Read, in Allitt,

The Slave's Own Religion (Raboteau), pp.152 -158
6.7  Frederick Douglass Compares Southern Slaveowners' Religion with That of Jesus 1845, pp. 179-180
Slaveholders and the Bible (Genovese  & Genovese) pp. 188-194
12.1 Martin Luther King, Jr. Preaches on the Power of Love, 1963 360-361
12.2  James Baldwin Becomes a Boy Preacher in Harlem (c. 1936), 1963 pp. 362-366
12.3  National Conference of Black Churchmen Demands Equal Power, 1966 pp. 366-367
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Leadership (Garrow), pp. 379-384

We continue our short look at the role of Christianity in the Black Community with a variety of short readings.  Raboteau will look at the ways African religious practices became absorbed into Christian practices during the slave era.  Douglass provides ample evidence of the way that religious faith strengthened Black arguments for the abolition of Slavery, though Southern slaveholders used theological arguments defending their practices.  Genovese and Genovese show that the Patriarchal views of the slaveholding class significantly connected their attitudes towards blacks, women, and minors, and that uniformity of this world view is proof that the slaveholders were not hypocrites, even if their views were terribly wrongheaded.

Our last four readings take us into the more recent past.  Martin Luther King, Jr., needs no introduction to Americans today, even though he was assassinated over thirty years ago.  His teachings provided much of the moral force behind the Civil Rights Movement, and Garrow's article will show that he was a good tactician as well as a charismatic leader.  The National Council of Black Churchmen presents a more radical demand for black power in broad terms.  On the other hand,  James Baldwin looks back on his adolescence and records how pervasive white racism and sexism caused him to reject his religious beliefs as he moved into young adulthood.

Read, in Corbett,

Chapter 9, Ethnic Christianity, pp. 201-212

in Albanese,

Chapter 9, East in West, Eastern Peoples and Eastern Religions, pp. 283-292 (through Orthodoxy in the United States)

Christian Orthodox traditions are ancient, as today's readings will suggest.  With the exception of a missionary outpost in Alaska (remember, Russia owned Alaska until Secretary of State William Seward purchased Seward's Folly during the administration of Abraham Lincoln), the first Orthodox Congregation in the United States wasn't founded until the middle of the nineteenth century.  The last half of the nineteenth century saw the arrival of many more immigrants from Eastern and Southern European regions:  from Russia, the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Greece, and these immigrants brought with them the national Orthodox churches of their homelands.  Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, and Greek Orthodox churches became part of American pluralism.  We'll see some ways in which the Orthodox tradition approaches pluralism differently from the way the Western church does.