This
course provides a critical introduction to and overview of the almost 600-year
spiritual journey of African Americans in the United States. Beginning with the
spirituality of their ancestors in Africa itself, we explore how that
spirituality was brought to the United States and forged in the furnace of the
Middle Passage, slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights and
other liberation movements. In the US, it developed into a spiritual foundation
that enabled African Americans to embrace Christianity and persevere in their
struggle towards freedom and full citizenship. The spiritualities of other
faiths and their influence on Black religiosity, including Islam, Judaism,
Buddhism and contemporary Yoruba religion as well as African Caribbean
religions (Vodoun, Candomblé, etc.), will also be explored as time allows.