Historically, houses of worship for the black community, I believe, is what has
allowed us to keep our sanity as a people.
Religion in the United States has been used throughout history not only as the bedrock of the persecution of
black Americans, but also as the bedrock of their emancipation.
They made meaning of Christian teaching about salvation, of biblical traditions regarding liberation.
Hey guys, I’m Sana, and today I’m going to explore the role of religion –
especially Christianity and Islam – in the black American history of liberation.
And I want to ask if religion still has a role to play today in the fight against systematic racism.
European colonizers justified slavery through the Bible. There was this idea
that biblically, through the story of Noah’s curse, Africans were meant to be
slaves. But black slaves also went on to adopt Christianity and make it into
a faith for survival and mobilization. What we know as the black church today formed
through what happened during slavery and the period after it. Now, slaveholders
didn’t really want their slaves to be exposed to Christianity. There was a fear
that by exposing them to it, they’d see themselves as, well, equal to the
slaveholder since they would share the same faith. So they adjusted their faith’s
teachings. The version of Christianity that slaveholders spread usually mandated a
divinely ordained racial hierarchy. That slavery was God’s will for people of African descent.
And it’s not like the stolen Africans didn’t have their own
spiritual traditions before they were enslaved in the colonies.
I’ll let Dr. Judith Weisenfeld of Princeton University explain.
Enslaved Africans were not interested in converting to Christianity, for example.
Enslaved peoples produced religious community on their own, maintaining connections to
African traditional resources and creating new versions of those.
Their own beliefs included a variety of traditional religions in west Africa and central Africa,
but also Islam and Christianity, and they ended up practicing their faith in secret gatherings.
But in the 1740s – decades before the United States even existed – a wave of religious enthusiasm among
European Protestants spread across the colonies. It’s known as the Great Awakening.
The Christian revivals, as they were called, focused on renewed individual piety and religious devotion.
And they had a more egalitarian message than the one the slaveholders espoused.
People felt free to interpret the scripture and the teachings of Christianity
for themselves in ways that highlighted their humanity, their equal standing before God
and the notion that God would someday liberate them.
And so we begin to see new forms of African-American Christianity emerge that are focused on this experience
of being born again and on a more direct access that doesn't require the oversight of white clergy.
It's out of this movement that you start to see the emergence of black leaders.
A lot of them came out of the Baptist and Methodist denominations because those denominations
actually licensed black men to preach. And Weisenfeld says sometimes religion
even provided tools for slave revolts.
One of the most famous examples, that comes much later, is that of Nat Turner,
a religious visionary and preacher who led a rebellion in Virginia in August of 1831.
Now, back in the late 1700s, free black people in the North had already begun to develop
their own denominations. In many cases, these denominations were in direct response
to the racism black Americans experienced in their predominantly white congregations.
But it wasn’t until after the Civil War and the end of slavery that newly freed black people who were part of
the Baptist churches and communities in the South were able to organize more formally.
When the National Baptist Convention was founded in 1895, it became the nation’s largest
African-American denomination, with almost 2 million members.
So why is all this important?
Well, these new institutions became central spaces for black organizing and public discussion of issues
like the abolition of slavery, and then later the status of free black people.
It gave them a means to mobilize against their oppression.
Control of religious life was always fraught under slavery, but it was sometimes the only arena in which
people could exercise authority and control.
Black preachers, black ministers, other kinds of black religious leaders,
have always been central figures in black communities.
During the Great Migration, millions of Southern black people moved to Northern cities in search of better
opportunities, and to escape the Jim Crow South.
It’s estimated that between 1916 and 1970, more than 6 million black Americans left their homes in the South
and relocated to Northern cities.
This influx of Southerners not only transformed Northern black Protestant churches,
but also created interactions that would offer black Americans a range of religious beliefs
outside of Christianity.
In our interview, Weisenfeld notes that out of the Great Migration came two major revivalist movements
that identified Islam as the proper religion of black people:
the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam.
While Islam was one of the religions of the African slaves, it kind of disappeared as a conscious
faith and practice because slaves were forced to practice in secret.
And it was through the work of Muslim missionaries, scholars and activists that versions of Islam
began to reemerge in black communities in the early 20th century, versions that reflected the
fight against white supremacy and a search for independence.
A lot of those immigrant preachers propagated the idea of universal brotherhood – an idea that appealed
to many black Americans.
Noble Drew Ali, who is considered the father of the first modern black Muslim movement,
established the Moorish Science Temple in the early 1900s.
The Moorish Science Temple rejected the idea of tolerating white supremacy through the black church
and rejected the idea of black inferiority.
The Temple didn’t reject Christianity, but it did see it as a European religion.
Among the Temple’s central beliefs was the idea that black Americans were descendants of Moroccans
and their original faith was Islam.
Ali rejected terms of the day like “Negro,” “colored” and even “black,” believing the term “Moor”
was more accurate. The Moorish Science Temple had thousands of members in the 1920s
across northern cities like Detroit and Philadelphia.
And it’s important to note that it was far from mainstream or orthodox Islam.
Even the Quran used by the Temple was written by Ali and derived from various sources.
While the Moorish Science Temple was taking root, a man named Wallace Fard Muhammad established
another non-orthodox black Islamic movement in 1930. One that you’re probably familiar with:
the Nation of Islam.
The world sees the problem in America as some gang-banging, dope-selling, crack-using black people.
The Nation’s purpose was, according to Wallace Fard Muhammad, to use the faith to uplift black Americans
and make them self-reliant. And it was under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad,
who assumed leadership in 1934, that the Nation grew into a great political force.
I represent to you, not a prophet. But I represent to you, God in person.
It created one of the most influential black liberation figures of the 20th century.
We don’t advocate violence, but our people have been the constant victims of brutality
on the part of America’s racists, and the government has found itself either unwilling or unable
to do anything about it.
Malcolm X, a minister in the Nation of Islam, propagated a simple message:
uplift black Americans’ worth in their own eyes and make them independent.
And the Nation of Islam was the foundation of his message, especially as it rejected Christianity
and how it had been used by white supremacy.
Religion, whether Islam or Christianity, was a big deal during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s.
Religious spaces like mosques and churches became mobilization centers.
Because churches and mosques were community centers and financially independent,
they also were places where people were able to learn skills like public speaking,
fundraising and organizing meetings.
And it’s also why so many of the leaders of the civil rights movement were either ministers or active
members in their churches and mosques.
There were also efforts, by the likes of ministers and theologians like James H. Cone,
to create a black liberation theology.
In a 2017 talk at the Yale Divinity School, Cone summarized the core of black theology in this way:
Black power is not only not alien to the gospel,
it’s not alien to the gospel, but rather it is the gospel of Jesus and 20th century America.
So we’ve talked about how religion has been for hundreds of years a central part of black liberation
and how black communities have dealt with white supremacy.
But what role does religion have to play today in the fight against systematic racism?
Well, I asked Dawud Walid, a Muslim activist, if he thought there was a place for religion in activism today,
and here’s what he had to say.
The movement towards black liberation in the United States of America has become less religious.
If we look back at the 1950s and 1960s, it was the black church, but also the mosque under the nation of Islam,
that were the most potent organizing forces. When we look at what's going on right now,
the black church is seen as less of a means or a base for organizing.
According to Pew, while black Americans are the most religiously inclined racial and ethnic group in the country,
their church attendance has declined.
The idea of religion as a central, organizing force has also shifted.
In fact, black Americans under 30 are three times more likely to be religiously unaffiliated
than black Americans over 50.
And some of this may have to do with tensions that may seem to exist between religious institutions
and activism, especially on social positions on issues like LGBTQIA rights,
women’s representation and reproductive rights.
We can look at the Black Lives Matter movement, for instance, which is a very left-orientated,
a much more secular organization or movement. And in fact, there are many within the religious community
that actually are proponents of “black lives matter” as a slogan, but don't agree with the tactics
of the actual Black Lives Matter movement and the 501 (c) nonprofit organization.
And even though there may be some tension, some religious groups are still involved in progressive social
activism. Take, for example, Reverend William Barber’s Moral Mondays movement.
Ain’t no stopping us now! Say it again!
Moral Mondays is a campaign started in 2013 where church congregants have been leading protests
every Monday, in several state legislatures, against policies negatively impacting everything
from voting rights to the climate.
And even if the future of religious institutions in black activist movements is uncertain,
Walid is quick to point out what he sees as the central role religion has played
throughout black American history.
It is this religiosity and this connection to the church and to the mosque that I believe has granted us the spiritual
strength and spiritual power to continue existing and struggling in these United States of America.
Hey guys, thanks for watching our video. Don’t forget to like, share and subscribe,
and look who's here with me, it's Dena!
Hi everybody, make sure you check out the Direct From playlist, where I bring you underreported stories from all over the world.
And we'll see you guys next Sunday.