Black Power and the Role of Faith

Last updated on: January 3, 2017 at 8:50 pm by Guest Contributor

Black Power and the Role of Faith 2017-01-03T20:50:57-05:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

by Kerry Pimblott

When I began writing Faith in Black Power almost a decade ago I was spurred by a series of perceived neglects in the stories we tell about Black Power. Movement histories often focused on a small number of nationally recognizable organizations and leaders at the expense of a more complex rendering of the diversity of grassroots Black Power initiatives that flourished in communities across the nation during the late 1960s and early 1970s. I wondered what kinds of stories we would uncover if we trained our lens on obscured sites of struggle and little known activists, particularly Black workers and women of all generations. Taken collectively, how might these stories serve to transform prevailing interpretations of Black Power’s character and legacy?

In my early conversations with former activists the small town of Cairo, Illinois, repeatedly emerged as one such site of struggle. Despite the city’s diminutive size (pop. 2,626 in 2013) and inauspicious location at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, activists insisted that Cairo was a key flashpoint for national debates over racial injustice, economic inequality, and state violence during the long Sixties.

Perhaps most compellingly, former activists offered tantalizing insights into the Cairo movement’s unique blend of radical politics and religious fervor. Under the leadership of Rev. Charles Koen, the United Front – Cairo’s foremost Black Power organization – used Black congregations as staging grounds for a struggle grounded in the rhetorical and ritualistic world of the Black church. The United Front’s symbol – a gun placed atop a King James Bible – jarred against portrayals of Black Power’s anti-clericalism and jettisoning of the religious discourses that had shaped earlier civil rights campaigns.

In Faith in Black Power I provide the first detailed account of the Cairo Black freedom struggle using a wide-range of documentary sources and interviews performed with former United Front members. What emerges is a story that challenges dominant assumptions of Black Power’s “de-Christianization,” revealing the sustained role of Black churches and African American Christian traditions at the local level.

Among the most important findings is the dynamic engagement of local activists with the emergent Black Theology. Koen and other United Front leaders embraced the thought of James Cone, Albert Cleage, Jr. (later Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman) and others, using it to frame local Black Power campaigns and recruit mass participation.

In turn, the United Front reached outward to form alliances with Black church executives in the newly established National Conference of Black Churchmen (NCBC) to leverage more than half-a-million dollars in funding from predominantly white denominations. These religious resources and networks afforded the United Front the ability to mount a concerted Black Power struggle and weather the tide of extralegal violence and state repression that ensued.

However, funding Black Power proved controversial with churches coming under intense pressure to halt their support for local Black Power organizations from both governmental agencies and laity. As churches withdrew their support, the Cairo United Front lost an important coalitional partner with diabolical effects for activists working on the ground.

Kerry Pimblott is the author of Faith in Black Power: Religion, Race, and Resistance in Cairo, Illinois This spring, Pimblott will join the faculty at the University of Manchester as a lecturer in American history. Her research interests include African American history, Black social movements, and religious cultures and institutions. Pimblott’s most recent scholarship focuses on the role of the Black Church and Black Theology in the Black Power Movement published in Christopher D. Cantwell, Heath W. Carter, and Janine Giordano Drake, eds.,The Pew and the Picket Line: Christianity and the American Working Class (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016). Follow Kerry on Twitter @DrPimblott

Donate to the Work of R3

Like the work we do at Rhetoric Race and Religion? Please consider helping us continue to do this work. All donations are tax-deductible through Gifts of Life Ministries/G’Life Outreach, a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization, and our fiscal sponsor. Any donation helps. Just click here to support our work.

Previous Post

January 2, 2017

A Righteous Rebuke

Next Post

January 6, 2017 Resistance and the Black Faith Tradition

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Amy Steele Andre E. Johnson Book Reviews/Series Brian Foulks Call for Chapters Carol Howard Merritt Classes Conferences Contributors Crystal St.Marie Lewis Daniel White Hodge Earle Fisher Eulogy Fredrick Robinson Guest Contributions Henry McNeal Turner Institutes Interviews Joseph Boston Katherine Whitfield Kimberly Peeler-Ringer Lectures/Roundtables Natalie Bullock Brown R3 Book Series R3 Contributor Rashad Grove Readers Reflections Symposiums Teaching Traci Ellis Travis Harris Uncategorized Video

Select a Month June 2020 February 2020 December 2019 November 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 October 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz