Research Guides: African American Studies: Religion

Religion and Black Power

Religion Resources

African American Christianity, Pt. I: To the Civil War
The story of African-American religion is a tale of variety and creative fusion. Enslaved Africans transported to the New World beginning in the fifteenth century brought with them a wide range of local religious beliefs and practices. This diversity reflected the many cultures and linguistic groups from which they had come
African American Christianity, Pt. II: From the Civil War to the Great Migration, 1865-1920
The Era of Emancipation posed distinctive religious challenges for northern and southern African Americans. When the Civil War finally brought freedom to previously enslaved peoples, the task of organizing religious communities was only one element of the larger need to create new lives—to reunite families, to find jobs, and to figure out what it would mean to live in the United States as citizens rather than property.
The Black Church
Marilyn Mellowes was principally responsible for the research and development of the series God in America and has served as its series producer. She produced and wrote From Jesus to Christ, the First Christians, a four-hour FRONTLINE series that premiered in 1998. Professor Anthea Butler (University of Pennsylvania) and Professor Jonathan Walton (Harvard Divinity School) served as editorial advisers on this essay.
Faith and Religion Among Black Americans
Most Black worshippers attend predominantly Black congregations and see a role for religion in fighting racial injustice, but generational patterns are changing.
How the Black Church saved Black America
Excerpted from “The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song” by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates’ new book traces the institution’s role in history, politics, and culture
Religion and Black Power
"African American churches provided spiritual and practical support for civil rights advocates. The militant rhetoric of the Black Power movement troubled many ministers, but others supported demands for fundamental and immediate change."
A Religious Portrait of African-Americans
While the U.S. is generally considered a highly religious nation, African-Americans are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as a whole, including level of affiliation with a religion, attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer and religion’s importance in life.

Black Religion after the Million Man March
Call Number: BR563.B53 B573 1998 - Sprague Library 2nd Floor
The Million Man March in Washington D.C. remains a major landmark in the journey of the African-American community. This text assess its impact, importance, and implications for the future in three major chapters.
The Cambridge Companion to Black Theology
Call Number: eBook 2012
This volume discusses theology from a black perspective and argues that there is no major Christian doctrine on which black theology has not commented. The volume has an important role in bringing Christian thought into confrontation with one of the central challenges of modernity, namely the problem of race and racism. This Companion puts theology in conversation with issues of ethnicity, gender, social analysis, politics and class.
Canaan Land
Call Number: BR563.B53 R235 2001 - Sprague Library 2nd Floor
An in-depth examination of African-American history and religion, this book provides panoramic coverage of the black religious and social experience in America. Renowned historian Albert J. Raboteau traces the subtle blending of African tribal customs with the powerful Christian establishment, the migration to cities, the growth of Islam, and the 200-year fight for freedom and identity which was so often centered around African-American churches.
Soul Care in African American Practice
Call Number: eBook 2020
Barbara Peacock illustrates a journey of prayer, spiritual direction, and soul care from an African American perspective. She reflects on how these disciplines are woven into the African American culture and lived out in the rich heritage of its faith community. Using examples of ten significant men and women--Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Darrell Griffin, Renita Weems, Harold Carter, Jessica Ingram, Coretta Scott King, James Washington, and Howard Thurman--Barbara offers us the opportunity to engage in practices of soul care as we learn from these spiritual leaders.
The Talking Book
Call Number: BS521.2 .C35 2006 - Sprague Library 2nd Floor
Tracing the origins of African-American culture from slavery’s secluded forest prayer meetings to the bright lights and bold style of today’s hip-hop artists, Callahan casts the Bible has profoundly influenced African Americans throughout history. From a variety of perspectives this book is the first to explore the Bible’s role in the triumph of the black experience, as African Americans shared religious beliefs, created their own music, and shaped the ultimate key to their freedom--literacy.