Black Religious Movements in America

Afro-Am 615 [691A] U-Mass/Amherst
Fall 1998, New Africa House 311
T: 9:00-11:30 am, Prof. Ernest Allen

This course examines some of the major religious movements and religious institutions of African Americans both prior to and after the American revolutionary war. Beginning with an overview of African religions in the New World, the course focuses on the conversion experiences wrought by the Great Awakenings; the development of the "invisible institution" on slave plantations; the formation of the free black church; the institutional developments in black Christianity following Emancipation; the emergence of the Holiness and Pentecostal movements; the impact of urbanization on black religious institutions both urban and rural, including the birth of the "storefront" church; the impact of charismatic religious leadership during the Great Depression; the role of the church in the modern Civil Rights movement; and trends in African American religion in the post1960s era.

Each student will be responsible for leading two or more discussions (depending on class size). A 25-page final paper addressing the principal themes covered in all the readings is due at the end of the course.

READING SCHEDULE

September 21:

Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The 'Invisible Institution' in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

September 28:

Margaret Washington Creel, "A Peculiar People": Slave Religion and Community-Culture among the Gullahs. New York: New York University Press, 1988.

October 5:

St. Clair Drake, The Redemption of Africa and Black Religion. Chicago: Third World Press, 1970.

Albert J. Raboteau, A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-American Religious History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.

October 12:

Fauset, Arthur Huff. Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults in the Urban North. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944. [NOTE: out of print; copy on library reserve]

October 19:

C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African-American Experience. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.

October 26:

Henry H. Mitchell, Black Preaching. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.

Clifton H. Johnson, ed., God Struck Me Dead: Voices of Ex-Slaves (The William Bradford Collection from the Pilgrim Press). 1993

November 2:

William L. Andrews, ed. Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women's Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.

November 9:

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

HOLIDAY: Wednesday, November 11
Follow Wednesday class schedule on Monday, November 9

November 16:

Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of Afro-American People, 2d ed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983.

November 23:

Hans A. Baer and Merrill Singer. African-American Religion in the Twentieth Century: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992.

Thanksgiving Recesss: November 26-29

November 30:

James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986

December 7:

Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James Melvin Washington. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991.

LAST DAY OF CLASSES: Monday, December 14