Anthologies of African American Writing

African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness

"African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness." Ed. Milton C. Sernett. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1999. x+595 pp.

This is a revised version of "Afro-American Religious History: A Documentary Witness" (1985)

● Milton C. Sernett / Preface to the Second Edition (ix-x)
● Milton C. Sernett / Introduction (1-10)

I. From Africa through Early America
● Olaudah Equiano / Traditional Ibo Religion and Culture (13-19)
● Bryan Edwards* / African Religions in Colonial Jamaica (20-24)
● Rev. Francis Le Jau* / Slave Conversion on the Carolina Frontier (25-33)
● Jupiter Hammon / "Address to the Negroes in the State of New York" (34-43)
● George Liele and Andrew Bryan / Letters from Pioneer Black Baptists (44-51)
● Lemuel Haynes / A Black Puritan's Farewell (52-60)

II. Slave Religion in the Antebellum South
● Peter Randolph / Plantation Churches: Visible and Invisible (63-68)
● Sister Kelly / "Proud of that 'Ole Time' Religion" (69-75)
● Henry Bibb / Conjuration and Witchcraft (76-80)
● James W. C. Pennington / "Great Moral Dilemma" (81-88)
● Nat Turner / Religion and Slave Insurrection (89-101)
● Frederick Douglass / Slaveholding Religion and the Christianity of Christ (102-11)
● Thomas Wentworth Higginson* / Slave Songs and Spirituals (112-36)

III. Black Churches North of Slavery and the Freedom Struggle
● Richard Allen / "Life Experience and Gospel Labors" (139-54)
● Christopher Rush / Rise of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (155-63)
● Jarena Lee / A Female Preacher among the African Methodists (164-84)
● Nathaniel Paul / African Baptists Celebrate Emancipation in New York State (185-92)
● David Walker / "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of Religion" (193-201)
● Maria Stewart / "Mrs. Stewart's Farewell Address to Her Friends in the City of Boston" (202-10)
● Peter Williams / "To the Citizens of New York" (211-17)
● Charles B. Ray / Black Churches in New York City, 1840 (218-23)
● Jeremiah Asher / Protesting the "Negro Pew" (224-27)
● Jermain W. Loguen / "I Will Not Live a Slave" (228-31)
● Daniel Alexander Payne / "Welcome to the Ransomed" (232-42)

IV. Freedom's Time of Trial: 1885-World War I
● Isaac Lane / From Slave to Preacher among the Freedmen (245-50)
● Lucius H. Holsey / "The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church" (251-55)
● William Wells Brown / Black Religion in the Post-Reconstruction South (256-60)
● Daniel Alexander Payne / "Education in the A.M.E. Church" (261-69)
● Amanda Smith / The Travail of a Female Colored Evangelist (270-81)
● Alexander Crummell / "The Regeneration of Africa" (282-88)
● Henry McNeal Turner / Emigration to Africa (289-95)
● African American Catholics / The First African American Catholic Congress, 1889 (296-300)
● Elias C. Morris / 1899 Presidential Address to the National Baptist Convention (301-13)
● Elsie W. Mason / Bishop C. H. Mason, Church of God in Christ (314-24)
● W. E. B. DuBois / "Of the Faith of the Fathers" (325-36)
● Reverdy C. Ransom / "The Race Problem in a Christian State, 1906" (337-46)
● Rosa Young / "What Induced Me to Build a School in the Rural District" (347-56)

V. From the Great Migration to World War II
● African Methodist Episcopal Council of Bishops / Address on the Great Migration (359-63)
● Letters on the Second Exodus / "Dear Mary" and "My dear Sister" (364-67)
● S. Mattie Fisher and Jessie Mapp / Social Work at Olivet Baptist Church (368-71)
● Lacy Kirk Williams / Effects of Urbanization on Religious Life (372-75)
● Nannie H. Burroughs / Report of the Work of Baptist Women (376-402)
● Jasper C. Caston / Address to the Suehn Industrial Mission, Liberia (403-09)
● Lula E. Cooper / A Letter from the "Foreign Field" (410-14)
● Carter G. Woodson / "Things of the Spirit" (415-22)
● Benjamin E. Mays and Joseph W. Nicholson / "The Genius of the Negro Church" (423-34)
● St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton / "The Churches of Bronzeville" (435-50)

VI. Twentieth-Century Religious Alternatives
● Marcus Garvey / Garvey Tells His Own Story (453-63)
● Miles Mark Fischer / "Organized Religion and the Cults" (464-72)
● Rabbi Mattew / Black Judaism in Harlem (473-77)
● Father Divine / "The Realness of God, to you-wards ..." (478-86)
● Herbert Morrsohn Smith / Elder Lucy Smith (487-98)
● Wallace D. Muhammad / "Self-Government in the New World" (499-508)

VII. Civil Rights, Black Theology, and Beyond
● Joseph H. Jackson / "National Baptist Philosophy of Civil Rights" (511-18)
● Martin Luther King, Jr. / "Letter from Birmingham Jail -- April 16, 1963" (519-35)
● Mahalia Jackson / Singing of Good Tidings and Freedom (536-47)
● Howard Thurman / "The Anatomy of Segregation and Ground of Hope" (548-54)
● National Conference of Black Churchmen / "Black Power" Statement, July 31, 1966, and "Black Theology" Statement, June 13, 1969 (555-66)
● James H. Cone / "Black Theology and the Black Church: Where Do We Go from Here?" (567-79)
● Lawrence N. Jones / "The Black Churches: A New Agenda" (580-88)

Index (589-95)

● New to this edition are the selections from: Maria Stewart (Part III); Amanda Smith (Part IV); African Methodist Episcopal Council of Bishops, Letters on the Second Exodus, S. Mattie Fisher and Jessie Mapp, Lacy Kirk Williams, Nannie H. Burroughs, Jasper C. Caston, and Lula E. Cooper (all in the retitled Part V); and Herbert Morrsohn Smith (on Elder Lucy Smith) (Part VI).
● Not included in this edition (but found in the first edition of 1985) is E. Franklin Frazier, "The Negro Church and Assimilation."

● Butler, Anthea. "Witness to the Unwritten Story." "H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences" (June 2000). Web.

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