African Americans And Faith: It Goes Way Beyond The Black Church
According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 75% of Black Americans identify as Christian.
It’s well known that many of the first African Americans were first exposed to Christianity during slavery. This exposure could have been used as a tactic for control by enslavers or as a genuine attempt to lead individuals to salvation by missionaries.
Whether their conversion happened out of fear or joy, African religious practices that the enslaved people would have practiced back home all but disappeared once they arrived to the United States.
When emancipation occurred in the 1860s, the newfound freedoms of the formerly enslaved included not only an autonomy of body and identity, but an autonomy, at least in theory, of what they believed and how they worshipped. For many, this materialized in a continued commitment to Christianity.
Some former slaves practiced a form of Christianity that, while still committed to the Gospel, had visible distinctions and different emphases from those of the whites who had first evangelized to them. For many others, there was now the freedom to begin engaging with their traditional African beliefs.
While African Americans technically had the right to religious freedom, practitioners of African religions still faced persecution, especially during the era of Jim Crow. Today, stigma around voodoo, for example, and similar practices has made traditional African religions a taboo in many communities.
Harvard Prof. Ahmad Greene-Hayes has recently written a book called “Underworld Work,” which explores the nuances of African American religious practice in the era between the post-Civil War years and the Civil Rights Movement. I spoke with Greene-Hayes about the complexities of Black religion during Jim Crow and the ways many Americans misunderstand African spiritualism.
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Matthew Peterson is Religion Unplugged’s podcast editor and audience development coordinator. He took part in this past summer’s European Journalism Institute held in Prague, an annual program co-sponsored by The Media Project.