African American

Religious
Experience
Was Everything Erased?
Slavery and Oppression,
Hope and Reconstruction

Statistics

Approximately 38.9 million African

Americans. (12.6% of pop) (2010 US census)
Most are Protestant (Baptist, Methodist,
Pentecostal).
2 million (approximately) are Muslim.
50 thousand members of the Nation of Islam.
Around 30 thousand are Buddhist.
A few thousand (?) are Jewish.
More than 1 million African Immigrants (born
in African in the US (Christians, Muslims,
African Traditional Religion or Santeria)

Capture of Slaves

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Slave House in Senegal,

Africa

Diagram of Slave Ship

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The Slave Trade

1642: Massachusetts is first colony to
legalize slavery.
By 1649, out of 15,000 Africans in
North America, only approximately
300 were slaves; the rest were
indentured servants.

Cont.

Who brought these Africans over?

Most slaves came from West Africa
and the Congo-Angola region.
By early 1800s, Africans comprised
1/5th of the total US population.
By 1865, 4 million African
Americans.

Around 246 years of the Atlantic

slave trade, 10 million African slaves
Emancipation Proclamation- 1862-3;
end of Civil War- 1865

Identity and Religion

On slave ships, kinship groups

were isolated from each other.
People were separated from
those who spoke their language.
What was erased because of the
slave trade? What came through?
Did the gods of Africa continue
to live in exile?

Traditional African
Religions: Diversity and
Common Ground

Strong Communal Ties- reincarnation of

ancestors
Many gods and one High God (Creator of
world)
Pantheons of gods associated with
natural forces.
Tricksters and trickster stories
Animal Sacrifice (to the lesser gods)
Divination and Priest-Diviners
Music and Dance

Belief in spirit possession- gods

speak to humans through humans
Speaking in tongues
Long and complex burial rites

African Priest
(Babalawo)

Also

Hoodoo and Voodoo (Vodun or

Santeria)
Hoodoo- Healing Practices
involving fetishes (hair cuttings,
nail clippings, charms, amulets)
Voodoo
Sermon Styles
Witchcraft

Islam

Up to 20 percent of the slaves

brought over from W. Africa were
Muslim.
Their version of Islam was shaped
by West African religious practices.
However, most slaves were from
families that practiced indigenous
West African practices.

What Came Over

African religion thrived in exile wherever

it went, but it adapted to the cultures and
religions of the new countries to which it
arrived.
We saw that with Cuban Santeria.
African American religion is shaped by 3
sources: 1. common West African
background, 2. common slave experience,
and 3. European Christianity.

African American
Christianity

Conversion to Christianity not immediate.

Some slaves not allowed to be baptized
for fear that this would emancipate them.
By 1706, 6 colonial legislatures passed
laws which allowed for baptism without
emancipation.
Tension between those who wished more
Christianizing of slaves and those who
wanted their slaves to bring a pure
economic gain.

Some slave owners held that their

slaves were too brutish to be
converted and instructed in
Christianity.
Some were afraid of the Christian
value of egalitarianism as applied to
their slave population.

Christian Apologists

Those of European descent promoting

baptism promised that Christianity would
make slaves into even better slaves.
The idea was that they would work harder
for God.
Some complicit with the slave trade found
solace in the idea that slaves would now be
saved from hell.
These are Christian apologists for slavery.

Slave Christianity

Official Christianity as pushed down

to the slave community emphasized
good behavior and obedience.
In some cases, adding on Christianity
was seen as just another religious
option, others resisted.
With subsequent generations,
indigenous African traditions faded but
also absorbed into African American
Christianity

Raboteau (1978, 92) writes:

Nevertheless, even as the gods of Africa
gave way to the God of Christianity, the
African heritage of singing, dancing,
spirit possession and magic continued to
influence Afro-American spirituals, ring
shouts, and folk beliefs. That this was so
is evidence of the slaves ability not only
to adapt to new contexts but to do so
creatively.

African Americans turned to their own

interpretation of Christianity
the meaning which the missionary
wished the slaves to receive and the
meaning which the slaves actually found (or
better, made) were not the same
(Raboteau 1978, 126)
Instead of obedience- liberation
One venue for the creation of this
interpretation was the Invisible Institution.
Through religion, community was
recreated.

Invisible Institution

A religious reconstruction
Meetings in woods and cabins in
secret
Spontaneous singing
Preachers preaching in the spirit
Poetic chanting
Interaction with the congregation
Spirituals

Secret code phrases: Im bound for

Canaan.
Rites for the dead similar to West
African practices.

Lines from Spirituals

Didnt my Lord deliver Daniel, and

why not every man?
Go down Moses Tell old Pharoah,
to let my people go.

Religion was reinterpreted,

including features from the past,
blended with slave reality and
the yearning for relief and
freedom.

The Black Church

Site of the development of

community leaders
Today African American leaders
often come from a strong religious
background (often ministers)
Rev. Martin Luther King, Malcolm
X, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al
Sharpton, Rev. Louis Farrakhan

Obama and the Black

Church

What role did religion

play?