African American Religious History: Documentary Witness

This widely-heralded collection of remarkable documents offers a view of African American religious history from Africa and early America through Reconstruction to the rise of black nationalism, civil rights, and black theology of today. The documents-many of them rare, out-of-print, or difficult to find-include personal narratives, sermons, letters, protest pamphlets, early denominational histories, journalistic accounts, and theological statements. In this volume Olaudah Equiano describes Ibo religion. Lemuel Haynes gives a black Puritan's farewell. Nat Turner confesses. Jarena Lee becomes a female preacher among the African Methodists. Frederick Douglass discusses Christianity and slavery. Isaac Lane preaches among the freedmen. Nannie Helen Burroughs reports on the work of Baptist women. African Methodist bishops deliberate on the Great Migration. Bishop C. H. Mason tells of the Pentecostal experience. Mahalia Jackson recalls the glory of singing at the 1963 March on Washington. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes from the Birmingham jail.
Originally published in 1985, this expanded second edition includes new sources on women, African missions, and the Great Migration. Milton C. Sernett provides a general introduction as well as historical context and comment for each document.


Author: Milton C. Sernett
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 01/17/2000
Pages: 608
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.85lbs
Size: 9.25h x 6.13w x 1.23d
ISBN13: 9780822324492
ISBN10: 0822324490
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | African American & Black Studies
- History | United States | 20th Century
- Social Science | Sociology of Religion

About the Author

Milton C. Sernett is Professor of African-American studies at Syracuse University. He is the author of several books, including Bound for the Promised Land, also published by Duke University Press.