Written & Presented by Basil Davidson Executive Producer, AFRICA Episode 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNWA2cOS7sg&t=38s
How Spirituality Helped an Interracial Couple Confront Racism
A white descendant of evangelical ministers rejects that tradition, along with his other siblings, in exchange for the Bahai faith. He met his African American wife there and gave up some of his white privilege to marry her and begin to understand the racial abuses that black people suffer.
BahaiTeachings.org https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIh2z7bCncs
Summary of the life of formerly enslaved Richard the Negro, who became the first black Methodist Bishop in America.
Life Story: Jarena Lee (1783–1855) Preacher of the Second Great Awakening
Jarena was a very spiritual person, but she had never found a religious community that was right for her. About 20 years old, Jarena moved to Philadelphia to work as a domestic servant. In her spare time she went the many churches in the city. One day she attended a service at Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church and heard Bishop Richard Allen speak. As a formerly enslaved person, he founded the Church when the white parish he previously attended began segregating its services. There was no segregation at Mother Bethel’s because all parishioners were Black. The services resonated with Jarena’s feelings and experiences. She asked to be baptized into the church. Around 1807, Jarena felt God had called her to the ministry, but women were not allowed to speak in most Christian churches based on a scriptural prohibition.
Jarena became part of a broad spiritual movement called the Second Great Awakening that lasted from the 1790s to the 1840s. A religious fervor crossed the land and reached its peak in the 1820s, when Jarena began her missionary work. It was not just a religious movement but also was a social revolution. A central idea was that anyone saved could be a spiritual leader. Women organized and flocked to the huge religious gatherings called camp meetings and converted in huge numbers. About 100 women became preachers who traveled the country like Jarena seeking converts. Many used their platform to popularize reform movements like temperance, abolition, and women’s rights. For example, Jarena joined the American Anti-slavery Society in 1839. Jarena Lee and the other female preachers of the Second Great Awakening were trailblazers. At the start of her life, Jarena was not allowed to speak out at church services because people believed it went against the teachings of the bible. By the time of her death in 1855, religious women like Sojourner Truth were meeting with U.S. presidents to demand the abolition of slavery.
Jarena Lee: in Her Own Words https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Z21MQcPNA
This resource is adapted from the New-York Historical Society’s Saving Washington: The New Republic and Early Reformers, 1790-1848 curriculum.
Women & the American Story https://wams.nyhistory.org/building-a-new-nation/american-woman/jarena-lee/
FIRST-PERSON: In search of America’s first Black Baptist congregation
Was this the first black church in America, and what happened to it?
By Sid Smith, posted April 3, 2001 . https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/first-person-in-search-of-americas-firstblack-baptist-congregation/
Photo of Plantation and marker: by a white family member and descendant of Byrd https://krazykingdom.blogspot.com/2015/01/william-byrd-plantation-with-opa-oma.html Photos of church and church members today:
Amanda Berry Smith, a prominent Holiness preacher was the first black woman to do missionary work overseas.
Born a slave, freed by her father, she pursued religion and became an international figure.
https://blackhistorynow.com/amanda-berry-smith/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Smith
Impact of the Stono Rebellion on the Lives of Enslaved People
By Lisa Vox, December 15, 2020 https://www.thoughtco.com/what-really-happened-at-stono-rebellion-45410
Photo: Henry de Saussure Copeland / Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0
George Whitefield, Spellbinding Evangelist of the Great Awakening
By Mary Fairchild, June 25, 2019 https://www.learnreligions.com/george-whitefield-4689110
The Stono Rebellion of 1739, near Stono River, South Carolina
Enslaved Africans revolted for a political reason.
The 1939 rebellion was ignited because white colonists had been working on a Negro Act of 1740 that would put more limits on Black enslaved people. It would be illegal for Black people to assemble on their own, grow their own food, learn to read, or work for money. Owners would be free to kill rebellious enslaved people.
7 Incredible Facts About the Stono Rebellion https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/09/09/7-incredible-facts-stono-rebellion/3/
Beit Simchat Torah, established in 1973, has been a synagogue for 50 years.
Sharon Kleinbaum, DD has been CBST's Senior Rabbi for more than thirty years. The synagogue is now in the process called rabbinical transition. On December 16, 2022, Rabbi Kleinbaum annouched that she is stepping down as of July 31, 2024.
Beit Simchat Torah Congregation https://cbst.org/rabbinic-transition
George Whitefield’s Evangelistic Preaching
He assisted the creation of a new religious movement that overthrew conversation religion and installed a new Gospel of God that called sinners to repent and serve Christ.
George Whitefield’s Evangelistic Preaching. Banner of Truth. By Korzep, Dan, March 19, 2018. https://banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2018/george-whitefields-evangelistic-preaching/
Quote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Whitefield
A society for everything: Remaking America's charitable landscape during the Second Great Awakening By Daniel Gifford, March 3, 2016. https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/charity-second-great-awakening
An Act for Suppressing Outlying Slaves, 1691
An attempt to control the rate of enslaved Africans who run away.
Transcription Source: William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619 (Philadelphia: R. & W. & G. Bartow, 1823), 3:86–88.
La dominación colonial (Diego Rivera, 1951).
A painting by Diego Rivera depicting the domination of the Spanish domination of the Indians
Hernán Cortés, 500 años de conquista. Gaceta Unam, Coordinación de Humanidades Abr 11, 2019. https://www.gaceta.unam.mx/hernan-cortes-500-anos-de-conquista/