Abstract
Many commentators have suggested that the US Civil Rights Movement was led by religious figures while the current movement for racial justice, organized around the slogan Black Lives Matter, is secular. This chapter complicates that narrative. It examines ways that religious ideas and practices continue to circulate among racial justice organizers today. While some organizers identify as secular, others as Christian, and still others as embracing African-inspired spirituality, the shared vocabulary of the movement has deep Christian resonances. Concepts like love, dignity, and faith circulate on social media and in activist meetings, and this language stands ambivalently between the secular and the religious.
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Notes
- 1.
Taylor, A Secular Age; Emma Green, “Black Activism, Unchurched.”
- 2.
There were particularly vibrant discussions on The Immanent Frame, blogs.ssrc.org/tif/. See also Warner et al., Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age.
- 3.
On indignity as a central theme in Black politics, see Bromell, The Time Is Always Now.
- 4.
King, “#blacklivesmatter”; Cobb, “The Matter of Black Lives.”
- 5.
Lowery, “They Can’t Kill Us All,” 87.
- 6.
See, for example, Cobb, “The Matter of Black Lives.”
- 7.
Holley, “After Sharpton Profile, Activists Bristle on Twitter.”
- 8.
- 9.
Berlatsky, “The Women of #BlackLivesMatter.”
- 10.
https://twitter.com/mspackyetti/status/767881917496717316 for this and the quotes that follow.
- 11.
For an ethnographic introduction to this idiom, see Bender, The New Metaphysicals.
- 12.
- 13.
Hafiz, “How Women Are Leading the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.”
- 14.
- 15.
Barnett, “Erika Totten.”
- 16.
The connection between mental, political, and spiritual liberation here is rather ambiguous. Is it that mental and spiritual liberation, through processes of self-care, are the prerequisite to political liberation? Or do they all occur together?
- 17.
See Greif, “Against Exercise.”
- 18.
Farrag, “The Role of Spirit in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.” What movement actors mean by these religious traditions is probably better understood by means of a Google search than by means of a textbook definition—the Internet rather than the library functions as authority for many actors.
- 19.
King, “#blacklivesmatter.”
- 20.
Tometi does describe her “spiritual life” as offering “solace” as well; this seems rather different than self-care.
- 21.
Tometi, Garza, and Cullors-Brignac, “Celebrating MLK Day.”
- 22.
For a criticism of the distinction between a religious, Black King and the later, more secular, more multicultural King, see Chapter 4 of Vincent Lloyd, Black Natural Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
- 23.
Cobb, “The Matter of Black Lives.”
- 24.
Another way this shift is articulated is as a turn from King to Ella Baker, perceived as representing grassroots leadership and an embrace of intersectionality—as well as humanism, perhaps religious humanism, in contrast to King’s church-centric Christianity. Note, for example, the role of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland in the movement, and see more generally Cobb, “The Matter of Black Lives.” On the academic support for this view, see Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement.
- 25.
Cobb, “The Matter of Black Lives.”
- 26.
Tometi and Lenoir, “Black Lives Matter Is Not a Civil Rights Movement.”
- 27.
- 28.
- 29.
- 30.
Moyn, Christian Human Rights; Moyn, The Last Utopia.
- 31.
- 32.
van Gelder, “Rev. Sekou on Today’s Civil Rights Leaders.”
- 33.
Dockter, “Gospel Is Not a Neutral Term.” Theologians in dialogue with the movement have made similar points: see Lightsey, Our Lives Matter and Douglas, Stand Your Ground.
- 34.
Blumberg, “Activist Bree Newsome Reveals Staggering Faith During Confederate Flag Action.”
- 35.
Newsome’s Twitter profile picture features Deuteronomy 33:25, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” https://twitter.com/breenewsome.
- 36.
DeConto, “Activist Who Took Down Confederate Flag from Statehouse Drew on Faith.”
- 37.
Blumberg, “Activist Bree Newsome Reveals Staggering Faith During Confederate Flag Action.”
- 38.
- 39.
- 40.
- 41.
Clifton, “Queer Women Are Shaping Chicago’s Black Lives Matter Movement.”
- 42.
- 43.
Barry, “We Love, We Fight.”
- 44.
I develop these thoughts on Baldwin’s account of love more fully in Lloyd, Religion of the Field Negro, Chapter 2.
- 45.
Carmichael, Stokely Speaks, 148.
- 46.
Malcolm X, “Message to the Grassroots” in Malcolm X Speaks.
- 47.
Nash, “Practicing Love.”
- 48.
hooks and West, Breaking Bread; hooks, Salvation.
- 49.
Garza, “A Love Note to Our Folks.”
- 50.
For a criticism of subtraction stories of secularization, see Taylor, A Secular Age.
- 51.
See especially Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom.
- 52.
Levitt, “Revolutionary Love.”
- 53.
David Chappell, A Stone of Hope.
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Lloyd, V. (2018). How Religious Is #BlackLivesMatter?. In: Pinn, A. (eds) Humanism and the Challenge of Difference. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94099-1_10
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