ISSN: 1094-902X
Volume 1, Number 1 (Fall 1997)

A Message from the Editors

We are pleased to present the inaugural issue of The North Star, a journal devoted to research in African-American Religious History. Based at Barnard College, the journal is intended to promote scholarship grounded in historical research and the editors are particularly committed to publishing articles and reviews by graduate students in an effort to make their work available to a wider audience. The journal takes its name from Frederick Douglass' weekly abolitionist paper, North Star, which he founded in Rochester, New York in December of 1847. The paper's motto, appearing on the masthead, read, "Right is of no sex -- Truth is of no color -- God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren." With this endeavor we hope to do honor to a long tradition of publishing in African-American history.

The editors of The North Star affirm its connection to the Afro-American Religious History Group of the American Academy of Religion, which has brought together a dynamic group of scholars to share their research since 1975. It is our hope that the journal will contribute to the future vitality and growth of this group. One of the goals of publishing this journal is to carry on the functions of the Newsletter of the Afro-American Religious History Group, edited by Randall K. Burkett from 1976 until 1996. We include a reproduction of the first issue of the Newsletter in this issue of the journal and extend our appreciation to Dr. Burkett for his contribution to the scholarly endeavors of so many people through his years of commitment to the Newsletter and to the group.

In future issues of the journal we will present peer-reviewed articles that explore the religious cultures of people of African descent in the United States. While our interest is primarily in North America and in historical research, we will on occasion publish work from other disciplines and/or that deals in a comparative way with other areas of the African diaspora, as well as with regions in Africa. We particularly encourage graduate students working in this area to submit articles and book reviews and we are committed to providing a venue for them to share their work and highlight new areas of study in the field. Please let us know what you think of our efforts, make suggestions for future issues, or submit news, announcements, or research queries using the Feedback Form.

Finally, we would like to dedicate the journal to our colleague, James Melvin Washington, whose sudden death on May 3, 1997 has left an enormous void in our lives. Jim inspired many of us in different ways and we hope, through this issue and our work in future, to give some sense of the influence he has had in our field and beyond. Jim was the author of Frustrated Fellowship: The Black Baptist Quest for Social Power (Mercer University Press, 1986) and the editor of A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Harper and Row, 1986), I Have A Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World (Harper and Row, 1992), and Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans (HarperCollins, 1994). Jim was also Professor of Modern and American Church History at Union Theological Seminary, where he trained and nurtured many grateful students. He was active in many professional associations, as well as in the various churches to which he gave his time. These few words cannot do justice to the man, nor convey the loss that those of us who knew and loved him feel.

 

ISSN: 1094-902X
Volume 1, Number 1 (Fall 1997)

World Wide Web Resources

Online Documents

The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers
Robert A. Hill, associate Professor of History in the African Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, directs the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project. The project's web site contains sample documents, a photo gallery, and a sound library containing excerpts from Garvey's two known recorded speeches.

The Daniel A. P. Murray Pamphlet Collection
One of the digital collections at the American Memory site at the Library of Congress. The collection contains 351 pamphlets covering the years 1818-1907, including addresses by Edward Wilmot Blyden, Mary Church Terrell, Alexander Crummell, Frederick Douglass, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, James Walker Hood, and Gertrude Mossell. In addition, it contains sermons by Baptist, A.M.E., A.M.E.Zion, and C.M.E. ministers, as well as brochures from such organizations and schools as the National Association of Colored Women, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, the Knights Templar, and the St. Francis Academy of the Oblate Sisters of Providence.

Web Sites of Religious Organizations

The Ministry of Imam W. Deen Muhammad
This site contains information about the work of Imam Muhammad, the son of Elijah and Clara Muhammad, and, according to his ministry, "Muslim American Spokesman for Human Salvation." The site includes materials about his goals in transforming the Nation of Islam after his father's death, as well as general information about Muslim beliefs and practices.

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
Contains a list of active and retired Bishops, of AME Zion General Officers, of Churches, and of Colleges and Seminaries. In addition, there is a link to the Star of Zion online.

Ifa Foundation of North America
From the foundation's web site: "The Ifa Foundation of North America, in cooperation with the Imole Oluwa Institute of Nigeria, was established to offer an integrated approach to Orisa worship for the educated Westerner."

[CONTENTS]

ISSN: 1094-902X
Volume 1, Number 1 (Fall 1997)

News and Announcements
(Click on highlighted text for information or to send an e-mail to request information.)

American Studies Association and Canadian Association for American Studies Meeting
The following sessions at the October 30-November 2, 1997 meeting, held in Washington, D.C., should be of interest to those in the field of African-American Religious studies:

Friday, October 31, 1997
Global and Social Perspectives on African-American Music (8:15-10:00am)
Featuring a paper by Jerma Jackson, Eugene Lang College, New School for Social Research, on Sister Rosetta Tharpe with her Spirituals in Swing.

International Blackness (2:15-4:00pm)
Featuring a paper by Lisa Gail Collins, American Studies Program, University of Minnesota, on Visible Roots and Visual Routes: Africanisms and the Sea Islands.

The State of African American Public Culture (4:15-600pm)
Featuring a presentation by Barbara Ransby, Department of History, University of Illinois, Chicago on Ella Baker and Black Leadership.

Saturday, November 1, 1997
Staging Civil Rights (2:15-4:00)
With a paper by Richard Ver Wiebe, Department of History, Syracuse University on Contesting Images: The Battle over Public Imagery and Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a comment by Ralph E. Luker, Department of History, Morehouse College.

Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion
The Steering Committee of the Afro-American Religious History Group of the AAR has announced the following program for the annual meeting to be held in San Francisco, November 22-25, 1997.

Session 1: Saturday 3:45-6:15
Theme: The Crucible of Culture: The Early Life and Thought of Howard Thurman, 1899-1936
Stephen Angell, Florida A & M University, Presiding

Quinton Hosford Dixie, Colgate Rochester Divinity School
Howard Thurman and the Role of Religion in Social Change, 1919-1941

Catherine Tumber, Colgate Rochester Divnity School
Howard Thurman's Development as a Religious Intellectual

Walter Earl Fluker, Colgate Rochester Divinity School
Howard Thurman as a Cultivator of Ethical Leadership Among Youth, 1932-1944

Respondent: Vincent Harding, Iliff School of Theology

Business Meeting
Rosemary Gooden, DePaul University and Laurie Maffly-Kipp, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Presiding

Session 2: Monday 9:00-11:30am
Theme: African-American Religions and Cultural Agency
Rosemary Gooden, DePaul University, Presiding

John M. Giggie, Princeton University
The Masons, the Market, and the Emergence of the Black Holiness Movement: The Case of William Christian and the Church of the Living God

Judith Fagan, Winthrop University
Signifying Religion and Cultural Agency

Juan M. Thomas, Jr., University of Pennsylvania
The Burning of Rebellious Thoughts: MOVE as an Expression of African-American Theology, 1970-1996

Respondent: David Daniels, McCormick Theological Seminary

Session 3: Sunday 3:45-6:15pm
Joint Session with North American Religions Section
Theme: Author Meets Critics -- Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North by John T. McGreevy
Albert G. Miller, Oberlin College, Presiding

Panelists:
Judith Weisenfeld, Barnard College
Paula Kane, University of Pittsburgh
James Lewis, Louisville Institute

Respondent: John T. McGreevy, University of Notre Dame

Business Meeting (North American Religions)
Thomas Tweed, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Ann Taves, Claremont School of Theology, Presiding

Reception in Memory of James Melvin Washington
The Steering Committee, along with the members of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, has also planned a gathering at the conference for Jim's friends to celebrate and remember his life and contributions to our community:

Monday, November 22, 1997
7:00-8:30pm
San Francisco Hilton
Room: Union Square 9

Other AAR Sessions of Note:

African Americans and the Bible: An Interdisciplinary Research Project
Sunday, November 23, 8:30-10:30pm
N-Grand Ballroom I

Tributes to Dr. Charles Long
Look for information at the conference on sessions and a reception to honor Charles Long, recently retired from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Events include: a panel on African-American Religions and Traditions with Thee Smith, Sterling Stuckey, Claudine Michel, Vincent Harding, Vincent Wimbush and a panel on Indigenous and Post-Colonial religions with David Carrasco, David Chidester, Inez Talamantez, Tracy Hucks, and Michio Araki.

Black Arts Research Center
Director, John Gray
30 Marion Street
Nyack, NY 10960
jgray@interport.net
Founded in 1989, the Black Arts Research Center is an archival resource center dedicated to the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of the African cultural legacy. Resources include some 1500 recordings, cassettes and videotapes, 700 books and journals, 300 clipping files, and a bibliographic database with more than 50,000 entries. John Gray, the director, is a cultural historian specializing in Black culture and the performing arts. His writings include Fire Music: A Bibliography of the New Jazz, 1959-1990 (1990), Blacks in Film and Television (1990), and Ashe: Traditional Religion and Healing in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Diaspora (1989), all published by Greenwood Press.

Research Queries:
Please contact the person who has placed the query and not the editors of the journal. Click on the highlighted name to send a reply to the query.

Dr. Delrio Ligons-Berrio seeks information on sermons by John Bunyan Reeves (1831-1916), a black Presbyeterian born on Long Island, New York, the first "Negro" graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and pastor of Lombard Central Church in Philadelphia for 50 years.

Dr. Dierdre Helen Crumbley is interested in contact with scholars working on the black church perception of and interaction with Jews. She has worked on this topic with interest in implications for subverting anti-semitism. She is also a a socio-cultural anthropologicst doing esearch in the area of religion and change in African and its New World Diaspora.

New Books:

Allan D. Austin, ed., African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles. Routledge, 1997. $17.95.

Elaine G. Breslaw, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies. New York University Press, 1997. $17.95.

Timothy E. Fulop and Albert J. Raboteau, eds., African American Religion: Interpretive Essays in History and Culture. Routledge, 1997. $24.95.

Anne Meis Knupfer, Toward a Tenderer Humanity and a Nobler Womanhood: African American Women's Clubs in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago. New York University Press, 1997. $18.95.

Nina Mjagkij and Margaret Spratt, eds., Men and Women Adrift: The YMCA and the YWCA in the City. New York University Press, 1997. $19.50.

N. Samuel Murrell, William D. Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane, eds., Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader. Temple University Press, 1998. $29.95.

Milton G. Sernett, Bound for the Promised Land: African American Religion and the Great Migration. Duke University Press, 1997. $18.95.

Richard Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience. Indiana University Press, 1997. $18.95.

Judith Weisenfeld, African-American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905-1945. Harvard University Press, 1998.

To submit an announcement or a new book listing for the next issue, use the Feedback form.