“This dissertation journeys deep into the heart of the African diaspora, recovering the history of Marian popular piety among Africana Catholic communities where the image of the Black Madonna emerges as a symbol of eschatological hope and salvation for oppressed and marginalized persons. ”
This dissertation desires to explore how Marian popular piety came to occupy a significant role in the development of Black religion in the Africana diaspora. It intends to interrogate whether these devotions emerged as a response to the existential question posed by the diasporic situation: how to maintain continuity with one’s native Africa while embracing the discontinuities that result from trans/dislocation. It concludes that Africana peoples have long been drawing on popular piety as a source for doing theology, these expressions of Black faith have reflecting both eschatological expectations (understood as hope/freedom), and soteriological expectations (understood as healing, wholeness, and a longing for return (Sankofa). Due to this, we can appropriately read these devotions as embodied forms of political theology since their condition of fragmentation is addressed through what Johann Baptist Metz identifies as the three defining features of political theology: memory, narrative, and solidarity.