Element contents
Early Twentieth Century New Black Religious Movements in the United States
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 November 2025
Summary
African American religions include faith orientations that incorporate and deviate from Afro-Protestantism. Yet, contemporary scholarship in religious studies is always bolstered by any supplementary work that examines the plethora of 'extrachurch' orientations that Black communities adopt in their varied pursuits of truth, transcendence, and ultimacy. In this vein, it is necessary to recognize the emergence of powerful alternative religious movements that provided spiritual and theological sustenance for the expression of Black faith. This Element offers an historical overview of four of these traditions: Conjure and Spiritualism, the Nation of Islam, the Moorish Science Temple of America, and African American varieties of New Thought. It explores the social and cultural factors in American society and American race relations that bolstered their emergence and considers the impact such movements had and continue to have on ideas about Black selfhood, Black religious authority, and the sacrality of Black bodies.
Information
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781009534499Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 11 December 2025
References
Baer, H. A. “Toward a Systematic Typology of Black Folk Healers.” Phylon 43, no. 4 (1982): 327–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baer, H. A. and Singer, M.. African American Religion: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation, 2nd ed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002; first ed. 1992.Google Scholar
Bowler, K. Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braude, A. Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001; first ed. 1989.Google Scholar
Carter, J. K. The Anarchy of Black Religion: A Mystic Song. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2023.Google Scholar
CERCL Writing Collective. Embodiment and Black Religion: Rethinking the Body in African American Religious Experience. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2017.Google Scholar
Chireau, Y. “Prophetess of the Spirits: Mother Leaf Anderson and the Spiritual Churches of New Orleans.” In Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity, ed. Kienzle, B. M. & Walker, P. J., 303–17. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Chireau, Y. Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Clark, E. “Noble Drew Ali’s Clean and Pure Nation: The Moorish Science Temple, Identity, and Healing.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 16, no. 3 (2013): 31–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. A Luminous Brotherhood: Afro-Creole Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. and Stoddard, B.. Race and New Religious Movements in the United States: A Documentary Reader. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, K. B. and Clark, M. P.. “Racial Identification and Preference among Negro Children.” In Readings in Social Psychology, ed. Hartley, E. L.. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1947.Google Scholar
Curtis, E. E. IV Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African American Islamic Thought. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Dew, S. The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fauset, A. Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002; first edition 1944.Google Scholar
Finley, S. In and Out of this World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022.Google Scholar
Glaude, E. S. Jr. An Uncommon Faith: A Pragmatic Approach to the Study of African American Religion. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene-Hayes, A. Underworld Work: Black Atlantic Religion Making in Jim Crow New Orleans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2025.Google Scholar
Griffith, R. M. “Body Salvation: New Thought, Father Divine, and the Feast of Material Pleasures.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 11, no. 2 (2001): 119–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartman, S. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth Century America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Hartman, S. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019.Google Scholar
Hopkins, D. “Slave Theology in the Invisible Institution.” In African American Religious Thought: An Anthology, ed. West, C. & Glaude, E. S., 790–830. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. A. “The Rise of Black Ethnics: The Ethnic Turn in African American Religions, 1916–1945.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 20, no. 2 (2010): 125–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, S. A. African American Religions, 1500–2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lause, M. A. Free Spirits: Spiritualism, Republicanism, and Radicalism in the Civil War Era. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, C. M. Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion. Aurora, CO: The Davies Group, 1986.Google Scholar
Long, C. M. Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and Commerce. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2001.Google Scholar
McKinnis, L. The Black Coptic Church: Race and Imagination in a New Religion. New York: NYU Press, 2023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, M. Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neal, L. S. Wearing Their Faith: New Religious Movements, Dress, and Fashion in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paris, P. The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Patterson, O. “Authority, Alienation, and Social Death.” In African American Religious Thought: An Anthology, ed. West, C. & Glaude, E. S. Jr., 99–155. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Raboteau, A. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004 rep.; first ed. 1978.Google Scholar
Smith, T. Conjuring Culture: Biblical Foundations of Black America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, D. and Hucks, T.. “Africana Religious Studies: Toward a Transdisciplinary Agenda in an Emerging Field.” Journal of Africana Religions 1, no. 1 (2013): 28–77.Google Scholar
Watts, J. God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisenfeld, J. New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration. New York: NYU Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Accessibility standard: WCAG 2.0 A
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
The HTML of this element
conforms to version 2.0 of the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG), ensuring core accessibility principles are addressed and meets the basic
(A)
level of WCAG compliance, addressing essential accessibility barriers.
Content Navigation
Table of contents navigation
Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.
Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.
Reading Order & Textual Equivalents
Single logical reading order
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
Short alternative textual descriptions
You get concise descriptions (for images, charts, or media clips), ensuring you do not miss crucial information when visual or audio elements are not accessible.
You get concise descriptions (for images, charts, or media clips), ensuring you do not miss crucial information when visual or audio elements are not accessible.
Visual Accessibility
Use of high contrast between text and background colour
You benefit from high‐contrast text, which improves legibility if you have low vision or if you are reading in less‐than‐ideal lighting conditions.
You benefit from high‐contrast text, which improves legibility if you have low vision or if you are reading in less‐than‐ideal lighting conditions.
Structural and Technical Features
ARIA roles provided
You gain clarity from ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) roles and attributes, as they help assistive technologies interpret how each part of the content functions.
You gain clarity from ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) roles and attributes, as they help assistive technologies interpret how each part of the content functions.
- 4
- Cited by