African American Religions

This book presents a provocatively new interpretation of one of New Orleans' most enigmatic traditions, the Mardi Gras Indians. By interpreting the tradition in an Atlantic context, Dewulf traces the " black Indians " back to the ancient Kingdom of Kongo and its war dance known as sangamento. He shows that good warriors in the Kongo kingdom were per definition also good dancers, masters of a technique of dodging, spinning and leaping that was crucial in local warfare. Enslaved Kongolese brought the rhythm, dancing moves and feathered headwear of sangamentos to the Americas in performances that came to be known as " Kongo dances. " By comparing Kongo dances on the African island of São Tomé with those in Latin America, the Caribbean and Louisiana, Dewulf demonstrates that the dances on New Orleans' Congo Square were part of a much broader Kongolese performance tradition. He links that to Afro-Catholic mutual-aid societies that honored their elected community leaders or " kings " with Kongo dances. While the public rituals of these brotherhoods originally thrived in the context of Catholic procession culture around Epiphany and Corpus Christi, they transitioned to carnival as a result of growing orthodoxy within the Church. Dewulf's groundbreaking research suggests a much greater impact of Kongolese traditions and of popular Catholicism on the development of African-American cultural heritage and identity. His conclusions force us to radically rethink the traditional narrative on the Mardi Gras Indians, the kings of Zulu and the origins of black participation in Mardi Gras celebrations.

http://www.ulpress.org/item_224/From-the-Kingdom-of-Kongo-to-Congo-Square.php

Este texto visa retomar alguns pontos da chamada relação afroindígena a fim de situar a questão e dissipar malentendidos. Para isso, procede por uma explicitação dos pontos fundamentais que constituem a noção para, em seguida, examinar alguns casos etnográficos — tratados como teorias situadas — que a noção pode iluminar ao mesmo tempo em que é por eles iluminada. A partir desses casos, o foco se volta para a complexidade e potencial da noção de “virar ”, tal qual pensada e formulada nas religiões de matriz africana no Brasil. Noção que permite discutir o lugar e a importância das imagens neste e em outros contextos, assim como conectar essa noção com os recentes debates em torno de uma possível “virada ontológica” na antropologia.

The paper's starting point is the presence, increase and expansion of cults of African origin in Latin America. From there it approaches, in a comparative perspective, some of the changes in the attire of men when dancing the Candomblé ritual, specifically in the Xangȏ of Recife (Brazil), and also of the women who undergo the iyaworaje –initiation period in Cuban Santería. The article reveals the way in which these religions allow the expression of sensuality and eroticism as elements proper to the religious culture. All this takes place in a religious space in which discourses about sex and gender are flexible and non-essentialist. The success that religions of African origin in the Americas have displayed in surviving, expanding and attracting individuals from every ethnic group and social class, and from so many nationalities and realities alien to the African ethnic heritage, is indeed an extraordinary development. At the present time, the cult of the orixás 1 counts its followers by the thousands throughout the world and oversteps, with an outstanding strength, political, cultural and ethnic boundaries. In my capacity as a researcher in the Afro-Brazilian religious field and in the traditions of African origin in Cuba, I have had the opportunity of verifying the vigor of those religions that –although they are not to be considered proselytizing entities— have managed to grow in an extraordinary way 2. In Brazil, Candomblé 3 continues to expand, incorporating –to the ritual linage of African ancestors brought as slaves— new sons-and daughters-of-saint 4 who enrich the most traditional houses-of-saint in Brazil. New places of cult open their doors, thereby multiplying the number of terreiros 5 throughout the whole Brazilian geography. This phenomenon is not limited solely to Brazil: it has also crossed over borders and strongly installed itself in some of the nations that most

Two contemporary authors exhibit the complicated nature of thinking within the enduring legacy of colonial encounter, each seeking to articulate the limits and possibilities of identity within the wake of the colonial moment. British novelist Zadie Smith and American author Heidi Durrow each represent both the complicated entanglements of the diaspora's current condition. Smith, whose mother is Jamaican and father is British and Durrow whose father is African American and mother is Danish seemingly represent a cosmopolitan ideal, children of the world! And yet their novels narrate not the triumph of a multicultural ideal, but the ways in which racialized imagination is deeply tied to national belonging. But what makes Smith's and Durrow's novels particularly interesting in considering the future of black religion is each author's respective invocation of religion in navigating the racial realities of modern England and the United States respectively.
Both invoke religion at various moments in narrating the character's navigation of national and racial space. In doing so, they highlight to particular approaches to imagining the relationship between race and religion in contemporary society. Through the interracial bodies of their main protagonists, race is questioned and problematized but in two distinct ways. Durrow and Smith's invocation of religion to this end highlight two particular approaches to the problem of thinking race and religion in our contemporary diasporic moment. But they also highlight the limitations the diasporic moment presents to any conception of race and identity. Smith and Durrow seem to be pressing the modern world and black religion's attempt to make sense of the relationship between race and religion with a simple question, can black religion make sense of its attachments - of what has accumulated within the lives of those marked "black" and what has become a part of them despite having its beginnings in the world of the non-black or even the anti-black? Put differently, what happens to black religion when faced with claims of identity constituted not by the "not" but by the "with?"
In struggling through these questions Heidi Durrow associates a freedom of identity with the unfettering of identity from both race and religion, conflating blackness and Christianity as fetters to be escaped. But in Smith's White Teeth escape is perpetually elusive and faith is located less particularly and more universally, finding expression in everything from nation, to religion, to science. Where ne lands for Smith is more difficult to discern, but she leaves the reader with little choice but to grapple with the realities of one's history and the presence of that history in one's living and hoping.

Este texto é a introdução de um pequeno livro, a ser publicado em breve, elaborado a partir das imagens obtidas na grande festa para os caboclos do Terreiro Matamba Tombenci Neto, em Ilhéus, na Bahia, realizada em setembro de 2019, quando também foi reinaugurada a cabana de sua cabocla principal, a Cabocla Jupira. Combinadas com fotografias mais antigas (algumas da década de 1940!), as imagens obtidas nessa festa homenageiam as caboclas, caboclos e encantados em geral e, mais particularmente, todas e todos que escolheram o Terreiro e suas filhas e filhos como sua morada. Algumas dessas fotografias foram reproduzidas ao final do texto.

Martin Luther King believed that the civil rights struggles of Blacks were in one sense importantly American but also part of a worldwide movement against colonialism. As King once noted, Black Power is “the cry of the unheard.” Such expressions of angst extend themselves beyond U.S. borders and thus characterize the existential crises of all oppressed communities. Through this observation, King argues that this international perspective is the definition of Black Power and is a universal call for justice, which he engages as the transition from “thingification” to personhood. #BlackLivesMatter is the theopolitical demand for Black personhood, which we believe to be housed in King’s philosophy of Black Power. Using interpretations of oppression from Black and womanist theologies, this article provides a reconfiguration of King’s expansion of Black Power into global terrain and considers how this approach is timely, given the desensitization toward the killing of Black female and male bodies.

The African Diaspora and the Study of Religion engages a variety of conversations at the forefront of contemporary scholarship in the study of religion and in African diaspora studies. These conversations include: the construction of racial identity in diverse national settings (Brazil, Mexico, Britain, North America); new religious movements and nationalism; alternative religious narratives in the diaspora; literature read through the lens of diaspora; trans-Atlantic culture (the role of Denmark in Nella Larson's novel Quicksand, for example, or Ethiopia in Rastafarianism); and the role of the scholar and scholarship in the construction of religious and political meaning.

Bratz dolls, popular among pre-adolescent girls, have been the subject of widespread criticism. Many scholars, activists, educators, and parents have argued that the scantily clad fashion dolls contribute to the sexualization of girls that has been decried by the American Psychological Association, among others. As is often the case in studies of girls’ popular culture, however, these conversations about the problems with Bratz have rarely incorporated the voices of girls in the brand’s target audience. To address this gap, this article analyzes an afternoon of Bratz doll play by a small group of African-American girls, aged between 8 and 10 years. Th is article suggests that although critical concerns about Bratz’ sexualization are warranted, the dolls’ racial diversity may benefi t some girls’ play, enabling them to productively negotiate complex issues of racial identity, racism, and history while paying little attention to the dolls’ sexualized traits.

While in the scholarship on the NOI there has been much discussion about the press's coverage of the NOI in the early 1930s, there has been almost no attempt to analyze the group's own use of media to promote its message during this initial phase of the movement. In 1933 and 1934, NOI members wrote a number of letters and editorials that were published in both Detroit and nationally-distributed African American newspapers. And, in the late summer of 1934, the group published its first periodical, the Final Call to Islam. Although for the most part, the content of these publications simply reflects the known ideology of the NOI of the early 1930s, this chapter will argue that these pieces add depth to our understanding and appreciation of both early NOI voices and of what was important for the movement at the time. For instance, in addition to promoting Fard's principal doctrines about the origins and destiny of African Americans, there is a strong emphasis on the current activities of Muslims around the world, which shows for us how much the early NOI identified with Muslims generally. We also see a stress on having a proper diet and good health, echoing Fard's ideas about " how to eat to live. " Perhaps the most valuable aspect about these publications, however, is that they give us a closer look at the leaders and followers of the early NOI. We see, for example, how precisely early NOI members—including Elijah Muhammad, who wrote several of the pieces that will be examined—interpreted and put in their own words Fard's teachings. This gives us a better glimpse at how NOI ideas were constructed and expressed by its African American members at the time. Most scholarship discussing early NOI discourse has not relied on pieces written by followers during this initial phase of the NOI—instead, there has been a reliance on the group's official teachings written by Fard, original NOI members' interviews and speeches that were often recorded many years after 1934, and early 1930s sensationalist newspaper reports about the NOI, which often contained quotes from members that might have been edited or taken out of context. A brief comparison will be made between these 1930s pieces and some 1950s NOI writings. Finally, these early publications also give us a few small, but reliable and important details about the group's structure and growth at the time.

In recent years, the vast and expansive oeuvre of cultural critic and theorist Sylvia Wynter has received enthusiastic response from a seemingly ever-increasing group of scholars. Drawing from and contributing to this great interest in Wynter’s writings, this essay further elucidates and build upon one of her often referenced concepts: “demonic ground.” Despite Wynter’s use of the terrestrial term “ground,” I argue that the concept is fundamentally oceanic. I then build on this insight and the work of Fred Moten, Alexander Weheliye and others to coin “demonic ocean” as an alternative vantage point of Black study. The article brings together scholarship in religious studies, Black studies, and the blue humanities.

This article looks at the field of Black Judaism, with a view to understanding how scholars articulate the distinction between Black Judaism and the Hebrew Israelite movement. The Hebrew Israelites are an autonomous African American movement who identify themselves as descendants of the Israelites and some of whom self-identify as Jews, probably originating in the late 19th-century American South. Although scholars have been working on this area for three generations, there is still little agreement and yet the implications of whether and where lines are drawn are important to understand; they go to the heart of personal identities and investments.

Buck, Christopher. “Alain Locke and Cultural Pluralism.” Search for Values: Ethics in Baha’i Thought. Edited by Seena Fazel and John Danesh. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 2004. Pp. 94–158.

African American philosopher Alain Locke is arguably the most profound and important Western Bahá’í philosopher to date. Except for one 1979 article in a Bahá’í periodical, scholarship on Locke has neither seriously taken into account his Bahá’í identity nor the Faith’s influence on his work. The present study, based largely on archival sources, contributes to research on this “missing” dimension of Locke’s complex life and thought. It examines Locke’s worldview as a Bahá’í, his secular perspective as a philosopher, and the synergy between his confessional and professional essays. This study also argues that Locke had a fluid hierarchy of values—of loyalty, tolerance, reciprocity, cultural relativism and pluralism (the philosophical equivalent of “unity in diversity”)—and that this hierarchy represents a progression and application of quintessentially Bahá’í ideals. Locke’s distinction as a “Bahá’í philosopher” may therefore be justified on ideological as well as historical grounds. Locke “translated” Bahá’í ideals “into more secular terms” so that “a greater practical range will be opened up for the application and final vindication of the Bahá’í principles” in order to achieve “a positive multiplication of spiritual power.”

Scholars researching and writing on the roles of pastor-caregivers in predominantly black congregations have done so using models originally designed to examine the roles of pastor-caregivers in predominantly white churches. This study offers a revised model based on the historical development and present reality of black churches that more closely matches the historical and present roles of the black pastor, who can trace his or her roots back to African spiritual traditions.

God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America
by Christopher Buck
Kingston, NY: Educator's International Press, 2015

Contents
Introduction, by J. Gordon Melton
Chapter 1: America: Nation and Notion
Chapter 2: Native American Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 3: Protestant Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 4: The Christian Right’s Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 5: Catholic Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 6: Jewish Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 7: Mormon Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 8: Christian Identity Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 9: Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 10: Contemporary Muslim Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 11: Buddhist Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 12: Baha’i Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 13: Conclusion: How Minority Faiths Redefined America’s World Role

Two sample chapters (by publisher's permission):
1.  Native American Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 2)
2.  Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 9)

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/God-Apple-Pie-Religious-Visions/dp/1891928155/

Introduction by J. Gordon Melton,
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History, Baylor University

Far from being an interesting additional topic for the religious dilettante, the discussion around the theological reality that is America, periodically bursts forth as an important item on the nation's agenda, from the place of prayer services in the White House, to the issuance of an annual government report on religious persecution, to the rise of contemporary terrorism. As one traces radical Islam, for example, one arrives at the writings of one Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian who spent some of his younger years in America, and came away with his own vision of a country mired in sin and decadence. He would posit America as the image of everything he hoped to escape in promoting the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now, in all honesty, I must admit that over the years as I encountered all of the intriguing, even fascinating, ideas about America in the great cosmic scheme of things, I never got around to systematically gathering the different visions and trying to make sense of them in any detailed fashion. Thus, I have been more than happy to receive, and now with this modest introduction, pass along to my scholarly colleagues and the reading public the work of Christopher Buck.

During his years of observation and research, Buck has surveyed the spectrum of visions of America that have energized and motivated the America's religious community, and has selected from among them a sample that both (1) represents the spectrum of opinion about America and its importance, and (2) highlights the more important visions of America that have shaped and are continuing to shape the way we understand this country we call home. His work calls us to become self-conscious about the assumptions we use in our day-to-day movements that massage the ways we approach our neighbors, our colleagues at work, and the politicians for whom we vote.

Buck begins with the visions of America present at the founding of the nation, aspects of which still strongly permeate the culture today, and have found a new home among conservative Protestants in their innovative idea of Christian America. Amid the Protestant context, we often forget the role of the Roman Catholic Church, which became the largest religious body in America in the 1840s and is now three times larger than its nearest competitor. At the end of the nineteenth century, a controversy on Americanism would erupt around Catholic visions of their place in a changing world that would drive it from participation in the nation's public square for a half-century, and molded its reentrance after World War II.

And then there are all the other-than-Christian religions, from Ahmadiyya Muslims to Zoroastrians, all of which possess their its own vision of America that shapes their appropriation of life in the United States and guides their development as their place in the nation was challenged, then accepted, and most recently affirmed and even celebrated by the nation as a whole. We have watched as Buddhists have carved out a place as cultural peacemakers, Muslims have struggled with separation of religion and government, and Baha'is have tried to understand the communication of their founder, Baha'u'llah, with the presidents of the Americas collectively, and with 'Abdu'l-Baha's statements about the destiny of America in particular. All of this occurs in the ebb and flow of religious life. One day we envision the possible unity of America's religions only to be thrown up against the many harsh divisions, which motivates us once more to seek realms of agreement, which again highlights the array of issues that can drive wedges between those who accept the label "American" as part of their self-identity.

In conclusion, I can, as a scholar, reflect on the contribution that this book, Religious Myths and Visions of America: God and Apple Pie, is making to our understanding of the American mosaic and how various segments of the religious community have found their way to being American. As an informed citizen I welcome its information that allows me to empathize with and make informed decisions relative to those with whom I might align (or oppose) as I sally forth in the public square. And on a personal level, I welcome the author's invitation for me to meet anew the residents of my neighborhood, those who shop in the same stores I do, send their children to the same schools my grandchildren attend, and diligently work toward their own appropriation of the American dream.

J. Gordon Melton
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History
Baylor University

January 2015 — This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Este trabalho é uma revisão bibliográfica da literatura antropológica sobre os conceitos de fetiche e fetichismo, dando ênfase especial a obras que deles se valem para pensar a religião e, mais especificamente, o uso de certos objetos mágico-religiosos por populações diversas. Graças à ligação da emergência da noção de fetiche ao encontro colonial afro-europeu na costa da Guiné durante as grandes navegações, a maior parte do material analisado se refere à África Ocidental ou às religiões afro- americanas. A idéia aqui é apreender simultaneamente a dispersão polissêmica das apropriações do conceito e as linhas que atravessam seus variados usos, dando-lhes relativa unidade, apontando para problemas teóricos recorrentes. Num primeiro momento observo a história da noção de fetiche desde a emergência no contexto guineense, passando pela sua conceitualização no iluminismo, positivismo e evolucionismo, até as críticas que levam o conceito a ser considerado um “mal-entendido” no início do séc. XX. Depois faço uma rápida passagem pelas apropriações marxista e psicanalítica do termo, que o transpõem para as esferas da economia e da sexualidade. Por fim, analiso obras contemporâneas que apontam para um movimento de reavaliação na antropologia do conceito de fetiche enquanto forma de pensar objetos em religiões (africanas ou não). Neste último momento foco em certos temas recorrentes na literatura: a própria história do conceito, sua dimensão crítica, a idéia de agência, a chamada “teoria do primeiro encontro”, e as dicotomias pessoas/coisas e matéria/espírito.

Palavras-Chave: Antropologia; Religião; Fetiche; Fetichismo; África Ocidental; Religiões Afro-Americanas

The Concept of Fetish in Anthropology: African Objects, European Regards

This dissertation is a review of the anthropological literature about the concepts of fetish and fetishism. It focuses primarily on works that apply the concept to the study of religion, and more specifically to the study of certain magico-religious objects of various peoples around the world. The idea of fetish emerged amidst the Euro-African encounter that took place on the coast of Guinea during the Age of Discovery, and the connection to this history still lingers, therefore most of the texts analyzed are about West Africa or Afro-American religions. The objective is to grasp simultaneously the polysemy, the dispersion of the various accounts of the concept, and the threads that tie them together, rendering the subtle unity of the concept by raising recurrent theoretical problems. The first chapter is an overview of the history of the fetish, starting with its emerge in the Guinean context, following its illuminist, positivist and evolutionist conceptualizations, and ending with the critical debate of the early 20 th century that label the concept a “misunderstanding”. The second chapter is a quick survey on the marxist and psychoanalytic transposing of the word fetish to the realms of economy and sexuality. The third and final chapter is an analysis of the works that suggest a contemporary anthropological reevaluation of the idea of fetish as a concept referring to religious objects (African or otherwise). During this last chapter I will focus on some recurring themes: the history of the concept itself, its critical dimension, the idea of agency, the so-called “first encounter theory”, and the dichotomies between people and things and between matter and spirit.

Keywords: Anthropology; Religion; Fetish; Fetishism; West Africa; Afro-American Religion

“Bantu Religion“ is an abstraction, an ideal-type of the consensus between different forms among the Bantu peoples. With the arrival of Bantu people in Brazil five centuries ago, a process of amalgamation began. Core features and structure have reasserted themselves interacting with non-Bantu religious and cultures around, assimilating ideas and practices. According to a systemic theory of syncretism this follows definite rules. It will be shown that Umbanda has preserved a core of Bantu beliefs, ritual practises and spiritual perceptions, in spite of all syncretistic adoptions. Thus Umbanda remains essentially a vital and complex Bantu Traditional Religion in a largely non-Bantu cultural environment persevering in an ongoing syncretistic process. It is thus a source for the retrieval of an ideal-type of African Traditional Religion. In this analytical perspective the comparison of rituals by the water in Umbanda and in South African Bantu culture presented in this study discloses a deeper understanding of their meaning and essence.

There are many ways to think about religion and popular culture. One method is to ask where and when we see what might be commonly understood as "religious tradition(s)" explicitly on display. Another is to think about superhero narratives themselves as "religious" , using this term as a conceptual tool for categorizing and thereby better understanding particular dimensions of human experience. This article takes a variety of approaches to understanding religion in relation to the recent television series LUKE CAGE (Netflix, US 2016). These approaches take their hermeneuti-cal cues from a range of disciplines, including studies of the Bible; Hip Hop; gender; Black Theology; African American religion; and philosophy. The results of this analysis highlight the polysemic nature of popular culture in general, and of superhero stories in particular. Like religious traditions themselves, the show is complex and contradictory: it is both progressive and reactionary; emphasizes community and valorizes an individual; critiques and endorses Christianity; subverts and promotes violence. Depending on the questions asked, LUKE CAGE (2016) provides a range of very different answers. http://www.jrfm.eu/index.php/ojs_jrfm/article/view/79

Pamela Andrews, MA Thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland, October 2013.

The Nation of Gods and Earths, or Five Percenters, are an offshoot of the Nation of Islam.  Five Percenters have had a disproportionate influence over the language and appearance of hip hop culture.  This thesis looks at the Nation through the lens of religious studies.  I suggest that, though it is often framed as an Islamic movement, it is productive to view the Five Percent as a new religious movement. I analyse gender relations in the tradition, and illustrate ways in which the language of Five Percenter theology has become global simulacra through the medium of hip hop music.

Instead of one black intellectual tradition, there are black intellectual traditions.  After discussing the origins of intellectual work among people designated "black," this article explores various intellectual movements from black nationalisms, liberal, conservative, and radical movements to those organized round Afrocentricity, existentialism, feminism, philosophy, religious thought, and other areas of research and activism.

Often recognized for its advocacy on behalf of African descendants, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church has been silent on issues regarding anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic. By tracing the historical connection between Black America and Haiti in the nineteenth century and recounting the twentieth-century history of the AME Church in the Dominican Republic, this article explains how an institution created in defense of racial equality could inadvertently facilitate its own silencing. Using archival research, ethnography, and interviews, this article critically analyzes narratives that distance Dominican African Methodists from African Americans and Haitians. It argues that such silences in the AME Church are the result of the church’s social marginalization in the Dominican Republic, African American leaders’ habitual neglect of the AME Church’s Dominican branches, and the assimilation of Black Anglophone migrants into Dominican culture.

Christopher Buck, Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 2005. Pub date: July 3, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-1890688387. ISBN-10: 189068838X. L

In print. (Order from Kalimat Press: http://www.kalimat.com/Locke.html.)

REVIEWS
•  Derik Smith. World Order 38.3 (2006/2007): 42–48. (Published in 2008.): ”Christopher Buck’s recent book, Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy, is a welcome addition to the literature on early twentieth-century American and African American culture. But, perhaps more important, Buck’s study is a significant contribution to scholarship on the history of the Bahá’í Faith in the United States. … Any future study of Locke must necessarily make its way through Christopher Buck’s Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy. The scholar forcefully proves his thesis that, in Locke’s thinking, philosophy and religious belief operated as synergistic terms. He has shown that the Bahá’í Faith was integral to Locke’s life and ideology. …  Yet, after reading Buck’s work, it is difficult to imagine Locke the philosopher rapt in prayer. Of course, this is not a shortcoming of the book. Rather it is an indication that, while he may have wanted to portray a more pious figure, Buck maintains the vow he made in his introduction to Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy “to constrain any grandiose claims on Locke as a Bahá’í.”

• M. Anthony Fitchue. Journal of African American History 92.1 (Winter 2007): 131–133: “But the jewels in this book are unmistakable. … Clearly, Buck has given voice to the men and women who not only put the Baha’i faith first in their lives, but also left key documents, personal letters, notes, and memoranda related to the life of philosopher Alain LeRoy Locke for future researchers to ponder and use for years to come.”

• William P. Collins. Insights (Library of Congress Professional Association Newsletter) 38.1–3 (Jan–Oct 2006): 10–12: “Both of these books [Lights of the Spirit and Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy] go a long way toward correcting the historians’ failure to note the important role played by the Bahá’í Faith and prominent African-American Bahá’ís in the struggle for racial equality in the United States.”

A leading yet little-studied figure in the first generation of the
Moorish Science Temple of America movement, Juanita Mayo
Richardson Bey was editor of the group’s newspaper, literary educator,
and religious poet. Analysis of the textual legacy of Richardson
Bey shows evidence of a model of leadership that contrasts starkly
with that of the religion’s founder, Prophet Noble Drew Ali. While
Ali focused on maintaining ideological control and doctrinal orthodoxy,
Richardson Bey, as editor and educator, insisted on a vision of
collective participation in Moorish uplift, emphasized the importance
of education and specifically the values of literary education
for such uplift, encouraged individual creative expression of and
synthetic engagement with Moorish Science teachings, and, as poet,
modeled in intimate and emotional language her own sense of the
meaning of Moorish identity.

Sectionalism denotes the division of a country, such as the United States, into sections based on shared cultures, religions, and racial, economic, and political identities. These sections then compete, putting their interests over those of the other sections. In the case of the United States, one of the most significant sectional conflicts was the Civil War, where North and South battled due to conflict over racial, economic, religious, and political differences. However, sectional conflict can be seen as early as British colonialism during which time the colonies competed with each other and with their governments in Europe and later as other sections such as the West developed its own characteristics and interests. Religion and race were frequently at the core of sectional conflicts, in everything from the Revolutionary War, the drafting of the Constitution, the failure of compromise regarding slavery, and the intermittent battles with Native Americans over land and religious practice to the emergence of the West and the great immigration and religious innovation that took place there. In all these cases, sections constructed identities in which race and religion were fundamental and were also significant points of contention. Even today, at the beginning of the 21st century, sectionalism continues with geographic sections still battling for dominance, and cultural sections square off in what is commonly called the culture wars.

This chapter identifies a substratum of self-titled "professors of Oriental and African mystic science" who collaborated with each other and created new identities in the context of the marketplace, the Marcus Garvey movement, Orientalism, and influences as diverse as occultism, Spiritualism, Pentecostalism, Freemasonry, Anglo-Israelism, Judaism, and
Islam. The specter of African Americans adopting and using Orientalism puts a different twist on the concept.  The discourse of civilization was rarely simply rejected or resisted outright; rather it was recycled and reformulated. For at least some African Americans, adopting Orientalist identities could express anti-imperialist political sympathies, expand personal freedom, and even allow criticism of the West's conceit to be more civilized and technologically superior to the rest of the world.

Black Orientalists triangulated between dark and light by reaching outside of America, in an attempt to overcome American racism and criticize the dominant discourse of civilization.  The work shows that Harlem's networks of religious practitioners used religious, magical, and ideological systems to help create Black Israelism, Rastafarianism, Father Divine's movement, and some early forms of Black Islam. Orientalism is a construct that can help us to reconceptualize and reconnect many of the "Black Gods of the Metropolis."  Read in the larger contexts of the Harlem Renaissance and the migration of rural
peoples into the quickened pace of Northern cities, this approach suggests that there was a rich substratum of working class cultural creativity that deserves to be read into the history of the literary and artistic Harlem Renaissance.  It challenges us to think of working class African Americans not merely as workers or migrants, but as organic intellectuals capable of voicing their own dreams, mysticism and religions that were articulate responses to the key concerns of the age.

The article interrogates why African American Philosophy matters. The notion of the ‘Black philosopher’ continues to be an enigma. African descendants are not generally associated with the revered location and status of ‘the philosopher’ and with doing philosophy.

Thus, in a celebration of the sustained work of the Black philosopher-practitioner, who continues to suffer a fate of deliberate academic ‘invisibility’ and historical erasure, this article supports the expansion of philosophical categories, philosophical conversation and philosophical inclusivity.

This work contends that the significance of African American philosophy can be mined in understanding how a synthesis of Foucault’s thesis of “subjugated knowledge” and Black venerated philosopher Lewis Gordon’s explanation of “subverted realization’ (Hartman, 1992; Gordon, 2014), is built-in to ‘white’ modern thought, and thus helps locate the problem interrogated here.

Foucault is important, because he sheds light on how certain discourses are routinely disqualified by dominant ones. This illumination matches well with what Karenga refers to as the ‘white stream’ in the racialized hierarchy of disciplines and the academy, wherein what is reported as a ‘mainstream’ is really a white-catered system.

This overcurrent of the ‘white (main) stream’ of philosophy, by its deliberate omission and exclusion of African American philosophy disqualifies it.