Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion [Hardcover]

Barbara Dianne Savage (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 21, 2008

Even before the emergence of the civil rights movement with black churches at its center, African American religion and progressive politics were assumed to be inextricably intertwined. In her revelatory book, Barbara Savage counters this assumption with the story of a highly diversified religious community whose debates over engagement in the struggle for racial equality were as vigorous as they were persistent. Rather than inevitable allies, black churches and political activists have been uneasy and contentious partners.

From the 1920s on, some of the best African American minds—W. E. B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Benjamin Mays, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Mary McLeod Bethune, Charles S. Johnson, and others—argued tirelessly about the churches’ responsibility in the quest for racial justice. Could they be a liberal force, or would they be a constraint on progress? There was no single, unified black church but rather many churches marked by enormous intellectual, theological, and political differences and independence. Yet, confronted by racial discrimination and poverty, churches were called upon again and again to come together as savior institutions for black communities.

The tension between faith and political activism in black churches testifies to the difficult and unpredictable project of coupling religion and politics in the twentieth century. By retrieving the people, the polemics, and the power of the spiritual that animated African American political life, Savage has dramatically demonstrated the challenge to all religious institutions seeking political change in our time.

(20080915)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With the recent controversy over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, much attention has been recently paid to the topic of the black church in America. Yet historian Savage shows in her book that "there is no such thing as the 'black church.' " Countering the image of a monolithic institution, Savage instead portrays the theological, economic and social diversity within black churches. Through biographical vignettes, Savage spans the 20th-century black religious experience, focusing on the ever-present question African-Americans asked about the role their churches should play in the politics for racial justice. Savage's greatest contribution is her restoration of black women to a central place in black religious experience. Though women formed the vast majority of those in the pews, most historians have focused on the male ministers who led the congregations. Savage argues for the importance of Mary McLeod Bethune, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and Fannie Lou Hamer, among others. A concluding chapter on Barack Obama and Wright smartly observes how Wright himself downplayed black religious diversity to make his defense of the black church. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

The debate about the role and relevance of religion in the social and political lives of African Americans has raged since the days of slavery. Historian Savage focuses on the period from the turn of the twentieth century, a time of tension between science and faith as more and more black Americans sought education and as racial inequalities and exploitation left black Americans as much in need of spiritual succor as ever. As black Americans adjusted to life in urban areas, and to the attendant racial discrimination and segregation, the black church became the only indigenous institution with the stability and influence to effect change within and outside the community, giving rise to the notion of “the black church” despite what was actually a great diversity of religious institutions. Savage focuses on diverse figures from the early 1900s through the current day, including Marcus Garvey, sociologist W. E. B. DuBois, and activist Marian Wright Edelman. She explores changes in how religion has been viewed and how it has been used as a political and social engine as much as for spiritual uplift. --Vanessa Bush

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (November 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674031776
• ISBN-13: 978-0674031777
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #303,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Overview of important (and overlooked) figures in black religion and religious politics, August 6, 2009

By 

Vaughn Booker Jr. (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion (Hardcover)

In Your Spirits Walk Beside Us, Professor Savage sets out to discuss the important history of theorizing about the practice of religion in black America while being attentive to critical thinkers and activists in black history whose rhetoric concerned the link between black social progress and the role of religious institutions. Never generalizing about the arguably ambivalent role afforded to black political movements by individual and collective religious institutions within the US, Savage nevertheless makes sure to highlight the neglected roles of intelligent black women in American religious history whose stories are lost when we acknowledge that they were not afforded the usual positions of authority occupied by black men as religious and political leaders. In addition, Savage paints a realistic and refreshing image of diverse thought within African American religion, illuminating not only the reality of diverse religious traditions but also diversity of opinion and theology within black Protestantism--attitudes about (the existence of) God, about non-Christians (namely, the forgotten black Christian fascination with Gandhi), about white religions, and about the efficacy of black pastors and churches in struggles for social equality.

As ultimately revealed in the final chapter, Savage's construction of a black pantheon of sorts for meaningful, critical intellectual thought about black religion in the US serves to provide the reader a better sense of how to locate modern black leaders in a larger historical debate about the relationship between religion, race, and politics with a focus on two such men, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. As the two men might be considered different ideals for the synthesis of a racial consciousness with an effective, meaningful form of black Christianity, the focus of Savage's history relies on those individuals from history who largely represent the most effective presence of black religious liberalism in American history (and rightly so, given that these women and men made and preserved the black institutions responsible for progress). While attention is given to the reality of a conservative, individualistic, affluent tide in black religion evidenced by modern megachurches, I do feel that such conservative positioning and history needs to be given stronger attention in order to highlight for an audience interested in the intersection of religion and politics how race colors differently the simplistic liberal/conservative divide so easily stereotyped in modern political discourse. But the author's best work remains her ability to make sure that any modern discussion about religion, race, and politics is sensitive to the history of gendered divisions within black social history. Perhaps a more robust discussion of the political divides between black women in religious institutions would complicate Savage's important response to the minimization of black women in African American history and religion, but I believe it would have helped to further illuminate reasons for why such progress in black history was made only by a minority within a minority, one composed of a majority of women.