Religion of Black Americans
Powerful pastors often played prominent roles in politics, often through their leadership in the American civil rights movement, as typified by Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
[12] Prior to the 1700s, the majority of slaves in the United States practiced traditional West African religions or Islam, with a smaller number converting to Protestantism.
In the mid-20th century scholars debated whether there were distinctive African elements embedded in black American religious practices, as in music and dancing.
][15][need quotation to verify] Muslims practiced Islam surreptitiously or underground throughout the era of the enslavement of African people in North America.
Believing that, "slavery was contrary to the ethics of Jesus", Christian congregations and church clergy, especially in the North, played a role in the Underground Railroad, especially Wesleyan Methodists, Quakers and Congregationalists.
[17][18] White clergy within evangelical Protestantism actively promoted the idea that all Christians were equal in the sight of God, a message that provided hope and sustenance to oppressed slaves.
[22] Preachers taught the master's responsibility and the concept of appropriate paternal treatment, using Christianity to improve conditions for slaves, and to treat them "justly and fairly" (Col. 4:1).
[22] These congregations revolved around a singular preacher, often illiterate with limited knowledge of theology, who was marked by his personal piety and ability to foster a spiritual environment.
African Americans developed a theology related to Biblical stories having the most meaning for them, including the hope for deliverance from slavery by their own Exodus.
[28] The church also served as neighborhood centers where free black people could celebrate their African heritage without intrusion by white detractors.
After the Great Awakening, many black Christians joined the Baptist Church, which allowed for their participation, including roles as elders and preachers.
Historian Wilson Fallin contrasts the interpretation of the American Civil War and Reconstruction in white versus black Baptist sermons in Alabama.
Their ministers had powerful political roles that were distinctive since they did not primarily depend on white support, in contrast to teachers, politicians, businessmen, and tenant farmers.
Besides their regular religious services, the urban churches had numerous other activities, such as scheduled prayer meetings, missionary societies, women's clubs, youth groups, public lectures, and musical concerts.
His salary ranged from $400 a year to upwards of $1500, plus housing – at a time when 50 cents a day was good pay for unskilled physical labor.
[40] After 1910, as black people migrated to major cities in both the North and the South, there emerged the pattern of a few very large churches with thousands of members and a paid staff, headed by an influential preacher.
[45] After the Civil War Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (1834–1915) was a major leader of the AME and played a role in Republican Party politics.
Today the AME Zion Church is especially active in mission work in Africa and the Caribbean, especially in Nigeria, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Angola, Ivory Coast, Ghana, England, India, Jamaica, Virgin Islands, Trinidad, and Tobago.
[52] When Church of God ministers, such as Lena Shoffner, visited the camp meetings of other denominations, the rope in the congregation that separated whites and blacks was untied "and worshipers of both races approached the altar to pray".
They choose local men – often quite young – with a reputation for religiosity, preaching skill, and ability to touch the deepest emotions of the congregations.
[56] The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was highly controversial in many black churches, where the minister preached spiritual salvation rather than political activism.
[60] William J. Seymour, a black preacher, traveled to Los Angeles where his preaching sparked the three-year-long Azusa Street Revival in 1906.
The revival attracted both religious and secular media attention, and thousands of visitors flocked to the mission, carrying the "fire" back to their home churches.
[68][69] Black studies historian, John Blassingame, explained various West African nations were transported to Louisiana during the Atlantic slave trade and they brought their belief of the serpent god with them called Damballa.
[72] The practices of Louisiana Voodoo are snake reverence of Damballa, ancestral veneration, dancing, singing, spirit possession, animal sacrifice, and communal eating.
[74] Historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall argues that Louisiana Voodoo developed from enslaved Black Americans during the colonial era, and less from the influences of Haitians.
In addition to trade and occupation, the presence of Islam in Africa was reinforced by the exchange of goods, ideas, and cultural traditions, which fostered intellectual and commercial ties between the African continent and the Middle East.
[citation needed], Prominent members of the Nation of Islam included the human rights activist Malcolm X and the boxer Muhammad Ali.
the first person to have started the conversion of African Americans to mainstream Sunni Islam, after he left the Nation and made the pilgrimage to Mecca and changed his name to el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.
In 1975, Warith Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Muhammad, took control of the Nation after his father's death and converted the majority of its members to orthodox Sunni Islam.
