African American Religion

“Just as black religion was the “invisible institution” that helped African Americans survive slavery, the black church was the visible institution that helped hundreds of thousands of migrants adjust to urban life while affirming a set of core values consisting of freedom, justice, equality, and an African heritage” (pg.

It gives one a close glimpse at what exactly kept them going strong in this period of mistreatment, and just how they were so spiritually strong even at their weakest physically. It was said to be that African-Americans established this “invisible institution” through signals, passwords, and other things. It was here in Church where they mixed their African rhythms, sang, and praised God.

Peter Randolph, too, presented the durable linkage between African-Americans, especially during slavery. Their alliance was characterized by creating the so called, “plantation churches” whenever they could not attend the actual church services. By doing so, they could simply gather together, remember their traditions, dance, sing, recite their prayers, sorrows or play banjo. All those familiar activities were helping them hold on to their culture, refine their identity and avoid the “Social Death” or “Cultural Genocide” they were subjected to. Similarly, creating the AME Church, along with following churches, such as the Ethiopian Church of Jesus Christ, was a method of showing to the society that the African history and beliefs are not forgotten.

Africans refused to work on holy days which made their owners mad. So the owners boycotted Le Jau’s church forcing him to back down. Many Africans who were brought to South Carolina were from west and central Africa “where Christianity had long before begun to fuse with indigenous beliefs.”(206). Their was a big difference between African and Anglican religious, “Africans’ emphasis is on continuous revelations and Anglican emphases scripture and literacy.”

Historians investigating African American religious history have labeled the secretive slave worship services the “Invisible Institution” because much of it was invisible to the eyes of their masters. They had secret places in which they met. Some of the places were: “In their cabins, woods, thickets, hollows, and brush arbors (shelter of cut branches also called ‘hush harbors’) throughout the South, slaves held their own religious meetings where they interpreted Christianity according to their experience, applying the stories and symbols of the Bible to make sense out of their lives.”

Historically, black religion has been concerned with freedom, liberation, humanization, and the eradication of social evils in this world. Therefore, as opposed to being fixated exclusively with spirituality and heaven, the black church has been the vanguard of social, economic, and political activism within the black community. In fact, some scholars have gone as far as to identify the black church with the black community, and to suggest that neither can be identified apart from the other. The black church was born in protest against racism in the white church. The type of Christianity that Frederick Douglass characterized as “slave holding religion,” was a religion of the white status quo. It sought to justify the enslavement of blacks, rather than resist it and work towards its elimination. Reflecting on the period of American

Religion is a social construct embedded in the African American experience through the ages. Whether it be Christianity, Muslim, Judaism and many other religions that found itself in the Americas the religions derived from the African diaspora was very mixed, they had traditional belief about magic which are derived from some Yoruba and Muslim belief system, Christianity was something new to them. As their, ancestors were brought to the Americans they brought their own traditional belief system. African American religious institutions served as contexts in which African Americans create a meaning to their experience during their enslavement, thus they interpret their relationship to Africa and charted a vision for a collective future that will

Before Africans were brought to America during the slave trade, they had their own culture and society. They had their own language and dance.  They also had their own religion.  History tells us that the Europeans justified their abuse toward the Africans as helping them become more civilized because the Africans lifestyle appeared primal to them and not as developed and industrialized as theirs. What is often overlooked is that even though Africans were taken from Africa and Americanized and have been stripped of their religion, culture, language and even their name, the very essence of the African as a people did not go away.

The roots of a black woman’s struggle heightens the sole reasons why she bends over backwards for herself and her community. This showcase of bravery and courage is further elaborated in Ross’s first chapter named “Religion and Public Life: Early Traditions of Black Religious Women’s Activism.” Ross does an excellent job at unfolding the ignorance of black male religious leaders during the Civil Rights Movement. Black ministers and other male figures during this time fell extremely short by failing to acknowledging the women who offered much more than a helping hand in promoting change. Black religious women in the Civil Rights Movement provided a critical influence to the success of the movement. They furnished multiple ideas that embraced racial uplift and social responsibility all while making connection to religious life. Religion has always been crucial to not only black people but also to the minority race period. They place an immense reliance on a power that is much, much greater than their own. Having faith in something is innate; and is an essential need for humans. Therefore, there is

The African Methodist Episcopal Church also known as the AME Church, represents a long history of people going from struggles to success, from embarrassment to pride, from slaves to free. It is my intention to prove that the name African Methodist Episcopal represents equality and freedom to worship God, no matter what color skin a person was blessed to be born with. The thesis is this: While both Whites and Africans believed in the worship of God, whites believed in the oppression of the Africans’ freedom to serve God in their own way, blacks defended their own right to worship by the development of their own church. According to Andrew White, a well- known author for the AME denomination, “The word African means that our church was

Historically, spirituality has played an important role in the lives of African Americans. Religion and spirituality has saturated various areas of African American life and its roots can be traced into different areas of life whether directly or indirectly, some form of religion or spirituality can be found in the cultural fabric of African Americans ( ). During slavery, slaves relied upon their faith to withstand the trials and tribulations of the times often using old Negro spirituals to communicate directions and codes on how to get toward freedom (citation). During the civil rights era where the Black church was a platform for social change, there was a frequent use of the church to spread the word of the civil rights agenda from the pulpit (Battle, 2006). African American families

For this assignment, I was tasked with researching and discussing the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZC). Being raised attending and participating in church, and later becoming a Minister in the African Methodist Episcopal denomination, I found it interesting to research the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZC). I was interested in seeing the differences. In this paper, I will share the researched information regarding its founding, polity, dates, places, etc. I will also share its demographics, such as number of members, number of churches, number of schools, colleges, seminaries, and include significant figures as well.

While the whites spoke to the slaves, the slaves also had a church. Not only for being a place of worship but also an underground slave plotting

As slaves, blacks had worshiped alongside whites, but now they formed their own churches pastored by their own ministers. Black churches grew robustly. The 150,000 member black Baptist Church of 1850 reached 500,000 by 1870, while the African Methodist Episcopal Church quadrupled in size from 100,000 to 400,000 in the first decade after emancipation. These churches formed the bedrock of black community life, and they soon gave rise to other benevolent, fraternal, and mutual aid societies. All these organizations helped blacks protect and maintain their newly won freedom.

I jumped at the opportunity to complete the extra credit assignment because of the topic. I have always wanted to attend an African American Baptist Church. I was raised Catholic in a predominantly white community and for the chance to experience something different was appealing. I’ve seen the stereotypes in movies and on TV about what an African American Baptist church looks like but I wanted to experience it myself. I wasn’t sure on what to expect but kept an open mind about the situation.