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JAN.
8, 2007
AFRICAN-AMERICANS
A guide to African-Americans
and religion
ReligionLink presents
a guide to experts and organizations on African-Americans and religion, from
scholars to pastors, from gospel to hip-hop, from civil rights to family issues,
from Christianity to Islam.
How to use this
guide
This guide is organized
into several major areas. Click on the topic to jump to it. Most clergy and
scholars appear in more than one category. They also are listed in their region
of the country.
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Click
the map for interview sources
in your state and region
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Ten
top scholars
Prominent clergy
Experts
by topic
Congregations
& outreach
Family issues
History & civil rights
International issues
Music
Politics
Researchers
Social issues
Women’s issues
Christianity
Background
Baptists
Pentecostals
Protestants
Roman Catholics
NonChristian religions
Afro-Caribbean religions
Buddhism
Islam
Judaism
Organizations
University-based centers
Research
Organizations & conferences
Background
Statistics & demographics
History
If you would like
to be added to this source listing or request a change in the information, please
email afam@religionlink.org. If you are requesting
a change in the wording of your listing, please state the reason for the change.
ReligionLink reserves the right to decide which listings to include.
• For organizations,
include the name, mission, web site and a contact name with phone number and
email. Also include any specific areas of interest and expertise.
• For individuals,
include name, title, organization, city and state, web site, areas of expertise,
phone number and email.
Ten
top scholars
• Katie
Geneva Cannon is president of the Society
for the Study of Black Religion. She was the first black woman ordained
in the United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and she is Annie Scales Rogers Professor
of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of
Christian Education in Richmond, Va. Her areas of expertise are womanist theology,
women in society and religion and Christian ethics. She wrote the book of essays
Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community and Black Womanist
Ethics (Continuum International, 1997). Contact 804-355-0671, kcannon@union-psce.edu.
• James
Hal Cone is Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology
at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He has written widely on African-Americans,
religion and the black theology of liberation. Contact 212-280-1369 (office),
212-662-7100 (department), jcone@uts.columbia.edu. (He is on sabbatical
during spring semester 2007.)
• Robert
M. Franklin is president of Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was ordained
in the Church of God in Christ and worships in several different traditions.
He has previously been president of the Interdenominational Theological Center,
directed black church studies at Candler School of Theology and has been the
Ford Foundation’s program officer, directing grants to African-American
churches delivering secular social services. He is a frequent commentator and
radio and TV guest. Among the books he has written are Crisis in the Village:
Restoring Hope to African American Communities (Fortress, February 2007)
and Another Day’s Journey: Black Churches Confronting the American Crisis
(Fortress, 1997). Contact 404-215-2645, rfranklin@morehouse.edu.
• Cheryl
Townsend Gilkes is a professor of sociology and African-American studies
at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She has written widely, including If
It Wasn’t for the Women: Black Women’s Experience and Womanist Culture in Church
and Community (Orbis Books, 2000). Contact 207-859-4715.
• Jacquelyn
Grant (see her
bio at TheHistoryMakers.com) is Callaway Professor of Systematic Theology
at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, where she founded
and directs the Center
for Black Women in Church and Society. She wrote White Women’s Christ
and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response (American
Academy of Religion, 1988). She is also assistant minister at Victory African
Methodist Episcopal Church in Atlanta. Contact 404-527-5712, jgrant@itc.edu.
• Fredrick
C. Harris is a political science professor at the University of Rochester,
where he directs the Center
for the Study of African-American Politics and the Frederick
Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies. Among books
he has written are Something Within: Religion in African-American Political
Activism (Oxford University Press, 1999) and (with R. Drew Smith) Black
Churches and Local Politics: Clergy Influence, Organizational Partnerships,
and Civic Empowerment, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). Contact 585-275-4735
or 585-273-5346, fredrick.harris@rochester.edu.
• Lawrence
H. Mamiya, with the late C. Eric Lincoln, wrote The Black Church in the
African American Experience (Duke University Press, 1990), about their survey
of some 1,900 ministers and 2,100 churches. Mamiya is professor of religion
at Vassar College outside of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He’s a widely recognized expert
on African-American religion in general and on the Nation of Islam. Contact
845-437-5522, mamiya@vassar.edu.
• Anthony
B. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and professor
of religious studies at Rice University in Houston. He is also executive director
of the Society for the Study
of Black Religion, and he co-chairs the American Academy of Religion’s Black
Theology Group. He wrote Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion
(Fortress, 2003) and numerous other books about African-American religion.
Pinn has expressed skepticism of the effectiveness of megachurches because of
their scale and because the “prosperity gospel” is preached in some black megachurches,
which he says de-emphasizes community service and charity. Contact 713-348-2710,
pinn@rice.edu.
• R.
Drew Smith directs the Public Influences of African-American Churches Project,
which surveyed some 1,900 ministers nationally. He is scholar-in-residence at
the Leadership Center at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He is a Baptist minister
and political scientist. He has studied and written about black megachurches
and has edited four volumes on American religion and public life, including
New Day Begun: African American Churches and Civic Culture in Post-Civil
Rights America (Duke University Press, 2003). Contact 404-614-8565, rdsmith@indyweb.net or rsmith@morehouse.edu.
• Cornel
West is the Princeton University Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion.
His interests include philosophy of religion and cultural criticism. Among his
many books are Race Matters (Vintage, 1994) and Democracy Matters
(Penguin Press, 2004). Among courses he teaches is “The Religious Dimensions
of Du Bois, Baldwin and Morrison.” Contact 609-258-0021 (office), 609-258-4482
(department) or email maryannr@princeton.edu.
Prominent
clergy
• The Rev.
Kirbyjon
Caldwell gave the benediction during President George W. Bush’s inauguration
and is known as an adviser to Bush. He is senior pastor of the 15,000-member
Windsor
Village United Methodist Church in Houston, known for its extensive and
innovative outreach to the community. Contact 713-723-8187.
• The Rev.
Suzan Johnson
Cook is outgoing president of the Hampton University Ministers’ Conference,
one of the largest annual gatherings of black clergy in the country, and a former
White House Fellow. She is also senior pastor at the Bronx Christian Fellowship.
Contact her in New York City at 212-289-4374 or 212-289-4378, bcfbaptchurch@aol.com.
• Creflo
Dollar is founder and senior pastor of the 30,000-member World
Changers Church International in College Park, Ga., and World Changers Church-New
York. He also has television and radio ministries. Known for preaching the "prosperity
gospel," Dollar leads ministries that include extensive social outreach.
Contact 866-477-7683.
• Louis
Farrakhan leads the Nation
of Islam, based in Chicago. On Jan. 7, 2007, he had a 12-hour surgery; no
details were immediately available but he has struggled with health problems.
In September 2006 he handed over daily leadership of the Nation of Islam to
its executive committee. Under his leadership, the Nation of Islam, founded
in 1930 to address the spiritual, economic and social needs of African-Americans
and criticized as separatist and anti-Christian, has become more mainstream.
Farrakhan led the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., in 1995 and founded
The Final Call newspaper. Contact 773-324-6000.
• The
Rev. Floyd
Flake is the senior pastor of Greater Allen AME Cathedral of New York in
Jamaica, Queens, which has more than 18,000 members and extensive commercial
and residential developments. He was a U.S. congressman for 11 years. He is
also president of Wilberforce University in Ohio. Contact 718-206-4600.
• The Rev.
James
A. Forbes Jr. is senior minister of the 2,400-member Riverside Church in
New York City and host of the radio program The
Time Is Now. Riverside, built in 1927 by John D. Rockefeller and situated
on Manhattan’s Upper West Side near Columbia University, calls itself an interdenominational,
interracial and international church. It is affiliated with the United Church
of Christ and American Baptist Churches. Contact 212-870-6700.
• The Rev. Peter
J. Gomes is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in
The Memorial Church at Harvard University. An ordained American Baptist minister,
he lectures and publishes widely and is a former acting director of Harvard’s
W.E.B. Du
Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Contact him through
executive assistant Janetta Cothran Randolph at 617-496-3727, jan_randolph@harvard.edu.
• The Rev.
William H. Gray III is pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
He was formerly a former U.S. congressman and president of the United Negro
College Fund. Contact 215-232-6004.
• The Most
Rev. Wilton
Gregory is Roman Catholic archbishop of Atlanta. He served as president
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2001 to 2004. During his term
the bishops developed new policies on clergy sexual abuse. He also has written
about the death penalty, physician-assisted suicide and African-American liturgy.
Contact 404-888-7802, archbishop@archati.com.
• Barbara
Harris is a retired Episcopal bishop. Harris was the first female bishop
in the Anglican Communion. She is past president of the Episcopal Urban Caucus
and has worked on prisoner issues and in other organizations serving the urban
poor. She currently is assisting bishop to Bishop John B. Chane in the Diocese
of Washington, D.C. Contact her through assistant Cheryl Wilburn, 202-537-6543,
bharris@edow.org.
• The Rev.
Jesse
Jackson is founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Chicago
organization that works on issues involving economic development and economic
justice, health care, voter registration, jobs and peace. Contact 773-373-3366
or through spokeswoman Rashida S. Restaino, 773-256-2718 or 773-791-0014, rrestaino@rainbowpush.org.
• Bishop T.D.
Jakes founded the 28,000-member Potter’s House church in Dallas. His immense
popularity is fueled by his stadium-sized conferences for women and men, best-selling
books, Grammy-award-winning CDs, movies and plays, prison ministry, his preaching
and the extensive outreach programs of his Pentecostal church. In a Sept.
17, 2001, cover story, Time magazine wondered, “Is this man the next
Billy Graham?” Contact 214-331-0954.
• Vashti
(pronounced “Vasht-eye”) M. McKenzie is bishop of the 13th Episcopal District
of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first woman bishop in the denomination.
Formerly a journalist and radio broadcaster, she wrote Not Without a Struggle:
Leadership Development for African American Women in Ministry (Pilgrim Press,
1996) and Strength in the Struggle: Leadership Development for Women
(Pilgrim Press, 2002). Contact 615-242-6814 or reach her through her husband,
Stan McKenzie, 615-403-0143 (mobile), 13th_episcopal@bellsouth.net.
• W. Deen Mohammed
is spiritual leader of the American
Society of Muslims, the largest African-American Muslim organization, with
2.5 million members. The son of the late Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the
Nation
of Islam, he had a tumultuous relationship with the NOI because of his own
inclination toward a more-orthodox Islam. After the 1975 death of his father,
Mohammed began steering the organization, now called the American
Society of Muslims toward the Sunni Islam practiced in much of the world.
Contact him through The
Mosque Cares in Calumet City, Ill., 708-798-6750.
• Otis
Moss III is pastor of Trinity
United Church of Christ in Chicago, which is led by Senior Pastor Jeremiah
A. Wright Jr. Moss is known for his ability to speak to young people, extensive
theological education and preaching. A poet, he wrote Redemption in a Red
Light District: Messages of Hope, Healing, and Empowerment (FOUR-G Publishers,
2000). Contact 773-962-5650.
• The Rev.
Al
Sharpton was a child preacher and was ordained as a minister at age 10.
He has been organizing for social justice causes since he was a teenager and
has run for U.S. Senate, for mayor of New York and for president of the U.S.
He is host of The
Al Sharpton Show, a radio talk show. Sharpton, once entertainer James
Brown’s road manager, is known to many as a leader, to others as a divisive
critic and to all as a power broker. He wrote Go & Tell the Pharaoh:
The Autobiography of Reverend Al Sharpton (Doubleday, 1996). Contact him
through Rachel Nordlinger in his media office, 212-876-5444, revalmedia@yahoo.com.
• The Rev.
Renita J.Weems is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University
Divinity School in Nashville and an ordained elder in the African Methodist
Episcopal Church who has written extensively on family life, particularly women's,
in books, articles and newsletters. Contact 615-343-3987.
• The Rev.
Jeremiah A. Wright
Jr. is senior pastor of Trinity
United Church of Christ in Chicago, which has grown from 87 to 8,000 members
under his leadership. He is a well-known orator
and has been active in urging African-American church leaders to work on AIDS
issues. Contact him through Kim Dixson, administrative assistant, 773-962-5698,
kad400@aol.com; or Ivey Matute, executive
secretary, 773-962-5691, Ijm400@aol.com.
LISTS
OF INFLUENTIAL CLERGY
•
See Beliefnet’s “Who’s
Who: The Most Influential Black Spiritual Leaders.”
• African
American Pulpit magazine’s summer 2005 issue included a list of “20 to Watch,”
notable black preachers under age 40. The issue sold out, but the list is here,
midway down the page.
• BlackandChristian.com’s
series “Prophets
in the Pulpit” includes articles about renowned preachers.
• See HistoryMakers’
list
of ReligionMakers (see the right-hand column for biographies of famous black
religious leaders). HistoryMakers
is a nonprofit, Chicago-based archive of African-American history, founded by
attorney Julieanna L. Richardson.
Experts
by topic
CONGREGATIONS
& OUTREACH
See past ReligionLink issues for more sources and background:
• Black
megachurches' mega-outreach (Sept. 8, 2004)
• Is
the 'prosperity gospel' prospering? (Feb. 27, 2006)
• The Rev.
Calvin
O. Butts III is head pastor of the Abyssinian
Baptist Church in Harlem, N.Y. Butts chairs the National
Black Leadership Commission on AIDS. Contact 212-862-7474.
• Christine
D. Chapman wrote (with Stephen C. Rasor) Black Power From the Pew: Laity
Connecting Congregations and Communities (Pilgrim, 2007). She is an adjunct
professor at Georgia State University and at the Interdenominational Theological
Center. Contact 404-527-7700
• Robert
Michael Franklin Jr. is Presidential Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics
at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. He is an ordained
Methodist minister. He has previously been president of the Interdenominational
Theological Center, directed black church studies at Candler and has been the
Ford Foundation’s program officer, directing grants to African-American churches
delivering secular social services. He is a frequent commentator and radio and
TV guest. Among the books he has written are Crisis in the Village: Restoring
Hope to African American Communities (Fortress, February 2007) and Another
Day’s Journey: Black Churches Confronting the American Crisis (Fortress,
1997). Contact 404-727-0756, rmfrank@emory.edu.
• Political
scientist Michael
Leo Owens has studied black church involvement in government programs. He
is an assistant professor in the political science department at Emory University
in Atlanta and is working on two books, tentatively titled God and Government
in the Ghetto: The Politics of Church-State Collaboration in American Cities
and Pulpits and Policy: Changing African American Church Politics. Contact
404-727-9322 (office) or 404-727-6572 (department), mowens4@emory.edu.
• Anthony
B. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and professor
of religious studies at Rice University in Houston. He is also executive director
of the Society for the Study
of Black Religion, and he co-chairs the American Academy of Religion’s Black
Theology Group. He wrote Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion
(Fortress, 2003) and numerous other books about African-American religion.
Pinn has expressed skepticism of the effectiveness of megachurches because of
their scale and because the “prosperity gospel” is preached in some black megachurches,
which he says de-emphasizes community service and charity. Contact 713-348-2710,
pinn@rice.edu.
• Stephen C.
Rasor wrote (with Christine D. Chapman) Black Power from the Pew: Laity Connecting
Congregations and Communities (Pilgrim, 2007). Rasor is a professor of sociology
of religion at the Interdenominational Theological Center, where he directs
the doctor of ministry program. Contact 404-527-7700, scrasor@itc.edu.
• Cheryl
J. Sanders is a professor of Christian ethics at Howard University School
of Divinity and senior pastor of the Third Street Church of God in Washington,
D.C. She has written extensively on race and culture and on the holiness-Pentecostal
experience in African-American religion and culture. She can also discuss the
tradition of community work among black churches. Contact 202-806-0632, csanders@howard.edu.
• Martha Simmons
is publisher of the nondenominational preaching and ministry journal The
African American Pulpit, and she is an associate minister at Rush Memorial
United Church of Christ in Atlanta. Simmons has preached throughout the country
for 20 years in a variety of ministerial capacities and has her finger on the
pulse of trends, changes and issues in the black Christian world. She invites
reporters to consult on story ideas, on finding experts and checking the accuracy
of their reporting. Simmons is co-editor of The Norton Anthology of African
American Preaching: 1650-2005 (W.W. Norton Publishers, fall 2007) and The
African American Lectionary Project, through which she, Vanderbilt University’s
Kelly Miller Smith Institute, scholars and pastors are assembling the first
African-American Lectionary (a selection of scriptural passages for use each
Sunday throughout the year), to be published in winter 2007. Contact 800-509-8227,
info@theafricanamericanpulpit.com.
• R.
Drew Smith directs the Public Influences of African-American Churches Project,
which surveyed some 1,900 ministers nationally. He is scholar-in-residence at
the Leadership Center at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He is a Baptist minister
and political scientist. He has studied and written about black megachurches
and has edited four volumes on American religion and public life, including
New Day Begun: African American Churches and Civic Culture in Post-Civil
Rights America (Duke University Press, 2003). Contact 404-614-8565, rdsmith@indyweb.net or rsmith@morehouse.edu.
• Harold
Dean Trulear, senior pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Twin Oaks,
Pa., is an expert on religion and social policy. He is associate professor of
religious education at Howard University and is ordained in both the Progressive
National Baptist Convention and American Baptist Churches in the USA. Contact
202-806-0636, htrulear@howard.edu.
FAMILY
ISSUES
• See
“African-Americans
focus on families,” a 2003 ReligionLink edition.
• Lorraine
Blackman, associate professor at the Indiana University School of
Social Work, is director of the African
American Family Life Education Program, an educational, research and service
project that teaches family life skills. Contact 317-274-6713.
• Renita
J.Weems is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University Divinity
School in Nashville and an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal
Church who has written extensively on family life, particularly women's, in
books, articles and newsletters. Contact 615-343-3987.
• Cheryl R. Cooper
is executive director of the National
Council of Negro Women in Washington, D.C., which seeks to improve the quality
of life for African-American women and their families. Contact 202-737-0120.
HISTORY
& CIVIL RIGHTS
•
Clayborne Carson
is a Stanford University history professor and founding director of the Martin
Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. Contact 650-723-2092 or
650-725-8828, ccarson@stanford.edu.
• David Chappell
is associate professor of history at the University of Arkansas and a historian
of the American South, the civil rights movement and race relations in the United
States. He is the author of A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death
of Jim Crow (University of North Carolina, 2004). Contact 479-575-5888,
dchappel@uark.edu.
• Quinton Hosford
Dixie advised the makers of the PBS series “This Far by Faith” and, with Juan
Williams, co-wrote the book of the same title. He also edited (with Cornel West)
The Courage to Hope: From Black Suffering to Human
Redemption (Beacon Press, 1999). Dixie teaches in the philosophy department
of Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne. He also has expertise in
civil rights, and the spirituality of hip-hop. Contact 260-481-5724, dixieq@ipfw.edu.
• Eddie
Glaude Jr. is associate professor of religion at Princeton University. He
is an expert in African-American religious history. Among books he has authored
is Exodus! Religion, Race, and Nation in Early 19th Century Black America
(University of Chicago Press, 2000), and among courses he teaches are “Black
Power and Its Theology of Liberation” and “Religion in Black America: The Twentieth
Century.” Contact esglaude@princeton.edu.
• Fredrick
C. Harris is a political science professor at the University of Rochester,
where he directs the Center
for the Study of African-American Politics and the Frederick
Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies. Among books
he has written are Something Within: Religion in African-American Political
Activism (Oxford University Press, 1999) and (with R. Drew Smith) Black
Churches and Local Politics: Clergy Influence, Organizational Partnerships,
and Civic Empowerment, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). Contact 585-275-4735
or 585-273-5346, fredrick.harris@rochester.edu.
• Laurie
F. Maffly-Kipp is an associate professor of religious studies and American
studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She has expertise
in the historical evidence of African-American religious life. Contact 919-962-3927,
Maffly@email.unc.edu.
• Aldon
D. Morris is a professor of sociology and African-American studies at Northwestern
University in Evanston, Ill. His classic book The Origins of the Civil Rights
Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (Free Press, 1986) examines
black church organization and influence on the civil rights movement. Contact
847-491-3448, amorris@northwestern.edu.
• Albert
J. Raboteau is Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion in the Princeton University
religion department. He wrote Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution”
in the Antebellum South (Oxford University Press, 1980). Contact 609-258-2761,
raboteau@Princeton.EDU.
• Rosetta E.
Ross is an associate professor of religion and chairs the department of philosophy
and religious studies at Spelman College in Atlanta. An elder in the United
Methodist Church, she writes and lectures widely about African-American religion
and is treasurer of the Society
for the Study of Black Religion. She is an expert on women in the civil
rights movement, and she wrote Witnessing and Testifying: Black Women, Religion,
and Civil Rights (Augsburg Fortress, 2003). Contact 404-270-5527, RRoss@spelman.edu.
• Mary R. Sawyer
is a professor of religious studies at Iowa State University in Ames. She wrote
the entry “National Conference of Black Christians” for the Encyclopedia
of African and African-American Religions (Routledge, 2001). Contact 515-294-3341
(office), 515-294-7276 (department), sawyerm@iastate.edu.
• Milton
C. Sernett is a history professor in the African-American studies department
of Syracuse University. He wrote Bound for the Promised Land: African American
Religion and the Great Migration (Duke University Press, 1997) and has co-chaired
the American Academy of Religion’s African American Religious History Group.
He has retired from teaching. Contact 315-443-9346 or 315-443-4302, mcsernet@syr.edu.
• Vincent
Wimbush is a religion professor at Claremont Graduate University. He also
directs the Institute
for Signifying Scriptures in Claremont, Calif. His three-year “African
Americans and the Bible” research project was funded by the Ford Foundation
and the Lilly Endowment. Contact 909-607-9676 (office), 909-621-8085 (department),
Vincent.Wimbush@cgu.edu.
INTERNATIONAL
ISSUES
See ReligionLink
issues for sources and background:
• Darfur:
Religious questions, advocates and resources (Oct. 24, 2006)
• Stepping
up the fight against sex trafficking (June 12, 2006)
•
Can religion
ease AIDS, poverty in Africa? (Nov. 21, 2005)
• Evangelical
speaker and minister Claudette
Anderson Copeland founded New Creation Christian Fellowship and Destiny
Ministries for women. She wrote Stories From Inner Space: Confessions of
a Preacher Woman and Other Tales (Red Nail Press, 2003) and Coming Through
the Darkness: Cancer and One Woman’s Journey to Wholeness (Destiny Press,
2000). Contact her at her San Antonio-based organization through administrative
assistant Denise Campbell, 210-389-4752, or through Clara Mitchell, Destiny
Ministries executive director, 210-637-6394 ext. 105 (office), 210-316-4410
(mobile), clara@destinyministries.org.
• Eugene
F. Rivers 3d is pastor of Pentecostal Azusa Christian Community (affiliated
with the Church of God in Christ) in south Boston and president of Ella
J. Baker House community organization in the Dorchester Four Corners neighborhood
of Boston. Rivers co-founded the clergy-led National
Ten Point Leadership Foundation, which is credited with helping to diminish
gang violence in Boston and other urban areas. He is also general secretary
of the Pan African Charismatic
Evangelical Congress, through which African-American churches help African
churches with AIDS projects and through which they lobby to affect U.S. foreign
policy. Rivers has worked with the White House on faith-based projects. Contact
617-282-6704 or 617-524-4331.
• Charles
“Chuck” Singleton, pastor of Loveland Church in Ontario, Calif., has been
a leader in protesting slavery in Sudan and elsewhere. He travels widely and
works to promote what he calls modern abolitionism. Contact 909-899-0777, chucksingleton@lovelandchurch.org.
• Ndugu
T’Ofori-Atta is professor emeritus of church and society at the Interdenominational
Theological Center in Atlanta, where he founded and directs the Religious Heritage
of the African World research and advocacy project. Contact 404-527-7756, rhaw@itc.edu.
MUSIC
•
James
Abbington is associate professor of music and worship at Emory University’s
Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. He wrote Let Mt. Zion Rejoice! Music
in the African American Church (Judson Press, 2001). Contact 404-712-4602,
wabbing@emory.edu.
• Wallace
D. Best is associate professor of African-American religious studies at
Harvard University. He has written about storefront churches and other topics
concerning black Americans and religion, and he teaches a course titled “The
African-American Sacred Music Tradition.” Contact 617-384-7287 (office), 617-495-5761
(department), wbest@hds.harvard.edu.
• Mellonee
V. Burnim is an associate professor of folklore and ethnomusicology at Indiana
University-Bloomington. Her focus is black religious music and aesthetics and
music of the African Diaspora. Contact 812-855-4258 burnim@indiana.edu.
• Melva Wilson
Costen is an authority on music and worship in the black church. She wrote the
widely consulted African American Christian Worship (Abingdon Press,
1993) and In Spirit and In Truth: The Music of African American
Worship (Westminster, 2004). She recently retired
from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, where she was
Helmar Emil Nielsen Professor of Music and Worship. Contact 404-696-9836, mwcosten@mindspring.com.
• Leo Davis
Jr. is minister of music at the Mississippi
Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, which is renowned for its gospel
music, broadcast on three local radio stations. Davis has a scholarly background
in black church worship and can discuss contemporary influences and trends in
church music. Contact 901-729-6222 ext. 414, davis.leo@mbccmemphis.org,
or contact his assistant, Sharon Smith, ext. 417, smith.sharon@mbccmemphis.org.
• Quinton Hosford
Dixie advised the makers of the PBS series “This Far by Faith” and, with Juan
Williams, co-wrote the book of the same title. He also edited (with Cornel West)
The Courage to Hope: From Black Suffering to Human
Redemption (Beacon Press, 1999). Dixie teaches in the philosophy department
of Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne. He also has expertise in
civil rights, and the spirituality of hip-hop. Contact 260-481-5724, dixieq@ipfw.edu.
• Milmon
F. Harrison, assistant professor of African American and African studies at
the University of California-Davis, is a sociologist who studies the black church
and Christian music. Contact 530-752-1548, mfharrison@ucdavis.edu.
• Rudolph McKissick
Jr. is co-senior pastor at the 9,000-member Bethel
Baptist Institutional Church in Jacksonville, Fla. He is a national leader
in contemporary sacred music and developed a professional-quality national recording
choir at his church. He is an expert in sacred music and opera. Hear McKissick’s
hip-hop
mix and other gospel cuts. See a list of Bethel’s
outreach ministries. Contact 904-354-1464.
• Mark Anthony
Neal is associate professor of black popular culture in the Program in African
and African-American Studies at Duke University. He wrote What the Music
Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998), Soul Babies:
Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002), and Songs
in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003). Contact (919)
684-3987, man9@duke.edu.
POLITICS
•
David A. Bositis is senior research associate at the Joint
Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C.,
that focuses on public policy issues of concern to African-Americans. He runs
the center’s National Opinion Poll, which samples African-Americans as well
as the general population. He is a source for statistics on blacks, churches
and politics. Contact him through the center’s media office, 202-789-6366, media@jointcenter.org.
• Allison
Calhoun-Brown is an associate professor of political science and director
of graduate studies at Georgia State University. She has written numerous scholarly
articles on topics concerning African-Americans and Christianity, evangelicalism,
churches and politics. Contact 404-651-4842 (office), 404-651-3152
(department), polacb@panther.gsu.edu.
• Fredrick
C. Harris is a political science professor at the University of Rochester,
where he directs the Center
for the Study of African-American Politics and the Frederick
Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies. Among books
he has written are Something Within: Religion in African-American Political
Activism (Oxford University Press, 1999) and (with R. Drew Smith) Black
Churches and Local Politics: Clergy Influence, Organizational Partnerships,
and Civic Empowerment, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). Contact 585-275-4735
or 585-273-5346, fredrick.harris@rochester.edu.
• Melissa
Harris-Lacewell is associate professor of politics and African American
studies at Princeton University and author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET:
Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (Princeton 2004). Contact 609-258-9171,
lacewell@princeton.edu.
• Political
scientist Michael
Leo Owens has studied black church involvement in government programs. He
is an assistant professor in the political science department at Emory University
in Atlanta and is working on two books, tentatively titled God and Government
in the Ghetto: The Politics of Church-State Collaboration in American Cities
and Pulpits and Policy: Changing African American Church Politics. Contact
404-727-9322 (office) or 404-727-6572 (department), mowens4@emory.edu.
• Ronald
Walters is director of the African American Leadership Institute and professor
of government and politics at the University of Maryland. He worked on the Public
Influences of African American Churches project and has observed that the level
of political engagement in African-American churches is extremely high. Contact
301-405-1787, rwalters@academy.umd.edu.
• Cornel
West is the Princeton University Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion.
His interests include philosophy of religion and cultural criticism. Among his
many books are Race Matters (Vintage, 1994) and Democracy Matters
(Penguin Press, 2004). Among courses he teaches is “The Religious Dimensions
of Du Bois, Baldwin and Morrison.” Contact 609-258-0021 (office), 609-258-4482
(department) or email maryannr@princeton.edu.
RESEARCHERS
•
Mark Alan
Chaves is a professor and head of the sociology department at the University
of Arizona in Tucson. His 1998
National Congregations Study sampled 1,236 congregations.He wrote Ordaining
Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations (Harvard University
Press, 1997) and Congregations in America (Harvard University Press,
2004). Contact 520-626-2560, mchaves@u.arizona.edu.
• David
A. Bositis is senior research associate at the Joint
Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C.,
that focuses on public policy issues of concern to African-Americans. He runs
the center’s National Opinion Poll, which samples African-Americans as well
as the general population. He is a source for statistics on blacks, churches
and politics. Contact him through the center’s media office, 202-789-6366, media@jointcenter.org.
• Michael I.N.
Dash is professor of ministry and context at the Interdenominational Theological
Center. He co-directed the ITC/Faith Factor Project 2000 study, which focused
on African-American congregations and is part of Hartford Seminary’s Faith Communities
Today project. Contact 404-527-7700, mdash@itc.edu.
• Michael
O. Emerson is director of the Center
on Race, Religion and Urban Life and is a sociology professor at Rice University
in Houston. He has written several books on race and religion, including People
of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States (Princeton
University Press, 2006) and Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the
Problem of Race in America (Oxford University Press, 2000). Contact 713-348-4448,
moe@rice.edu.
• Lawrence
H. Mamiya, with the late C. Eric Lincoln, wrote The Black Church in the
African American Experience (Duke University Press, 1990), about their survey
of some 1,900 ministers and 2,100 churches. Mamiya is professor of religion
at Vassar College outside of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He’s a widely recognized expert
on African-American religion in general and on the Nation of Islam. Contact
845-437-5522, mamiya@vassar.edu.
• R.
Drew Smith directs the Public Influences of African-American Churches Project,
which surveyed some 1,900 ministers nationally. He is scholar-in-residence at
the Leadership Center at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He is a Baptist minister
and political scientist. He has studied and written about black megachurches
and has edited four volumes on American religion and public life, including
New Day Begun: African American Churches and Civic Culture in Post-Civil
Rights America (Duke University Press, 2003). Contact 404-614-8565, rdsmith@indyweb.net or rsmith@morehouse.edu.
SOCIAL
ISSUES
•
Ihsan
Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky,
conducted the survey "The
Mosque in America: A National Portrait," a study of American Muslims
commissioned in 2001 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (on whose
board he serves). The survey found that 30 percent of mosque attendees were
African-American. Bagby studies Muslims in the United States, including African-Americans
and Islam, and the growth of Islam in prisons. He is an expert on pluralism,
mosque organization and imams. He also serves on the advisory board of Hartford
Seminary's Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Contact 859-257-9638 (office),
859-257-3761 (department), iabagb2@uky.edu.
• Frederick
M. Denny is a professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado
in Boulder. He is an expert on Islam, has written many books, including Muslims
in America (Oxford UniversityPress, April 2007), and can discuss Islam in
prisons. Contact 303-492-8041, frederick.denny@colorado.edu.
• Felicia Dix-Richardson is assistant professor of sociology and criminal
justice at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. She has studied religious
conversion in prisons, particularly among African-American women, and is expert
on the topics of race, religion and inmate culture. Contact 850-599-3316 (office),
850-599-3316 (department).
• Leah Gaskin
Fitchue, the first woman to be president of a historically black theological
seminary, heads the 160-year-old Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce,
Ohio. The school is affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Previously, Fitchue was a consultant in leadership development and organizational
and community transformation for church and faith-based organizations. She is
also the first African-American woman president of the Association of Theological
Schools. She belongs to the Christian Community Development Association and
the Association of Urban Theological Education & Ministry and is a regent
of Northwest Graduate School of the Ministry and International Urban Associates.
She is an ordained Itinerant Elder in the AME Church. Contact 937-376-2946.
• Debra
Y. Fraser-Howze is president and CEO of the National Black Leadership Commission
on AIDS. Her professional career has been spent delivering social services to
African-American communities. Contact 212-614-0023.
• Brenda
Girton-Mitchell, an attorney and a Baptist lay leader, directs the National
Council of Churches' public policy program. She is also chaplain to the National
Bar Association and is a deacon trustee at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in
Washington, D.C. She can discuss the NCC's work on social issues, including
marriage, single-parenthood and families. Contact 202-544-2350.
• Alice
M. Graham is professor of pastoral care and counseling at Hood Theological
Seminary in Salisbury, N.C. She is an ordained minister in the American Baptist
denomination. Among her interests is the subject of the psychological and emotional
issues facing inmates released from prison. She teaches a seminar for inmates
in a transitional program at North Carolina Department of Corrections' Piedmont
Correctional Institute in Salisbury. Contact 704-636-7611.
• Horace L. Griffin, a gay, black Episcopal priest, is the author of Their
Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians & Gays in Black Churches
(Pilgrim Press, 2006), which takes a critical look at homophobia in black
churches. Griffin teaches pastoral theology at The General Theological Seminary
of the Episcopal Church in New York City. Contact 201-444-6874, griffin@GTS.edu.
• Byron
R. Johnson is a criminologist who studies religion, race, delinquency and
criminal justice. He is a professor in the sociology department of Baylor University
in Waco, Texas. He is co-director of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion
there. Contact 254-710-7555, BR_Johnson@baylor.edu.
• Lawrence
H. Mamiya, with the late C. Eric Lincoln, wrote The Black Church in the
African American Experience (Duke University Press, 1990), about their survey
of some 1,900 ministers and 2,100 churches. Mamiya is professor of religion
at Vassar College outside of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He's a widely recognized expert
on African-American religion in general and on the Nation of Islam. Contact
845-437-5522, mamiya@vassar.edu.
• Jeffrey
McCune is a postdoctoral fellow at the Frederick Douglass Institute for
African and African-American Studies at the University of Rochester in New York.
He teaches about black masculinity and black sexual politics and he is writing
a book about closeted gay black men "on the down low," who live straight
lives and see themselves as straight though they have sex with men. Contact
585-273-3804, 585-275-7235, jmccune@mail.rochester.edu.
• Ronald
B. Mincy is Maurice V. Russell Professor of Social Policy and Social Work
Practice at Columbia University School of Social Work in New York. His work
focuses on public policy, family, race, the role of men in poverty and the relationship
between marriage and poverty. He coined the term "fragile families."
Mincy says that a third of all American children, and 70 percent of African-Americans,
are born outside marriage. Contact 212-851-2406, rm905@columbia.edu.
• Stephen
G. Ray is associate professor of African-American studies at the Lutheran
Theological Seminary of Philadelphia, where he directs the seminary's Urban
Theological Institute. Contact 215-248-4616, sray@ltsp.edu or Edrena Smith in
the communications office, 215-248-6323.
• Antonio
Tillis teaches a course called "The Black Male" at Purdue University's
African American Studies and Research Center, where he is associate professor
of Spanish and African American studies. He can discuss cultural, economic,
political and social influences on black men in the U.S., including personal
relationships, sexuality, self-definition, criminal justice and media representations.
Contact 765-494-9754, tillis@purdue.edu.
• Theodore
Walker Jr. is associate professor of ethics and society at Southern Methodist
University's Perkins School of Theology. Contact 214-768-2446, twalker@smu.edu.
• William
Julius Wilson is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard
University. A MacArthur Prize Fellow from 1987 to 1992 and former president
of the American Sociological Association, Wilson has said that he looks, in
addition to government, to religious organizations to reduce social problems
in neighborhoods and to rebuild inner cities. He is known for classics such
as The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions
(University Of Chicago Press, 1980) and When Work Disappears: The World of
the New Urban Poor (Vintage, 1997). His expertise is in the areas of civil
rights, the inner city, poverty, race, social policy and urban policy. Contact
617-496-4514, bill_wilson@harvard.edu;
assistant Edward Walker, 617-496-5612, edward_walker@harvard.edu;
or the Kennedy School communications office, 617-495-1115.
• Robert
L. Woodson Sr. is founder and president of the Center
for Neighborhood Enterprise (formerly the National Center for Neighborhood
Enterprise) in Washington, D.C., which trains and supports community and faith-based
programs. Woodson emphasizes self-help, market-oriented solutions to social
problems. He is a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship "genius
award" recipient and wrote The Triumphs of Joseph: How Community Healers
are Reviving Our Streets and Neighborhoods (Free Press, 1998). He is knowledgeable
about the Bush administration's faith-based initiative. Contact 202-518-6500.
WOMEN’S
ISSUES
•
Katie
Geneva Cannon is president of the Society
for the Study of Black Religion. She was the first black woman ordained
in the United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and she is Annie Scales Rogers Professor
of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and Presbyterian
School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va. Her areas of expertise are womanist
theology, women in society and religion and Christian ethics. She wrote the
book of essays Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community
and Black Womanist Ethics (Continuum International, 1997). Contact 804-355-0671,
kcannon@union-psce.edu.
• Karen
Baker-Fletcher is an associate professor of systematic theology at Perkins
School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. She specializes in womanist
theology and is the co-author of My
Sister, My Brother: Womanist and Xodus God-Talk (Wipf & Stock
Publishers, 2002). Contact
214-768-3801, kbakerfl@smu.edu.
• Cheryl
Townsend Gilkes is a professor of sociology and African-American studies
at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She has written widely, including If
It Wasn’t for the Women: Black Women’s Experience and Womanist Culture in Church
and Community (Orbis Books, 2000). Contact 207-859-4715.
• Jacquelyn
Grant (see her bio
at TheHistoryMakers.com) is Callaway Professor of Systematic Theology at
the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, where she founded and
directs the Center
for Black Women in Church and Society. She wrote White Women’s Christ
and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response (American
Academy of Religion, 1988). She is also assistant minister at Victory African
Methodist Episcopal Church in Atlanta. Contact 404-527-5712, jgrant@itc.edu.
• Cheryl A.
Kirk-Duggan wrote Exorcising Evil: A Womanist Perspective on the Spirituals
(Orbis Books, 1997) and Violence and Theology (Abingdon, 2006). She
is a professor of theology and women’s studies, and directs the women’s studies
program at Shaw University Divinity School in Raleigh, N.C. Contact 919-716-5522,
ckirkduggan@shawu.edu.
Christianity
BACKGROUND
Seven
historically black-dominated denominations comprise what is known as the “historic
black church.” About 90 percent American blacks who go to church belong to one
of these, according to Hartford
Seminary statistics. The denominations are:
• The Church
of God in Christ
• The African
Methodist Episcopal Church
• The African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
• The Christian
Methodist Episcopal Church
• The National
Baptist Convention USA
• The Progressive
National Baptist Convention
• The National
Baptist Convention of America
• Read
an essay
on BlackandChristian.com about black denominations; find a directory
of local black churches around the country.
• Almost all predominately white churches and denominations have African-American
ministries that journalists can turn to for resources.
• The
Association of Theological Schools
in the United States and Canada, which lists six historically black seminaries,
posts statistics
on enrollment by gender, race and ethnicity at the (.PDF) tables of data on
religious schools. The seminaries are:
• Interdenominational
Theological Center in Atlanta
• Howard University
School of Divinity in Washington, D.C.
• Payne Theological
Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio
• Shaw
University Divinity School in Raleigh, N.C.
• Samuel
DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University in Richmond,
Va.
• Hood
Theological Seminary in Salisbury, N.C.
BAPTISTS
•
The Rev. Suzan
Johnson Cook is outgoing president of the Hampton University Ministers’
Conference, one of the largest annual gatherings of black clergy in the country,
and a former White House Fellow. She is also senior pastor at the Bronx Christian
Fellowship. Contact her in New York City at 212-289-4374 or 212-289-4378, bcfbaptchurch@aol.com.
• William
H. Curtis is president of the Hampton
University Ministers’ Conference, the oldest nondenominational African-American
ministers conference in the country. He is senior pastor of 7,500-member Mount
Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Pa. Contact 412-441-1800.
• The Rev.
Peter
J. Gomes is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in
The Memorial Church at Harvard University. An ordained American Baptist minister,
he lectures and publishes widely and is a former acting director of Harvard’s
W.E.B. Du
Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Contact him through
executive assistant Janetta Cothran Randolph at 617-496-3727, jan_randolph@harvard.edu.
• The Rev.
William H. Gray III is pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
He was formerly a former U.S. congressman and president of the United Negro
College Fund. Contact 215-232-6004.
• Paul S. Morton
is founder and international presiding bishop of the New Orleans-based Full
Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, International and pastor of Greater St.
Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church, with locations in New Orleans and Decatur,
Ga. Begun in 1992, the Episcopal-style fellowship includes mostly African-American
Baptist congregations and individuals who emphasize spiritual gifts, including
speaking in tongues and prophesy. Contact Morton through executive assistant
Jan D. Breaux, 404-284-8865, janbreaxu@aol.com.
• R.
Drew Smith directs the Public Influences of African-American Churches Project,
which surveyed some 1,900 ministers nationally. He is scholar-in-residence at
the Leadership Center at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He is a Baptist minister
and political scientist. He has studied and written about black megachurches
and has edited four volumes on American religion and public life, including
New Day Begun: African American Churches and Civic Culture in Post-Civil
Rights America (Duke University Press, 2003). Contact 404-614-8565, rdsmith@indyweb.net or rsmith@morehouse.edu.
• William
C. Turner Jr., associate professor of the practice of homiletics at Duke
University Divinity School, is an expert in pneumatology (spirits as intermediaries
between God and people) and the tradition of spirituality and preaching in the
black church. He has written on the “musicality of black preaching” and black
evangelism. He is also pastor of Mount Level Baptist Church in Durham. Contact
919-660-3419, wturner@div.duke.edu.
• The Rev.
Denis W. Wiley is an ordained minister in the Progressive National Baptist Convention.
He is an adjunct professor of theology at Howard University’s School of Divinity.
Contact 202-806-0634, dkdavis@howard.edu.
PENTECOSTALS
•
Eugene
F. Rivers 3d is pastor of Pentecostal Azusa Christian Community (affiliated
with the Church of God in Christ) in south Boston and president of Ella
J. Baker House community organization in the Dorchester Four Corners neighborhood
of Boston. Rivers co-founded the clergy-led National
Ten Point Leadership Foundation, which is credited with helping to diminish
gang violence in Boston and other urban areas. He is also general secretary
of the Pan African Charismatic
Evangelical Congress, through which African-American churches help African
churches with AIDS projects and through which they lobby to affect U.S. foreign
policy. Rivers has worked with the White House on faith-based projects. Contact
617-282-6704 or 617-524-4331.
• Cheryl
J. Sanders is a professor of Christian ethics at Howard University School
of Divinity and senior pastor of the Third Street Church of God in Washington,
D.C. She has written extensively on race and culture and on the holiness-Pentecostal
experience in African-American religion and culture. She can also discuss the
tradition of community work among black churches. Contact 202-806-0632, csanders@howard.edu.
• Bishop T.D.
Jakes founded the 28,000-member Potter’s House church in Dallas. His immense
popularity is fueled by his stadium-sized conferences for women and men, best-selling
books, Grammy-award-winning CDs, movies and plays, prison ministry, his preaching
and the extensive outreach programs of his Pentecostal church. In a Sept.
17, 2001, cover story, Time magazine wondered, “Is this man the next
Billy Graham?” Contact 214-331-0954.
• Frederick
L. Ware is an assistant professor of theology at Howard University School
of Divinity. He is an expert on black Pentecostalism, an ordained minister in
the Church of God in Christ and a member of the World Council of Churches and
Pentecostals Joint Consultative Group. Contact 202-806-0753, flware@howard.edu.
PROTESTANTS
•
Katie
Geneva Cannon is president of the Society
for the Study of Black Religion. She was the first black woman ordained
in the United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and she is Annie Scales Rogers Professor
of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of
Christian Education in Richmond, Va. Her areas of expertise are womanist theology,
women in society and religion and Christian ethics. She wrote the book of essays
Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community and Black Womanist
Ethics (Continuum International, 1997). Contact 804-355-0671, kcannon@union-psce.edu.
• James
Kenneth Echols is president of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
He edited I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Future of Multicultural
America (Augsburg, 2004), and he is an expert on the subjects of African-Americans
in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Contact 773-256-0728, jechols@lstc.edu.
• The Rev.
Floyd
Flake is the senior pastor of Greater Allen AME Cathedral of New York in
Jamaica, Queens, which has more than 18,000 members and extensive commercial
and residential developments. He was a U.S. congressman for 11 years. He is
also president of Wilberforce University in Ohio. Contact 718-206-4600.
• The Rev.
James
A. Forbes Jr. is senior minister of the 2,400-member Riverside Church in
New York City and host of the radio program The
Time Is Now. Riverside, built in 1927 by John D. Rockefeller and situated
on Manhattan’s Upper West Side near Columbia University, calls itself an interdenominational,
interracial and international church. It is affiliated with the United Church
of Christ and American Baptist Churches. Contact 212-870-6700.
• Barbara
Harris is a retired Episcopal bishop. Harris was the first female bishop
in the Anglican Communion. She is past president of the Episcopal Urban Caucus
and has worked on prisoner issues and in other organizations serving the urban
poor. She currently is assisting bishop to Bishop John B. Chane in the Diocese
of Washington, D.C. Contact her through assistant Cheryl Wilburn, 202-537-6543,
bharris@edow.org.
• Otis
Moss III is pastor of Trinity
United Church of Christ in Chicago, which is led by Senior Pastor Jeremiah
A. Wright Jr. Moss is known for his ability to speak to young people, extensive
theological education and preaching. A poet, he wrote Redemption in a Red
Light District: Messages of Hope, Healing, and Empowerment (FOUR-G Publishers,
2000). Contact 773-962-5650.
• Bernard Richardson
is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. He teaches
pastoral care and counseling at Howard University School of Divinity, where
he also is dean of the Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel. Contact 202-806-7280,
brichardson@howard.edu.
• Monte Sahlin
is vice president for creative ministries with the Seventh-day Adventist Church,
in which blacks make up 31 percent of members and which has 750 multiethnic
congregations in which no ethnic group is more than 51 percent. Contact 301-596-0800
ext. 230, msahlin@columbiaunion.net.
• The Rev.
Joseph E. Taylor is an ordained minister of the Christian Methodist Episcopal
Church and the United Church of Christ. He is an adjunct professor of pastoral
care at the Howard University School of Divinity. His expertise is in equipping
ministers for pastoral work. Contact 202-806-0514, taylormd@erols.com.
• The
Rev. Renita J.Weems is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University
Divinity School in Nashville and an ordained elder in the African Methodist
Episcopal Church who has written extensively on family life, particularly women's,
in books, articles and newsletters. Contact 615-343-3987.
• The Rev.
Jeremiah A. Wright
Jr. is senior pastor of Trinity
United Church of Christ in Chicago, which has grown from 87 to 8,000 members
under his leadership. He is a well-known orator
and has been active in urging African-American church leaders to work on AIDS
issues. Contact him through Kim Dixson, administrative assistant, 773-962-5698,
kad400@aol.com; or Ivey Matute, executive
secretary, 773-962-5691, Ijm400@aol.com.
ROMAN
CATHOLICS
•
The Rev. Cyprian Davis is a professor of church history at St. Meinrad School
of Theology in St. Meinrad, Ind. He has expertise on African-American Christianity
and on blacks and Catholicism. Contact 812-357-6611.
• Sister Jamie
T. Phelps is a professor of systematic theology and director of the Institute
for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans.
Contact 504-520-5138, IBCS@xula.edu.
• The
Rev. Clarence
Williams directs the Office for Black Catholic Ministries at the Archdiocese
of Detroit and is pastor of St. Anthony Church in Detroit. He is president of
the Black Catholic Televangelization Network and has worked nationally and internationally
to heal racism and to create dialogue among African-Americans and Latinos. He
is a member of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood and says that he was the
first black priest in Cleveland, Ohio, to have been ordained there. Contact
313-237-4695.
• St. Joseph’s
Society of the Sacred Heart
(The Josephites) is a Baltimore-based, interracial society of priests and brothers
who work in 45 parishes in African-American communities. Contact 410-727-3386.
• The National
Black Catholic Clergy Caucus is based in New York City. Contact 212-868-1847.
BACKGROUND
• The National
Black Catholic Congress counts 270 million Catholics of African descent
in 59 countries -- about a quarter of the world’s Roman Catholics. Roughly 3
million of them are in the United States, with 1,300 black parishes, 250 African-American
priests, 300 sisters and 380 deacons. See NBCC
statistics.
• See a list
of African-American Catholic bishops in the United States, with biographies,
posted by the National Black Catholic Congress.
• Find black
Catholic parishes using the NBCC’s
interactive map.
• The Black
Catholic Information Mall has links to numerous groups and organizations.
NonChristian
religions
AFRO-CARIBBEAN
RELIGIONS
•
Patrick
Bellegarde-Smith, a professor in the department of Africology at the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is an expert on Haitian Voodoo and on religion, gender
and class issues in the African Diaspora. He edited Fragments of Bone: Neo-African
Religions in a New World (University of Illinois, 2005) and co-edited (with
Claudine Michel) two volumes on Vodou, Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, And Reality
(Indiana University Press, 2006) and Invisible Powers: Vodou in Haitian
Life and Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Contact 414-229-6099, pbs@uwm.edu
(prefers email).
• Yvonne
P. Chireau is an associate professor in the department of religion at Swarthmore
College in Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses on African-American religions.
She wrote Black Magic: African American Religion and the Conjuring Tradition
(University of California Press, 2003) and (with Nathaniel Deutsch) Black
Zion: African American Religions and Judaism (Oxford University Press, 1999).
She was a consultant to the National Geographic Channel series Taboo
in 2002-03. Contact 610-543-8041 (office), 610-328-8045 (department), ychirea1@swarthmore.edu.
• Claudine
Michel chairs the department of black studies at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. She edits The Journal of Haitian Studies and co-edited
(with Patrick Bellegarde-Smith) two books on Vodou, Haitian Vodou: Spirit,
Myth, And Reality (Indiana University Press, 2006) and Invisible Powers:
Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Contact 805-893-4712,
michel@blackstudies.ucsb.edu.
• Mozella
Gordon Mitchell is professor and chairwoman of religious studies at the
University of South Florida in Tampa. Her expertise includes Afro-Caribbean
religions and the history of African-American religion. Contact 813-974-1852,
mmitchel@cas.usf.edu.
• George
Ware is president of the Philadelphia-based National
African Religion Congress, which describes itself as the certifying board
of priests and priestesses for African-based religion worldwide. Contact 215-455-0815
or 215-548-2118, gromambo@aol.com.
BACKGROUND
Voodoo
is a Creole religion that arose in the French-speaking Caribbean islands, particularly
Haiti, among African slaves who melded primarily Yoruba traditions with Roman
Catholicism. In Spanish-speaking Cuba, Santeria arose under similar circumstances.
An article, “Old Religion, New World,” posted by the Web site Caribbean-Guide.info
describes these and other Afro-Caribbean religions.
• The National
African Religion Congress publishes a directory of priests and priestesses
and indigenous African religions that is available for purchase through the
site.
BUDDHISM
•
Angel
Kyodo Williams, an ordained Zen priest, is founder of New Dharma Meditation
Center for Urban Peace in Oakland, Calif., and the author of Being Black:
Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace (Viking Press, 2000).
Contact 510-547-3733.
• Jan
Willis, Walter A. Crowell Professor of the Social Sciences and professor
of religion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., is a scholar of Sanskrit
and Indo-Tibetan studies. A follower of Tibetan Buddhism, she calls herself
a “Baptist-Buddhist.” She wrote Dreaming Me: An African American Woman’s
Spiritual Journey (Riverhead, 2001). Contact 860-685-2298.
ISLAM
•
Ihsan
Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky,
conducted the survey “The
Mosque in America: A National Portrait,” a study of American Muslims commissioned
in 2001 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (on whose board he serves.
The survey found that 30 percent of mosque attendees were African-American.
Bagby studies Muslims in the United States, including African-Americans and
Islam, and the growth of Islam in prisons. He is an expert on pluralism, mosque
organization and imams. He also serves on the advisory board of Hartford Seminary’s
Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Contact 859-257-9638 (office), 859-257-3761
(department), iabagb2@uky.edu.
• Edward
E. Curtis IV is Millennium Scholar of the Liberal Arts and an associate
professor of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.
He is a scholar of religion, race and ethnicity; African American religions
and history; and Islamic studies. He wrote Islam in Black America:
Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought
(State University of New York Press, 2002). Contact 317-278-1683 or 317-274-1465
(department), ecurtis4@iupui.edu.
• Sherman
A. Jackson (aka Abd al-Hakim) is a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies
at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is also a visiting professor
at the University of Michigan law school and has a pending appointment at the
university’s Center
for Afroamerican and African Studies. He is a member of the editorial board
of DePaul University’s Journal of Islamic Law and Culture. His expertise is
in Islamic law, theology and black American Islam. The American
Learning Institute for Muslims says Jackson’s expertise involves concepts
of constitution, tyranny and power within Islamic law -- particularly relevant
as Muslims strive to come to terms with the classical Islamic legal traditions.
Contact 734-763-4671 (office), 734-764-0314 (department), sajackso@umich.edu.
• Jamillah
Karim is an assistant professor in the department of philosophy and religious
studies at Spelman College in Atlanta. She was reared in an African-American
Muslim community. Her expertise is on race, gender and Islam; younger Muslims
in the U.S.; and connections and tensions among African-American Muslims and
immigrant Muslims in the U.S. Contact 404-270-5524, JKarim@spelman.edu.
• Aminah
B. McCloud is an Islamic studies professor in the department of religious
studies at DePaul University in Chicago. She is an expert in American and African-American
Islam, including Nation of Islam, Islam in prison and Louis Farrakhan. Contact
773-325-1290 (office), 773-325-4905 (department), amccloud@depaul.edu.
• Debra
Mubashshir Majeed is an associate professor in the department of philosophy
and reli |
