The Black Church

The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series.

Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again

Engaging. . . . In Gates s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth as it is in heaven. Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review

From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box, and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America.

For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today s political landscape. At road s end, and after Gates s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community s most critical personal and social issues.

In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn t even past Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion.

But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.

“A wide-ranging tour of Black religion. . . . The Black Church is an ambitious book that offers an informative and important intellectual journey across the centuries.” —The New York Review of Books

“Gates Jr. sublimely evokes the power of worship to create both religious and political solidarity. Drawing on meticulous archival research, as well as on insightful interviews with a diverse group of religious leaders, Gates plumbs the history of the Black church in America. . . . [This] enthralling book offers a powerful reminder that our actions affect the communities in which we live.” —BookPage

“Vibrant, incisive. . . Meticulously reported, the book is its own rich sermon . . . it’s nigh impossible to not stamp our feet and shout, ‘Amen!’ . . . A marvel, a breezy, illuminating tale of a distinctly powerful institution at the beating heart of the American Experiment, and an invaluable work from a masterful chronicler.” —Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review
 
“Gates’s thoughtful, comprehensive survey . . . examines the political as well as the spiritual role of the Black Church, and the way it has both shaped and been shaped by the world outside the walls of individual churches.” —Columbus Dispatch
 
“Sweeping, vivid. . . . The eminent Harvard historian and connoisseur of American lives [Henry Louis Gates, Jr.] turns his compassionate gaze to the black church, illuminating a pantheon of good shepherds who brought a fierce social conscience to the Lord’s work. Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, Barbara Hale, recently-elected Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock: all spring to life as spiritual visionaries and carpenters of the arc of justice.” —Oprah Magazine
 
“Gates combines reflections on his childhood with centuries of history in his thoughtful examination of the Black church in America. Blending research, interviews with scholars and insights from his own life, Gates illuminates the central role of the Black church in the movement for social justice and the support network it has been for a community often in need of safe spaces. . . . [The Black Church] is as comprehensive as it is celebratory.” —Time

“Fascinating . . . Meticulously researched, The Black Church spans more than 400 years of Black ecclesiastical history in the United States States—beginning with Catholic enslaved people brought by the Spaniards and continuing all the way to John Legend’s take on the essential role the church played in his early life.” —Shelf Awareness

“Readers of American religious and African American history will not want to miss this title.” —Library Journal

“[An] invaluable illumination of the many ways the Black church has been an ongoing epicenter of inspiration and action.” —Booklist (starred)

“Through meticulous research and interviews . . . Gates paints a compelling portrait of the church as a source of ‘unfathomable resiliency’ for Black ancestors as well as the birthplace of so many distinctly African American aesthetic forms. . . . Powerful, poignant, and ultimately celebratory. Let the church say, ‘Amen!’” —Kirkus (starred review)
 
“A brisk and insightful look at how the Black church has succored generations of African Americans against white supremacy. . . . Punctuated by trenchant observations from Black historians and theologians, Gates’s crisp account places religious life at the center of the African American experience.” —Publishers Weekly

“Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has once again delved deep into the doings and sufferings of Black people in the USA! This time he gives us a rich story and riveting song of the profound forms of spirituality and musicality that sustained Black sanity and dignity. Although Gates rightly highlights the centrality of the ambiguous legacy of the Black Church, he also explores the cruc…

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