), 406, 411 Graduate Theological Foundation (GTF), 469–470 Graham, Larry, 201 The Grandissimes (Cable), 198 Grant, Jacquelyn, 495, 570, 571 Graveyard dirt, 176, 668 Gray, Darius, 236 Gray, William, III, 334 Great Awakening, xxviii, 27, 412 Great Depression, 309 Great Migration, 309, 466, 536 Great Revival, 324 Greece (ancient), 20, 680 Green, William H., 364 Greenland, 227 The Green Pastures (Broadway show), 542–543 Gregory, Dick, 317 Gregory, Louis G., 94, 95, 97, 101 Gregory XV, Pope, 51 Gregory XVI, Pope, 50 Grenada, 107 Griffith, Elton George, 378 Griggs, Reverend Allen, 456 Griggs, Sutton Elbert, 259, 456–457

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Grimes, Ronald R., 613 Grimke, Francis, 46 Gris-gris, 427, 429 Ground spirits, 325 GTF (Graduate Theological Foundation), 469–470 Guatemala, 194 Guerrilla warfare, 644 Guidry, Carolyn Tyler, 65 Guinier, Lani, 533 Guyana, 118, 314, 317, 318–320, 375 Hadley Memorial Hospital, 365 Hagar (Old Testament), 225, 571 Hagin, Kenneth, Sr., 464 Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia (Ras Tafari), 342–344, 345, 349, 672 Haiti: AME Church missions, 63 Catholic Church and Catholics, 192, 558 Gaga, 191–193 Maroons, 214–215 music, 658 Revolution, xxiii–xxiv, 192, 428, 655 violence, 191 Vodou, 192, 428 (photo) See also Hispaniola; Saint Domingue Halim, Mujahid, 81 Hall, J. D. S., 62 Hall, Prince, 225 Hall, Stuart, 534, 535–536, 537–539 Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, 227, 228 Halouba Temple, 428 (photo) Hamadsha, 678 Hamer, Fannie Lou, 526, 539 Hamilton, Albert, 240 Hamilton, Charles V., 525–526 Hamilton, William, 67 Hammond, Fred, 541 Hampton, Henry, 545 Ham (son of Noah), xv–xvi, 225, 510, 601 Hancock, Herbie, 118, 119 Hanegraaff, Wouter, 267, 270 Harden, Henry, 68

707

708

|

Index

Harding, Rachel, xxix Harlem Renaissance (New Negro movement), 14, 16–17, 21, 310, 311, 460, 540–541. See also specific artists by name Harlem Unitarian Church, 397–398 Harrington, Sarah, 383 Harris, Barbara C., 36, 504 Harris, Bravid, 33–34 Harris, Clementine, 36 Harris, Frederick C., 524 Harris, Joel Chandler, 394 Harris, Meriah G., 72 Harrison, Hubert H., 519 Hartsfield, Amy, 599–600 Harvard University, 455 Hatchett, Mother Mary, 423, 424 Hausas, xxix, 678 Hawkins, Edwin, 541 Hawkins, Tremaine, 541 Hawkins, Walter, 541 Hayden, Robert, 102–103 Hayer, Talmadge X (Mujahid Halim), 81 Hayes, Rutherford B., 584 Haynes, Lemuel, 403 Healings: Asian medical practices, 270 to balance and renew life, 514–515 care for communities, 514, 515 Catimbo´, 135–136 current trends, 512–515 Father Divine, 310 folk tales and proverbs related to, 514 herbal use in North America, 347, 511, 513–514 historical development, 510–512 holistic approach to, 511–515 Hoodoo, 197–200 midwives and grannies, 512 New Thought Religions, 274–276 Obeah, 284 Oyotunji African Village and, 299 Palo Monte and, 307–308 Pocomania, 328 Reiki healing practices, 270

spirit possession, 506–507, 676–682, 677 (photo) Spiritualism, 380–385 spiritual supply shops, 198, 199–200 thaumaturgical religions, 276 Umbanda, 393–395 United House of Prayer for All People, 410–411, 426 See also Witchcraft and magic Health/health care: disparities in, 509, 514 organ transplants, 640–641 of Slavery, 665 Healy, Alexander Sherwood, 51 Healy, James Augustine, 51, 53 Healy, John Fitzpatrick, 51 Healy, Michael Morris, 51 Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). See Old Testament Heck, Barbara, 413 Heidelberg Catechism, 43 Henderson, Wayne, Sr., 201 Henderson Health, 513 (photo) Henry, Thomas, 61 Henry Horner Homes housing project, 556 Herbs, 347, 511, 513–514 Herd, Samuel, 203 Hermeneutics, 482–484 Herrera, Remigio (Adechina), 352 Heusch, Luc de, 677 Hialeah, Florida, 360 Hibbert, Joseph N., 342, 343 The Hidden Words (Baha´’u’lla´h), 92 Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, 521, 564–565 Higher criticism, 157–158 High Impact Leadership Coalition, 464 Hill, Donald, 107–108 Hilliard, Ira, 470 Hinckley, Gordon B., 236 Hinds, Robert, 342, 343 Hindus and Hinduism, 20, 182, 285– 286, 675 Hip hop churches, 558 Hip Hop Generation, 545

Index Hip hop music, 541, 542 (photo), 543, 545 Hispaniola, xvi, xxi Historical Account of Guinea (Benezet), 414 History of Jamaica (Long), 284 History of the Afro-American Group of the Episcopal Church (Bragg), 30, 32 Hittites, 225 HIV/AIDS epidemic, 506 Hogg, Donald William, 178–179, 328 The Holiness Church, 149, 503 Holiness Movement: beliefs and practices, 406, 680 Father Divine influenced by, 310, 311, 312 historical development, 557 promotion of academic achievement, 579 women’s preaching, 64 See also Pentecostal movement; specific denominations by name Holistic ecology, 270 Holle cult, 678 Holmes, Ernest, 277–279 Holsey, James, 140 Holsey, Lucius H., 140 Holy Hop Hop, 541, 542 (photo) Holy Koran (Ali), 225 Holy Order of Kilomo, 374 Holy Order of Mtoto Maendeleo, 374 Holy Order of the Essenes, 374 Holy Order of the Maccabees, 374 Holy Week, 192–193 Homosexuality, 36, 464, 500, 506, 528– 529, 567 Honduras, 194 Hood, James Walker, 71, 72 Hoodoo, 197–200 African terms associated with Mississippi Valley Voodoo, 429 (table) beliefs and practices, 176, 198–200, 512, 513–514 conjure vs., 197–198 F. and F. Botanica and Candle Shop, 199 (photo)

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historical development, xxviii, 197– 198, 429, 512 survival of, 438 Voodoo compared to, 197, 427 See also Conjure Hook, Sidney, 22 Hopkins, Dwight, 566, 568 Hopkins, Pauline, 458–459 Horton, George Moses, 581 Hosier, Harry, 414 Houk, James, 285 Houston, Texas, 182 (photo), 368, 370, 557 Howard, Sister Mildred, 49 (photo) Howard, Terrence, 201 Howard-Pitney, David, 523 Howard University Divinity School, 336 Howard University Law School, 481 (photo) Howell, Leonard, 342–343, 344 Hudson, Hosea, 15–16 Hughes, Langston, 520, 541 Hughes, Sarah Ann, 64 Huhndu, 429 Humanism: An African-American Humanist Declaration, text, 638–641 black humanism, 569 described, 20 early history of, 20–21 ethical principles of, 639–640 Humanist Manifesto II, 23 organizational aims of AfricanAmericans, 641 radical humanism, 526 religious humanism, 12–19, 20 secular humanism, 12, 20–25 Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), 17, 18, 19, 396–401, 399 (photo) Hunter, Hezekiah H., 585 Hunter, William, 61 Hurley, Father George W., 275–276, 422–423, 424, 425, 426 Hurley, Mother Cassie Bell, 423, 425, 426

709

710

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Index

Hurley’s Feast, 426 Hurricane Katrina, 250 Hurston, Zora Neale, 197, 435, 437, 459 (photo), 460, 541 Hus, Jan, 226 Husayn-‘Aly´, Mı´rza´, 92 Hutchinson, Julia W., 161 Hyatt, Harry Middleton, 435, 436 Hydesville Occurrences, 380–381 H.Y.P.U (Medium’s League and Hagar’s Young People’s Union), 423 Iaoˆ, 131 IBA (International Black Appeal), 646–647 Ice Cube, 544 Identification-ascertainment, 571 Ifa priesthood, 354, 357–358 Ife, Ooni of, 293 If It Wasn’t for the Women (Gilkes), 571–572 Igbo, 175, 679 Ijexa´, 105 Ike, Rev., 275 (photo), 275–276, 279– 280 Ikeda, Saisaku, 118, 121 Ile´ Nasso, 126 Ileˆ Oba´ Ogunte´, 445–446 Imani Temple (The African American Catholic Congregation), 54–55, 481 (photo) Immigration, 378 Imperium in Imperio (Griggs), 259, 457 ‘‘I’m Saved’’ (Baker), 543 In a Blaze of Glory (Townes), 572 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Jacobs), 453–454 Indentured labor, 675 Independent African American Church Movement, 465 India, 116, 675 Industrialization, 542, 549, 555 The Infidel Guy (Reginald Finley), 24 ‘‘The Influence of Race, Class and Gender on Activism and the

Development of Environmental Discourses’’ (Taylor), 494 ‘‘Inheritances’’ of African cultures, 535 Inniss, Patrick, 24 Inquisition, 125–126 In Search of Our Mothers’ Garden (Walker), 570 Institute for Colored Youth, 47 Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC), 62, 336, 417, 594–595, 598–599 International Academy of Humanism, 22 International Black Appeal (IBA), 646– 647, 648 International Black Economic Development Conference, 647 International Missionary Society, 65 International Peace Mission Movement. See Peace Mission Movement Internet, 472, 539, 545 An Interpersonal Approach to the Psychology of Black Religion (McCrary), 598 Introduction to African Religions (Mbiti), 491–493 The ‘‘invisible institution’’ of slave religion, 4, 376–377, 528–529, 563 Invisible Man (Ellison), 460–461 Iran, 91–93, 100, 102, 103 Iraq, 92, 100 Iraq invasion, 250 Iron making, 675 Is God a White Racist (Jones), 18, 528, 567 Islam: African American population, post-9/11 America, 529 Bilal Ibn Rabah, 82–83 black interpretations of, described, 499 Black Muslims, 244, 536 calling the faithful to prayer, 83 in the Caribbean, 675 in colonial America, xxviii

Index health consciousness, 515 Islamic shariah law, 92 lineage of Asiatic people, 225 literacy skills of slaves, 576–577 mass appeal of, 545 Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc. (MSTA), 222–225, 521 Muhammad ibn Abdullah of Arabia, 81, 83, 91–92 music, 543 Muslim-Jewish Conference, 85 polygamy, 502 Qur’an, 91, 503, 576–577, 678 schools of law, 85 syncretic African spirit cults, 678, 679 women, 503, 504 See also Nation of Islam Islam, Khalil (Thomas 15X Johnson), 82 Israel (ancient), 154–155, 170, 372. See also Jews and Judaism; Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) Israeli School of Universal Practical Knowledge (ISUPK), 113 Israelite Church of GOD in Jesus Christ, 113 Israelite Rabbinical Academy, 171 Israel (modern state), 112, 114. See also Jews and Judaism ‘‘Is This New Wine’’ (BCE), 42 ISUPK (Israeli School of Universal Practical Knowledge), 113 ITC (Interdenominational Theological Center), 62, 336, 417, 594–595, 598–599 Iton, Richard, 539 ‘‘I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto’’ (Shakur), 544 Iyanassoˆ, 126 Iyanifa, 357 Iya´ Omi Ase Aira Intile´, 126 Jablonski, Ernst, 227 Jackson, Bishop Harry, 464 Jackson, Jesse, 247, 334, 523, 528

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Jackson, Joseph H., 261–262, 331–334 Jackson, Latoya, 24 Jackson, L. K., 332 Jackson, Michael, 201 Jackson, Olive, 101 Jackson, Rebecca Cox, 4 Jackson, William K. ‘‘Bill,’’ 202 Jackson, Will M., 63 Jackson Baptist Association, 145 Jacobs, Francis, 67 Jacobs, Harriet, 27–28, 453–454 Jahi, Osakwe Ndegwa, 370 Jahi Foundation, 370 Jahi Pan African Leadership Development Institute, 370 Jakes, T. D., 273, 279, 468, 545 Jamaica: as Babylon, 344, 345–346, 349 Convince, 178–179; Fire Baptized Holiness Association, 187 First Maroon War, 215, 216 indentured laborers, 207 Kumina, 207–208 Maroons, xxi, 214–218, 674 Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Inc., 220 migration to following U.S. War of Independence, 324 Moravian Church, 228, 231 Obeah, xxvi, 283–284 Pocomania, 322–330, 375 Rastafari, 341–349 Rastafari, as urban movement, 558 Rastafari, historical development, 341–345, 499 Rastafari, influenced by Convince, 179 Rastafari, music, 346 (photo), 672 Rastafari, women within, 343, 347– 348, 504 Rastafari, beliefs and practices, 345–349 reggae, 671, 672 Revivalism, 323, 324–330

711

712

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Index

slavery, 323, 673 Taki Rebellion, 323 University Report, 344–345 James, Archie L., 317 James, Isaac, 235 James, Jane Elizabeth Manning, 235 James, William, 455, 594 ‘‘James Cone and the Problem of a Black Ethic’’ (Williams), 566 James Holly, 29 Ja Rule, 201 Jazz (Morrison), 461 Jefferson, Thomas, 453 Jehovah (preincarnate Jesus), 237 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 201–205, 558 Jemison, David V., 261 Jemison, Reverend T. J., 263 Jenkins, Sandy, 496 Jeremiad political sermons, 523 Jesuina, Maria, 387–388 Jesus and the Disinherited (Thurman), 565 Jesus Christ: on Apostle Peter, 55–56 Black Christ image, 44, 54, 168 as Black revolutionary leader, 371, 372 as both co-sufferer and liberator, 275, 567 crucifixion, 57 Father Divine as, 312, 651–653 feminist Christology on, 571 Haile Selassie I as the black Christ, 342 immaculate conception, 651 Jehovah (preincarnate Jesus), 237 PAOCC on, 372, 374 as white, 24–25 ‘‘Jesus Walks’’ (West), 544 Jeter, J. E., 145, 158, 160, 162 Jewish Defense League, 249 Jews and Judaism: Black Hebrew Israelite tradition, 111–115, 169, 499, 502, 536 black interpretations of, 113–114, 168, 499

black participation in white synagogues, 166 Church of God and Saints of Christ, 155 Church of the Living God, Pillar of Truth for All Nations, 166–167, 168 Commandment Keepers of Harlem, 169–174 connections between African Americans and, 166–167 conversion to Baha´’ı´ Faith, 100 courts (bet din), 173 Exodus biblical narrative, 166, 564, 567, 571, 583, 611 Farrakhan’s antisemitic remarks, 247 on gender of God, 501 Jackson’s antisemitic remarks, 247 PAOCC on, 372 reparations from, 645–650 on spirit possession, 680 terminology for Black Jews, 170 See also Israel; Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) Jim Crow era, 308–309, 364, 521, 522, 584 Joaquim, Father, 213 John, Dr., 431 John, Saint, 287, 430, 431, 437 John C. Smith University, 46 John Junior (fictional character), 13 John Paul II, Pope, 85 Johnson, Azalea, 527 Johnson, James Weldon, 14 (photo), 14–15, 460, 496–497 Johnson, J. Rosamond, 460 Johnson, Lyndon B., 34 Johnson, Rev. W. Bishop, 258 Johnson, Thomas 15X, 82 Johnston, William, 609 John Street Church, 413 Jones, Absalom: biographical information, 27, 452 Du Bois on, 518 Free African Society, 57 portrait, 28 (photo)

Index as saint, 36 St. George’s Methodist Church, 27, 58–59 St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, 27, 28 (photo), 58–59 writings, 60–61, 451, 452 Jones, Charles Price, 144, 145–146, 157, 158–161, 162–163 Jones, Harry, 398 Jones, Jehu, 9 Jones, Jim, 118, 314–322 Jones, Leroi (Amiri Baraka), 541 (photo), 541, 543 Jones, Marceline (Marcie) Baldwin, 315, 316, 320, 322 Jones, Mary Jane Talbert, 72 Jones, William R., 18, 527–528, 567, 569 Jonestown, Guyana, 118, 314, 317, 318–320 The jonestown report (Moore and McGehee), 320 Jordan, Dr. Jim, 176–177 Jordan, James Spurgeon, 177 Jordan, L. G., 261 Jordanites, 375 Joseph, St., 435 Joshua (Biblical Book of Joshua), 600–601 Journal (Marrant), 451–452 Joylessness myth, 603 Juju, 513 Jurema, 135 Justice-making, 483 Kabbalah, 286, 677 (photo) ‘‘Kabnis’’ (Toomer), 21 Kansas City, Missouri, 219–220 Kardec, Allan (Rivail), 181–182, 183, 212, 392, 680 Karenga, Maulana, 21 Karma, 182 Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community and Black Womanist Ethics (Canon), 47, 570

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Kawimbe, Paul J. M., 63 Kearse, Dr. Logan, 221 Kelley, Leontine T. C., 504 Kellogg, John P., 364 Kemetic Mystery System, 225 Kemp, Darren, 268 Kennedy, John F., 244 Kennedy, Julia Mae, 220 Ketu, 128 Key, Elizabeth, 26 Key West, Florida, 430 Kheiralla, Ibrahim George, 100–101 Kierkegaard, Soren, 595–596 Kimathi, Jaramogi Menelik (Demosthene Nelson), 368, 369 Kimball, Spencer W., 235–236 King, Archbishop Franzo, 76 King, Martin Luther, Jr.: biographical information, 331, 335 Black Panther Party and, 526–527 civil disobedience method, 334 Counterintelligence Program vs., 249 criticism of, 244 as exemplar of mysticism, 4 on freedom, 581–582 ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech, 250 influences, 525 James Baldwin and, 461 jeremiad political sermons, 523 March on Washington, 525 mass appeal of, 545 ‘‘Mountain Top’’ speech, 165 National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., 330–331, 333–334 photograph, 525 Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., 334 scholarly assessment as more ‘‘radical,’’ 528 significance of church activism, 524–525 as urban pastor, 558 King, Martin Luther, Sr., 334, 525 King, Mother Marina, 76 King, Walter Eugene, 293 King, Walter Eugene (Oba Efuntola

713

714

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Index

Oseijeman Adelabu Alladahunu Adefunmi I), 292, 293, 293–294, 296, 297, 353–354 Kingdom of Dahomey, 192, 283–284, 339, 387. See also Benin Kirkman Bey, C., 223 Kita´b-i-Aqdas (Baha´’u’lla´h), 93 Klein, Herbert, xviii Knight, Gladys, 232 Knight, J. Z., 270 Kojo (Cudjoe), 215, 216 Kongo, xxi, 192, 207–208, 303–304, 427–428, 679 Koran, 91, 503, 576–577, 678 KUA Transformational System, 369, 371–372 Kuhlman, Kathryn, 464 Ku Klux Klan, 527. See also White supremacy Kumina, 207–208, 325 Kunstler, William, 317 Kurtz, Paul, 22, 23, 637 Kwanzaa, 21 Lake, Obiagele, 347–348 Lambert, William, 67–68 Lament, 607–608, 610–611 Landes, Ruth, 131 Landing, James, 170, 174 Lane, Isaac, 140, 141 Lane, James Franklin, 141 Lane College, 140, 141 Laney, Lucy Craft, 45 Lange, Elizabeth, 50 Larsen, Nella, 21 Larsen, Peter, 231 Latimer, Reverend Georgia, 423–424 Latin America, xxviii–xxix Latin Jazz, 655 Laudarji, Isaac B., 556 Laveau, Marie, 431, 432, 435–436, 667 (photo) Layton, Carolyn Moore, 317 LDS. See Mormon Church Leavenworth Baptist Association, 160 Le´bat, Papa, 429, 434, 435, 437

Lee, F. J., 150–151 Lee, Jarena, 4, 59, 64, 504 Lee, Spike, 248–249, 545 Lee University, 150 Le Jau, Francis, 26 Le Livre des Esprits (Kardec), 181 Lesbians, 464. See also Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) communities Leslie, Father, 328 Levenson, Daniel, 594, 597, 604 Lewis, Enoch Lovejoy, 235 Lewis, George, 324 Lewis, Ioan, 676, 677 Lewis, John, 363 Lewis, Walker, 235 Liberation and Human Wholeness (Wimberly and Wimberly), 601–602 Liberation Theology. See Black Liberation Theology Liberia: AME Church missions, 63 AME Zion Church, 70 Black Hebrew Israelites, 112 Episcopal Church, 29, 30, 33, 35 Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Inc., 220 Liele, George, 256, 324 Life and Works of Marie Laveau, 435–436 Life structure and faith work, 596–598 Lift Every Voice and Sing (Episcopal Church), 35 Lincoln, Abraham, 61 Lincoln, C. Eric, 473, 522, 553–555, 580, 593 Lindsay, Bishop Emery, 146 Lindsay, Mother Hazel L. Lynch, 186, 187 Literacy. See Education Literature, 451–462 early figures, 451–452 early nineteenth century, 453–455 environmental concerns, 495–497

Index Harlem Renaissance, 460–461 Harlem Renaissance (New Negro movement), 14, 16–17, 21, 310, 311, 460, 540–541 Lee’s spiritual autobiography, 4 narrative interactive communal model of psychology, 599–600 post-Reconstruction, 455–458 slave narratives, 5–6, 496 stories of spiritual and corporeal redemption, 5–6 women writers, 458–459, 599–600 Little, Brenda, 338 Livezey, Lowell W., 556 Llera, Ingrid, 428 (photo) Locke, Alain, 92, 101, 460, 561 Lodagaa people, 667 Logan, Rayford, 519 Lokayatas, 20 Long, Charles, xxiii, 536–537, 545–546, 563, 566 Long, Eddie, 273, 474, 545 Long, Edward, 284 Los Angeles, California, 585–586 Los Angles Daily Times, 162 Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America (McWhorter), 587–588 Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, 254 Lott Carey Baptist Home, 259 Lott Carey Convention, 260 Lotus Sutra, 116, 117, 118, 122 Louisiana, 49, 427, 512, 514 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, xxiii, 383 Lovelock, James, 270 Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), 525–526 Loyd Street Methodist Church, 416 Lubich, Chiara, 85 Lucifer, 237 Lukumi, 351. See also Santerı´a Lum, Clara, 162 Luther, Martin, 10–11 Luther, Shepherd, 329 Lutheran Church, 7–12

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African American Lutheran Association, 10 Augsburg Confession, 11 beliefs and practices, 10–12 Book of Concord, 10–11 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 9 General Synod, 8 historical development, 7–10 Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, 8, 9 on segregation, 9 on slavery, 9, 10 as state church of Denmark, 230 statistics, 10 United Synod, 8 women within, 9–10 Lyerly, Cynthia Lynn, 414 Lynch, James, 62 Lynchings, 240, 421, 455, 519–520 Lyons, Henry, 263 Maaga, Mary, 314 Mac, Bernie, 544 Macouloumba, Jean, 434, 438 Macumba, 211–214, 213 (photo), 392 Ma’dea (Tyler Perry), 544 Madison, Samuel C., 408 The Madonna. See Virgin Mary Magic. See Witchcraft and magic Mahayana Buddhism, 116 Makiguchi, Tsunesaburo, 117–118 Malcolm Shabazz Masjid, 79 Male supremacist values, 598 Mamiya, Lawrence, 473, 553–555, 580 Mandela, Evelyn, 201 Manley, Norman, 344 The Manual (COCHUSA), 146 Manye, Charlotte, 63 Mapps Douglass, Sarah, 47 Maranha˜o, Sa˜o Luis, 387, 387–388 Marcelina-Obatossı´, 126 March on Washington, 364, 525 Margulis, Lynn, 270 Marian devotions. See Virgin Mary Marijuana (ganja), 346–347

715

716

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Index

Marino, Eugene, 54 Marley, Bob, 329, 345, 349, 672 Marley, Rita, 345 Maroons, xxi, 214–218, 674 Marrant, John, 451–452 Marron, 435 Marshall, Harriet Gibbs, 101 Marshall, Thurgood, 34, 36 Martin, Rev. John Sella, 575–576, 583 Martin, William, 149 Marva Collins Preparatory School, 337 Marx and Marxism, 21, 315, 321, 522, 543 Masjid Taqwa, 83 Mason, Charles Harrison, 145, 157–161, 162–164, 165 Mason, Jerry and Eliza, 157, 158 Masons, 165, 225, 233, 234, 343 Massachusetts slave trade, xvii Mass media, 472. See also Popular culture Material wealth. See Capitalism; Prosperity theology Mather, Cotton, xxvii Matthew, Wentworth Arthur, 169, 170–174 Matthews, Valdiveso, 586 (photo) Maxis, Almeide Ducheniea, 50 Mayans, 671 Mays, Benjamin, 334, 335, 553, 564 Mbiti, John S., 491–493 McCarthyism, 522, 524 McClain, William B., 420 McClendon, Clarence, 470 McCollough, Walter, 407, 408 McCoy, Albert Byron, 46 McCracken, Elder Abraham L., 186–187 McCrary, Carolyn, 598, 600, 604 McGee, Lewis, 397, 398–399 McGehee, Fielding, 320 McGreevy, John T., 53 McGuire, George Alexander, 32, 74, 75, 76 McKay, Claude, 520 McKenzie, Vashti, 64–65, 504

McNabb, Milton, 149 McRoberts, Omar, 555–556, 557 McWhorter, John, 587–588 Mdodana-Arbouin, Uvee, 337 Meadows, W. R., 383 Mediumship, 380–385 Medium’s League and Hagar’s Young People’s Union (H.Y.P.U), 423 Megachurches, 463–476 characteristics of, 468–469 criticism of, 475 defined, 463–464 history of, 464–467 mass appeal of, 545 ministerial and theological creativity, 473–474 professional and corporate identity, 469–472 technologically advanced compatibility, 463, 469, 472, 545 Meharry Medical College, 416 Melchizedek Priesthood, 234 Mello, Marco Antoˆnio Lı´ro de, 104 Memphis, Tennessee, 429–430 Men. See Gender Menininha, Ma˜e (Maria Escola´stica da Conceic¸a˜o Nazare), 126–127, 128, 447, 661 Mercy Hospital, 416 Merenge, 671, 672 ‘Merikens, 376 Mesmerism, 381 Messiah, Wilfred J., 63 Metaphysical religions, history of, 266–267. See also specific practices by name Methodist Church/Methodists: as alternative to Anglicanism, 27 black Methodists within Civil Rights Movement, 418 British Methodist Episcopal Church (BME), 61 Central Jurisdiction, 417–419 Christmas Conference (1784), 414 educational support provided to blacks, 415–417

Index First Great Awakening, xxviii Freedmen’s Aid and Southern Education Society, 415, 416, 417 historical development, 137, 412–416 Second Great Awakening, 159, 233, 275, 402–403 on slavery, 137–138, 414–415, 417 slaves as Methodists, 59 structure and organization, 415 Wesley’s Quadrilateral, 421 Whitefield, George, 27 See also African Methodist Episcopal (AME); African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion Church); Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME); United Methodist Church (UMC); Wesley, John Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), 136–139 Methodology, 486–488 Metropolitan Baptist Church, Harlem, 466 Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, Inc. (MSCC), 218–221 Mexico, xiv, xxi MFDP (Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party), 526 MGT (Muslim Girls in Training), 82, 240 Miami, Florida, 360 Michael, St., 287 Michael the Archangel, 435 Midwives (parteras), 512 Migrant congregations, 558 Migration patterns, 309, 466, 520–521, 536, 542, 555, 556. See also Urban black religion Miles, William H., 138, 139, 140 Millennial movement, 267 Miller, Thomas, 67 Miller, William, 67, 363, 366 Million Man March, 243, 248, 250, 528 Millions More Movement, 250 Mills, C. A., 186 Mina Coast of Africa, 387, 445 Mina-Jejeˆ, 387–388

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Mina-Nagoˆ, 387–388 Mind-Body-Spirit, 269 Mind Science, 270–271, 274 Ministry. See Clergy Minority Enterprise Financial Acquisition Corp., 254 Minute Book (Matthew), 174 Misa Espiritual (Spiritual Mass), 182 (photo), 183 The Miseducation of the Negro (Woodson), 517 Missionaries: Adventists, 364 Baha´’ı´ Faith, 100, 101–102 Baptists, 227 Buddhist, 117 Christian slaves, 26–27 history of, 227 Jehovah’s Witness, 202–203 Methodist, 62, 63, 65, 70, 412 Moravian Church, 227–231 Mormon Church (LDS), 232–234 Nation of Islam, 243 sermons, 479 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), 26–27 United Church of Christ (UCC), 401 United House of Prayer for All People, 405–411 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), 526 Mississippi River Valley, 197–200, 427– 428, 438 Mitchell, Hulen, Jr. (Yahweh ben Yahweh), 113, 114 Mitchell, Rev. Ella, 338 Mixed Spiritism (Espiritismo Cruzado), 182–183 Moabites, 225 Mobile, Alabama, 430 Modern Period, described, xv Mohammad, Warith Deen: biographical information, 77–81 death, 87 Farrakhan and, 87, 243, 245–246

717

718

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Index

Mosque Elijah Muhammad, 248 name change, 81, 82, 83 photograph, 78 reorganization of Nation of Islam, 77, 80–83, 245–246 resignation, 84, 86 Mohammed, Alfred, 80 Mojo, 175, 513. See also Conjure Mokone, Mangena, 63 Monroe, North Carolina, 527 Montane´e, Jean, 431, 432 Moon, Rev. Sun Myung, 55 Moore, Jennie Evans, 162 Moore, Queen Mother, 296 Moore, Rebecca, 320 Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc. (MSTA), 222–225, 521 Mora, Francisco (Pancho), 353 Moral Majority, 464, 533 Moran, James L., 365 Moravian Church, 226–232 beliefs and practices, 231–232 historical development, 226–231 Nisky Moravian Mission house, 230 (photo) Morehouse College, 335, 336, 417 Morgan, Captain William, 233 Mormon Church (LDS), 232–237 beliefs and practices, 236–237 The Genesis Group, 236 historical development, 232–236 racist ideology, 204, 232, 235–236, 237 Morning Star (boat), 364 Morocco, 678 Moroni (angel), 233, 237 Morris, E. C., 157, 253–254, 258–259, 260–261 Morris Brown College, 62 Morrison, Toni, 6, 461 Morrison-Reed, Mark, 19 Morton, Bishop Paul S., 470, 473–474 Moseley, Romney, 594, 595–596, 604 Moses, Wilson Jeremiah, 456, 523

Moses (Prophet), 173 Mosque Cares Ministry movement, 86 Mosque Elijah Muhammad, 248 Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, 78 Moss, Otis, Jr., 464 Motown music, 541 Mowatt, Judy, 345 M. R. Conic Foundation, 146 Mt. Helm Baptist Church, 144, 145, 159, 160 Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, 467 Muhammad, Akbar, 77, 249 Muhammad, Ava, 248, 504 Muhammad, Clara, 77, 78, 240, 241 Muhammad, Elijah, 77–82, 240–244 conversion, 240 death, 241, 243, 245 farming operation plans, 249 The Final Call to Islam (Nation of Islam), 247 houses, 248 Jehovah’s Witness influenced by, 204 name changes, 223, 240 photograph of, 241 Ramadan moved to December by, 250 relationships with secretaries, 78–79, 84, 245, 249 Muhammad, Jabber (Herbert), 84 Muhammad, Jabril, 246 Muhammad, Khadijah, 246 Muhammad, Omar, 84 Muhammad, Wallace Delaney. See Mohammad, Warith Deen Muhammad, Wallace (Wali) Dodd Fard (Farrad), 77, 79, 81, 222–223, 239–241 Muhammad ibn Abdullah of Arabia, 81, 83, 91–92 Muhammad Speaks (Nation of Islam), 80, 83, 243 ‘‘Muhammad Walks’’ (Fiasco), 544 Muhlenberg, Henry, 8 Mulattoe, 535 Multiracial and multiethnic congregations, 558

Index Munroe, Myles, 470 Murphy, Michael, 267 Murray, Albert, 534 Murray, Cora, 219 Murray, Margaret, 441 Murray, Pauli, 36 Music: Abakua´, 658–659 African ritual music in Cuba, 655– 659, 656 (photo) Afro-Brazilian musical culture, 660– 663, 662 (photo) Bantu, 657–658 Big Drum Ritual, 107–111 Black Power Movement on, 543 the blues, 13, 540–541 cadence of songs, 608 Candomble´, 133 of the Caribbean, 669–672 Civil Rights Movement on, 543 contemplative worship, 609 Gangsta’ rap, 543–544 Garı´funa Religion, 195 Gospel, 45, 540–541, 542 Harlem Renaissance, 460 hip hop, 541, 542 (photo), 543, 545 Kumina, 207–208 Latin Jazz, 655 Motown, 541 Oyotunji African Village and, 299 Palo Monte, 307 Palo (stick) musical genres, 657 Pocomania, 327, 330 praise melodies, 45 pre-Columbian, 669–671 Presbyterian Church, 45 Pukumina, 322–323 Rada, 340 rap, 541, 655 Rastafari, 345, 349 Rhythm and Blues, 541 ‘‘Shout,’’ 409, 521 Soul music, 541 Spirituals (songs), 13, 535–536, 540, 561 Tambor de Mina, 387

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United House of Prayer for All People, 409 Xangoˆ, 446–447 Yoruba, 656–657 Muslim Girls’ Training (MGT) Class, 82, 240 Muslim-Jewish Conference, 85 Muslim Journal (American Muslim Mission), 83 Muslim Mosque, Inc., 242, 245 Muslims. See Islam Myalism, 323–324 Myrdal, Gunnar, 518 Mysticism, overview, 3, 4, 6 Mythology, 603 NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), 318, 399 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), 586 Nagoˆ, 105, 127, 128, 212, 445–446 ‘‘Name it and Claim it,’’ 273 Nanee, Papa, 339–340 Nan˜igo, 430 Nannie Helen Burroughs School, 336–337 Nanny, Granny, 215–216 Nanny Town, Jamaica, 674 A Narrative Interactive Communal Model of Psychology of Black Religion (Hartsfield), 599–600 The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Bomefree), 5 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Douglass), 454, 496 A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia (Jones and Allen), 452 Narrative preaching methodologies, 486 Nashville, Tennessee, 561 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 586 National Association for the

719

720

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Index

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 318, 399 National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., 255–265; beliefs and practices, 264–265 civic purpose, 521 historical development, 160, 253– 254, 255–264, 257–258, 330–334 ‘‘March In,’’ 334 statistics, 255–256 Woman’s Convention, 262 (photo), 263–264, 504, 521 National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., 252–255 National Baptist Educational Convention, 257 National Baptist Magazine, 258 National Baptist Publishing Board, 252–253 National Baptist Publishing House, 258–260 National Baptist Teacher-Training Service, 260 National Baptist Young Peoples Union, 260 National Black Economic Development Conference, 645, 647–648 National Black Labor Strike and Defense Fund, 646 National Black Presbyterian Caucus (NBPC), 41 National Center for Science Education, Inc., 23 National Colored Spiritualists Association of Churches, 380, 383, 384 National Committee of Black Churchmen (NCBC), 527 National Conference of Negro Churchmen, 35 National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization conference, 399 (photo) National Freedmen’s Bureau, 415 National Holiness Association, 159 National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, 494

National Publishing House, 146 National Spiritualist Association (NSA), 383, 384 National Spiritualist Reporter (National Colored Spiritualist Association), 383 National Welfare Rights Organization, 646 Nation Dance, 107 Nation of Islam, 239–251 American Muslim Mission schism, 77 beliefs and practices, 244–251 on Christianity as ‘‘white man’s religion,’’ 518–519 ‘‘Clean and Fresh’’ products, 248 Counterintelligence Program vs., 249 farming operation, 249 Fruit of Islam (FOI), 82, 240, 246 historical development, 77, 239–244, 558 interfaith dialogues, 85 international outreach, 249 Lee’s film on Malcolm X, 248–249, 545 Malcolm X’s split with, 242, 245, 247 mass appeal of, 545 MGT (Muslim Girls in Training), 82, 240 Million Man March, 243, 248, 250, 528 Millions More Movement, 250 Mohammad’s reorganization of, 77, 80–83, 245–246 Mosque Cares Ministry movement, 86 Mosque Elijah Muhammad, 248 Mosque Maryam, 85, 247, 248 Muhammad, Wallace (Wali) Dodd Fard (Farrad), 77, 79, 81, 222– 223, 239–241 Muhammad Speaks (Nation of Islam), 80, 83, 243 music, 543 name changes, 243, 524 publications, 247

Index recruitment, 243 revived by Farrakhan, 85 Salaam Restaurant and Bakery, 249 schools, 78 social class of church members, 521 as urban movement, 558 white members, 77, 80, 85 on whites as the Devil, 77, 80, 239– 240, 241, 242 women, 240, 247–248, 504 See also Farrakhan, Louis; Muhammad, Elijah Nation of Yahweh, 113 Nation Songs, 109 Native Americans, 494 Native Tongues collective, 543 Nauvoo Expositor (newspaper), 234 Naylor, Gloria, 201 Nazare, Maria Escola´stica da Conceic¸a˜o (Ma˜e Menininha), 126–127, 128, 447, 661 NBPC (National Black Presbyterian Caucus), 41 NCBC (National Committee of Black Churchmen), 527 Neal, Larry, 541 Neau, Elias, 26, 27 Negro Burial Ground (African Burial Ground), 664–666 The Negro Church (Du Bois), 550–551 The Negro Church in America (Frazier), 517 Negro World (UNIA), 75 Nelson, Cardinal Demosthene (Jaramogi Menelik Kimthi), 368, 369 Neopaganism, 271, 441 Neo-Pentecostalism, 473 Nettleford, Rex, 324, 325 New Age Movement, 265–272 beliefs and practices, 269–272 described, 265–266 historical development, 265–269 practices and themes associated with, 269 New Age Science, 270–271, 274 New Black Aesthetic movement, 540

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‘‘The New Black Woman’’ (Washington Post), 578 New Day (Peace Mission Movement), 310 New Deal era, 517, 519, 522 New Medina, 84 The New Negro (Locke), 460 New Orleans, Louisiana, 382–383, 384– 385, 428–429, 430, 437–438, 514. See also Voodoo New Orleans Superdome, 474 Newspapers, 88. See also specific periodicals by name New Testament (Christian Bible): Acts of the Apostles, 88, 315, 609 Adventists on, 365 biblical stories to foster black identity, 595, 600–601 black theological ecological liberation perspective of, 497 higher criticism, 157–158 homiletics methodologies of sermon construction, 488 as inerrant, 478 interpretation for black preaching, 482–484 Jim Jones’s rejection of, 315 literacy skills and access to religious texts, 576, 579–580 The New World Translation of the Scriptures (Jehovah’s Witnesses), 203–204 Rastafari acceptance of, 349 on spirit possession, 680 as ‘‘The Word,’’ 478 New Thought Religions, 272–276, 272– 282, 276–282, 309, 310, 311, 312, 505, 558 New Thought Religions and the African American Experience, 273–282 Newton, Huey, 21 (photo), 21 New West (magazine), 319 ‘‘New World,’’ described, xv The New World Translation of the

721

722

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Index

Scriptures (Jehovah’s Witnesses), 203–204 New York, 26, 514, 664–666 New York World’s Fair (1939), 261 Nganga, 306 (photo) Niagara Movement, 30, 259 Nicaragua, 194 Nicene Creed, 43 Nichiren Buddhism, 116–118, 122 Nichols, Billy, 335 Nicholson, Joseph, 553 Niger, 678 Nigeria: AME Zion Church, 70 Hausas, 678 Ifa priesthood, 354 Nagoˆ, 105, 127, 128, 212, 445–446 as orisa homeland, 294, 298 Santerı´a, 351, 352–353 See also Yoruba religion Nimrod (biblical narrative), 601 Nishimjimo, Kakuryo, 117 Nisky Moravian Mission house, 230 (photo) Noah (Old Testament), xv–xvi Noble, Mercedes, 353 No Man Knows My History (Brodie), 234 Norcom, James, 28 Norful, Smokie, 544 The North Star (newspaper), 454 Nosso Senhor de Bonfı´m, 129 Notes on the State of Virginia (Jefferson), 453 NSA (National Spiritualist Association), 383, 384 N.W.A., 543 Nybladh, Bishop Carl A., 74 Oakwood College, 365 Obadimelli (Octavio Samar Rodrı´guez), 358 Obama, Barack, 533, 539 Obayifo (witch), 283 Obeah, xxvi, 283–285, 323, 339–340, 672, 674

Oberlin College, 47 Obeye, 283 Oblate Sisters of Providence, 49 (photo), 50 Odda´n River, 658 Office of Black Congregational Enhancement (BCE), 41–42, 45 ‘‘Of the Faith of our Fathers’’ (DuBois), 6 Of the Gods (Protagoras), 20 ‘‘Of the Passing of the First Born’’ (DuBois), 6 Ogboni Society, 296 Ogbu, John U., 588 O’Gorman, Frances, 678 Olafemi family, 292 Olaitan, Olofundeyi, 295 Olaleye family, 292 Old Testament (Hebrew Bible): Adam (Genesis), 650–651 Adventists on, 365 biblical figures as Black, 168, 173 biblical stories to foster black identity, 595, 600–601 biblical warrants for use of ‘‘holy herbs,’’ 347 Book of Joshua, 600–601 Canaan (son of Ham), xv–xvi, 64, 225, 510 Daniel, 576 Eve (Genesis), 650–651 Exodus biblical narrative, 166, 564, 567, 571, 583, 611 Hagar, 571 Ham (son of Noah), xv–xvi, 225, 510, 601 literacy skills and access to religious texts, 576, 579–580 Nimrod, 601 on slavery, xv–xvi, xxviii, 372 on spirit possession, 680 on women, 503 Oliana, Christopher, 353 Olinga, Enoch, 95 Olivet Baptist Church, 464, 544 Oly, Carmel, 229

Index Omar, Nathaniel, 86 Omni-Americans, 534 ‘‘On Being Brought from Africa to America’’ (Wheatley), 453 Onderdonk, Benjamin T., 28 Of One Blood; or, The Hidden Self (Hopkins), 458–459 One Church-One Addict, 50 One Church-One Child, 50 One Church-One Inmate, 50 Oneness doctrine, 89, 151 ‘‘The Only Reason You Want to Go to Heaven . . .’’ (Walker), 496 ‘‘On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield’’ (Wheatley), 453 Oral cultures, 480, 482 Order of Damballah Hwedo, 353 Ordination of gays and lesbians, 36 Ordination of women: Church of God and Saints of Christ, 164 Episcopal Church, 36, 71, 72, 504 Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (FGBCF), 474, 475 Holiness Movement, 64–65, 186, 188 Lutheran Church, 10 Methodist Church/Methodists, 59 Nation of Islam on, 247–248 Presbyterian Church, 47 spousal ministerial teams, 475 ‘‘Oreos,’’ 80 Organization of Afro-American Unity, 242, 245 Organ transplants, 640–641 Orgena (Farrakhan), 247 Orinoco river delta, 670 Orishas/Orixa´s, 285–290 Batuque, 106 beliefs and practices, 288–290, 672 Candomble´, 125, 128–133, 394 gender of, 501 historical development, 285–287 Macumba, 212–214 perogun, 492 (photo) photograph of Orisha service, 286 Santerı´a, 355–358

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Santerismo, 362–363 Spiritual Baptists, 376–377 Tambor de Mina, 388 Umbanda, 393 as umbrella term, 285–288; Xangoˆ, 446–447 See also Santerı´a The Orisha Religion in Trinidad, 285–290 Oseijeman, Oba, 294 Otherness, 563 Ottoman Empire, 93 Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, 132 Overfunctioner myth, 603 Overshadowed (Griggs), 457 Owen, Mary Alicia, 429, 431, 436 Owens, Burgess, 232 Oxford University, 412–413, 470 Oxossi, Ma˜e Stella de (Maria Stella de Azevedo Santos), 130 Oyo´ nation, 105, 298, 655 Oyotunji African Village, 290–302 beliefs and practices, 294 (photo), 296–302 historical development, 290–296, 354 ‘‘Oyotunji,’’ defined, 298 Paine, Bishop Robert, 141 Paine, Thomas, 14 Paine Institute, 140–141 Paine Principle, 141 Palo Monte, 303–308, 306 (photo) Palo (stick) musical genres, 657 Pan-Afrianism. See Black Nationalism Pan African Congress, 460 Pan African Orthodox Christian Church (PAOCC), 367–375 Parable of the Sower (Butler), 6 Paradise (Morrison), 461 Parham, Charles Fox, 150, 160–161, 162 Paris, Peter J., 491, 568, 580 Parish of St. Ann’s, 329–330 Parker, Henry, 34 Parker, Theodore, 396 Parks, W. G., 261

723

724

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Index

Pasha, Imam Izek, 85–86 Passive resistance, 612–613 Passover, 155, 168 Patois, 108 Patriarchy, 567, 598 Patterson, G. E., 165 Patterson, Mary Jane, 47 Patterson, Orlando, 519–520, 569, 581, 582 Paul (apostle), 28 Paul Quinn College, 62 Payne, Daniel A., 9, 13, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65 Payne, John, 29 Payne Theological Seminary, 62 Peace, Michael, 541 Peace Mission Movement, 308–313 beliefs and practices, 312–313 Explaining the Peace Mission, text, 650–653 historical development, 308–312, 536 Jim Jones influenced by, 316 social class of church members, 521 Pearse, Andrew, 108–109, 110 Pearson, Bishop Carlton, 473–474 Pennington, John, 46, 577 Pennsylvania, 27 Pentecostal movement: academic achievement promoted by, 579 Apostolic Faith Mission Church of God (AFM) as birthplace, 150 Azusa Street Revival, 88, 145, 148, 149–150, 160–163, 557, 558 described, 88, 409 Father Divine influenced by, 309, 311, 312 historical development, 88, 160, 557 Jim Jones attracted to, 315 neo-Pentecostalism, 473 spirit possession, 678, 680 Sweet Daddy Grace influenced by, 311 See also Holiness Movement; specific denominations by name Pen Your Mind and Be Healed (Colemon), 280

People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth (P.O.W.E.R.), 247 A People’s History of the United States (Zinn), 538 Peoples Temple, 314–322 beliefs and practices, 315–322 historical development, 314–315 Pepo cult, 678, 679 Pernambuco region, 445–447 Perogun, 492 (photo) Perry, Tyler, 544 Peru, xxi Peter, St., 55–56, 435, 437, 679 Petite Martinique, 107 Pettey, Bishop Charles Calvin, 72 Petwo, 192 Phelps, Caroline Williams, 186 Phelps, Jamie, 48 The Philadelphia Negro (Du Bois), 517 Philadelphia yellow fever outbreak, 452 Phillips, Charles Henry, 141 Phillips, Minnie, 345 Phillips, Thomas L., xviii Phillips, William Thomas, 89 Phillips School of Theology, 417 Phipps, Wintley, 365 Phoenix Society, 69 Pierce, Bishop George, 140 Pierson, Donald, 127 Pietist movement, 9, 227 Pike, James, 34 Pike, Rev. Mr., 453 Pilmore, Joseph, 413 Pinaldo (cuchillo), 357 Pinn, Anthony B., 14, 314, 528, 529, 549, 569, 570 Pinnacle, 344 Pitkin, Helen, 434 Pius IX, Pope, 93 Plantations. See Slaves/slavery Platonist dualistic views, 491 Pleasant, W. S., 158, 159 Plena, 672 Plessy v. Ferguson, 522, 584 Plummer, Bishop William H., 153, 154 PNBC (Progressive National Baptist

Index Convention, Inc.), 254, 330–338, 558 Pocomania, 322–330 beliefs and practices, 325–330 historical development, 322–325, 375 Politics and religion, 517–529 African American religion and black political ideologies, 522–524 African Americans as Communists and Socialists, 15–16, 17 black church in a black power milieu, 524–528 Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), 528 electoral politics, 528–529, 584 popular culture and, 538–539 post-Civil Rights, 528–529 social activism of churches, 607 voter registration drives, 528 worship and activism, 611–613 Pollution. See Environment Polygamy, 502 Pontier, Samuel, 67 Poole, Elijah. See Muhammad, Elijah Poor People’s March, 364 Popular Catholicism, xxix Popular culture, 533–546 delineating definitions: black, religion, and popular culture, 534–539 theorizing black religion and popular culture, 540–545 Population shifts, 468–469 Pork, 168, 170, 174, 346, 366, 515 Porter, James, 29–30 Portland, Jamaica, 207 Portugal: Atlantic Slave Trade, xvi–xvii, xvii, xix, 401 Brazil’s independence from, xxix Kongo, 303 ‘‘Po’ Sandy’’ (Chesnutt), 457–458 Posey, Reverend Arthur L., 221 The Potter’s House, 468 Pottery, 674–675

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Poverty, 509, 514 Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr., 466, 526–527 Powell, Adam Clayton, Sr., 466, 544 Powell, James, 297 Poyas, Peter, 518 ‘‘Pragmatic Historicism and the Problem of History in Black Theology’’ (Glaude), 568 Pragmatic Spirituality: The Christian Faith Through an Africentric Lens (Wilmore), 44 Praise melodies, 45 Pratt, Mary Louise, 536 Praxis, 485, 487 Preaching and sermonic traditions, 477–488 affirmation of God’s love and grace via, 608–609 biblical and theological hermeneutics in preaching, 482–484 homiletics methodologies of sermon construction, 486–487 jeremiad political sermons, 523 learning and teaching preaching, 484–486 practical theology of, 488 the preaching event, 479–482 theology and authority of preaching, 477–479 See also Clergy Prebish, Charles, 117 Pre-Columbian music, 669–671 Pregnancy, 640 Presbyterian Church, 38–47 beliefs and practices, 43–47 Civil Rights Movement, 41 Commission on Religion and Race, 41 demographics, 42–43 historical development, 38–43 Office of Black Congregational Enhancement (BCE), 41–42, 45 ordination of women, 47 Pressley, Arthur, 600, 601, 604 Price, Frederick K. C., 267, 273, 279, 464, 470

725

726

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Index

Price, Richard and Sally, 218 Princeton Seminary, 201 Proctor, Henry Hugh, 403, 404 Proctor, Samuel DeWitt, 404 Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. (PNBC), 254, 330– 338, 558 Prokes, Michael, 317 Prometheus Books, 23 Prophesy Deliverance (West), 569 Prophetic interpretation, 483–484 Prosperity theology, 273, 279, 313, 474 Prosser, Gabriel, xxiv, 4, 111, 518 Protagoras, 20 Protestant Episcopal Freedmen’s Mission, 30 Protestantism/Protestants, xxvii, 8. See also specific denominations by name Psychic phone networks, 24 Psychology of African American religious behavior, 593–604 biblical stories to foster black identity, 595, 600–601 call to ministry, 603–604 conversion, 601–602 Gooden, Winston, 594, 596–598 James, William, 594, 604 Mosele, Romney M., 594, 595–596, 604 womanist approaches to, 594–595, 598–600, 604 Puerto Rico, xvi, xxvi, 672 Pugh, Jeremiah X, 80 Pugh, Thomas J., 595 Pukumina, 322–323 Puritans, xvii Qaddafi, Muammar, 84, 85, 248 Quakers (Society of Friends), xxvii, 3, 47, 59 Quao, Chief, 215 Quicksand (Larsen), 21 Quimby, Phineas Parkhurst, 273–275, 278, 279

The Quimby Manuscripts (Quimby), 274 Quinn, William Paul, 59 Qur’an, 91, 503, 576–577, 678 Raboteau, Albert, xxii, 563–564, 579, 580, 583 Race Matters (West), 588 The Race Question in a New Light (Griggs), 457 Racial uplift ideology, 565 Racism: benefits to religious institutions, 642 the Black Manifesto on, 643–645 challenged by religious institutions, 642 Cone on reistance to, 566 cult of victimology, 587–588 divine, 527–528, 567 doctrine of white supremacy, 568 environmental racism, 491, 493–495 freedoms denied by, 582, 583–584 impact of living in America on black bodies, 509, 514 lynchings, 240, 421, 455, 519–520 rituals of reference, 570 Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion (Pinn), 569 See also White supremacy Rada, 339–341 Radical humanism, 526 Radical otherness, 563 Radio, 472, 539, 544 Ramadan, 250 Ramos, Arthur, 127, 213 ‘‘Ramtha,’’ 270 Randolph, A. Philip, 23 Randolph, Paschal Beverly, 268, 272, 380, 381–382 Ransby, Barbara, 527 Rape, 519 Rap music, 541, 543–544, 655 Rara. See Gaga Rastafari, 341–349 beliefs and practices, 345–349

Index historical development, 341–345, 499 influenced by Convince, 179 music, 346 (photo), 672 as urban movement, 558 women within, 343, 347–348, 504 Rattlesnake, Grandfather, 434 Reagan era, 468 Reater St. Stephen’s Missionary Baptist Church, 473–474 Recalling Our Own Stories (Wimberly), 603–604 Reconstruction Era, 563–564 CME Church, 138–140 education, 584 Fourteenth Amendment, 584 Great Migration, 309 Jim Crow era, described, 308–309 political gains made by black people during, 584 Reconstruction Act of 1867, 584 Redemption history, 477, 486, 488 The Redemption of Africa and Black Religion (Drake), 83 Reformation, 10–11, 226–227 Reformed Faith, 43, 45 Reggae, 671, 672 Regla de Ocha (the religion of the orisha), 351–352. See also Santerı´a Regla de Palo Briyumba, 657 Regla de Palo Mayombe, 657 Regla de Palo Monte Mayombe (Palo Monte), 303–308, 306 (photo) Rehabilitation programs, 50 Reiki healing practices, 270 ‘‘Religion,’’ defining, 536–537, 539 The Religion of the Yorubao, 295 Religious districts, 556 Religious humanism, 12–19, 20 ‘‘The Religious Life of the Negro’’ (Washington), 518 Religious naturalism, 13 Religious Science/Science of Mind, 275, 277–279, 505 Renaissance, 20–21

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Reparations, 645–650 Repetition, 595–596 Republican Party (U.S.), 528 Republic of Benin, xxvi, 197–198, 351, 427, 445. See also Dahomey; Yoruba religion Reverse Great Migration, 468 ‘‘Reverse oreo,’’ 80 Revivalism, 9, 323, 324–330, 343, 345, 680 Revolutionary War (U.S.), xvii, 324 Rey, Henry Louis, 381, 382, 382–383 Rey, Octave, 383 Rhema Bible Training Center, 470 Rhythm and Blues, 541 Richardson, George, 203 Righteous Discontent (Higginbotham), 564–565 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. See Brazil Rio Grande do Sul, 104–106 Ritchings, Edna Rose (Mother Divine), 312, 650–653 Rituals of reference, 570 Rivail, H. Leon Denizard (Kardec), 181–182, 183, 212, 392, 680 Riverside Manifesto, 17, 642–650 Riverside Sanitarium, 365 Roatan, 194 Roberts, Jane, 270 Roberts, J. Deotis, 566 Roberts, John Storm, 661 Roberts, Oral, 464 Robinson, Elizabeth ‘‘Lizzie’’ Woods, 164 Robinson, Richard, 61 Robinson, V. Gene, 36 Robinson Hall of Micanopy, Florida, 175 (photo) Rockefeller Foundation, 416, 417 Rodrı´guez, Octavio Samar (Obadimelli), 358 Roman Catholic Church. See Catholic Church/Catholics Roosevelt, Theodore, 404 Root workers, 514 Rosicrucian, 380, 381

727

728

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Index

Ross, Betsy, 246 Rowe, Maureen, 347–348 Rudd, Daniel, 52 Rumba, 655, 656 (photo), 671 Rush, Christopher, 68, 68 (photo), 69, 70 Russell, Charles Taze, 201, 204, 205 Russworm, John, 47 Rutherford, Joseph Franklin ‘‘Judge,’’ 201, 202–203 Ryan, Congressman, 319 Sabbath observance: Black Hebrew Israelite tradition, 114 Church of God and Saints of Christ, 155 Church of the Living God, Pillar of Truth for All Nations, 168 Conjure, 174 Seventh-day Adventists, 363, 365, 366 Sacramental theology, 479 Sacrifices, animal, 106, 133, 207, 289, 307, 360, 446 Saint Domingue, xvi, xvii, xx, xxiii– xxiv, xxv–xxvi. See also Haiti Saint Frances Orphan Asylum, Baltimore, 49 (photo) Saint John, Virgin Islands, 229, 231 Saint Kitts, 229–230 Saints, 54, 56 syncretism, 130 Samunga, 432 Sanctification doctrine, 149, 151, 158– 159, 160–161, 164–165 Sanctified Church, 376, 578–579 Sanders, Alex, 441–442 Sanders, Cheryl, 572, 578 Sanders, Daniel Jackson, 45 Sanders, Mavis, 578 San Francisco, California, 317–319 Santerı´a, 351–361 alternate names for, 351–352 beliefs and practices, 352 (photo), 354–361, 672

described, 291–292 historical development, xxv, 351–354, 674 Oyotunji African Village and, 296–298 Palo Monte and, 304, 307–308 Santerismo, 182, 361–363 women, 357, 358, 361 Sapp, Marvin, 541 Saunders, Thomas F., 141 Savannah Education Association, 585 Sawyer, Mary R., 314 Schearer Schoolhouse, Cherokee County, North Carolina, 148–149 School of Mediumship and Psychology, 422 Schucman, Helen, 270 Science of Mind, 275, 277–279, 505 Scientific Spiritism (Espirismo del Mesa), 182, 183 Scientific study of religion, 593. See also Psychology of African American religious behavior Scott, Aldwin, 288 Scott, Jill, 201 Scott, June, 67 SDA (Seventh-day Adventists), 195, 363–366 Seaga, Edward, 324–325, 329 Seale, Bobby, 21 (photo), 21 Se´ances, 181 Seasons of Men’s Lives (Levenson), 597 Sebastia˜o, Rei, 388 Second Great Awakening, 159, 233, 275, 402–403 Second Vatican Council, 53, 57, 127 The Secret (docu-film), 282 The Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam (Muhammad), 240 Secular humanism, 12, 20–25 A Secular Humanist Declaration (Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism), 22

Index Secularism, 529, 533 Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), 22 Segregation, 9, 34, 46, 584 Self-defense, 648 Self-reliance, 641 Seminole Maroons, 216 Senegambia, 427, 428 Separate but equal doctrine, 46, 584 Separation of church and state, 533 Sermons. See Preaching and sermonic traditions Servants of Allah (Diouf), 576 ‘‘Seth’’ (extraterrestrial entity), 270 Seventh-day Adventists (SDA), 195, 363–367 The Seven Valleys and Four Valleys (Baha´’u’lla´h), 92–93 Seymour, William J., 88, 89, 149–150, 161, 164, 557. See also Azusa Street Revival Shabazz, Betty, 244, 248–249, 524 Shabazz, El-Hajj Malik. See X, Malcolm Shabazz, Jeremiah (Jeremiah X Pugh), 80 Shabazz, Quibilah, 249 Shadd, Mary Ann, 61 Shakers (United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming), 3, 375 Shakur, Tupac, 543–544 Shamanism, 676 Shango cult, 285, 675 Sharpe, Chaplain John, 664 Sharrieff, Raymond, 82 Shaw, William J., 263 Shaw University, 336 Sheba, Queen of, 173, 342 Sheitani cult, 678 Shepard, Marshall, 332 Shoes That Fit Our Feet (Hopkins), 566, 568 Shoghi, Effendi, 94–95, 97, 101 Shonin, Nikko, 122 Short Course in Miracles (Schucman), 270

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‘‘Shout,’’ 375, 377–378, 409, 521, 561, 612 Shrine of the Black Madonna, 367–375 beliefs and practices, 371–375, 515 historical development, 367–370, 527 mural, 541 as urban movement, 558 Shrines, 492 (photo) Shut-ins, 609, 612, 612 (photo) Shuttleworth, Rev. Fred L., 526 Significations (Long), 566 Sikhs, 675 Silent Spring (Carson), 494 Silver Bluff Baptist Church, 256 Simmons, Russell, 545 Simmons, William J., 258 Simpkins, Thomas, 67 Simpson, Gary, 337 Simpson, George E., 329 Singer, Merrill, 276 Sinkford, William, 18, 400 Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death of Barroquinha, 126 Sisters in the Wilderness (Williams), 570–571 Sisters of the Holy Family, 50 Sit-ins, 647–648 16th Street Baptist Church, 525 Ska (music), 672 Skinner, B. F., 22 Skinner, Elder Calvin S., 153, 154 Skin whitening, 204 Slave Culture (Stuckey), 564 Slave Religion (Raboteau), 563–564 Slaves/slavery: abolition, 47, 69–70 Adventists on, 366 African cultural regions of enslaved Africans, xviii, xx–xxi, xxix, 128 Amistad Committee vs., 401 Apostle Paul’s teaching for slaves, 28 baptism of, xix, xxvi, xxvii, 26, 40, 48 Batuque traditions, 104–105 burial practices, 664–669, 675

729

730

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Index Candomble´ practitioners, 125–126, 128, 130 captured children, 322 in the Caribbean, xxv–xxvii Catholic, 48–51, 126 children born to free blacks, 454 children born to Jewish slave owners and slaves, 170 conjure practices, 175–176 contact between African and American hemisphere prior to, xiv conversion (experiential phenomena), 601–602 Cuba, 353 death at sea, 667 Denmark Vesey plot, xxiv, 4, 60, 111, 518 education, 575–577, 581, 583 emancipation in British colonies, 207, 208 escaped, 214, 583, 674 forced breeding, 502 free soil experiment in Georgia, xv fusion with African-based traditions with Christian Church, xxvi–xxvii gender roles in West African societies, 501–502 Gold Coast of West Africa, 387 Haitian Revolution, xxiii–xxiv health of, 510, 665 hoodoo practices during slavery era, 198 identification with Old testament story of bondage and freedom, 111, 166 the ‘‘invisible institution’’ of slave religion, 4, 376–377, 528–529, 563 justification for, xv–xvi, xxviii, 510, 601 Kongolese people, 303–304 in Latin America, xxviii–xxx literature, 5–6, 452–454, 496 Methodist Church/Methodists on, 60–61, 137, 137–138, 414–415, 417

as Methodists, 59 missionary work directed toward, 26– 27, 256 Mississippi Valley, 427 modes of obtaining freedom, xxi, xxii–xxiii, xxii, 26 National Freedmen’s Bureau, 415 Nat Turner’s slave insurrection, 453 in North America, xxvii–xxviii, 25–26 Obeah, 283–285 Orisha religion in Trinidad, 285–287 Oyo Empire, 298 plantation system, 673–675, 674 (photo) Pocomania’s mythical journey beyond the Middle Passage, 327 prayers of as forerunners of the Black Church, 607–608 Presbyterian Church, 38–39 rebellions vs., xix, xxi, xxiii–xxiv, xxviii, 26, 229, 323, 401 religious hypocrisy of Christian slave owners, 9, 13, 453 reparations, 645–650 retention of culture, xxi–xxii, 484 revivalist practitioners, 290 selling Africans, xx–xxi separate church services for, 256 shipwrecked slaves in the Caribbean, 194 significance of enslavement to Modern Period, xv Spiritual Baptist tradition, 375–377 Spiritualism on, 384 statistics, xv, xviii, 673 suicides, 667 transportation of enslaved Africans, xviii–xx Underground Railroad, 61, 69, 70, 364 U.S. domestic slave trade, 427 ‘‘Slim in Hell’’ (Brown), 21 Small, Bishop John Bryan, 70, 72 Small, Mary J., 72

Index Smith, Amanda Berry, 4, 578 Smith, Bennett W., 334, 337–338 Smith, Berry, 64 Smith, Christian, 556, 559 Smith, Drew, 529 Smith, Emma, 235 Smith, Frank H., 171 Smith, Hyrum, 234 Smith, James, 4 Smith, Joseph, 232–234, 235, 236–237 Smith, Lucretia L., 220–221 Smith, Reginald, 242 Smith, Ronnie, 119 Smith, William, 235 SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), 17, 35, 525–526, 643 Social agencies, 555, 556 Social classes, 521, 538–539, 545, 681 Social distance, 556 Socialism/Socialists, 15–16, 398, 519, 523–524 Social justice, 483, 493–494, 527, 565– 566, 572. See also Civil Rights Movement; Liberation theology Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), xxvii, 26–27 Society of Friends (Quakers), xxvii, 3, 47, 59 Soka Gakkai International-USA, 115–122 beliefs and practices, 121–122 historical development, 115–121 Solomon, King, 173, 342 Somalia, 678 Songhay/Zarma, 678 Songs. See Music Songs of Zion (hymnal), 420, 608–609 Son (music), 655 Sonoda, Shuei, 117 Sosa, Sammy, 193 SOS (Secular Organizations for Sobriety), 22 Soul music, 541

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The Souls of Black Folk (Du Bois), 6, 455–456, 517, 518, 535, 561–562 South Africa, 63, 75, 76, 644 South Carolina, xv, xxviii, 26 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 524–525 Southern Land Bank, 646 Spain: colonial period, xiii–xiv, xv, 48, 193– 194, 427, 431–432 Inquisition, 125–126 slave trade, xvi, 214–215, 427, 673 Spangenberg, Bishop August Gottlieb, 228–229 Speaking in tongues (glossolalia): biblical source for, 88 within Church of Christ Holiness USA, 147 within Church of God (Cleveland), 149 COGIC on, 163 described, 150 Fire Baptized Holiness Association, 188 history of, 145, 150, 160, 161–162 Spelman College, 336 Spencer, Peter, 59 SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts), xxvii, 26–27 The Spiral Dance (Starhawk), 442 Spiritism of the Chain (Espiritismo de Cordon), 182 Spiritists. See Espiritismo Spirit possession, 676–682 in ancient Greece, 680 defined, 676–677 kabbalah possession, 677 (photo) psychological interpretations of, 680–681 transgression of traditional gender boundaries, 506–507, 677 (photo) Spiritual Baptists, 218–219, 375–380, 376 (photo) Spiritualism, 380–385, 392. See also specific associations and churches by name

731

732

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Index

Spiritualism of Charity (Espiritismo de Caridad), 182 The Spirituality of African Peoples (Paris), 568 Spiritual Mind Treatment, 277–278 Spirituals (songs), 13, 535–536, 540, 561 Spiritual supply shops, 198, 199–200 Splitfoot, Mr. (spirit), 381 Spousal ministerial teams, 475 Spurling, R. G., Jr., 148 Spurling, R. G., Sr., 148 Stalin, Josef, 100 Stallings, George A., Jr., 54–55, 481 (photo) Stamos, Miriam, 442 St. Andrew, Jamaica, 207 Starhawk (Miriam Stamos), 442 Stark, Rodney, 559 St. Augustine, Florida, 35 St. Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute, 30–31 St. Catherine, Jamaica, 179, 207 St. Croix, Virgin Islands, 229, 675 Stewart, Maria, 518, 523 St. George’s Methodist Church, 27, 58– 59, 67 St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), 468 St. John’s Eve ceremonies, 430, 431, 437 St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane Church, 76 St. Joseph, Missouri, 429 St. Mark’s Church, Charleston, South Carolina, 31 St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church, Detroit, 367 St. Mary’s Parish, 328 Stoddart, Captain, 216 Stoen, Timothy, 317 Storefront Baptist Church, 520 (photo) Storefront churches, 520 (photo), 521, 558 Storytelling, 486 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 454, 577

St. Paul Community Baptist Church, 468–469 St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School, 31 Strawbridge, Robert, 413 Strict Sense New Age, 267 St. Stephens Baptist Church, New Orleans, 470 (photo) St. Thomas, British Virgin Islands, 207, 229–230, 230 (photo) St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, 27, 58 Stuckey, Sterling, 564 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 17, 35, 525– 526, 643 Sturgis, Stokely, 57 St. Vincent, Caribbean, 193–194, 195, 375 Subcultural Theory of Urbanism, 551–558 Substance abuse, 640 Suburban communities, 468, 475 Sudan, 678 Sue, Yon, 434 Sugar plantations, xvi, 304, 353, 673– 674, 674 (photo) Sunday School Convention, 185–186 Sunday School Publishing Board, 253, 254, 258–259, 260, 261, 263 Sunday schools, 503 (photo) Sunni Islam, 543. See also American Muslim Mission Sun Ra, 543 The Sun Reporter (newspaper), 319 Supernaturalism. See Witchcraft and magic Surbadger, Reverend Thomas, 423 Suriname, 216–218 Sutcliff, Steven, 267 Suzuki, D. T., 117 Swahili, 678, 679 Syncretism, 130, 198, 285–287, 376–377, 388, 427, 435, 446, 678–679

Index Tabernacle Baptist Church, Beaufort, South Carolina, 599 (photo) The Tablets of the Divine Plan (‘Abdu’l-Baha´), 101 Table turning, 181 Taft, William, 404 Taı´no, 214–215, 284, 669–670, 672, 674 Taki Rebellion, 323 ‘‘Talking back,’’ 608 Tambor de Mina, xxx, 387–389 Tanzania, 643 Tatum, Reverend Ronnie, 424 Tawfiq, Ahmad Khalid, 78 Taylor, Charles, 570 Taylor, Clarence, 522 Taylor, Dorceta E., 494 Taylor, Gardner C., 262, 332 (photo), 332–334, 337, 524 Taylor, John, 234 Taylor, Nellie Mae, 383 Taylor, William F., 219, 220 Teaching for the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way (Muhammad), 240 Technology, 539. See also Internet Teegarden, Dr. Kenneth L., 316 Television, 472, 539, 544, 545, 646 Tell My Horse to Sanctified Church (Hurston), 5–6 Terreiros, xxix, 104, 105, 106, 126–128, 445, 446 Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion (Pinn), 569 Terry, Neely, 161 Texas, 430 Tharpe, Sister Rosetta, 164, 540 Thaumaturgical religions, 276 Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston), 460 Theological psychology, 595–596 Theosophical movement, 267 Theravada Buddhism, 116 Thirty Years’ War, 226–227 This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (Gottleib), 493

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Thomas, Hugh, xix, xxi Thomas, James S., 418 Thomas County, Georgia, 550–551 Thompson, Abraham, 67 Thompson, LeRoy, 279, 470 Thompson, Robert Farris, xxi Thoreau, Henry David, 117 Thornton, Mattye B., 219, 220 Thoughts Upon Slavery (Wesley), 61, 414 Thurman, Howard, 7, 335, 496, 565, 598 Tie-heads, 375 Tillich, Paul, 582 Tipton, Joe M., 149 Tobago, 229–231, 375, 376–378 Toda, Josei, 118 To Love the Wind and the Rain: African Americans and Environmental History (Glave), 495–496 Tolton, Augustus, 51 Tomlinson, A. J. (Ambrose Jessup), 149, 150–151, 152 Toomer, Jean, 21 Townes, Emilie M., 495, 567, 572 Trance, 676 Transubstantiation, 57 Trashy, Shepherd, 328 Travis, John, xxiv Treaty of Versailles, 108 A Tribe Called Quest, 543 Trinidad: Baptist Liberation Day, 377–378 laws outlawing obeah, 339–340 Moravian Church, 231 music, 670, 671 Orisha religion, 285–290 Spiritual Baptist Church, 375, 376–377 The Trinity, 89, 142, 151 Trinity Broadcasting Network, 544 Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago, Illinois, 404, 528 The Triplicate Order (Randolph), 380 Triumph the Church and Kingdom of God in Christ, 422 Trotter, Larry, 474

733

734

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Index

True Grace Memorial House of Prayer, 408 The True Witness (Colored Fire Baptized Church), 186 Trujillo, 194 Truth, Sojourner, 5, 69, 453 The Truth (COCHUSA), 144, 145, 146 Tubman, Harriet, 4, 70 Tull, ‘‘Aunt Zippy,’’ 178 Tumpkin, Rev. Mary, 281 Turner, Henry McNeal, 61, 63–64, 65 Turner, Mary, 519 Turner, Nat, xxiv, 453, 518 Turner, Philip, 4 Turner, Robert, 93, 101 Turner, Tina, 119 Turner Chapel AME, 464 Turner Theological Seminary, 62, 417 Turpin, Josephine, 577 ‘‘Tuskegee Machine’’ (Washington), 518 Two heads, 197–198 Tyson, Timothy, 527 UFBL (Universal Foundation for Better Living), 280–281, 505 U.H.S.C. (Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church), 421–426 Ulmer, Kenneth, 474 Umbanda, 105, 135, 211, 213, 388–389, 391–395 ‘‘Unashamedly Black, Unapologetically Christian’’ (Wright), 404 Uncles, Randolph, 51 Uncle spirit, 436 ‘‘Uncle Toms,’’ 80 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 454 Underground Railroad, 61, 69, 70, 364 UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association), 32, 74–75, 171, 172, 225, 341, 544–545 Unification Church, 55 Union of Black Episcopalians, 35, 36 Union Temple Baptist, 468 Unitarian Universalist Association

(UUA), 17, 18, 19, 396–401, 399 (photo) Unitas Fratrum, 226–227, 231–232 United Auto Workers, 644 ‘‘United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice Report on Race and Toxic Wastes in the United States,’’ 494–495 United Church of Christ (UCC), 401–405 United Evangelical Churches of Christ, 221 United House of Prayer for All People, 405–412 beliefs and practices, 409–411 historical development, 405–409 United Methodist Church (UMC), 412–421 beliefs and practices, 419–421 historical development, 412–418 ordination of women, 504 overview, 137 Wesley Chapel, 413 (photo) See also Methodist Church/Methodists United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming (Shakers), 3, 375 United Synod, 8 United Theological Seminary, 469 Unity, 641 Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, 506 Unity School of Christianity, 275, 280, 505 Universal Foundation for Better Living (UFBL), 280–281, 505 Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church (U.H.S.C.), 421–426 Universalist church, 396 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 32, 74–75, 171, 172, 225, 341, 544–545 University of Halle, 227 University of Michigan, 586 (photo) University of the South in Sewanee, 34 Unkus, 436 The Upanishadas, 20 Uplifting the Race (Gaines), 565

Index Upper Guinea, xxi Urban, Hugh, 272 Urban black religion, 549–559, 554 (photo) black churches in the South in 1900, 550–551 propositions about urban life, 552 religious districts, 556 social distance within, 556 subculture theory of urbanism, 551–558 Urban blight, 475 USS Lane, 141 U.S. Supreme Court: Plessy v. Ferguson, 522, 584 ‘‘separate but equal,’’ 46 U.S. War of Independence, 324 Vajirayana Buddhism, 116 Valiente, Doreen, 441–442 Valmour, J. B., 381, 382 Vanderhorst, Richard H., 139 Van Sertima, Ivan, xiv Varick, James, 66, 67, 68, 69 Vatican II, 53, 57, 127 The Vedas, 20 Veloso, Gaetano, 127 Ve´riquite´, 435 Vesey, Denmark, xxiv, 4, 60, 111, 518 Victory Church, 464 Victory for the World, 474 Vilatte, Archbishop Joseph Rene, 74–75 Vinson, Ben, xviii Virginia, xvii, 25–26, 175 Virginia Union University, 336 Virgin Mary, 44, 54, 56, 651 Voduns, 388, 427 A Voice from the South (Cooper), 563 Voices for Evolution (National Center for Science Education, Inc.), 23 Voodoo Magnian, 434 Voodoo/Vodou, 427–439 African Terms Associated with Mississippi Valley Voodoo, 429 (table) beliefs and practices, xxvi, 430–438, 512, 514, 672

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Conjure vs., 427 Deities of Voodoo and Their Origins, 433–434 (table) described, 427 Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), 434, 435, 437, 438 Haitian Revolution sparked by, xxiii–xxiv Haitian vodou ceremony in Miami, 428 (photo) Halouba Temple, 428 (photo) historical development, xxviii, 427– 430, 436, 512, 558, 674, 675 Hoodoo compared to, 197, 427 Laveau, Marie, 431, 432, 667 (photo) popular practice of, 678 Saint Domingue (Haiti), xxvi spirit possession, 677, 678, 679; St. John’s Eve ceremonies, 430, 431, 437 titles of leaders, 430–431 women leaders, 430 Voorhees College, 31 Voorhies, Lark, 201 Voter registration drives, 528 Voting Rights Act (VRA), 528, 529 Waa-gu-Nah (Randolph), 380 Wahaj, Siraj, 83 The Wailers, 672 Walcott, Louis Eugene. See Farrakhan, Louis Wald, Kenneth, 528 Walker, Alice, 6, 45, 496, 505, 570, 572 Walker, Allen (Aswad Yusef Ambidwile), 370, 374 Walker, David, 4, 518, 523, 563 Walker, Francis, 328 Walker, Orris G., Jr., 36 Walker, Theodore, Jr., 493 Walker, Wyatt T., 526 Wallace, Christopher ‘‘B.I.G.,’’ 543 Walters, Alexander, 72 Walton, Thelma, 336 Wandell, Charles Wesley, 235 Wanga, 429 (table)

735

736

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Index

Wangol, 679 Warao, 670 Ward, E. C., 364 Ware, Harriet, 575 Warner, R. Stephen, 556 Warner-Lewis, Maureen, 178 War of Independence (U.S.), xvii War of 1812, 376 War on Drugs, 640 Warwick, Dionne, 24 Washington, Booker T.: accommodationist social thought, 518, 519 Atlanta Exposition address, 333 Bragg and, 30 critical view of African American religiosity, 517–518 education style, 31, 62, 252 Washington, DC, 585–586 Washington, Joseph R., 525 Washington Adventist Sanitarium, 364 Washington Post (newspaper), 578 Watch Tower organization. See Jehovah’s Witness Water, 667 Watson, Bishop Thomas B., 219 Watts, Alan, 117 Watts Riots, 203 Watt Town, 329–330 WCCI (World Changers Church International), 471 Web-of-life concept, 491–493 Webster, Mary Matilda, 235 Weems, Renita J., 495, 497 W. E. Fuller Jr. Headquarters and Mission Home, 187 Weisenfeld, Judith, 543 Welfare. See Government aid for the disadvantaged Wells, Ida B., 519, 523 Wells, Rev. Samuel B., 612 (photo) Wesley, Charles, 412 Wesley, John: Church of God (Cleveland) based on tenets of, 151

early history of Methodism, 137, 412, 413, 414–415 influenced by Moravian Church, 227 on sanctification, 159, 160, 164–165 sermons and treatises, 142; on slavery, 61, 414–415 Wesley’s Quadrilateral, 421 Wesley Chapel, 413 (photo) West, Cornel, 457, 545, 567–568, 569, 570, 588 West, Kanye, 544 West African Adinkra symbols, 45 West Indies, 227, 229–230 Westminster Confession, 43 Whatcoat, Richard, 414 Wheatley, Phyllis, 451, 452–453 Wheat Street Baptist, 544 ‘‘When We’ll Worship Jesus’’ (Baraka), 543 White, Edson, 364 White, Ellen, 366 White, George, 68 White, John R., 383 White, William, 27 White, Willie ‘‘Chaim,’’ 172–173 Whitefield, George, 27, 228, 412 ‘‘A White Man’s Heaven Is a Black Man’s Hell’’ (Farrakhan), 247 White supremacy: black responses to, 465, 566, 648 doctrine of, 568 humanism as alternative to, 21 Ku Klux Klan, 527 of Mormon Church, 232 reframing racial history of, 535 vigilante violence vs. Civil Rights Movement, 525 See also Racism ‘‘White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus’’ (Grant), 571 ‘‘Whose Earth Is It Anyway’’ (Cone), 495 Why Lord? (Pinn), 528 ‘‘Why the Socialists Must Reach the Churches with Their Message’’ (Woodbey), 523

Index Wicca, 441–443 Wilberforce, William, 60, 415 Wilberforce University, 60, 62, 63, 415, 579 (photo) Wiley, Stephen, 541 Williams, Angel Kyodo, 117 Williams, Delores S., 495, 570–571 Williams, Dr. Eric, 377 Williams, Frank W., 88–89 Williams, George, 118 Williams, Lacey Kirk, 467, 544 Williams, L. K., 261 Williams, Mabel, 527 Williams, Peter, 27, 28, 67, 413 (photo), 664 Williams, Preston, 566 Williams, Robert, 609 Williams, Robert F., 526, 527 Williamson, Scott C., 42 Williams, Venus and Serena, 201 Willis, Jamal, 232 Wilmore, Gayraud S., 41–42, 44, 465 Wilson, James Justin, 586 (photo) Wilson, Woodrow, 223 Wimberly, A. E., 601–602 Wimberly, E. P., 601–604 The Winans, 541 Winchester, James, 32 Wisdom’s Call (Griggs), 457 Witchcraft and magic: brujeria, negative connotation of, 351 Catimbo´, 135–136 conjure, xxviii, 174–177, 175 (photo), 197–198, 427, 512 obeah, xxvi, 283–285, 323, 339–340, 672, 674 spiritual supply shops, 198, 199–200 wicca, 441–442 See also Hoodoo; Voodoo The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (Murray), 441 Womanist and feminist religious thought, 570–572 environmental concerns, 495–496

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on gendered understanding of the divine, 501 historical development of womanist religious thought, 495, 505 on oppression and exploitation of women, 505–506, 598–599 psychology of African American religious behavior and, 594–595, 598–600, 604 Walker’s definition, 15 womanist religious thought, described, 505–506 Women: within African-derived religions, 504–505 alleged rape of white women by black men, 519 Baha´’ı´ Faith, 96, 97 Black Hebrew Israelite tradition, 502 Candomble´, 131–132 in the Catholic Church, 50 as ‘‘church mothers,’’ 504 Church of Christ Holiness USA (COCHUSA), 145–146 within Church of God and Saints of Christ, 162, 164 within Church of God (Cleveland), 152 Civil Rights Movement, 505 education, 578–579 Egbe Moremi women’s society, 301, 302 female funeral displays, 668 within Fire Baptized Holiness Association, 186, 188–189 within Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (FGBCF), 474, 475 grannies, 512 Holiness Movement, 64 identity formation, 599–600 Ifa priesthood, 357, 358 Islam, 504 within Jehovah’s Witness, 202 within Lutheran Church, 10 within megachurches, 475

737

738

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Index

midwives (parteras), 512 within Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc., 225 within National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., 263–264 within Nation of Islam, 240, 247–48, 504 ordination within Church of God and Saints of Christ, 164 ordination within Episcopal Church, 36, 71, 72, 504 ordination within Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (FGBCF), 474, 475 ordination within Holiness Movement, 64–65, 186, 188 ordination within Lutheran Church, 10 ordination within Methodist Church/ Methodists, 59 ordination within Nation of Islam on, 247–248 ordination within Presbyterian Church, 47 within Peoples Temple, 314–315 within Pocomania, 328–329 in polygamous relationships, 502 within Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., 336–338 within Rastafari, 343, 347–348, 504 roles, 500, 501–502 Santerı´a, 357, 358, 361 spirit possession associated with, 681 spousal ministerial teams, 475 within United House of Prayer for All People, 423 Voodoo leaders, 430 womanist mystic traditions, 4, 5 women’s organizations within black church, 565 as writers, 458–459 See also Womanist and feminist religious thought Women’s Convention of the National Baptist Convention, 262 (photo), 263–264, 504, 521

Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society, 72–73 Woodbey, Rev. George Washington, 523–524 Woods, Reverend Mother Pearl C., 219 Woodson, Carter G., 517 ‘‘The Word,’’ 478. See also Preaching and sermonic traditions Word of Faith Movement, 273, 464, 470, 474 World Changers Church International (WCCI), 471 World’s Fair (New York, 1939), 261 World War I, 542, 549 Worship in the Black Church, 607–613; as activist and participatory event, 611–613, 612 (photo) adoration, 609–611, 610 (photo) ‘‘Shout,’’ 375, 377–378, 409, 521, 561, 612 songs, 608 ‘‘talking back,’’ 608 Wragg, Betsy and Judith, 139 Wright, Elizabeth Evelyn, 31 Wright, Jeremiah A., Jr., 403, 404, 528, 533 Wright, Nathan, 35 Wright, Richard, 16, 526 Wright, Theodore S., 46 X, Malcolm, 242 Akbar Muhammad chosen to receive scholarship by, 78 assassination, 78, 79, 81, 82, 242, 243, 245, 249 beliefs, 244–245 biographical information, 242–243, 244 Black Liberation Theology, 527 Black Panther Party and, 526, 527 Civil Rights Movement criticized by, 244 on Elijah Muhammad’s affairs, 245 emphasis on mindedness, 79–80 as exemplar of mysticism, 4–5

Index James Baldwin and, 461 jeremiad political sermons, 523 Lee’s film on, 248–249, 545 mass appeal of, 545 Muslim Mosque, Inc., 242, 245 Nation of Islam, 82, 242, 243–244, 247 Organization of Afro-American Unity, 242, 245 photograph, 5 resurgence of interest in, 528, 545 as El-Shabazz, 242, 243, 245 Xangoˆ, 445–447 Xenophobia, 567 X (film), 248–249, 545 Yahweh ben Yahweh (Hulen Mitchell Jr.), 113, 114 Yakub (mad scientist), 239–240, 241, 242 Yellow fever, 452 Yemoja festival, 302 Yoruba religion, 285–287 Africa-influenced traditions in Brazil, xxix African Theological Archministry (ATA), 294 on gender of God, 501 history of revivalist practitioners, 290 music, 133, 655, 656–657

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Nagoˆ prestige, 128 The Religion of the Yorubao, 295 Santerı´a, 351–353 spirit possession, 506–507 Vodou influenced by, 428 You, Maman, 434 Young, Brigham, 234–235 Young, D. J., 160, 162 Young, Robert Alexander, 523 Zahwenu, Abojevi (Robert Antoine), 339–340 Zambia, 643 Zambos, 194 Zanu, Chief Medahochi Kofi, 296 Zar cult, 678 Zen and Japanese Culture (Suzuki), 117 Zen Buddhism, 117 Zenoglossy, 160 Zinn, Howard, 538 Zinzendorf, Count Nikolaus Ludwig von, 227, 229 Zinzin, 427, 429 Zion Baptist Church, 262 Zionism, 114 Zion (Revival), 324, 325 Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society. See Jehovah’s Witness Zombi, Grand, 434 Zoroastrians, 100

739