Africanisms in the Black Church

W.E.B. Dubois notes that the church was the only African institution that made its way from the African forest and survived slavery.

I have always contended that the flavor of the Black Church has been salted by our African roots and the Africanisms that express themselves through the lineage of our ancestors; however, I heard something recently that gave me a moment of pause. We are heading to South Africa soon for an initiative sponsored by the graduate school of education at Rutgers, and I want to examine the role of the church as a source of emancipatory education for South Africans pre and post Apartheid. I want to compare this to the role of the Black Church in the U.S. pre and post Emancipation. It was with this in mind that Dr. Godonoo



told me to pay attention to the ways that African Christians acknowledge and practice Christianity in their churches, and acknowledge and practice African religious rituals in their homes. “They go home from church and pour libations and practice other African religious rites,” he instructed.

This made sense as I read E. Franklin Frazier’s, The Negro Church in America.



Frazier said that although remnants of African religious culture were preserved in the African American experience, the breaking up of tribes and clans and the loss of language rendered African religious myth and cults devoid of traditional meaning and significance. Being kept in baracoons,...

...enduring middle passage,...

...and being dehumanized in every possible way before being acculturated to plantation regime served to strip the African of his/her cultural heritage. Couple this with the fact that whites were frequently on guard for African religious practices, as they feared they would contribute to slave revolt, and that these practices were weeded out and often outlawed; and one can begin to see how the Christian religion of the new world, in terms of the Black Church, evolved into a unique entity all its own. It became the basis of social cohesion, political enlightenment, educational advancement, social activism, and protonationalism (in some cases) for African Americans.

So much more to say on this topic, which I will reserve for later musings in an article...

It will be interesting to see what Africa reveals to me, but one thing is for sure... As Africans, we brought a strong “sense of” and “sensitivity to” the activity of the spirit world... the shout, the dance, the fervor of religious spirit, and the other worldliness that helped African Americans to escape from slavery if only in spirit, were the remnants of our African past, and are made manifest in our African American present. It is part of what makes The Black Church in America unique.