The New Black Gods: Arthur Huff Fauset and the Study of African American Religions

Taking the influential work of Arthur Huff Fauset as a starting point to
break down the false dichotomy that exists between mainstream and marginal, a new
generation of scholars offers fresh ideas for understanding the religious
expressions of African Americans in the United States. Fauset's 1944 classic, Black
Gods of the Metropolis, launched original methods and theories for thinking about
African American religions as modern, cosmopolitan, and democratic. The essays in
this collection show the diversity of African American religion in the wake of the
Great Migration and consider the full field of African American religion from
Pentecostalism to Black Judaism, Black Islam, and Father Divine's Peace Mission
Movement. As a whole, they create a dynamic, humanistic, and thoroughly
interdisciplinary understanding of African American religious history and life. This
book is essential reading for anyone who studies the African American
experience.