Anthologies of African American Writing

Afro-American Religious History: A Documentary Witness

"Afro-American Religious History: A Documentary Witness." Ed. Milton C. Sernett. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1985. xii+504 pp.

Revised as "African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness" (1999)

● Milton C. Sernett / Preface (xi-xii)
● Milton C. Sernett / Introduction (1-9)

One: From Africa through Early America
● Olaudah Equiano / Traditional Ibo Religion and Culture (13-18)
● Bryan Edwards* / African Religions in Colonial Jamaica (19-23)
● Rev. Francis Le Jau* / Slave Conversion on the Carolina Frontier (24-32)
● Jupiter Hammon / "Address to the Negroes in the State of New York" (33-42)
● George Liele and Andrew Bryan / Letters from Pioneer Black Baptists (43-50)
● Lemuel Haynes / A Black Puritan's Farewell (51-59)

Two: 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" (81-87)
● Nat Turner / Religion and Slave Insurrection (88-99)
● Frederick Douglass / Slaveholding Religion and the Christianity of Christ (100-09)
● Thomas Wentworth Higginson* / Slave Songs and Spirituals (110-32)

Three: Black Churches North of Slavery and the Freedom Struggle
● Richard Allen / "Life Experience and Gospel Labors" (135-49)
● Christopher Rush / Rise of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (150-59)
● Jarena Lee / A Female Preacher among the African Methodists (160-79)
● Nathaniel Paul / African Baptists Celebrate Emancipation in New York State (180-87)
● David Walker / "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of Religion" (188-95)
● Peter Williams / "To the Citizens of New York" (196-202)
● Charles B. Ray / Black Churches in New York City, 1840 (203-08)
● Jeremiah Asher / Protesting the "Negro Pew" (209-12)
● Jermain W. Loguen / "I Will Not Live a Slave" (213-16)
● Daniel Alexander Payne / "Welcome to the Ransomed" (217-26)

Four: Freedom's Time of Trial: 1865-World War I
● Isaac Lane / From Slave to Preacher among the Freedmen (229-33)
● Lucius H. Holsey / "The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church" (234-38)
● William Wells Brown / Black Religion in the Post-Reconstruction South (239-43)
● Daniel Alexander Payne / "Education in the A.M.E. Church" (244-52)
● Alexander Crummell / "The Regeneration of Africa" (253-59)
● Henry McNeal Turner / Emigration to Africa (260-66)
● African American Catholicism / The First African American Catholic Congress, 1889 (267-71)
● Elias C. Morris / 1899 Presidential Address to the National Baptist Convention (272-84)
● Elsie W. Mason / Bishop C. H. Mason, Church of God in Christ (285-95)
● Reverdy C. Ransom / "The Race Problem in a Christian State, 1906" (296-305)

Five: Rural and Urban Churches, 1900-World War I
● W. E. B. DuBois / "Of the Faith of the Fathers" (309-19)
● Rosa Young / "What Induced Me to Build a School in the Rural District" (320-29)
● Carter G. Woodson / "Things of the Spirit" (330-36)
● Benjamin E. Mays and Joseph W. Nicholson / "The Genius of the Negro Church" (337-48)
● St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton / "The Churches of Bronzeville" (349-63)
● E. Franklin Frazier / The Negro Church and Assimilation (364-76)

Six: Twentieth-Century Religious Alternatives
● Marcus Garvey / Garvey Tells His Own Story (379-89)
● Miles Mark Fischer / "Organized Religion and the Cults" (390-98)
● Rabbi Mattew / Black Judaism in Harlem (399-403)
● Father Divine / "The Realness of God, to you-wards ..." (404-12)
● Wallace D. Muhammad / "Self-Government in the New World" (413-20)

Seven: Civil Rights, Black Theology, and Beyond
● Joseph H. Jackson / "National Baptist Philosophy of Civil Rights" (423-29)
● Martin Luther King, Jr. / "Letter from Birmingham Jail -- April 16, 1963" (430-45)
● Mahalia Jackson / Singing of Good Tidings and Freedom (446-57)
● Howard Thurman / "The Anatomy of Segregation and Ground of Hope" (458-64)
● National Conference of Black Churchmen / "Black Power" Statement, July 31, 1966, and "Black Theology" Statement, June 13, 1969 (465-76)
● James H. Cone / "Black Theology and the Black Church: Where Do We Go from Here?" (477-88)
● Lawrence N. Jones / "The Black Churches: A New Agenda" (489-97)

● Index (499-504)

● Dedication: "To the memory of Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne [1811-1893]"
● Selected as 1985-86 Choice Outstanding Academic Book

● This anthology appears to grow out of a course pack that Sernett prepared in 1981, "Afro-American Religious History: Documents and Interpretations": this was an anthology of readings compiled for AAS 345 REL 245, Afro-American Religious History, Syracuse University."

● "This unique collection of more than fifty documents - many of them rare, out of print, not easily accessible - covers Afro-American religious from Africa into early America through Reconstruction and into the rise of black nationalism, civil rights, and black theology of today. Excerpts from classic studies of Afro-American religion, including Du Bois, Mays and Nicholson, Drake and Clayton, and Frazier add depth and scope to this collection. The editor provides a general introduction, explanatory comments that give historical context and significance to each selection, and suggestions for further reading to both the specialist and general reader"

● Mathews, Donald G. "Church History" 55.1 (1986): 118-19.
"Anyone who has ever tried to compile documents for classroom use knows how difficult it is to do so; so does anyone who has ever tried to use someone else's compilation. Collected documents are--as in the Bible--also canons of those statements which best signify a common faith as it is acted out in the historical process. Sernett has done us a real service in this pioneering effort" (118).
"Instead of creating a 'canon' to support his own thesis about the developments of Afro-American history, Sernett has been catholic, judicious, and imaginative. In one case he has clearly tried to do the impossible--recapturing the sound and celebration of black worship through the memories of Mahalia Jackson. There are certain things beyond the capacity of print to convey, as Sernett would be the first to acknowledge" (118).
"In his attempt to develop a documentary canon separated from an interpretative synthesis, Sernett nonetheless has made a statement about Afro-American religious experience: that it is to be understood not primarily in terms of theology but in historical experience. . . . Almost all of the selections--whether Nat's confession, or Father Divine's message, or Lawrence Jones's 'New Agenda'--emphasize a // community of faith in action. . . . Perhaps this 'canon' is not all it can or will be, but Sernett has created something significant which should stir debate as to what 'should' be in the canon. This is no mean contribution" (118-19).

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