The brutal act of racial terror that took the lives of nine black parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., purposely targeted the most important institution that has ever existed in the black community: the black church. So it should come as no surprise that in the age of Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and #BlackLivesMatter, one of the nation’s most ancient and revered black churches should come under such an attack. Nor that the attack took place in South Carolina, a state so deeply rooted in white supremacy and racial hatred that its Capitol proudly flies the Confederate flag even today.
Black churches, specifically AME and Baptist, gave spiritual, religious and material sustenance to African-American communities during and after slavery. The church drew from African folklore and religions and Christianity to develop a unique blend of a sectarian and secular belief system that allowed black people to survive slavery and its aftermath. The black church’s radical humanism harbored a fierce resistance to slavery, a love of freedom, and a thirst for citizenship and equality that made it a hotbed of internal debates, discussions and controversies over the best course for black liberation in America.
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