Between Sundays: Black Women and Everyday Struggles of Faith. By Marla F. Frederick. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. 275 pp. $50.00, cloth; 263 pp. $19.95, paper.

In Between Sundays, cultural anthropologist, Marla F. Frederick -- in conversation with social scientists, historians, theologians, and scholars of religious studies -- documents and analyzes the role of spirituality in the lives of eight African American Baptist women in North Carolina. While Between Sundays is definitely an anthropological project, Frederick employs interdisciplinary theoretical approaches, situating her work between theology’s “a priori knowledge about the realm of spirit” and anthropology’s project to determine “how people act out in society a particular understanding of spirituality” (ix). She argues that, “[i]n our need as social scientists to discuss the significance of gender, race, and class for how people experience and act in the world, we neglect to consider seriously the impact of spirituality on such practices. … [A]mong the faith-filled, faith in God navigates how individuals respond to almost all of life’s circumstances” (3). Frederick further argues that conceptualizing power within the context of African American religion is only possible when everyday practiced spirituality is considered. She defines spirituality as her informants’ “understanding of God and God’s work in their day-to-day lives” (4). For these women, spirituality is both a catalyst for social interactions and an interpretive lens used in formulating responses to political and economic conditions.

Halifax County is a hard place for black women to live. In spite of the rapid economic expansion of the South since the 1970s, gender and race circumscribe Halifax residents’progress. The local economy of most African Americans followed a trajectory of slavery into sharecropping, which evolved, for some, into farm ownership. While industrialization in North Carolina dates back to the nineteenth century, rural regions like Halifax County have been historically dependent on agriculture. Late-twentieth century downturns in farming generated a labor pool. Corporations established textile and rubber mills, sewing factories, and large-scale hog operations in black areas exacerbating substandard health conditions and reinforcing de facto segregation in housing, employment, and education. Furthermore, the county’s impoverished elderly population is disproportionately large; this is a result of young people’s out migration for employment, middle-aged people’s return migration for retirement, and a resident elderly population that never left.

In addressing the practiced spirituality of these Halifax County black women, Frederick’s well-crafted ethnography challenges scholars to rethink the conventional conceptual frames of studies of “the black church.” First, resistance and accommodation have been employed as measures of black churches’ relationship to institutional racism. The resistance/accommodation debates seek to position religious organizations vis-à-vis anti-racist political activism; Frederick notes that they often ignore questions of sexism. Black churches’ pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement pushed scholars to reexamine the dichotomous interpretation which placed churches as either concerned with political salvation in the here and now or personal salvation in the afterlife. The work of black political activists of faith led scholars to view accommodation and resistance less as two distinct positions and more as a relationship of tension, with different churches situated along a continuum between the two. Frederick’s intervention in the accommodation/resistance discourse is twofold. First, she notes that the definitions of accommodation and resistance have been unstable within scholarly debates, often as a result of the dynamic nature of social concerns within religious spheres. Second, and more importantly, she argues that “While not wanting to leave the terms ‘accommodation’ and ‘resistance’ entirely behind, … they largely fail to capture the complexity of the everyday lives of parishioners” (6).

Gloria, one of Frederick’s informants, works with pregnant teenagers through the department of social services. As a field agent, the time and money she can allot to each client is constrained by governmental regulations and budgetary restrictions. However, Gloria extends herself beyond what is required, spending both extra time and often her own money to help clients. She attributes her caring ethic to her relationship with God and her understanding of Biblical scripture. Frederick maintains that, “This element of care is often overlooked in research that points to resistance-oriented strategies of black faith.” Furthermore, because these types of activities do not directly confront systemic injustice, “such caring practices are read as accommodating structures of oppression” (80). She posits that the tension between constraining societal structures and black women’s complicity with and resistance to these structures is mediated by their creative agency through practiced spirituality.

Herein lies another critical refocusing of Frederick’s angle of vision. Her ethnography is not concerned with institutional religious structures and their internal rituals but with black rural women’s “depth of religious engagement” in daily experiences. In addition to de-centering religious institutions, Frederick expands the definition of agency beyond direct political engagement. “Unless agentive value is placed on the labor involved in personal transformation…the work of individuals in forming productive personal lives within oppressive social structures” is negated (213). For some women, strategies of personal transformation do not lead to conventional activism. Instead, their faith allows them to manage oppressive situations when direct action may not be an option. For others, personal transformation carries them into support networks within a community of faith, which can lead to political activism. One of Frederick’s informants, a mother with high school level education, was elected to the school board. She had no experience on this level of public engagement but was convinced to run by church and other community members familiar with her commitment to young people. Consciously cultivating relationships within a faith-filled network provided her with the communal support “and prayer” needed to face the challenges of motherhood and political life. She views public office as her “missionary work” (109).

Of the eight informants in Between Sundays, two are in their sixties, one in her fifties, and five in their late forties. Their proximity to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements clearly shapes their faith-based social and political analysis. This study would have benefited from the inclusion of women in their twenties. I would argue that generational analysis is an important determinant within Frederick’s geopolitical and historical contextualization. That being said, this text exemplifies theoretically and methodologically the benefits of scholars, specifically anthropologist, thinking between and across disciplinary boundaries. It is not surprising that the significance of this contribution to the anthropology of religion comes as a result of Frederick’s moving between spaces to understand the experiences and interpretations of these Halifax County women in their lives Between Sundays.

Judith Casselberry, Yale University