Religion and Race
The intersection of race and religion has a long, complicated history in the United States and even in Jackson State’s early history. As you may know, Jackson State began in 1877 in Natchez, Mississippi as the Natchez Seminary. The seminary arose as
[as] the direct outgrowth of a humanitarian movement that had its roots in antislavery sentiment within northern Protestant churches. The movement emerged during and after the Civil War as a missionary commitment to aid the newly freed blacks of the South. In keeping with this spirit, the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York in 1877 authorized Dr. Charles Ayer (1826-1901) of New York to establish Natchez Seminary for the training of black teachers and preachers who could provide sound leadership within the black community.–Savage and National Register of Historic Places (1994:301)
For many decades now, Jackson State has been a non-sectarian, public institution. Yet, for many of its faculty, staff, and students, religion is an important aspect of their lives. The reason I point out Jackson State’s early history is to emphasize the connection between larger societal events to people’s everyday lives–a process known as the sociological imagination.
Figure 1. Natchez Seminary
Gandy, Joan W., and Thomas H. Gandy. 1999. Natchez: landmarks, lifestyles, and leisure. Arcadia Publishing. Pg. 61.
In the last chapter, I briefly discussed the concept of deculturation and religion, where one’s faith tradition is either modified or erased and replaced by the dominant religion. This is particularly true for African Americans and for Native Americans who possessed a myriad of belief systems before colonization and slavery but were forced to accept some form of Christianity. It should be noted this is a debate between two camps of scholars:
On one side[...] are those historians [and social scientists-TMK] who maintain that ‘the African was almost totally stripped of his culture by the process of enslavement’ and thus it had very little to do with the development of black Christianity. On the other side are those who claim ‘the slave system did not destroy the slaves’ African culture in the United States.’ (Vaughn 1997:25-26)
I will not attempt to answer for one camp or another, but if my reading of Johnstone 2007 is correct, the latter camp is not really emphasized. My masters-level course textbook by Keith Roberts does spend some time on this topic. As is often the case, I see merit in both arguments. The use of coded songs, fusion of political action with religion, and singing/preaching styles in African American churches fits better, I think, with the second position.
I also discussed how slavery played out within the denominations in the North and South in our last class. Earlier, too, you were introduced to Charles C. Jones‘ instructions to Methodist ministers on how to deal with the slave issue. The churches moved away from services where both slaves and whites practiced their faith to segregated services that emphasized different theodicies. After the Civil War the church becomes the “community par excellence” to use Gunnar Myrdal’s words. Within the walls of the church, members have access to educational and political opportunities as well as having place away omnipresent racism. The minister, correspondingly, becomes the leader and spokesperson for the community.
As a more personal account about the Father Divine Peace Mission, please read this beautifully written description of what one little girl witnessed one day about the Father Divine Movement.
Youtube Clip: Father Divine
Black Theology of Liberation
One long-time African American dialectic has been between accommodation (Booker T. Washington) and liberation (W.E.B. Dubois). The work of James Cone, among others, urges African Americans to shift their faith from accommodation and an otherworldly view to focusing on social inequities and emphasizing social justice. A number of theologically liberal churches with strong social justice traditions are doing just that. Even so, there have been some intense soul-searching times about the role and power of African Americans within their denominations (e.g. The Black Empowerment movement in Unitarian Universalism).
Native American Millennial Prophets
As the United States expanded it territorial claims into Native American lands, many Native American communities were destroyed or relocated. This process led to anomie, where “many young men were so overwhelmed by the vacuity of the new life that they took to suicide or other less direct ways of throwing their lives away (Wissler 1916:869 in Kehoe 1992:328).”
You may remember when I discussed how dire times often foster the rise of millennial worldviews. This is what happened to Native Americans in the late 19th Century when two Native American men Wananikwe and Wovoka (aka Jack Wilson) emerged as millennial prophets for many Native Americans.
Wananikwe had a vision that a train loaded with dead relatives (many of the spread of epidemics) would arrive from the east. The Round Dance was to help hasten the arrival of the train. The second Native American prophet, Wavoka, was a boy when he learned about Wananikwe’s revelation and the Round Dance. As a man, Wavoka had a revelation that after the apocalypse, “world would be restored to a pre-European Eden, well stocked with bison (Kehoe 1992:333).”
Youtube Clip: Wounded Knee
SOURCES
Gandy, Joan W., and Thomas H. Gandy. 1999. Natchez: landmarks, lifestyles, and leisure. Arcadia Publishing. Pg. 61.
Hill, Samuel S, ed. 2006. Religion. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Johnstone, Ronald L. 2007. Religion in Society: A Sociology of Religion. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Kehoe, Alice Beck. 1992. North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall.
Lincoln, Charles Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. 1990. The Black church in the African-American experience. Duke University Press.
Roberts, Keith A. 1990. Religion in Sociological Perspective. 2nd ed. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Pub. Co.
Savage, Beth L., and National Register of Historic Places. 1994. African American Historic Places. John Wiley and Sons.
Association, Unitarian Universalist. 1993. Unitarian Universalism and the quest for racial justice. Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
Vaughn, Steve. 1997. “Making Jesus Black: The Historiographical Debate on the Roots of African-American Christianity.” The Journal of Negro History 82:25-41.
