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.
Preface to the Second Edition ix
Introduction 1
I. From Africa Through Early America
1. Traditional Ibo Religion and Culture / Olaudah Equiano 13
2. African Religions in Colonial Jamaica / Bryan Edwards 20
3. Slave Conversion on the Carolina Frontier / Francis Le Jau 25
4. "Address to the Negroes in the State of New York" / Jupiter Hammon 34
5. Letters from Pioneer Black Baptists / George Liele and Andrew Bryan 44
6. A Black Puritan's Farewell / Lemuel Haynes 52
II. Slave Religions in the Antebellum South
7. Plantation Churches: Visible and Invisible / Peter Randolph 63
8. "Proud of the 'Ole Time' Religion" / Sister Kelly 69
9. Conjuration and Witchcraft / Henry Bibb 76
10. "Great Moral Dilemma" / James W.C. Pennington 81
11. Religion and Slave Insurrection / Nat Turner 89
12. Slaveholding Religion and the Christianity of Christ / Frederick Douglass 102
13. Slave Songs and Spirituals / Thomas Wentworth Higginson 112
III. Black Churches North of Slavery and the Freedom Struggle
14. "Life Experience and Gospel Labors" / Richard Allen 139
15. Rise of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church / Christopher Rush 155
16. A Female Preacher among the African Methodists / Jarena Lee 164
17. African Baptists Celebrate Emancipation in New York State / Nathaniel Paul 185
18. "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of Religion" / David Walker 193
19. "Mrs. Stewart's Farewell Address to Her Friends in the City of Boston" / Maria Stewart 202
20. "To the Citizens of New York" / Peter Williams 211
21. Black Churches in New York City, 1840 / Charles B. Ray 218
22. Protesting the "Negro Pew" / Jeremiah Asher 224
23. "I Will Not Live a Slave" / Jermain W. Loguen 228
24. "Welcome to the Ransomed" / Daniel Alexander Payne 232
IV. Freedom's Time of Trial: 1865-World War I
25. From Slave to Preacher among the Freedmen / Isaac lane 245
26. "The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church" / Lucius H. Holsey 252
27. Black Religion in the Post-Reconstruction South / William Wells Brown 256
28. "Education in the A.M.E. Church" / Daniel Alexander Payne 261
29. The Travail of a Female Colored Evangelist / Amanda Smith 270
30. "The Regeneration of Africa" / Alexander Crummell 282
31. Emigration to Africa / Henry McNeal Turner 289
32. The First African American Catholic Congress, 1889 / African American Catholics 296
33. 1899 Presidential Address to the National Baptist Convention / Elias C. Morris 301
34. Bishop C.H. Mason, Church of God in Christ / Elsie W. Mason 314
35. "Of the Faith of the Fathers" / W.E.B. Dubois 325
36. "The Race Problem in a Christian State, 1906" / Reverdy C. Ransom 337
37. "What Induced Me to Build a School in the Rural District" / Rosa Young 347
V. From the Great Migration to World war II
38. Address on the Great Migration / African Methodist Episcopal Council of Bishops 359
39. "Dear Mary" and "My dear Sister" / Letters on the Second Exodus 364
40. Social Work at Olivet Baptist Church / S. Mattie Fisher and Mrs. Jessie Mapp 368
41. Effects of Urbanization on Religious Life / Lacy Kirk Williams 372
42. Report of the Work of Baptist Women / Nannie H. Burroughs 376
43. Address to the Suehn Industrial Mission, Liberia / Jasper C. Caston 403
A Letter from the "Foreign Field" / Lula E. Cooper 410
44. "Things of the Spirit" / Carter G. Woodson 415
45. "The Genius of the Negro Church" / Benjamin E. Mays and Joseph W. Nicholson 423
46. "The Churches of Bronzeville" / St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Clayton 435
VI. Twentieth-Century Religious Alternatives
47. Garvey Tells His Own Story / Marcus Garvey 453
48. "Organized Religion and the Cults" / Miles Mark Fischer 464
49. Black Judaism in Harlem / Rabbi Matthew 473
50. "The Realness of God, to you-wards..." / Father Divine 478
51. Elder Lucy Smith / Herbert Morrisohn Smith 487
52. "Self-Government in the New World" / Wallace D. Muhammad 499
VII. CIvil Rights, Black Theology, and Beyond
53. "National Baptist Philosophy of Civil Rights" / Joseph H. Jackson 511
54. "Letter from Birmingham Jail--April 16, 1963" / Martin Luther King, Jr. 519
55. Singing of Good Tidings and Freedom /Mahalia Jackson 536
56. "The Anatomy of Segregation and Ground of Hope" / Howard Thurman 548
57. "Black Power" Statement, July 31, 1966, and "Black Theology" Statement, June 13, 1969 555
58. "Black Theology and the Black Church: Where Do We Go From Here?" / James H. Cone 567
59. "The Black Churches: A New Agenda" / Lawrence N. Jones 580
Index 589
