Throughout American history, African diaspora religions have been misunderstood, disparaged, and criminalized by government actors and the public. In this session, learn how legal restrictions have both stifled and shaped African diaspora religions in the U.S., from 19th-century “Voodoo” in New Orleans to 20th-century Santería in Florida.

In the Antebellum era, the religious lives of enslaved people were pervasively surveilled and regulated by the state and by enslavers. In this session, learn how “slaveholders’ religion” justified chattel slavery, and how both the law and Christian theology changed over time to ensure that, for Black people, “freedom in Christ” did not necessitate freedom from slavery.

In the Reconstruction era, Black Americans were entitled to Constitutional rights—including religious liberty rights—for the first time. In this session, learn how religious discourse influenced debates over the rights of freedpeople, what African Americans did with the new right to religious freedom, and how the legacy of religious institution-building in the Reconstruction era continues to have an impact today.

In the Jim Crow era, Southern churches and religious communities were integral to the maintenance of legally enforced white supremacy. In this session, learn how racist laws and policies were justified on religious grounds, how a theological emphasis on personal salvation served to shield the Church from responsibility for systemic racial inequalities, and how legal approaches to religious liberty during Jim Crow failed to protect Black religious freedom.

The Civil Rights Movement mobilized religion to advance not just religious liberty rights, but all the rights and freedoms ensconced in the U.S. Constitution. In this session, learn how the Black freedom struggle could be seen as “religious freedom on its feet,” and how this expansive notion of religious liberty clashed with that advanced by J. Edgar Hoover and other proponents of Christian nationalism.

In the Black Power era, activists and thinkers from a range of religious (and non-religious) traditions challenged the longstanding use of Christianity as a tool for white supremacy. In this session, learn how new religious movements and leaders as well as Christian thinkers incorporated Black Power ideas into their theologies–-and how the state responded to this perceived threat to the white social order. 

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was passed in 1993 in an effort to—according to its supporters—protect the rights of religious minorities. In this session, learn how RFRA has, since that time, been increasingly used to limit the scope of civil rights, and how civil rights groups and Black communities have responded.

Schools have been the sites of some of the most contentious disputes over both race and religion. In this session, learn about past and contemporary battles over funding private schools with public money, permitting religious schools to engage in racial and other forms of discrimination, the possibility of religious charter schools, and the Supreme Court’s increasing acceptance of religious activities in public schools.

In the age of mass incarceration, millions of Americans—disproportionately Black—are held in both physical and spiritual captivity at any given time. In this session, learn about how theological beliefs have influenced the creation and development of prisons, the rise and fall of faith-based calls for prison abolition, and changing legal policies toward the religious rights of incarcerated people. 

The U.S. security apparatus has long treated both racial and religious minorities as potential threats to the (white, Christian) nation. In this session, learn how national security agencies were first introduced to Islam through the surveillance and suppression of Black Muslims, how these activities have continued in new forms in the post-9/11 era, and how religious liberty protections have failed to shield minority faith groups from pervasive government persecution.

In recent years, there has been an onslaught of legislation and litigation curtailing reproductive rights in the name of “religious freedom.” In this session, learn how Black women in the Antebellum era and today have resisted both reproductive controls and this narrow conception of “religious liberty” by fighting to make decisions about their reproductive and family lives that reflect their own diverse religious, spiritual, and moral values.

As with reproductive rights, an inordinate amount of “religious liberty” litigation over the past decade has focused on apparent conflicts between religious exercise and LGBTQ civil rights. In this session, learn why even theologically conservative Black Christians have been wary of these “religious liberty” lawsuits, and how people of faith—rather than fighting for a legal right to refuse and demean others—might instead seek a legal doctrine based on a mutual responsibility to care for others.