This widely-heralded collection of remarkable documents offers a view of African American religious history from Africa and early America through Reconstruction to the rise of black nationalism, civil rights, and black theology of today. The documents—many of them rare, out-of-print, or difficult to find—include personal narratives, sermons, letters, protest pamphlets, early denominational histories, journalistic accounts, and theological statements. In this volume Olaudah Equiano describes Ibo religion. Lemuel Haynes gives a black Puritan’s farewell. Nat Turner confesses. Jarena Lee becomes a female preacher among the African Methodists. Frederick Douglass discusses Christianity and slavery. Isaac Lane preaches among the freedmen. Nannie Helen Burroughs reports on the work of Baptist women. African Methodist bishops deliberate on the Great Migration. Bishop C. H. Mason tells of the Pentecostal experience. Mahalia Jackson recalls the glory of singing at the 1963 March on Washington. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes from the Birmingham jail.
Originally published in 1985, this expanded second edition includes new sources on women, African missions, and the Great Migration. Milton C. Sernett provides a general introduction as well as historical context and comment for each document.
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Introduction
- I. From Africa Through Early America
- 1. Olaudah Equiano, Traditional Ibo Religion and Culture
- 2. Bryan Edwards, African Religions in Colonial Jamaica
- 3. Francis Le Jau, Slave Conversion on the Carolina Frontier
- 4. Jupiter Hammon, "Address to the Negroes in the State of New York"
- 5. George Liele and Andrew Bryan, Letters from Pioneer Black Baptists
- 6. Lemuel Haynes, A Black Puritan's Farewell
- II. Slave Religion in the Antebellum South
- 7. Peter Randolph, Plantation Churches: Visible and Invisible
- 8. Sister Kelly, "Proud of that 'Ole Time' Religion"
- 9. Henry Bibb, Conjuration and Witchcraft
- 10. James W. C. Pennington, "Great Moral Dilemma"
- 11. Nat Turner, Religion and Slave Insurrection
- 12. Frederick Douglass, Slaveholding Religion and the Christianity of Christ
- 13. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Slave Songs and Spirituals
- III. Black Churches North of Slavery and the Freedom Struggle
- 14. Richard Allen, "Life Experience and Gospel Labors"
- 15. Christopher Rush, Rise of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
- 16. Jarena Lee, A Female Preacher amoung the Afican Methodists
- 17. Nathaniel Paul, African Baptists Celebrate Emancipation in New York State
- 18. David Walker, "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of Religion"
- 19. Maria Sewart, "Mrs. Stewart's Farewell Adress to Her Friends in the City of Boston"
- 20. Peter Williams, "To the Citizens of New York"
- 21. Charles B. Ray, Black Churches in New York City, 1840
- 22. Jerimiah Asher, Protesting the "Negro Pew"
- 23. Jermain W. Loguen, "I Will Not Live a Slave"
- 24. Daniel Alexander Payne, "Welcome to the Ransomed"
- IV. Freedom's Time of Trial: 1865-World War I
- 25. Isaac Lane, From Slave to Preacher among the Freedmen
- 26. Lucius H. Holsey, "The Collored Methodist Episcopal Church"
- 27. William Wells Brown, Black Religion in the Post-Reconstruction South
- 28. Daniel Alexander Payne, "Education in the A.M.E. Church"
- 29. Amanda Smith, The Travail of a Female Colored Evangelist
- 30. Alexander Crummell, "The Regeneration of Africa"
- 31. Henry McNeal Turner, Emigration to Africa
- 32. African American Catholics, The First African American Catholic Congress, 1889
- 33. Elias C. Morris, 1899 Presidential Address to the National Baptist Convention
- 34. Elise W. Manson, Bishop C. H. Manson, Church of God in Christ
- 35. W. E. B. Dubois, "Of the Faith of the Fathers"
- 36. Reverdy C. Ransom, "The Race Problem in a Christian State, 1906"
- 37. Rosa Young, "What induced Me to Build a School in the Rursal District"
- V. From the Great Migration to World War II
- 38. African Methodist Episcopal Council of Biships, Address on the Great Migration
- 39. Letters on the Second Exodus: "Dear Mary" and "My dear Sister"
- 40. S. Mattie Fisher and Mrs. Jessie Mapp, Social Work at Olivet Baptist Church
- 41. Lacy Kirk Williams, Effects of Urbanization on Religious Life
- 42. Nannie H. Burroughs, Report of the Work of Baptist Women
- 43. Jasper C. Caston, Address to the Suehn Industrial Mission, Liberia
- Lula E. Cooper, A Letter from the "Foreign Field"
- 44. Carter G. Woodson, "Things of the Spirit"
- 45. Benjamin E. Mays and Joseph W. Nicholson, "The Genius of the Negro Church"
- 46. St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, "The Churches of Bronzeville"
- VI. Twentieth-Century Religious Alternatives
- 47. Marcus Garvey, Garvey Tells His Own Story
- 48. Miles Mark Fischer, "Organized Religion and the Cults"
- 49. Rabbi Matthew, Black Judaism in Harlem
- 50. Father Divine, "The Realness of God, to you-wards..."
- 51. Herbert Morrisohn Smith, Elder Lucy Smith
- 52. Wallace D. Muhammad, "Self-Government in the New World"
- VII. Civil Rights, Black Theology, and Beyond
- 53. Joseph H. Jackson, "National Baptist Philosophy of Civil Rights"
- 54. Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail - April 16, 1963"
- 55. Mahalia Jackson, Singing of Good Tidings and Freedom
- 56. Howard Thurman, "The Anatomy of Segregation and Ground of Hope"
- 57. National Conference of Black Churchmen, "Black Power" Statement, July 31, 1966, and "Black Theology" Statement, June 13, 1969
- 58. James H. Cone, "Black Theology and the Black Church: Where Do We Go from Here?"
- 59. Lawrence N. Jones, "The Black Churches: A New Agenda"
- Index
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