New Black Gods

Contents
Foreword by Catherine L. Albanese and Stephen J. Stein
Acknowledgments

Edward E. Curtis IV is Millennium Scholar of the Liberal Arts and Associate Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. He is author of Islam in Black America and Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975. He is editor of the Columbia Sourcebook of Muslims in the United States.

The editors of this fine collection of essays have resurrected the influence and importance of Arthur Fauset's classic study Black Gods of the Metropolis (1944) for the field of African American religion. The essays in part 1 attempt to update the five new religious movements in urban areas that Fauset discovered in his ethnographic work for his doctoral dissertation. Each essay tries to add a new angle or new materials to the 'cults' that he studied. For example, Clarence Hardy points to the broader movement of church mothers in the spread of female-led Pentecostal churches in urban areas, of which Bishop Ida Robinson's Mount Sinai Holy Church of America was only one. In Part 2, the contributors attempt to resurrect Fauset's vision for African American religious studies. Of the essays in this section, Stephen Angell's reflections on how Fauset intersected with the Herskovits-Frazier debate on African cultural survivals are the most insightful. In his study, Fauset found a mediating position as a political activist and ethnographer to critique the work of both scholars. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in the field. --ChoiceL. H. Mamiya, Vassar College, October 2009--L. H. Mamiya, Vassar College (01/01/2009)