Session 6: Religious Liberty & Black Power
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.
About the speakers
Barbara D. Savage is an historian and the Geraldine R. Segal Professor Emerita of American Social Thought and Africana Studies; she also was a member of the University’s History Department from 1995-2013. In 2018-2019, she was the Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at the University of Oxford. She remains a Distinguished Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford where a thesis prize in Black History is named in her honor. Her book, Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion (Harvard University Press, 2008), was the winner of the prestigious 2012 Grawemeyer Prize in Religion. In addition, she is co-editor of Women and Religion in the African Diaspora (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), a collaborative project led by R. Marie Griffith.
Malachi D. Crawford is Assistant Professor and coordinator of the history program at Prairie View A&M University. Crawford’s research explores the relationship between race, religion, and law in American history, with an emphasis on the African American experience. He is the author of Black Muslims and the Law: Civil Liberties from Elijah Muhammad to Muhammad Ali (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), a legal history of the Nation of Islam from 1930 to 1971. He is currently editing a book-length reader of primary sources chronicling Muhammad Ali’s life, experiences, and influences upon the City of Houston and the Gulf Coast region. Crawford is a recipient of several major fellowships at prestigious research institutions, including the University of California-Los Angeles, the Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. Similarly, he has received funding from multiple grantmaking agencies, including Humanities Texas, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Ford Foundation.
Key Takeaways
Nation of Islam Annual Savior’s Day in Chicago (John H. White, 1974), National Archives, Records of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Black Power Movement is frequently seen as secular—or even anti-religious—in contrast to the religiosity of the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, ideas of the Black Power era had a powerful impact on faith, influencing Christian leaders like Rev. Albert Cleage and Rev. James H. Cone as well as newer religious movements like the Nation of Islam and MOVE.
As we’ve seen in earlier eras, state authorities saw faith groups that were influenced by Black Power as purely political rather than religious. They therefore felt entitled to ignore their religious liberty rights in dramatic, sometimes horrific, ways. Notable examples include the arrests of Nation of Islam members for violating an Alabama law that required Muslims to register with the state and the 1985 bombing of the MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia.
Some theologians of the Black Power era argued that churches and church leaders should work to build a Black power base rather than fighting for integration. Rev. Albert Cleage, for instance, argued for “Black Christian Nationalism,” contending that “Black people have to build their own…institutional power base from which to work. And the only possible power base that Black people have is the Black church.”
Reflection Questions
How should religion acknowledge and respond to racism? Whether or not you are a Christian or a person of faith–what do you make of James Cone’s argument that there is “no place…for a colorless God in a society where human beings suffer precisely because of their color”?
James Forman’s 1969 “Black Manifesto” called for white religious institutions to provide $500 million in reparations to Black communities for their role in upholding white supremacy. What is your reaction to this demand? What responsibility do white faith communities have in acknowledging and mitigating earlier participation in slavery and segregation?
Some religious leaders and groups of the Black Power era argued that religious institutions should be sites of power and community building rather than political participation. For example, the Nation of Islam invested in farms, stores, schools, and other resources for Black Muslim communities. Do you think religious institutions should focus on public policy advocacy or community empowerment (or both/neither)? Is one of these more effective? How should religious groups engage with the state?
Dr. James H. Cone speaking at Union Theological Seminary (1969), Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.
Further Reading
Malachi Crawford, Black Muslims & the Law: Civil Liberties from Elijah Muhammad to Muhammad Ali (2015)
Kerry Pimblott, Faith in Black Power: Religion, Race, and Resistance in Cairo (2017)
Richard Kent Evans, MOVE: An American Religion (2020)
Watched this session of the curriculum and have some thoughts? We’d love to hear from you.