Africana Faith: A Religious History of the African American Crusade in Islam

533 Pages·2016·6.526 MB·English

by  James L. Conyers

AFRICANA FAITH
_____________________________

A Religious History
of the African American Crusade in Islam
_____________________________

Edited by
James L. Conyers, Jr.

Hamilton Books
An Imprint of
Rowman & Littlefield
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ISBN: 978-0-7618-6872-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
eISBN: 978-0-7618-6873-6

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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
PART I: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW 1
1 Notes in Negro American Influences on the Emergence
of African Nationalism (1960)
George Shepperson 3
2 Islam as a Factor in West African Culture (1911)
George W Ellis 23
3 Muslims in Early America (1994)
Michael A. Gomez 47
PART II: SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION 91
4 The Voodoo Cult among Negro Migrants in Detroit (1938)
Erdmann Doane Beyon 93
5 Elijah in the Wilderness (1960)
NatHentoff 107
6 Registerested with Allah (1997)
Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy 117
7 Moorish Science Temple of America (1957)
Arthur H. Fauset 141
8 Negro Nationalism and the Black Muslims (1962)
Claude Lightfoot 153
iv Contents
PART III: POLITICS OF RELIGION 173
9 The Black Muslims and the Negro American's
Quest for Communion: A Case Study in the
Genesis of Negro Protest Movements (1969)
Howard Kaplan 175
10 The Black Muslim Movement and the American
Constitutional System (1983)
Oliver Jones Jr. 191
11 Black Muslims and the Police (1965)
LeeP. Brown 211
PART IV: ECONOMICS OF RELIGION 227
12 The Protestant Ethic among the Black Muslims (1966)
Lawrence L. Tyler 229
13 Christian Elements in Negro American Muslim
Religious Beliefs (1964)
Abbie Whyte 241
14 Watchtower Influences on Black Muslim Eschatology:
An Exploratory Story (1970)
William Maesen 251
15 The Moslem Influence Among American Negroes (1962)
John F. Hatchett 259
PART V: PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION 267
16 The Muslim Mission in the Context of American
Social History (1983)
C. Eric Lincoln 269
17 African American Muslim Women (1991)
Beverly Thomas (Aminah} McCloud 287
18 What Shall We Call Him? Islam and African
American Identity (1997)
Richard Brent Turner 301
19 Family Stability Among African-American Muslims {1991)
Na 'im Akbar 335
20 Aspects of Black Muslim Theology (1981)
Zafar Ishaq Ansari 353
Contents v
PART VI: INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES 389
21 W.D. Muhammad: The Making of a "Black Muslim"
Leader (1933-1961) (1985)
Zafar Ishaq Ansari 391
22 From Black Muslim to Bilalian: The Evolution of a
Movement (1982)
Lawrence H. Mamiya 409
23 The Black Muslims: From Revolution to Institution (1964)
Michael Parenti 433
24 The Black Muslims in America: A Reinterpretation (1963)
W. Haywood Bums 451
25 Islam in the United States of America:
A Review of the Sources (1981)
Sulayman S. Nyang 467
Index 489
About the Editor and Contributors 517
00front.pmd 6 6/12/2016, 3:49 PM
Preface
his reader is intended to open a new door on the study of the African
T
American Islamic movement in the United States. It offers a selec­
tion of important essays that span the last century and more of writings
on the Africana phenomena in the subject areas of history, sociology,
economics, and political science. In concentrating on the African Ameri­
can Islamic movement and Black Muslims, it refers to those African
Americans who have embraced the traditional five pillars of Islam:
1. Sawm-Ramadaan (fasting)
2. Zakat (charity)
3. Hajji (pilgrimage to Mecca)
4. Shahada (submission to the will of a supreme being)
5. Salat (prayer five times a day)
Previously I have edited three volumes on related topics: Malcolm X:
An Historical Reader (2007); Engines of the Black Power Movement:
Essays on Politics, Arts, and Islam (2007); and (as coeditor) Africana
Islamic Studies (2016). This volume extends the focus and research on
the topic of Islam with an accent on global Pan Africana phenomena by
investigating Africana Islamic congregations and scholarly works pub­
lished about these groups. This assortment of essays is the first edited
interdisciplinary volume examining the Africana Islamic enterprise in
the United States. Comprising an all-inclusive social science perspec­
tive, this multidisciplinary study attempts to locate Africana religious
history in place, space, and time, with an emphasis on the structure of
Muslim communities in the United States. The chapters canvas Black
Muslims in the antebellum era, the period of the Harlem Renaissance,
World War II, the civil rights era, and contemporary post-1970s African
American history.
viii Preface
The study of Black religion in America has often been quarrelsome
and paradoxical. There have been numerous volumes in the form of
biographical or communal studies conducted on Black twentieth-century
religious figures. A great deal of this discussion has concerned itself
with disputations about the hierarchy of religious values rather than a
concentric analysis of the role and function of spirituality and religiosity.
To rectify this, this compendium of articles places emphasis on the role
and assessments of the proselytizer and voluntary spread of Islam among
African Americans in the United States. The 1960s proved to be an espe­
cially pivotal time period in this regard, as Black religious organizations
played a major role in the civil rights movement. The mobilization of the
Africana Islamic community in the United States played a critical role in
leveraging economic, political, cultural, and historical agency for Afri­
can Americans. Contemporary debate and academic research regarding
the African American Muslim movement in the United States tends to
focus reflexively on the civil rights movement, narrowly investigating
the Black Muslim experience through either the Moorish Science Temple
or the Nat i on of Islam. Very few intellectuals and researchers have stud­
ied the African America Islamic movement within the context of Ameri­
cana historiography. To further bolster that focus, I have provided an
introduction to each part that endeavors to relate the chapters' contents
more precisely to the Africana movement of Islam in the United States.
When discussing the African American Islamic movement or Black
Muslims, we are of course referring to those individuals who embrace
the doctrines of Islam. The scholarship on Black religion in America has
always been perplexing, divisive, and paradoxical and this is doubly true
for Black Islamic religion. Most writers frame African American Mus­
lims and their movement as a polytheistic creed of terrorism or ideology
of anti-American nationalism, focusing more on descriptive analysis and
less on the retention of cultural norms, values, and ethics of African
Americans. This volume attempts to right that wrong and offer a concen­
tric analysis of the role and function of devoutness and religiosity con­
tained by the African American Muslim movement.
Acknowledgments
hapter 1, Notes in Negro American Influences on the Emergence of
C
African Nationalism, by George Shepperson, originally published
in The Journal ofA frican History 1, no. 2 (1960): 299-312.
Chapter 2, Islam as A Factor in West Africa, by George Ellis, origi­
nally published in The Journal of Race Development 2, no. 2 (October
1911): 105-130.
Chapter 3, Muslims in Early America, by Michael Gomez, origi­
nally published in The Journal ofS outhern History60, no. 4 (November
1994): 671-710.
Chapter 4, The Voodoo Cult among Negro Migrants in Detroit, by
Erdmann D. Beyon, originally published in American Journal of Sociol­
ogy 43 (July 1937-May 1938): 894-907.
Chapter 5, Elijah in the Wilderness, by Nate Hentoff, originally pub­
lished in The Reporter, August 4, 1960, 37-40.
Chapter 6, Registered with Allah, by Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy,
originally published in Anyplace But Here (Columbia: University of Mis­
souri Press, 1997).
Chapter 7, Moorish Science Temple of America, Arthur H. Fauset,
originally published in Religion, Society, and the Individual, ed. ]. Milton
Younger (New York: Macmillan, 1957).
Chapter 8, Negro Nationalism and the Black Muslims, by Claude
Lightfoot, originally published in Political Affairs 41, no. 7 (July 1962):
320.
Chapter 9, The Black Muslims and the Negro American's Quest for
Communion, Howard Kaplan, originally published in British Journal of
Sociology 20, no. 2 (June 1969): 164-177.
Chapter 10, The Black Muslim Movement and the American Consti­
tutional System, by Oliver Jones, originally published in Journal ofB lack
Studies 13, no. 4 (June 1983): 417-437.