Politics and Black Religions: A History of Engagement

2024 marks several important anniversaries in African American religious history, including Jessie Jackson’s historic first presidential campaign (40th, 1984), Freedom Summer and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Malcolm X’s establishment of the Muslim Mosque, Inc. (60th, 1964). These moments reflect important examples of the varied expressions and interactions between Black religions and the political sphere through electioneering, organizing, and critique. In light of these historic events, the Afro-American Religious History Unit proposes to host a special roundtable session that reflects on these various iterations at the institutional, individual, social, and communal levels. Of special concern in this conversation will be both the expansive and limiting ways that intersections of Black religions and politics have been considered as opening up spheres of influence, generating political critique, and sites of gendered power and struggle. This roundtable is especially timely given that it will be held following the 2024 presidential election, in which religion, race, and history have already been salient factors.

This moderated roundtable conversation features leading, public-facing scholars whose works center issues in Black religious studies, and a U.S. senator connected to both the history of black religious activism and its scholarly tradition. Each panelist will share brief opening remarks before engaging in a conversation with each other and the audience. To date, we have secured commitments from Professors Edward Curtis, IV, William M. and Gail M. Plater Chair of the Liberal Arts and Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; Lerone A. Martin, Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor, and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University; Barbara D. Savage, Geraldine R. Segal Professor Emerita of American Social Thought and Professor Emerita of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; and Ula Y. Taylor, Professor of African American Studies and 1960 Chair of Undergraduate Education at the University of California, Berkeley. This interdisciplinary set of scholars will delve into the historical and contemporary significances of the intersections of religion and politics for African Americans. Additionally, we have invited Raphael G. Warnock, U. S. Senator from Georgia, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and the author of The Divided Mind of the Black Church: Theology, Piety, and Public Witness (NYU Press, 2013), to participate on this roundtable. We are excited at the prospect of Sen. Warnock joining the panel because of his perspective as the first Black senator from Georgia, pastor of the church that Martin Luther King, Sr. and Martin Luther King, Jr. once pastored, and a scholar trained in African American religious thought.

We propose this roundtable as a special session because the Afro-American religious History Unit traditionally reserves its session allotment for showcasing recent and emerging research in African American religious history, as well as the interdisciplinary connections and impacts of the scholars who produce it (often coming through co-sponsored sessions). Because our unit has received greater co-sponsorship interest than usual to date, we anticipate using up our regular allotment for an already diverse set of proposals and would like to feature this timely conversation as a special session. Further, we believe that this proposed roundtable conversation will have a broad appeal to AAR attendees in light of the 2024 election’s already complex social and cultural significance as well as the significance of the Black religious anniversaries mentioned above.