| Title | : | The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1984880330 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781984880338 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 |
| Publication | : | First published February 16, 2021 |
The companion book to the upcoming PBS series.
For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, segregated West Virginia town, the church was his family and his community's true center of gravity. Within those walls, voices were lifted up in song to call forth the best in each other, and to comfort each other when times were at their worst. In this book, his tender and magisterial reckoning with the meaning of the Black church in American history, Gates takes us from his own experience onto a journey across more than four hundred years and spanning the entire country. At road's end, we emerge with a new understanding of the centrality of the Black church to the American story--as a cultural and political force, as the center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as an unparalleled incubator of talent, and as a crucible for working through the community's most important issues, down to today.
In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black church has always been more than a sanctuary; it's been a place to nourish the deepest human needs and dreams of the African-American community. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meeting houses were subject to surveillance, and often destruction. So it continued, long after slavery's formal eradication; church burnings and church bombings by the Ku Klux Klan and others have always been a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the struggle for equality for the African-American community. The past often isn't even past--Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in Charleston's Emanuel AME Church 193 years after the church was first burned down by whites following a thwarted slave rebellion.
But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the vital center of the civil rights movement, and produced many of its leaders, from the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. on, but at the same time there have always been churches and sects that eschewed a more activist stance, even eschewed worldly political engagement altogether. That tension can be felt all the way to the Black Lives Matter movement and the work of today. Still and all, as a source of strength and a force for change, the Black church is at the center of the action at every stage of the American story, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.
The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song Reviews
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Henry Louis Gates Jr. has written a great book on the history of the Black Church in America. This book covers the Black religious tradition from the days of slavery to our current moment during the coronavirus pandemic. Along the way, Gates tells how important the Black Church has been as a source of spiritual renewal and political power for centuries.
This book is a historical survey of the Black Church, meaning it covers a lot of broad topics as it relates to the Black American religious experience. Many of the topics could and probably have their own standalone books. Gates’s book could have been alot longer, but it does a good job of giving the reader a well researched and thorough examination of the Black Church’s evolution.
What makes this book special is that Gates was able to talk to a diverse group of people including celebrities, musical artists, clergy, and religion scholars about the Black Church’s significance. Notable names include: Yolanda Adams, Bishop Michael Curry, Rev. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Kirk Franklin, Bishop T. D. Jakes, John Legend, Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Senator Raphael Warnock, Oprah Winfrey, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
One of the important points that Gates makes is that Black enslaved people shaped and adapted Christianity in their own way, not how it was taught to them by white slaveholders. Enslaved people infused African traditions in their version of Christianity that are still with us in some form today, traditions such as the ring shout and spirit possession.
Gates also covers the challenges the Black Church faced and continues to face in our current moment. The debate over worship styles (charismatic vs. more mainline) is an ongoing one since the end of the 19th Century; while the prosperity gospel vs liberation theology message is an issue that the Black Church has focused on since the early 20th Century. The influence of secular music on Black gospel music is another point of contention. There was resistance from Black church members of gospel music because of its blues and rock and roll elements. Nowadays there is resistance to gospel music that has a more hip-hop feel to it. Thomas Dorsey and Kirk Franklin were innovators in their respective eras on shifting the boundaries of gospel music for a new generation of Christians.
Readers should know that this is mostly a story about Black Christianity in America. There are substantial mentions of Black Muslims during slavery; the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X also are covered but it is not at the same level as Black Christians are discussed.
Gates closes his book, in the Epilogue, by discussing the role of the Holy Ghost in the Black Church tradition, specifically the concepts of “getting happy” and “speaking in tongues”. He tells a personal story of his experiences of going to a church where “catching the spirit” was common. Ultimately he makes a verdict about its significance in the Black religious tradition.
I enjoyed reading this book especially as someone who grew up in a Black Church. I learned alot of facts I was unfamiliar with before. Readers of Black history, religious studies, and PBS series (this is a companion book to a series by the same name) will enjoy reading this informative work.
Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Press, and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on February 16, 2021.
Review first published here:
https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m... -
a fine overview of the Black church, surveying how it served as the center of African-Americans' social, cultural and political life for decades. full of quotes and close reads, less history here than expected; it reads a lot like a companion book to the doc, in a way his last didn't.
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3.5
I am a product of a Black Church and I greatly admire the work of Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Knowing these two things about myself, I thought this book would be a perfect fit for me. My reaction however was different than what I expected.
This book is a general overview of what religion has meant to Black Americans since the first Africans arrived on American soil. Approaching the book as an overview is best. There is not a deep exploration into the various denominations that have shaped the Black American religious experience. There are also glaring omissions of religious leaders who have shaped Black American spiritual life.
Another drawback of the book for me was that it drew heavily on the work W.E.B. Dubois. It has been over 100 years since Dubois work was published. There are many theologians who have written about Black Church life since Dubois.
One of the things I appreciated about the book was the inclusion of the Nation of Islam. Christianity is not the sole belief system of Black Americans and it was nice to have another religion discussed.
This book is for someone who wants to have a broad picture of Black American religious experiences. It is also a great book to commemorate the documentary of the same name. Many of the book’s passages are directly from the documentary. For those who want a deeper understanding of the various Black American religious experiences, the book offers an extensive Recommended Readings section that I plan to explore.
I was given the opportunity to review an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley. -
Gates recounts that Black churches began as ‘praise houses’, incorporating African culture in their faith traditions. After Emancipation, the Black church retained its importance in nurturing Black culture and helped to foster political action. The rhythms of Black preaching can be heard in the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. as he fought for Civil Rights in the 60s. Unfortunately, Black churches paid the price for MLK leading the massive March on Washington in 1963. Just three weeks later, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed, killing four Black girls. From this bombing in Birmingham to 1964’s Freedom Summer in Mississippi, thirty-seven churches were burned or bombed during a ten-week period. Hence, many Black churches refused to allow the leaders of the civil rights movement to even have services there.
Whether it is the Islam faith of Malcolm X or the Christian faith of many civil rights leaders, faith has held a central place in Black culture. Recommend this companion volume to Gates’ new PBS series. -
Police officers at times beat and starve defendants during interrogations to coerce confessions turning innocent victims into guilty criminals. If this tactic works over a few hours to break willpower, imagine the impact of generational starvation and torture of body, mind and soul. Throughout this book Dr. Gates never explains why enslaved Africans shunned ancestral religions in favor for the enslaver’s Christianity beliefs. This book made me curious to learn more of the Stockholm syndrome. Many seem to forget religions are fallible as they are all created and recorded by humans. I would have liked hearing more of the history of media’s role in “spreading the gospel” of the colonizer’s beliefs by way of newspapers, radio, and T.V.
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This was on a subject I didn’t know anything about, so I found it very informative and enriching. The voice is very interesting, because it does feel kind of like a PBS special, which, it turns out, it is. I’m not sure which material was written first, but it does kind of feel heavily on a narrative throughline when some more information would have been good.
There’s a few subjects where you just want more, but it moves on for the sake of the pace and structure. So, I would call this a supplemental book, or perhaps one that would wet your appetite for much more thorough texts on the topic.
The audiobook was fantastic, as you might expect. It is basically an audio presentation of what I imagine the documentary is. Though I’ve not seen it. -
I leave with some questions answered and new questions raised. To me, this is one of the signs of a good read. I'm looking forward to watching the associated documentary.
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/The Black Church/ is an inspiring branch of Christendom - and an essential corrector of Christianity's perversions.
Reading the book, I lament the sins of the white Church, committed or omitted. Only bad things happen when the Church abuses her political and social power; when the Church compromises on Gospel; when the Church becomes the oppressor of herself or any others for that matter.
The history of the black Church brings up interesting questions. For a great while, it remained the cultural center and a harbinger of autonomy for blacks in America. In recent history, secular progressivism has divorced political action from the Church. How does this history inform Christian political theology? Questions of Church and State?
I have learned a lot about why white and black churches are separate from each other. The reasons are all tragic.
Gates did very well on the book. The structure was *chef's kiss*, the content was *chef's kiss*, the lessons learned are *chef's kiss*. Definitely recommend to fellow Christians. -
The Black Church
A great companion piece to the PBS series The Black Church. Great photos, quotes and discussion by Henry Louis Gates Jr about the origins and history of the Black Church as well it’s benefits to African American and American history and culture to the present. Very nicely done. -
Just a great introduction to an important part of American Religious history. Combined with the PBS series, just a maevelous overview of sognificant people and their very crucial contributions to America’s cultural ethos.
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Summary: A companion to the PBS series on the Black church, surveying the history of the Black church in America focusing on why the church has been central to the life of the Black community.
It is practically a truism that the church is a central reality in the Black experience, and in many local Black communities. But why is this? That is the question Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores in this companion book to the PBS series, “The Black Church.”
Gates contends that the church provided a place, first of all, for refuge that they could control and find hope in, when they were brutally subjugated, whether under slavery or Jim Crow. It was fascinating to learn that Spanish Catholics were responsible for the conversions of African-Americans in the early year. Gates also traces the elements of Muslim and traditional religion back to the earliest periods of slavery. White slave owners often were resistant to the conversion of slaves, recognizing the liberating messages to be found in the Bible, Anglican missionaries persuaded slave owners that it could be taught in ways that supported their control. What they couldn’t control was the introduction of music and dance that reflected African heritage, including the “ring shout.” and the unofficial gatherings in “praise houses.”
Many more were converted during the Methodist revivals, but when they were segregated, Richard Allen led the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Gates traces how the church increasingly becomes a force for abolition (and in the case of Nat Turner, for uprising) as well as renewal. Then with Emancipation, Gates traces the further growth of the churches of the south, the Bible women who helped spread the gospel message, and the “frenzy” that presaged Pentecostalism, which can trace its roots to William Joseph Seymour, who led the Azusa Street Revival, leading to the formation of the Church of God in Christ, the largest Pentecostal body in the country.
With the Great Migration, Gates traces the growth of Black megachurches in northern cities like Chicago and New York, and with this the growth of Gospel music from the Fisk Jubilee Singers to Shirley Caesar, and from this, the development of blues and jazz. This led to a growing tension between the music of the clubs on Saturday night and the music of the service on Sunday. The music and the preaching connected, nowhere more so than at the March on Washington when Mahalia Jackson urged King to “Tell them about the dream.” The gospel songs morphed into the freedom songs and sustained the movement.
Gates describes the period after King as a “crisis of faith.” He describes the development of Black theology, including the thought of James Cone and Jeremiah Wright, the pastor who married the Obamas. He observes the tensions around sexuality, the patriarchy of churches, and the conservatism around LGBT sexuality as well as the ascent of Blacks into the middle class, the ministries of pastors like T.D. Jakes, and how Obama revealed different sides of the church to white America. The chapter concludes with the resurgent white nationalism and Black Lives Matter.
An epilogue traces Gates own religious journey, his decision to join the church, his fear of “the Frenzy” and speaking in tongues and the irony that DuBois “Talented Tenth” were less the missionaries of culture than the Pentecostals, whose experience did more to uplift the marginalized. Gates observes that the experiential connected back to the African religious roots of the Black church.
Gates gives us an account of the Black church that both traces history, and enriches it with interviews with contemporary Black leaders and celebrities, drawing out the experienced significance of the Black church. The church that emerges is one of refuge and uplift, of resistance and abolition, of music and ecstasy. It is also an account of Black pulpiteers and the development of Black preaching from Richard Allen to Raphael Warnock. The appendix includes an alphabetical list of the great preachers of the Black church. Here as throughout this history, Gates does not confine his account to Christians, including figures like Malcolm X.
As history, this is more popular survey than an in-depth, scholarly account. Gates use of contemporary interviews interlaced with his history creates a much richer sense of the ethos of the Black church than one might get from a historical narrative alone. He captures the various ways the church epitomizes and sustains the identity of Black people. He concludes:
“It’s that cultural space in which we can bathe freely in the comfort of our cultural heritage, and where everyone knows their part, and where everyone can judge everyone else’s performance of their part, often out loud with amens, with laughter, with clapping, or with silence. It’s the space that we created to find rest in the gathering storm. It’s the place where we made a way out of no way. It’s the place to which, after a long and wearisome journey, we can return and find rest before we cross the river. It’s the place we call, simply, the Black Church” (p. 219). -
I watched the PBS series of the same name. I enjoy Henry Louis Gates Jr. as he shares his knowledge, so well-researched here and on the Finding Your Roots series also. Although I belong to a church, in most cases, I consider religion to be an accident of birth. I have long admired those who possess that deep faith. One of the most moving religious services I have attended was a MLK tribute in a local, historically black church. I liked the music, the sermons, and the welcoming atmosphere. I liked that participants/attendees moved around and talked, even during the service, something that I learned was verbotten in my church.
This book is structured much like the PBS series, with the voices of "experts", past and present. Although the book is structured with time consecutive chapters, the narrative moved back and forth, sometimes repetitively. At times, both during the tv series, and the book, I found my mind wandering and skipping over parts. I appreciated the parallels drawn between the slave experience, then the freedom movement, and Moses in the bible. I have mixed feelings about the lack of separation between church and politics. I understand that the church is a place of refuge, and often a place where participants can receive the services not available to them (as they should be) by government. (It was likely the same for my immigrant grandparents, though they came to the U.S. of their own free will.) I had never thought about the traditional roles of women in the black church - they are the church's backbone, but, perhaps until recently, with no leadership roles. The black church is many-faceted. As perhaps with other religious organizations, the times demand that the black church must evolve if it is going survive.
Spirituals project common humanity. "It's hard to hate somebody if you can hum their music." (69)
Summed up in the epilogue: "The Black Church is the space where our direct cultural ties to Africa come to life in new and mutated but still reconizable form. It's that cultural space in which we can bathe freely in the comfort of our cultural heritage, and where everyone knows their part, and where everyone can judge everyone else's performance of their part, often out loud with amens, with laughter, with clapping, or with silence. It's the space we created to find rest in the gathering storm. It's the place where we made a way out of no way. It's the place to which, after a long and wearisome journey, we can return and find rest before we cross the river." (219) -
A view of the history of Black people from slavery through the COVID pandemic though the church is a fascinating take. We usually think that many Black individuals before being captured in Africa did not have a religion, but we would be wrong. Gates show how the churches have changed and influenced or provided stability through the times of The Restoration and Jim Crow through the Civil Rights movement into the Black Lives Matter. The evolution of Gospel to providing comfort, to be shameful, and becoming popular music. Gates looks at the Black Church how it has influenced our culture with the history. Gates the a fantastic historian and this is reflected in this book.
How did this book find me? I saw PBS was doing The Black Church, but I had not had time to see the documentary. I am a huge fan of Gates on Finding Your Roots. -
I learned so much by listening to this book. It was a good entry to this topic, but as others have mentioned in their reviews, it was pretty high-level and could have gone much deeper. Dr. Gates showed the connection for the black church between theology, community, support, politics, and history.
I was interested to learn that the Methodist church was one of the first to stand up to the issue of slavery. Then I was saddened to learn that this caused a split in the church between northern denominations and southern denominations. I was also interested to learn that many churches have been more progressive than the black church regarding women as leaders in the church.
The question Gates asks that for me remains unanswered...why did so many blacks become tied to the religion of the whites who enslaved them? Especially when they were denied the right to learn to read or own a Bible in many cases.
More to learn here. I will watch the PBS special as a companion piece. -
It's happened more than a couple times that I've been the only white person in a church, and it's pretty frequent that my husband is the only black person. I always wonder about this self-segregation and thought I'd find this book interesting. It ended up not being exactly what I expected: much less a current cultural observation of the Black Church, much more a broad history. There were plenty of interesting parts, but I'd also consider it a pretty dry book. It talks about the history of organized religion among black people in the US from the times of slavery, the Great Awakening, through reconstruction, the Civil Rights movement, all the way to the times of BLM and COVID. It's not limited to Christianity, although that certainly accounts for a majority of the content.
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Black History
I think the book was well written . It included historical facts that are not taught in history for black children. Gaining an understanding of the origin of the black church was illuminating and greatly appreciated. Although I enjoy the book there are points concerning true Christianity that I disagree with the author. Belief in Christ is not about a white or black Christ. It is about believing in Jesus being the only son of God and He is the Savior who willingly gave His life as a ransom for mankind. Thereby becoming a child of God by faith. Believing He died and God raised Him from the dead. -
This is a helpful and short introduction to black religion in America! I gave it a 3 star rating for 2 reasons. Firstly, much of this I learned through reading Paul Harvey’s wonderful book on the same subject and through other readings. If this were my first dive into an academic study of black religion, I’d rate it higher. Secondly, though I appreciate sources, this book seems to be too heavy on quotes. Most of this work are quotes from individuals. But overall, I’d recommend this to those wanting an understanding on black spirituality.
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Gates gives a thorough history of the Black Church in America from the beginnings of the slave trade through 2020 - even commenting on COVID and the Black Lives Matter movement. One of the main themes is that church matters have always been tied to social matters, which was illuminating to me. Gates also consistently comments on and critiques Du Bois’s description of the church in “The Souls of Black Folk.”
Ultimately, Gates is a brilliant and inspired historian and anyone even remotely interested in history, race, or church should pick up this book. -
This book was great. Written by Henry Louis Gates, who does “Finding Your Roots” on PBS. I saw it over the summer in SC and grabbed it to read on the plane. Took a bit longer but I enjoyed his view from the seat of his pew so to speak. It details his experience in church as a child then an adult while explaining the experience of church for slaves as they came to America, then of the black church as it grew, as well as the different denominations and their beginnings. Basically a history of the black church.
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Well written, broad history of the Black Church in America. Gates leans on DuBois’s well known description on the Black Church as that with the preacher, the music, and the frenzy. This provides the overarching touch point against which the various strands of the multiple histories are laid. This isn’t a deep dive, and therefore is accessible to readers who are interested in the topic, but don’t have a lot of background.
I was particularly interested in the way he explored the more charismatic aspects of some denominational practices, such as speaking in tongues, arguing that their synthetic emergence is tied to the pan-African identity of American Blacks as a whole today. -
An interesting history of the Black Church in America, and a discussion of the pivotal role the Church has played in Black culture.
"In a world of utter instability, where African American families could be torn apart at a moment's notice, the enslaved found a rock in the religion and practices they developed in communion with one another..."
Full review coming for Shelf Awareness. -
First things first. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is a national treasure. He is grace, elegance and wisdom personified. When he tells the stories of the Black church and its people and their struggles, it's not a matter of me getting defensive and vainly proclaiming that I would never treat someone like that. It's me humbly and solemnly asking myself have I done this, am I guilty of this too, even indirectly? He gives me reason to look into myself and honestly face my own actions and words. This book convicted me. As it should have.
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This is the second book I’ve read by this author, and it’s interesting to compare it to STONY, THE ROAD. I also read that one for the BookTube Prize, back in 2020.
It’s a more cohesive work of nonfiction than the former, imho. Gates takes a look at the formation of the Black Church, and, more broadly, African American spirituality, from the beginnings of slavery to 2020. So it’s a lot, but it largely stays on point. Arguably, a topic as dynamic as this one would naturally intersect with other issues anyway.
STONY, THE ROAD, in contrast, felt like two distinct books in one. Very different from the issue of the Black Church intersecting with practices brought over and adapted from Africa, or the events that shaped the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter. But like with STONY, THE ROAD, the content felt too fleeting. The book was under 300 pages long, and there was a lot to cover.
It’s like this was a primer for a far more in depth work of history, and on that note, it kinda was. The book is meant to be a companion piece to Gates’s PBS documentary, also titled “The Black Church.” Maybe it’s my personal bias, but something grabbed me the wrong way here, a sense of an incomplete work of art. It’s almost like I was reading the pamphlet for an exhibition.
On a more optimistic note, here are some facts that intrigued me. Gates delved into how practices like “voodoo” are an amalgamation of African forms of worship and Roman Catholicism. This inches into specifics like “speaking in tongues,” which Gates points out could also be an interpretation of Biblical verses about comprehending God. All of this is compelling detail to a broader thread about how Blacks took a religion (forms of Protestantism, mostly) that was largely forced upon them, and mined it for a narrative about seeing the beauty in themselves and overcoming oppression.
He doesn’t shy away from some criticism of the Black Church (though again that phrase feels too broad in this context), particularly with its treatment of women and queer people. Gates interviewed many religious leaders and academics, including from these marginalized groups, to talk about past failings (eg response to the AIDS crisis) and current day initiatives.
He points out that the Black Lives Matter movement, for example, was started mostly by women and has in some cases moved away from church culture, seeing it as too passive. Certain pastors are leaning into activist roles, like the Civil Rights leaders Gates also briefly profiles.
Gates does make one passing reference to antisemitism being a failing of the broadly-defined Black Church, but specific examples only come in his notes section, a la reference to Louis Farrakhan’s “anti-semitic rhetoric,” followed by a list of books probing the Black/Jewish relationship. Jeremiah Wright comes up predominately in Gates’s Obama section, where he is described as being a controversy for the up-and-coming president because of his radically critical speeches about the U.S., not because of his antisemitism. It’s not that Gates is incorrect in his assessment, but that he and his experts are definitely pursuing a narrow line of inquiry. Which is another indicator to me about the fleetingness of how these issues are presented.
Though speaking as an American Jew, one of the most relatable parts of the book for me was the underlying message about how religion, for African Americans, is more than faith, but about culture and community, too. There are so many rabbit holes to go down, so many compelling nuggets, though I wonder if some of the greatest benefits of this book comes not from the narrative but from the notes section leading to more detailed exploration. -
It’s difficult to give an overview of the black church in around 200 pages. This book was a valiant effort but missed the mark for me. It felt like a companion book to the PBS series. I’d recommend people check that series out first before reading this.
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The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song is a superb overview and riveting account of the role of the Black Church in the Black community from slavery to modern times. Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr does an exceptional job taking us through this journey, which encapsulates the history of African Americans in America. I cannot say that it is a comprehensive deep dive into religion. Still, it is an engaging and compelling look at how the church has been the epicenter of the Black Community throughout our history in America.
I was also able to catch the televised version on PBS. Because you could hear the music and the interviews, it made the journey a bit more tangible. I recommend this book to anyone who grew up in the Church and those who came up before and during the era after the Civil Rights Movement. There are some interesting insights presented. -
This is a powerful read -- certainly not as in-depth as many would like, but to survey the history of the Black Church in America would take multiple volumes. With that in mind, this book is a wonderful introduction. I have not seen the television special yet, but intend to do so. I come away from this book confirmed in a theory I have been working on for quite some time. The Black Church is the most palpable witness to God's Word and work in the world that the United States has ever had.
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This book has provided a different perspective to Juneteenth (another book I had put down and am now more interested in finishing) and the necessity of books like The Three Mothers.
TBC is a window to so much more learning.
