Black Visions of the Holy Land: African American Christian Solidarities in Israel and Palestine

“…moment when questions of racial justice and of appropriate religious and racial solidarities are becoming increasingly important to American churches. ”

Team Members/Contributors

Roger Baumann Yale University Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

As new movements for racial justice in the United States are gaining increasing attention, such movements are also appealing to global solidarities. But how are such global solidarities generated and sustained in the context of black churches? My project is a comparative study of contemporary movements within African American Christianity that focus on Israel and Palestine. I examine how some black churches successfully galvanize their congregants to focus on the politics of the Middle East, when others focus their political attention on pressing local and domestic issues—if they venture into politics at all. Through a qualitative study of four comparative cases, I find that pastors and other leaders construct congregational identities by grafting certain aspects of African American history, identity, and culture into narratives about Israel and Palestine. My research examines tensions between race, religion, and global solidarities and contributes to timely conversations about how racial justice issues affect interactions between predominantly white institutions, minority groups, and multiethnic congregations in the United States. This research also sheds light on debates over appropriate religious responses to pressing issues of racial injustice within U.S. churches, which have become a polarizing moment for black, white, and multi-racial religious institutions.