Writing Prompt: We live in a society where many people believe in different

religions. With different religions, people have different beliefs. After reading
the articles “Religion and the Black Community”, “Faith and Church involvement
in African American Communities” and “The Nation of Islam” write an essay
that discusses the different effects religion has on the black community.

Faith and Church involvement in African American Communities

1. Faith, spirituality, and religion differ on many levels. Faith is described as a belief in
something beyond one’s self. It is not bound to spiritual understandings but can be applied to any
aspect of life. Spirituality has a less concrete expression; it is directly related to a relationship
with God and self. Religion, or being a part of a faith community, can offer support among
people with similar faith experiences. Attending church and relying on faith have long been
mainstays in the African American community. Both faith and the church have been traditional
forms of social and familial involvement for African Americans.

2. Research findings have indicated that formal religion (i.e., the Black church) is a primary
contributor to values that create supportive and responsive family relationships. This support
system is based in the formal religious structure that helps African American families cope with
life and social stressors, such as economic and racial inequalities. Many churches provide for
basic needs, such as, food, shelter, and clothing. Additionally, church leaders have advocated for
groups when civil and human rights were violated.

3. An individual concluded that European Americans who attended church services scored
higher in the categories "will," "hope," and "care" than did other ethnic groups. Her data also
indicated that African Americans who attended church services scored significantly higher in the
area of ethnic identity than did any other ethnic group. This research suggests that African
Americans may obtain unique benefits from faith participation and that one of those benefits,
ethnic identity, is important in the development of healthy self-esteem and self-efficacy.

4. Brega and Coleman also found that church involvement produced African American youths
who were less likely to feel subjective stigmatization as a result of their race and ethnicity.
Moreover, those youths who willingly chose to attend church were more destigmatized than
those who had negative attitudes toward church. This finding seems plausible when one
considers that church participation historically has contributed significantly to the development
and maintenance of African Americans' culture and traditions.

5. In addition, churches and other religious institutions have a history of rites of passage.
Programs evaluations from faith-based institutions reported such benefits as more cohesive peer
relationships, increased cooperation between the school and neighbors, and better teacher-student
relationships. Community centers practicing rites of passage programs saw success in
transmitting history, heritage, and cultural pride to youths and teens. In their efforts to teach
youth values, morals, and human ethics. Such programs help students to experience secondary
benefits of community pride, and increased prosocial ambitions. Overall, church participation
has always and still does play an important role as a community asset in the life of African
Americans, including adolescent females and still affects such outcomes as academic success,
civic involvement and self-esteem.
The Nation of Islam
1. The Nation of Islam was founded in 1931 by Wallace D Fard. Fard presented himself as a
Muslim prophet and preached a message of “black redemption within Islam.” He claimed “the
Asiatic Black Man” had been the original inhabitant of the earth. The white race had been given
6,000 years to rule and eventually whites and white Christianity would be destroyed. Elijah
Muhammad, who became leader of the Nation of Islam after Fard disappeared, developed this
idea further. He claimed, originally, that the black race had inhabited the moon and that at one
time the moon and earth were one. A black scientist, called Yakub, supposedly caused an
explosion that separated the two. The first people to inhabit the earth were members of a black
tribe called Shabazz. While these notions may seem fanciful, they are no more so than the
Christian story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. And yet, white Christianity, in all its
permutations, has been developed over centuries, and it has been used to justify slavery, racism
and imperialism. It is a religion that the ruling class needed and continues to uphold.

2. The attraction of the Nation of Islam to blacks was its apparent ability to voice the anger and
discontent that existed in every black community. In terms of rhetoric, the Nation of Islam were
among the strongest advocates of black pride but their separatist outlook and refusal to actively
engage in the civil rights struggle left them spectating from the sidelines of the movement. They
produced proud books on black history. Discarding their surnames as marks of their slave past,
they replaced them with the suffix “X.” Converts had to follow a strict code of discipline – no
pork, tobacco, alcohol, drugs. Engagement in political activity with non-Muslims was not
permitted. Until their demand for a separate state was met, Muslims were to have no social,
political or religious contact with whites. They demanded self-determination in the form of either
an independent black state in America or a return to Africa.

3. From initially having just a few hundred supporters, the Black Muslims grew to 100,000
members by the early 1960s. The liberation struggles sweeping Africa and Asia at the time
undoubtedly affected blacks in the US. Racial pride grew among the whole of the black
population. It was on the tide of this new wave of confidence that the Nation of Islam was able to
grow. Malcolm X was one of their foremost ministers; his oratory skills attracted a new section
of youth toward the religion. Even the media and press hyped up the Black Muslims. A section
of the ruling class recognized that they would eventually be forced to make concessions to the
black masses of America. They deliberately portrayed the Nation of Islam as the nasty, vicious
side of the black movement, thus bolstering the respectable, non-violent mainstream of Martin
Luther King.

4. It was a conscious strategy of the Nation of Islam to target prisons as a recruitment ground.
This can be traced back to 1942 when Elijah Muhammad and 62 of his followers were convicted
of draft evasion (their religion does not allow them to serve in the armed forces) and jailed for
three years. While in prison Muhammad recognized the fertile ground that existed for any radical
ideas among what was known as the black underclass. After the war, much time and energy was
devoted specifically to winning over prisoners.
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5. But to many, the Black Muslims were rife with contradictions. It wasn’t enough for them to
simply attack white society and preach black unity. In the early 1960s demonstrations, sit-ins,
and marches swept almost every state. At a time when militant blacks were involved in mass
action the Nation did not do anything to build the growing civil rights movement. They would
attack the strategy of the mainstream civil rights movement and yet offer no alternative struggle
outside the confines of their own organization.
 Religion and the Black Community
1. Dating back to A.C and B.C times, religion for Black people have been a tragic burden— that
still affect them to this day. The conquering of Africa, the separating of Black unity, an
enslavement tool for Blacks, mental slavery— the list of burdens goes on and on. Typically,
Africans in earlier times were very peaceful and spiritual people. Fought when they had to fight,
kill— invade, if they needed. Europeans found it very easy to conquer, control, and separate the
Africans, since they were very peaceful, spiritual and well— passive aggressive people. Now,
this tactic— well planned out strategy, caused a worldwide separation and disunity of the Black
folks (African), hence causing the downfall of the African empires and civilization. Africans
partnering up with the enemies and fighting their own people, minimizing Africa from religion.
2. Furthermore, religious tactics were very effective in modern times (1725-). Christianity in
American slavery was used to dumb down the Black slaves, in order to keep them feared and
control them— and to make them think that the punishment they endure and why they’re slaves,
is justifiable in the eye of God— or Jesus if you will. The strategy was to get them mentally—
white Jesus, means that God is white, which means the White men is God. Logical thinking from
the slaves, would make them come up with that conclusion. Henceforth, Whites telling the Black
slaves that they’re inferior, due to the White skinned Superiority of Jesus Christ.
3. They used Black pastors to preach to the enslaved Black folk, to keep them in check. Hence,
leading to the downfall of Black communities today— pray and forgive your enemies, don’t
fight back, meanwhile… they killing, oppressing, and arresting us, behind the backs of the Black
folks praying. Anyways, the Black pastors was used to calibrate the minds of Black slaves who
would rebel, because they would find it absurd that a God of some sort would have “his people”
as slaves and treated badly if they had prayed to him, countlessly. The slave masters and the
slaves both have the same religion and praying to the same God, but one praying to be free, the
other praying to keep the slaves in shackles. To continue, slaves were stripped away from their
beliefs, just to learn the oppressor beliefs; to be controlled more easily— less logical thinking,
more praying and forgiving the Slave master.

4. Modern times, the enslavement of religion to Black people isn’t physical. It’s been encoded in
Black people’s minds already— since birth. The slaves past it down to their children, their
children pasted it down to theirs and so forth; The Christian Pastor/Ministers still does the work
as the ones in the American Slave period, and the Blacks are still slaves and brainwashed.
5. This tactic still affect Blacks, the Baptist churches are rundown, in the ghettos and crime rates
are at the all-time high; instead of the community helping each other, cleaning the environment
up and paying attention to what their child is doing— they’re attending church services and
activities, 7 days a week 5 hours a day. Religious fanatics, worrying about whether they going to
hell or heaven or did they gave the church half their paycheck. Not respecting Black men,
because there’s White man that died for their sins– not respecting Black women, because they
are taught women are less than man, because supposedly they came from men, and was the ones
that caused eternal damnation (Adam & Eve). The cause of self-hate among Blacks, hatred of
one and other, separation of Blacks with their own people— tragic.