Group Members
1. Ashley McCleery
2. Heather Brewer
3. Maura Belajac
4. Floriane Huser
5. Megan McKenty
6. Nick Warnes
7. Nicole Higgins

Although the British forced their "universals" on the African Americans, today African American Baptists have their own universals. One major universal is the emphasis on social action. A common thread throughout African American Baptist Churches is the goal of improving the position of African Americans in society. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a prime example of this because he used his religious beliefs (God created all humans equal) to push for African American equality. Other Baptist pastors use their preaching to mobilize participation for anti-drug marches, progressive activism, and legitimizing political goals. In essence, the African American Baptists preach a social gospel. (2)

Also, because African Americans have been oppressed, African American Baptists tend to read their Bible through the lens of liberation. Using this liberation hermeneutics, they relate more to stories of oppression in the Bible. For example, they see themselves as the Israelites fleeing Egypt. "Rereading for liberation is risking failure and taking the plunge to divest yourself of some of your own power and privileges for the chance to enter another’s world so as to understand and to make yourself understood to others." (2) Like this quote points out, African American Baptists understand themselves by rereading for liberation, and we can also understand them by remembering their past and reading the Bible through their view point.


Possible universals for African American Baptist.
1.) That they were/are discriminated against.
2.) High on Liberation Theology
3.) Spirit over mind
4.) Conservative theologically and liberal in worship.
5.) The importance of believer baptism.
6.) The priesthood of all believers.
7.) The inerrancy of Scripture

Possible universals that outsiders believe about African American Baptists.
1.) Charismatic worship
2.) The influence of Hollywood on Americas perception.
3.) No women in leadership
4.) Focused upon converting those unlike themselves
5.) Conversion over discipleship


Stories

European Universalism on Africans

In the article "Colonialist Criticism," Chinau Achebe recanted a review he received from a British woman on his first novel, Things Fall Apart. She wrote, "Three cheers for Anarchy! These bright Negro barristers...who talk so gibly about African culture, how would they like to return to wearing raffia skirts? How would novelist Achebe like to go back to the mindless times of his grandfather instead of holding the modern job he has in broadcasting in Lagos?” (4) This woman points out that Europe brought civilization (Achebe's modern job) to Africa's inglorious past (raffia skirts), for which Africa returns ingratitude (Achebe's novel). Through the eyes of this British woman, the Europeans' "civilized" ways were and are universal. She automatically assumed that the African's ways were inferior and in need of change. Instead of viewing their ways as different, the British woman reiterated the past beliefs of her ancestors: the Africans must be become civilized like the Europeans. Through this train of thought, the European ways are again deemed as universal.

African American Baptist Universalism

In 1972, Hycel Taylor, pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Evanston, Illinois, helped change the church from socially conservative to social and politically active. Taylor was a soldier in the civil rights movement, which helped create his radical activism and fuse his vision for preaching liberation and freedom. One Second Baptist member said, "People were ready for his message of empowerment; his message of 'you are able to do anything that you want to do and you can do it' and that kind of thing. He uses the term 'The Church of Faith and Freedom' and the point of being completely free; free to make your own decisions, free to conquer the world, free to be your own person; 'There are no chains that can bind me now' kind of message, and I think the tact that he was able to proclaim it so vehemently, people were very open to that. The church started growing under his pastorate because that's what people needed to hear."

Due to Taylor's sermons, members of Second Baptist engaged in social activism, playing active roles against gang violence and housing discrimination as well as participating in Harold Washington's Chicago mayoral race in 1983 and Jesse Jackson's presidential runs in 1984 and 1988. Gradually, the church gained a national reputation of being politically active and socially conscious. Even governor Bill Clinton addressed the church during his presidential campaign in 1992. (5)

Dreams

In his book The Emergence of African Fiction, Charles Larson states that Lenrie Peters's novel is universal. Then he questions his statement by saying, “Or am I deluding myself in considering the work universal? Maybe what I really mean is that The Second Round is to a great degree Western and therefore scarcely African at all.” (6) Larson took a step back and tried to apply these concepts to Africans. In doing that, he realized he couldn’t even compare them because he’s so immersed in Western culture. This is the way we all need to approach a different racial group, and we hope that African American Baptists realize their differences and relish them.

We hope for a future in which the African American Baptist differences are embraced and not ignored. As Achebe said in the Post-Colonial Reader, “Let every people bring their gifts to the great festival of the worlds’ cultural harvest and mankind will be all the richer for the variety and distinctiveness of the offerings." (7)

(1) Sugirtharajah, R.S., ed. 2006. Voices From the Margin. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. 71-72.
(2) Lee, Shayne. 2003. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religon 42 (1):31-41.
(3) Sugirtharajah, Voices From the Margin, p. 38.
(4) Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; Tiffin, Helen, ed. 2006. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Second ed. London and New York: Routledge. 73.
(5) Lee, Shayne. 2003. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religon 42 (1):31-41.
(6) Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; Tiffin, Helen. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 75.
(7) Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; Tiffin, Helen. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 76.

Difference

Description: the distinctive characteristics of post - colonial societies that allow for creation of identity, in contrast to the homogenous nature of universalism.

Stories:

Booker T. Washington was a speaker at the Atlanta Expedition in 1895, where he said, "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to human progress" (1). Later, in Tampa, Florida, Washington refused to speak until the sheets separating the Blacks from the Whites were removed. Acts such as this allowed for a step toward progress with the Plessy vs. Ferguson case, that decided that Blacks were separate, but equal.

Marcus Garvey grew up in Jamaica without a notion of race, which supports the idea that racism is formed through the environments that surround us. At age fourteen, he was told by his friend that her parents had decided to send her away to school and that she couldn't write to him because he was a "nigger"(2). It wasn't until this moment that he realized that he was different from his White friend. He was later driven to start the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to unite all of the "Negro peoples of the world," and establish a Black nation in Africa (3).

Langston Hughes uses his poetic talent to express his struggle with two different identities, in "I Have Known Rivers." Hughes speaks of his intimate knowledge of both the Euphrates River and Mississippi River, and refers to his "deep soul" to emphasize his relationship with both. After all, how does one identify with one race without being influenced by the other?

W.E.B. DuBois, in response to segregation in the workplace, began to urge Blacks to consider voluntary segregation in order to survive. While he had previously advocated for integration, he saw a time for difference to be recognized and celebrated through a cooperative and socialistic state within the Black community, and a collective system on a non - profit basis (4).

Dreams

Within Black culture, public debates should test the validity of ideas through animation, interpersonal, confrontational discussion. Black worship styles and music forms typically involve the intertwining of mind and body, which is expected to be an experience to bring people into the presence of a higher power. At church, the message should be communicated in its fullness, by multiple meanings, as the speaker is concerned with both style and facts (5).

Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, developed the concept of habitus. According to Bourdieu, all groups have a habitus, "a deeply seated, all encompassing set of preferred tastes, smells, feelings, emotions, and ways of doing things" (5). Habitus is developed through the childhood and young adult years and can be changed when an individual wants to change or when experiencing great struggle. By understanding each other's different habitus, we can learn to accept our differences as differences, instead of products of resistance. We will be able to see that what seems like trivial differences are in fact loaded with deep meanings. If a church or organization, for example, does not go about achieving good in a way that resonates with the people's habitus, they will grow frusterated, feel cheated, and find it difficult to express meaning and belonging.

(1). Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror. 137.
(2). Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror. 315.
(3). Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror. 355.
(4). Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror. 365.
(5). Michael Emerson, People of the Dream. 144.

Representation and Resistance

Description:
Resistance is the insistence on the right to see the community's history whole, coherently, integrally, and to restore the imprisoned nation to itself. It is also an alternative way of conceiving human history, breaking down barriers between cultures and pulling away from separatist nationalism toward a more integrative view of human community and human liberation. (Edward Said)

Stories:

"Without colonialsim, culture could not have been so simultaneously, and so successfully, ordered and orderly, given in nature at the same time that it was regulated by the state. Even as much of what we now recognize as culture was produced by the colonial encounter, the concept itself was in part invented because of it" (1). - Whether we want to or not, encountering other people groups does effect our own culture. This, in turn, makes it difficult when studying the colonized and their culture because some aspects of their culture may have been formed in relation or response to the West. For example, the Western notions of national integrity and self - determination were the foundation of the development of resistance against colonialism. Does this mean that we should disregard all Black literature, for example, simply because of the assumption that they have Western influence? No. If that were justifiable then we would not be able to recognize any literature as true to its culture, because all have been influence by another people group at some, if not many points. Chinua Achebe brings up an excellent point in his "Colonialist Criticism" by asking if we should disregard the invention of jazz simply because it came about as a result of Black people in America being deprived of their own musical instruments, and subsequently taking their own liberties with the trumpet and trombone (2).




Dreams:

Pierre Bordeaux and a length reflection on habitus (3).

Let us not be discouraged by the inevitable obstacles faced in multicultural congregations, but instead let us learn from each other's habitus and discover why our own habitus is formed. While it may be easier to participate in a uniracial congregation, it only further perpetuates our inability to think outside our own habitus, and does not reflect the Church of Christ as a whole. Each culture tends to carry the idea that its own practices and preferences are right, and does its best to impose its "truth" onto other cultures. By doing so, we merely widen the gap between cultures and make for a more segregated society. Multicultural congregations should do their best to compromise, realizing that the little things that are usually argued over, have a meaningul and important foundation which they are derived from. Understanding this concept should make multicultural congregations more sensitive and respectful of opposing views within the church.

(1). Ashcroft, The Post Colonial Studies Reader. 58.
(2). Ashcroft, The Post Colonial Studies Reader. 73.
(3). Emerson, People of the Dream. 177
(4). Ashcroft, The Post Colonial Studies Reader. 110.



Sacred vs. Secular
-Defined spaces of separation.

Good vs. Evil
-There are defined values and morals.


Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prominent leader in the African American resistance movement during the Civil Rights Movement. See the video below to see one of his speeches.

Nationalism, Education, History- African American Christianity

Description

Nationalism is the concept of a shared community or at times called an “imagined community” that enables post-colonial societies to invent a self-image through which they could act to liberate themselves for imperialist oppression. A national culture is the whole body of efforts made by a people in the sphere of thought to describe, justify and praise the action through which that people has created itself and keeps itself in existence. However, nationalism can often become an “empty shell” and the nation’s middle class often uses nationalism to maintain its own power. This can develop a monocular and sometimes xenophobic view of identity and a coercive view of national commitment. Theorizing national liberation discourse has been particularly strong in the African context. Also, for many, claiming a national culture has rehabilitated the nation as well as serves as a justification for the hope of a future national culture. This has encouraged people to feel more connected to their nation and be more willing to fight for their nations liberation. (1)

Education is one of the most powerful discourses within the complex of colonialism and neo-colonialism. A vital technology of social control, it also offers (and has offered) one of the most potentially fruitful routes to a dis/mantling of colonialist and neo-colonial authority, and of bringing different cultures into contact on the basis of exchange rather than within contexts of domination and subordination. But persisting economic and technological inequalities continue to militate against a genuine decolonization in material practice. (2)

Stories

Nationalism Stories
As slavery was becoming the norm in America, the English associated their black skin with foul, malignant, sinister, and wickedness. In contrast, the white skin color signified purity, innocence, and goodness. Throughout slavery and even after it was abolished, the African Americans were stereotyped as lazy, childlike, and mentally deficient. In essence, they were dehumanizing them. (3)

There was little church interaction between British and Africans in New World. Most Africans maintained their traditional tribal or Muslim beliefs. John Wesley and George Whitefield’s taught the individual’s relationship to God (tainted with sin, new life in Christ). Teachings of equality were attractive to African slaves “Impartial Savior” God who called all his followers to be “sons, and kings, and priests.” (4)

Education Stories
Illiteracy is really evident in Africa. This is a very important thing for missionaries and future missionaries to understand in order to remind them that literacy cannot be the only way to access the Holy Scriptures. An example that that has received great success is to have the media relate to the way of life of the viewers. The Word of God must first become “incarnated” in their own specific way of hearing and responding. In other words: the Bible needs to come to them in non-literate ways. (5)

-African culture is more oral, auricular, and visual. (6)

African American stories have helped the world learn about how the world looks from inside another’s perspective. Stories can satisfy our craving for coherence and our fear of chaos – fictive illusion that life flows and has a clear beginning, middle and end. Give readers and inner script by which they might live their lives, compare their lives, and conform their lives, reshape their lives and test out their lives. (7)

Just like feminist approaches in other cultures, there has been a problem with the feminist approach in African literature. Many started thinking about what was more important, or which comes first, the fight for female equality or the fight against Western cultural imperialism? The important wave of female African writing, which started in the 60s, was the desire to show both the outside world and African youth that the African past was orderly, dignified and complex and altogether a worthy heritage. (8)

Dreams

Nationalism
“For many Americans, if they had to choose between one or many, they would choose the principal of unity.” (9) A dream is that the nation would be more unified so that we can function properly.

A big reason why America struggles with nationalism is that people do not have a clear understanding of the cultures that exist around them. A dream would be for people to have a greater understanding of different peoples ethnic groups

People could embrace their culture while at the same time being open to other cultures and willing to learn more about other cultures.

Educational
Many African American’s conform to the stereotype that they do not deserve or receive as great of an education as other races. A dream would be that they would be education would be valued more in their culture and they would be able to receive as quality of an education as other cultures.




(1) Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. 2006. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 2nd ed. London: New York.117.
(2) Ashcroft, The Post Colonial Reader. 371.
(3) Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror, A History of Multicultural America (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1993).10.
(4) Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.20.
(5) Sugirtharajah, R.S., ed. 2006. Voices From the Margin. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. 442.
(6) Sugirtharajah, Voices From the Margin. 443.
(7) Sugirtharajah, Voices From the Margin. 444.
(8) Sugirtharajah, Voices From the Margin. 444.
(9) Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror. 3.

Indigeneity and Hybridity

Indigeneity
The indigenous peoples of ‘settled’ colonies have in many ways become the cause of post-colonialism. Indigenous groups have so often fallen into the political trap of essentialism set for them by imperial discourse that they are ultimately marginalized, preventing them from engaging with the imperialist process. (1)


Hybridity
It occurs as a result of conscious moments of cultural suppression, as when the colonial power invades to consolidate political and economic control, or people are forced to assimilate to new social patterns. Sometimes misinterpreted as something that denies the traditions from which it springs, or as an absolute to which all must subscribe. The interleaving of practices will produce new forms even as older forms continue to exist. For example; oral practices may continue alongside the orally-influenced forms of post-colonial written cultures in countries like Nigeria and Jamaica. Most postcolonial writing has concerned itself with hbridized nature of post-colonial culture as a strength rather than a weakness. In this writing the focus is that oppression obliterates the oppressed or the colonizer silences the colonized in absolute terms. With this in mind, there are many stories of African American's searching for answers in post colonial times. (1)

In Michael Dash’s article, “Marvelous Realism: The Way Out of Negritude” he describes an ideology of alienation. A negritude ideology puts forward a notion of double alienation of the black man. The belief is that the problem is more than political and economic and that there is a psychological and spiritual reconstruction that needs to occur.There are stories and superstitions that isolate traces of African American culture that is dominated by survival strategies. This survival technique was in response to the domination of their oppressors. Therefore stating that colonization and slavery did not make men this way, but that their own ways enslaved them through imagination and the reordered reality they lived under.The text is open to different interpretations by different readers and can have a surplus of meanings. The true meaning of the text is no longer tied to authorial meaning, but in the trajectory meaning which emerges from the interaction of the text with a succession of readers each of whom brings his or her own pre-understanding to the text and reads it from a specific place. (2)

(1) Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. 2006. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 2nd ed. London: New York.
(2) Sugirtharajah, R.S., ed. 2006. Voices From the Margin. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. 29.

Ethnicity, Race

Description

The American Heritage Dictionary defines race as “A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics” or “A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution.” Similarly, ethnicity is defined as “Of or relating to a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage”[1]

For African American Baptists, their race and ethnicity have been previously defined by the majority, by those who served to marginalize blacks in America. In recent years with the shift toward postcolonial discourse has revealed the need re-create their own identity outside the identity created by their former colonizer.

Stories
According to Stuart Hall, “‘black’ is essentially a politically and culturally constructed category”[2]The separation between races is evidenced in the early colonization of America. According to Takaki, “religion served to identify different racial groups. The English colonists viewed themselves as Christians and the Africans as heathens. But this was ruptured by the conversion of Africans to Christianity. Hence, laws were passed to separate race from religion. The distinction was no longer between Christianity and heathenism or freedom and slavery, but between white and black.”[3]

In short, race served as one of the main dividing factors between blacks and whites during the early colonization of America. Some used the biblical text as support. That is, blacks were thought of as the descendents of Ham (Cushites) ,[4] articulating that “your seed will be ugly and dark skinned.” According to Justin S. Upkong, “This interpretation was used by the Whites in South Africa and the southern United States in support of their subjugation of the Blacks.”[5]


“During the 18th and 19th century missionary expansion, the Bible was used to characterize other religions as pagan and false. Isolated verses in the Bible were quoted to justify apartheid, slavery, subjugation of women, control of the environment, and rejection of other religions and cultures.”[6]


Dreams
Today, the African American Baptist tradition is still predominantly a racially homogenous group. According to Musa Dube, “how useful are exclusive verses to build Christian theology and missiology for our day?”[7] Removing the stereotyping and moreover removing the biblical justification is one step toward the process of creating unity among the mainstream Baptist churches.

Because the future depends on the breaking down of paradigms, it depends on the straddling of two or more cultures....The answer to the problem between the white race and the colored, between males and females, lies in healing the split that originates in the very foundation of our lives, our culture, our languages, our thoughts.”[8]

In the matter of dreams, Malcolm X revealed a negative perspective: “What is looked at as an American dream for white people has long been an American nightmare for black people…the white man has brainwashed us black people to fasten our gaze upon a blondehaired, blue-eyed Jesus!”[9] In an interview following his trip to Mecca (right), though, Malcolm X finds hope in a new dream. A dream of looking at one another as a “segment of the human family,” a dream of educating both blacks and whites to remove the imposing wall of racism first in our hearts and then in society.

African American Baptist History, Place

Description

Made popular by Malcom X in 1960’s, the expression “African American” is a common word in the United States. His goal was to define the Americans with black skin by an origin, as the others citizens (Italians and Irish), and no longer by color alone. The census office kept “African American” for his official’s reviews.

African roots

First Africans arrived on North American were not Christians. They brought their own religious world views with them. In Africa, cults of gods are mainly prayers to intermediary spirits, and especially, cult of ancestors. A variety of nature spirits as the practice of magic (voodoo) were practiced, either to help friends or to hurt enemies. The African spirituality that took root in North America merged elements form many African cultures and we can find some of these influences in Church’s service today, as the sounds of music’s worship and the preaching style of African Americans.

Efforts to convert African American to Christianity since the 18e century (1).

The American Baptist tradition derived from English dissenters who adopted teachings of Central Europe’s 16th century Anabaptists. The Puritan Roger Williams founded the first Baptist church at Providence in 1639. There were four Baptist Congregations in 1660, 33 in 1700 and 96 in 1740. The orator Georges Withefield between 1742-1770 effected the conversions of large number of both black and white Americans. The core of the message proclaims the need of an individualistic and a radical experience and a new rule overall: blacks and whites can worship together. Among the hearers of this message, there were slaves and free blacks. Baptists and Methodist churches were the most successful in attracting black members. Furthermore, the Baptists and Methodists were not hostile to the emotionalism of black preachers and congregations as were most staid denominations such as the Episcopalians. It was the time of “The Great awakening” which is begun a period of rapid growth for the denomination. In 1776 there were 415 Baptist churches and just 25 000 members 1% of all whites) by 1791 there were 60 970 Baptists laymen 564 clergy and 748 congregations.

Early Christian Congregations

Black leaders and churches embraced step by step the official conventions although a few black Baptists established independent congregations without a white authority. During the times of slavery, probably the first organizing effort by African American to bear fruit in an independent black congregation in South Carolina, the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in 1773- 1775. David George, an African American and other men and women formed its very first church. George Liele, one of these, often preached at the Silver Baptist church before emigrated in Jamaica. Then, Andrew Bryan, one of Liele converts, founded in 1788 the First African Baptist in Savannah, Georgia. Another Baptist church maintains its autonomy: the Augusta’s Springfield Baptist Church. But others informal and clandestine groups of black Baptists gathered for worship. While withes preachers urged black Americans to convert and many white congregations welcomed them the racial prejudices were still there. There were different levels and forms of discriminations and as well as different levels and forms of resistances. The South was the more explosive area.

Emancipation efforts of black church leaders

Mid-19th the antislavery activity increased among black leaders and members. Especially in the South, blacks couldn’t express their point of views. That is why most of black Christians gathered in secret and hidden meeting, to sing negro spirituals and talk and pray openly. The 1831 the revolt of Nat Turner, a Baptist preacher, in Northampton County, Virginia, was suppressed in bloodshed and frightened whites. Their intensified their surveillance of black churches; for instance, the “Uncle Jack” in Virginia was prohibited from preaching. The largest Baptist association (the Regular Baptists) splits up in a schism in 1845 because of the Slavery’s issue. The Southern Baptist convention was founded. Northern Regular became the Northern Baptist convention in 1907 and they changed their name in 1950 to the American Baptist convention. So many ex-slaves joined the fellowship that in fact 40% of all Baptist were African American by 1910. In 1880 the National Baptist Convention of the US was founded. (Become the National Baptist convention of America in 1915). Black churches membership grew explosively after the Civil War. It matches with the prominent role that black clergy played in the Reconstruction government. Many black served in the Congress or in their state governments, meanwhile other Blacks pastors and ministers educated patiently their church members on civic and political shifts and issues. As the system of racial segregation imposed in the 1880s and 1890s took hold, black ministers gave different responses to it: for some the civil disobedience and boycott was the solution (Nashville, Tennessee, segregated its street cars in 1906, influential Baptist minister R. H. Boyed led a black boycott of the streetcar line fir a time. Others black ministers built a separate set of black institutions to serve African American excluded from white establishments (Congregationalists, Baptists, Northern Methodists). Finally it was the awakening of the “Back to Africa” movement (2).

20th century

In the 20th century, black religious life has become characterized by a far greater degree of diversity and pluralism. Pentecostalism has become a major religious force within the black community. The black nationalism came to full flower in the work of such men: Marcus Garvey, Malcom X.

National Baptist Convention of the USA, Inc.
The National Baptist Convention of the USA was formed in 1895 through the union of the 3 smaller churches organizations, and the oldest of which had been founded only 15 years earlier: the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention and the National Baptist Educational Convention of the USA.

National Baptist Convention of America unincorporated.
After a dispute over the publishing house the National Baptist Convention of America led to a schism in 1915. In 1989 there were: 2.4 millions members and 7, 800 churches and supports ten colleges.

The National Baptist Convention, Inc.
The convention is governed by a 15-member board of directors and a nine-member executive member. The NBC supporters the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. Its publications include the semi-monthly National Baptist Voice. Many black ministers became advocates of a “Social Gospel”. The reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, was deeply influenced by this Social Gospel movement. Many black religious leaders in the 1960s thought that King’s social activism was too radical. One of the King’s critics during the 1960’s was the theologically conservative president of the National Baptist convention of the USA, Joseph H. Jackson. The allies of King tried to unseat Jackson a president of the convention in 1960 and that led to a schism in 1961. Thus, the new denomination was the “Progressive National Baptist Convention”. Anchored with the political and historical events, the black Baptist vision and spirituality are based on an emancipation speech and eschatological hope. Because of his historical background we can understand the importance of Black Baptists Leaders involved in the civil rights movements (Martin Luther King Jr for instance). The progressive National Baptist convention’s motto was “Unity, Service, Fellowship and Peace”. The convention had 2 million members and 1 000 churches and is governed by a 60 members executive board. After King’s assassination, the “black theology movement” grew up as well as the black liberation movement.

National primitive Baptist Convention of America.
Black and white primitive Baptist separated after the Civil War. In 1970 black primitive Baptist formed the National Primitive Baptist Convention. The statement is that each congregation is independent, and a decision by officials of a local church is final. In 1975 finally they possessed a membership of 1 645 600 in 2 1998 churches.

National missionary Baptist Convention.
Founded in 1988, this group boasted 3 200 000 million members. Although these several schisms, the largest denomination among the black churches remains the National Baptist Convention of the USA, Inc. Among its more famous elected president one can name Theodore J Jemison (veteran civil rights activist) elected in 1982 and the Rev Dr Henri J. Lyons elected in 1995. But still, black churches continue to address a wide variety of social problems affecting the African American community. The new tendency is now cooperation between different denominations in order to establishing close working relationships with other denominations. For instance, the progressive National Baptist have recently entered into a formal dialogue with the Southern Baptist Alliance, an organization of more than 72 000 mostly with Baptists who recently have distanced themselves from the southern Baptist Convention. Furthermore, Black churches faced the issues to the multi-ethnic tensions of the 1990s. As a proof of new shifts, a black Baptist congregation (Queens, NY) in 1991 warmly welcomed the ordination service of a Korean American minister, Chong S. Lee. But tensions between black pastors and predominantly white congregations still remain. During the 20th century the Baptist surpassed the Methodists as the largest protestant faith. In 1990 the membership in all Baptist conventions or associations = 28 464 000, half of these totals belonged to the Southern Baptist convention and 29% to the two largest black conventions. But today, while many black Methodist and Baptist denominations are showing a limited membership growth; other black denominations are showing marked membership increase (and also Catholicism and Islam). Sharing the same practices and fundamental beliefs than the white Baptists, Black Baptists’ service is based on the sermon, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the individual conversion, the ritual of the baptism for the one who announces publicly his faith.




(1) The African Amercian Almanac, ed 1997, 7th edition, L. M Mabunda Ed.
(2) Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; Tiffin, Helen, ed. 2006. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. History part. Second ed. London and New York: Routledge.

Feminism

Description

Feminism seeks to reinstate the marginalized in the face of the dominant. Feminist and post-colonial discourse has followed a path of convergent evolution and share somewhat parallel concerns. Feminism has highlighted a number of the unexamined assumptions within the post-colonial discourse. White feminists has achieved much in challenging white patriarchy; but if their success in gaining leadership roles is won while Black people, especially Black women, remain excluded, then they collude with society’s racism. Women genuinely struggling for justice for women in male societies will not need to have their power at the expense of anybody more vulnerable than them. There is not much point in struggling for gender justice in a society where they very fabric of the society is regularly threatened by its racism. A black women was oppressed by the patriarchal expectations that required her to be married and have children. She was oppressed by the white men, who saw her as a sexual object. She was oppressed by white women, who saw her as a servant with no rights. She was oppressed by the church, which was also patriarchal. And to crown it all, she was oppressed by the apartheid system which ranked her lowest of all. “No cultural liberation with women’s liberation.” The object seems to be to give women access to power in the society as it exists, to beat men at their own game. Because of the hierarchy in colonization, African American women are one of the lowest people groups on the totem pole in the US. This has affected their outlook in life their spirituality. (1)

Examples in Literature

Kirsten Holst Petersen “First Things First: Problems of a feminist approach to African literature” Western feminist discuss the relative importance of feminist versus class emancipation. African feminists discuss the feminist emancipation versus the fight against neo-colonialism particularly in its cultural aspect. The question that arises is what comes first, the fight for female equality or the fight against Western cultural Imperialism (2)

Feliz Mnthali a Malawian poet writes, “My world has been raped, looted, and squeezed by Europe and America. I have been scattered over three continents to please Europe and America…” The desire in this literature is to show both the outside world and African youth that the African past was orderly, dignified and complex altogether a worthy heritage. They seek to dignify the past and restore Africa’s self-confidence (2)

Conclusion

As long as there is racism, White feminist theology will remain separated from Black feminist or Womanist theology. Solidarity will begin when the privileged sisters hunger and thirst for justice on behalf of the suffering humanity. Audre Lorde, a famous Black Feminist said, "I am a Black Feminist. I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable." (3) The oppressed are mostly non-white. Black women are never simply ‘Black’ or simply ‘Women’, they are always both. Their experience of sexism is constantly textured by racism while their experiences of racism are invariably textured by sexism. They are racialized and gendered without exception. (1)

(1) Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. 2006. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 2nd ed. London: New York. (
2) Sugirtharajah, R.S., ed. 2006. Voices From the Margin. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. 29.
(3) http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lorde/lorde.htm

Production and Consumption

Early History of Production and Consumption
As the first colonizers came to America, they struggled with producing enough of the lands resources to keep people alive. Early colonies experienced death on a day to day basis. In order to help produce enough materials for people to survive, any person could become a slave. There was no difference in black or white. Both could potentially be slaves. Soon after arriving in the New World, production began to happen at a satisfactory level and religion began to separate the white man from the black man. The English were considered Christians, while the Africans were considered heathens. This, however, did not last long as the Africans soon became Christians. (2) By 1640 white servants begin to be given benefits over black servants.(3) Slowly but surely, the ratio of African Americans compared to Anglo Americans became larger and larger within the reality of slavery. In his book, Ronald Takaki included the details behind a document that would have looked like this.



The letter read, according to Takaki, as follows.

Name	Ibs of Tobacco
Sarah Hickman to serve one year at	0700
John GIbbs to serve one year at	0650
Nehemia Conventon Aged 12 years to serve 8 years at	1000
Symon Caldron a boy very Lame and 14 years old to serve 7 at	0500
Williman Young another boy of the scurvy to serve 6 years at	0600
Edward Southerne a little Boy very sick having seven years to serve at	0700
Caine the negro, very ancient at	3000
One negro girl about 8 years old at	2000
32 goats young and old at	2500
A parcel of hogs at	1800

There are some striking figures to this chart. The first is the proximity to animals of the "Negros". They seem to have been placed near the bottom, while the "non-Negros" people were placed on top. The other striking feature is that the "Negros" do not have a limit of time placed upon there duties as a slave. At first, while glimpsing at Caine, it could be understood that since he is "ancient", he might not be worth more than a couple of years. However, the chart becomes more disturbing as the one Negro girl, only 8 years old, is not given a limit to her time. From this chart, it becomes clear that African Americans needed to serve a life long sentence as a producer, while Anglo Americans were given an opportunity to move more into the balance of consuming and producing after a set amount of years.

In 1667, Virginia declared that baptism does not alter the condition of the person as to his or her bondage or freedom. Three years later, Virginia enacted a law declaring that no negro or Indian, though baptized and free, should be allowed to purchase Christians. The distinction no longer was between Christianity and heathenism or freedom and slavery, but simply between between white and black.(4)

Time continued to pass into the 18th century and African Americans it continued to become more and more common for African Americans to be sold both as products and means of producing more products for Anglo Americans. As the nation expanded west, so did the cultivation of cotton and the institution of slavery. Although complete statistics are lacking, it is estimated that 1,000,000 slaves moved west from the Old South between 1790 and 1860. (Wikipedia: Slavery in the United States) According to the US Census Bureau ( http://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0056/tab01.xls), the number of slaves in the United States had almost reached 4 million people (Wikipedia: Slavery in the United States). The slaves were producing more than ever, however, they were given less of an opportunity to consume. This balance was drastically out of proportion. Anglos were driven by immediate economic concerns and they were blinded by a short time horizon.(5) They had not carefully thought through what the were doing not only to black people, but also to American society and future generations. Overall, what blacks wanted most of all, more than education and voting rights, was economic power.(6) They wanted the chance to participate with Anglo Americans in the larger economy.

Post Civil War Implications on Production and Consumption
The Civil War was obviously the largest shift in American thinking toward slavery. While many of the transitions that happened were good, all was not good. True, black men and women were no longer forced into oppressive slavery, but that does not mean that the oppression stopped. A new type of oppression formed. After the Civil War, blacks became sharecroppers, working the farms of their former owners in exchange for part of the crop. These sharecroppers were forced to buy goods from the planter’s store, and thus were caught in a viscous cycle. The newly freed slaves were making barely enough to pay off their debts, thus they were still oppressed and kept from many of the freedoms that their Anglo counterparts enjoyed.(7) Also, through the lens of production and consumption, African Americans did not instantly bounce into a balance of the two. No, the move was slow and often frustrating. In many ways, the production of African Americans even slowed down as black men and women were only allowed to have menial jobs.(8) They were not challenged in what they did and were often frustrated at the lack of trust that white men and women gave them. This is the state of American that African American Baptists entered. Slavery had been abolished, but new forms of oppression had risen to the forefront of race relations in America.

16 years prior to Plessy vs. Ferguson, a new convention forms out of the Baptist tradition. This convention is called the Foreign Mission Baptist Convention. It was organized in Montgomery, Alabama in 1880 and had a deep longing to share the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Its founders stressed preaching the gospel to all people as an answer to what they considered the shortcomings of a segregating church. One of the central leaders in this movement was Elias Camp Morris who live from 1855 to 1922. He helped found the Foreign Mission Convention and led it in a move to consolidate several conventions. The most important of these consolidations was with The National Baptist Convention, which formed in Atlanta, Georgia on September 28, 1895. This merger successfully placed together the Foreign Mission Convention, the American National Baptist Convention, and the Baptist National Education Convention. Immediately this primarily African American Baptist convention began sharing the gospel with all people groups, setting the tone for what was to come the following year in the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson. In this case the supreme court upheld segregation by recognizing the doctrine of different people groups remaining separate but equal.(9) Elias Camp Morris and his work was not only part of the conversation in leading America away from the Supreme Court's decision, but also an important force leading into the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century.


Elias Camp Morris


Both World Wars were large steps in moving away from Plessy vs. Ferguson and toward Brown vs. the Board of Education. As the wars were happening, black continued their migration north and west and into big cities to follow the defense jobs that would keep them producing for America.(10) However, in between the wars came the Great Depression which once again threw off the balance of Blacks ability to produce and consume. The war brought all Americans down a peg or two, and the Negroes had but a few pegs to fall.(11) This meant that thousand of African American families fell off the board as the number of unemployed blacks living in southern counties reached more than fifty percent in 1932. A popular slogan was. "No jobs for niggers until every white man has a job.”(12) Through the experience of World War II African Americans began to articulate to whites the question that was long coming. Would White America truly live into their ideal that they were fighting for in WWII, or would they maintain their split world of what it meant to be "free". All men felt a shared sense of purpose through WWII, and there is no coincidence that the veterans provided a stronger foundation for the Civil Rights Movement after the veterans returned home from WWII.(13)

After the success of WWII, in 1954 the Supreme Court had another decision to make. Would they remain with the decision that they made in Plessy vs. Ferguson, or would they overturn the decision cast at the end of the 18th century. In the end, in the case of Brown vs. Board of Eduction, the supreme court declared that the segregation of schools was unconstitutional, overturning Plessy vs. Fergusson.(14) This was a monumental triumph for America. For the first time in the history of America, and potentially in the world, all men and women would potentially have equal opportunities for becoming balanced in their ability to produce and consume within the world. While our world is still not perfect in providing these equal opportunities for all, this case was the case that really set the tone for gradual and dynamic change to happen in the future.

Since Brown vs. the Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement in America, the black middle class has grown substantially. The growth of the middle class has led to a more appropriate balance between production and consumption in African Americans. In 2000, 47% of African Americans owned their homes. The poverty rate among African Americans has dropped from 26.5% in 1998 to 24.7% in 2004. In 2001, over half of African-American households of married couples earned $50,000 or more. This good news has led to an increase in standard of living in African American Pastors as well. This short video is an example of the resources that African American Baptist Churches are now experiencing.





While a lot of work has been accomplished, there is still a lot of work to be done. The income gap between black and white families is significant. In 2005, employed blacks earned only 65% of the wages of whites. This is way down from the 82% rate that America experienced in 1975. The poverty rate among single-parent black families is also significantly different than we see in single-parent white families. In 2005 the poverty rate was 39.5%, while it was 9.9% among married-couple black families. Among white families, the comparable rates were significantly lower at 26.4% and 6%.


Conclusion
As R.S. Sugirtharajah writes, in the end, it is good to love for “for nothing”.(15) So much of the history of African Americans and production and consumption leans upon the black race working at earning the right to be free. Whether it was through earning their right in the Civil War, or World War II, or through the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans have indeed "earned" their right to be free. But freedom is more than space, is it not? This is the message of the revolutionary Black Baptist leaders in America. Freedom is an ideal of space, soul, body, community and much more. Martin Luther King Jr. headed up this African American Baptist movement toward freedom. In his famous speech entitled I Have a Dream, he lays out the different ways that all Americans can be free. Here is small section of his speech that points toward free being more than space.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."

In the end, African American Baptists have reminded us that it is good for all to be free. And to be free means to have the ability to love all people for nothing. It should not matter how much a people group has produced or consumed, we should still love all of humanity because all of humanity is loved by God. The only one who ultimately provides freedom, and loves with an agape love. A love that is simply unconditional.


(1) R.S. Sugirtharajah, Voices From the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, R.S. Sugirtharajah, ed., 3rd ed., (Maryknoll: NY, Orbis Books, 2006), 82.
(2) Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (New York: NY, Back Bay Books, 1993), 59.
(3) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 56.
(4) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 59.
(5) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 76.
(6)Takaki, A Different Mirror, 131.
(7) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 134.
(8) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 106.
(9) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 138.
(10) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 343.
(11) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 366.
(12) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 367.
(13) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 399.
(14) Takaki, A Different Mirror, 402.
(15) Sugirtharajah, Voices From the Margin, 426.

Globalization, Environment, Religion

Description

Globalization The process whereby individual lives and local communities are affected by economic and cultural forces that operate worldwide. It is the process of the world shrinking and becoming a single place. The increasing interest in globalization reflects the a changing organization of worldwide social relations such as the idea that the “nation” is becoming less important as communities gain access to global knowledge. The importance of globalization to post-colonial studies comes from its demonstration of the structure of world power relations, the ways in which local communities engage the forces of globalization bear some resemblance to the ways in which colonized societies historically engaged and appropriated the forces of imperial dominance. By appropriating strategies of representation, organization and social change through access to global systems, local communities and marginal interest groups can both empower themselves and influence those global systems. (1)

Environment Our survival and that of other species on this planet requires us to recognize our place in the ‘more than human’ world and our dependence both spiritually and materially on it. Although environment degradation had occurred in a number of pre-colonized areas, the post-incursion damage to people, animals, and places on a world scale was unprecedented. It is thus not surprising that so many individuals and organizations across the relationships between humans, animals and place; a re-thinking which, at least in some cases, is looking for its inspiration to the once despised or ignored aboriginal ways of apprehending human identity in place.
(2)

Religion While race and color will continue to be a major force in dividing the world and reinforcing the divisions that have emerged, a new force has also entered the area of struggle. The division of peoples based on their religious beliefs. This has epitomized by the stress on the emergence of what is called “fundamentalist” ideas. Fundamentalism, by which perhaps we mean a literal and activist assertion of religion as the most important element in individual and communal identity is a crucial element in many of the most popular and dangerous encounters facing us in the new millennium. But beyond this extremist element there is also a sense in which the sacral is emerging again as part of a broader rethinking of post-colonial identity. This has been especially the case in the cultural re-assertion of indigenous peoples in settler societies, where the sacred has been tied to a sense of ‘belonging’ to specific place and in whose view the world is literally brought into being by its sacred narratives. Recovery of the sacral may form resistance, both by reasserting the traditional modes and by appropriating the imported religions of the colonizers to support a new identifying sacrality. Although the post-colonial believer may have been controlled by traditional readings of sacred text such as the Christian Bible, they are increasingly engaging with these texts to produce resistant readings that expose the biased interpretations that the colonists employed to turn them into instruments of social control. For these and other reasons it is increasingly clear that the relationship between the sacral and the secular in the new century will be a complex one. (3)

Black Liberation Theology
“Drawing on religious leaders such as Richard Allen and Fredrick Douglass and black intellectuals, James Cone and Albert Cleage Jr., created a “black liberation theology” that stressed God’s connection with oppressed people. Stressed that it was vital for African Americans to remain in their own congregation because God still had much to teach the world through them. God’s revelation in the black experience calls for continued development of, and commitment to, a theology that will counter oppression and uphold justice the world over.” (4)

“By 1793, blacks made up about one quarter of the Baptist church.” (5)

“In the early nineteenth century, African Americans proceeded to establish their own independent churches and to create two new denominations, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.” (6)

Stories

Globalization stories
The central problem of today’s global interactions is the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization. For polities of smaller scale, there is always fear of cultural absorption by polities of larger scale. One man’s imagined community is another man’s political prison. The complexity of the current global economy has to do with certain fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture, and politics. You can look at these by exploring 5 dimensions of global cultural flows (1) mediascapes, (2) technoscapes, (3) financescapes, (4) ethnoscapes – the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guest workers, etc (5) ideoscapes – concatenations of images, but they are often directly political and frequently have to do with the ideologies of states and the counterideologies of movements explicitly oriented to capturing state power or pieces of it. Composed of elements of the Entertainment worldview.
(7)

Global localization – a global outlook adapted to local conditions’
Global culture is in terms of its being constituted by the increasing interconnectedness of many local cultures both large and small.
Four imperatives that make up the dynamic of McWorld: a market imperative, a resource imperative, an information-technology imperative, and an ecological imperative. Each of these contributes to ‘shrinking the world and diminishing the salience of national borders.
We should consider the local as a ‘micro’ manifestation of the global.
The idea of home has to be divorced analytically from the idea of locality.
(8)

Because of their fundamental belief in their rights as human beings created in the image of God, they rejected antagonistic readings that denied them any subjectivity. Have to take into account the ways in which the bible was used to rationalize the subjugation of African people of the diaspora living in North America - Through stories, grass roots African Americans communicated their understanding of life, live, suffering, god(s) and their vision of freedom and liberation. Turn to bible to regain hope where the first is last and the last is first o Where justice eventually dethrones injustice. The despised are welcomed at the hospitality table and are give the seat of honor. (9)

Environment stories
Many African Americans to this day live in an environment surrounded by other African Americans.

Religion stories
“African Americans first began attending church with their masters. They were forced to sit in balconies or in the back pews and take communion and make devotions after the white congregation members. When slavery was abolished, the African Americans celebrated their freedom and chose not to worship with white people. Black congregations in the North and southern slaves held secret religious meetings in which they were able to worship freely.” (10)

“In 2003, Bishop Fred A. Caldwell offered to pay non-blacks to attend his church for an entire month. Although it was a risky move, two - dozen white people attend his church a year after his offer. “ (11)

“The first Great Awakening during the mid 18th century drastically altered this pattern by bringing blacks and whites together in a religious context. Evangelical preachers such as John Wesley and George Whitefield highlighted the individual’s relationship to God, proclaiming that each individual is tainted with sin and each has the opportunity to experience new birth in Christ.” (12)

Even though these churches were being formed, many blacks and whites still worshiped together. This created a hierarchy among congregational members. Racism saturated interracial religious interaction. (13)

“Blacks congregations in the North and secret religious meetings held by southern slaves became important settings in which African Americans worshiped freely and crafted their own interpretations of Christianity. They enjoyed spiritual communion with less fear of white violence and oppression.” (14)

“For African Americans, the church became the domain for expression, celebration, and pursuit of a black collective will and identity. The black church was a segregated institution, but not a segregating one.” (15)

During the decades following the Civil War, racial segregation became entrenched in state and local laws throughout the South. Jim Cow statutes dictated that whites and blacks should be separated in almost every public arena. The loss of political rights led many African Americans to prize their own religious congregations even more dearly. Black churches became havens where African American culture was celebrated, not castigated. The church also became the center for social life. (16)

In the early 20th century, the Pentecostal movement and its focus on a life-changing baptism of the Holy Spirit brought more whites and blacks together in integrated revival meeting and church services.” (17)

Dreams

Globalization
Have more of a global outlook on local issues related to African Americans.

Environment
A goal would be for African Americans to exist in a more multi-cultural environment

Religion
To African Americans, religion and race matter greatly. Due to their past, the majority of African American congregations are filled with black members. A goal is for a more multicultural feel in their services as well as in their membership.

American Christians need to have the goals of brotherhood and justice proclaimed by their churches. But they also need to be shown how to achieve the goal of integration. A handful of churches were formed throughout the nation in the 1930s and 1940s with the specific intention of uniting whites and blacks. (18)

(1) Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. 2006. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 2nd ed. London: New York. 461.
(2) Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin.The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 491.
(3) Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin.The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 517.
(4) Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 22.
(5) Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States. 12.
(6) Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States. 13.
(7)Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin.The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 470.
(8)Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin.The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 464.
(9)Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin.The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 486.
(10)Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States. 59.
(11)Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States. 9.
(12)Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States. 11.
(13)Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States. 60.
(14)Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States.14.
(15)Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States.15.
(16)Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States.15.
(17)Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States.17.
(18)Emerson, Michael O.; Woo, Rodney M. 2006. People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States. 19.

Diaspora, Place

"Diaspora: a Greek word used historically to refer to the dispersal of Jews throughout the Old World in successive periodes after the Babylonian captivity, diaspora has been used by scholars and Pan-Africanists of the mid-twentieth century and afterward to refer principally to the dispersal of Africans in the New World during the Atlantic slave trade."(1)



“Diaspora” is in the heart of the African American Baptist’s history. Most of the Africans Americans in America have family roots in Africa and especially with the history of slavery. The slavery’s abolition did not stop definitively the massive slave importations. Although the first black Americans were free men (with the first explorers), African slaves came in majority in America in the 17th century, and the most of them came from the western countries.

What are the remains of African tradition in the African American Baptists? The music contains rhythms of African origin. The care of Africans religions and rituals who consider life as sacred, is anchored in the involvement for rights and emancipations of the African American Baptists too (1).

If Africans moved form Africa into the America, the African American Baptist movement is particularly geographically bonding with the South. But spiritually, the Diaspora’s background and the history of slavery are still present: we can find the metaphor of the a ship in numerous hymns and songs, in the Afro- Baptist worship.

(1)Encyclopedia of Black America, 1981, Diaspora, ed W.A Low and V. A Clift.
(2) Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; Tiffin, Helen, ed. 2006. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Diaspora part. Second ed. London and New York: Routledge.

Language, Body & Performance

Bill Cosby (left) narrates a summation of the portrayal of blacks in cinema in the last fifty years. “Happy Darkies,” dancing and singing epitomizes these preconceived notions; furthermore, blacks were often played by white men.

In terms of language: "Generations of hardships imposed on the African American community created distinctive language patterns. Slave owners often intentionally mixed people who spoke different African languages to discourage communication in any language other than English. This, combined with prohibitions against education, led to the development of pidgins, simplified mixtures of two or more languages that speakers of different languages could use to communicate.[40] Examples of pidgins that became fully developed languages include Creole, common to Haiti,[41] and Gullah, common to the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.[42] African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a type variety (dialect, ethnolect, and sociolect) of the American English language closely associated with the speech of, but not exclusive to, African Americans.[43] While AAVE is academically considered a legitimate dialect because of its logical structure, some of both whites and African Americans consider it slang or the result of a poor command of Standard American English. Inner city African American children who are isolated by speaking only AAVE have more difficulty with standardized testing and, after school, moving to the mainstream world for work.[44][45] It is common for many speakers of AAVE to code switch between AAVE and Standard American English depending on the setting."[46].



Other distinctives of the African American Baptist Tradition: "Fragments of African religion that have remained in the African American Baptist Churches. For example, their music contains cadences and rhythms of distinctly African origin. Also, baptism is heavily emphasized as the entry into community, which can be traced to certain African rituals. Their engagement in politics and social justice can also be seen as a survival of the African religious view in which all life is sacred."[1] In other words, the African American Baptist tradition does not split the mind and body; both are united in a recognition that all of life is sacred.[2]

Conclusion