The Faith of the Black Lives Matter Movement

While many have picked up on the Black Lives Matter movement’s antipathy for organized religion, mainly because of the movement’s support for non-traditional families, researchers who study it say the racial justice campaign does indeed have spiritual roots. Many activists want to explore their ancestors’ African spirituality, and Black churches and mainline Protestants are also influencing the movement.

It is not uncommon for Black Lives Matter meetings and demonstrations to begin with the pouring of a libation, a ritual rooted in African spirituality where participants pour out a sacrificial liquid offering to give homage to ancestors and call on their names to invoke their presence for wisdom and help. The names of faith-oriented activists like Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman can make the top of the list. 

Devonne Mayweather leads a prayer on Sunday morning at the George Floyd Memorial in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo by Lorie Shaull.

“The fight for Black liberation has always been a faith movement, and BLM is no different, they are also faith-infused,” said Hebah Farrag, assistant director of research at the University of California Center for Religion and Civic Culture. “It is just a different and newer faith.” 

Farrag has been researching the role of spirituality in the BLM movement since 2014. She began her research because of a perceived gap between the narrative surrounding the movement and what it looked like on the ground. 

“Reporting focused on the dissent and the protest and clouded the movement in a sense of aggression,” Farrag said. “I was seeing people carrying sage dressed in white. I was seeing ceremony and ritual… and I didn’t see any of that being picked up in the media.” 

Evan Bunch, a graduate of Union Theological Seminary and an organizer within the Black Lives Matter movement, centers his activism at the intersection of Christianity and African Spirituality. 

Within Black churches of all denominations throughout the U.S. and Africa, elders and ancestors play a pivotal role. 

“For us, Christ is seen as a true liberator,” Bunch said. “An essential part of that is remembering what he has done for our ancestors and remembering our traditions.”

In June 2015, Bunch participated in a demonstration outside of the home of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti after the exoneration of two cops involved in the death of Ezell Ford. News reports described the event as a “protest,” but Bunch viewed it as a spiritual service.

Participants arrived dressed in white, in keeping with traditional Ifá ceremonies. Ifá is a faith and divination system that originated in West Africa and involves rituals of chanting, dancing, calling on deities, magic, ancestor worship and traditional medicine like reiki and acupuncture. 

At the ceremony, participants joined hands and a preacher facilitated the ritual, conjuring Ford’s spirit and transferring it to the crowd. 

BLM and affiliated groups like Dignity and Power Now have been working together to blend a variety of spiritual practices, including Ifá rituals and other traditional African practices, with the idea of “transformative justice” with origins in Quaker and Native American groups. Transformative justice aims to resolve crime as a community problem outside the criminal justice system. Offenses are seen as opportunities for greater understanding, and similar to restorative justice, offenders are encouraged to hear from victims about the harm they’ve experienced, respond to questions, offer apologies if genuine and accept consequences aimed to repair harm.

Bunch says God was calling on him in seminary to save bodies as well as souls, through activism that incorporated Christian faith and African spiritual roots.

Healer Melanie Griffin leads a tea making workshop as part of Dignity and Power Now’s Wellness Clinic. In the foreground are jars of various herbs including peppermint, damiana, yarrow, and nettles. Photo by Shannon Soper

“Most theologians in the Black pastoral tradition particularly in the U.S  came out of enslavement,” he said. “We have an inherent understanding within the Black faith that yes, we need to be saved by Christ in a spiritual way and also understand that our bodies and our history are just as sacred because of what we endured in slavery.”

Caribbean and West African religions like Ifá have been growing among African Americans in recent years as practitioners seek to discover their identities and ancestral roots more, according to the Washington Post. And while organized religion overall has been declining within the U.S. since the 1960s, Black Americans in particular have actually lessened the decline. While the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S, is declining, its Black churches have been growing and rising in prominence, like the venue for George Floyd’s funeral, the Fountain of Praise Church in Houston. 

Still, a 2016 study by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 39% of young adults ages 18-29 identified as religiously unaffiliated. Disillusionment with one’s childhood faith is not uncommon, especially within the BLM movement. Farrag characterized the BLM movement as, among other things, a home for the spiritually wounded.

“There is a deep sense of hurt you can often feel from BLM activists. Relics of spiritual pain and abuse,” Farrag said. “Many of them were raised in traditional faiths and kicked out because some aspect of their identity didn’t fit.” LGBTQ and women leaders can find a place of influence and inclusion in the Black Lives Matter movement that may not have been open to them within an organized religion. 

READ: Why The Black Lives Matter Movement Is Controversial To Many Christians

The BLM movement’s philosophy of “radical inclusion,” support for abortion, leaders’ self-identification as trained Marxists and calls to defund the police can all be barriers for religious people and make supporting the slogan “Black Lives Matter” complicated. There is also a measured gap in views about race in America.

A 2019 study from Barna, an evangelical polling firm, found that 38% of white practicing Chritians believe the U.S. has a race problem, compared to 78% of Black practicing Christians. The same study found that 75% of Black practicing Christians at least somewhat agree that the U.S. has a history of oppressing minorities, compared with 42% of white practicing Christians.

The divide between the BLM movement and evangelicals is largely rooted in breakdowns of perception, according to Dr. Reverend James Thomas, professor of Pan-African Studies at the California State University Los Angeles and pastor of Living Word Community Church. 

An altar to those killed by police assembled in front of the men’s central jail in Los Angeles during a DPN Freedom Harvest wellness event. Photo by Hebah Farrag

As a pastor and the founder of Clergy for Black Lives, an organization aimed at encouraging Christian involvement in activism and bridging gaps in perception between Christians and BLM activists, Thomas frequently encounters people who have negative views of the Black Lives Matter movement. 

“When people come to me and say, you know, ‘BLM is anti-church’ or ‘BLM is hostile,’ I ask them, ‘Well, have you been to a Black Lives Matter meeting?’ and the answer is always ‘no,’” Thomas said. “They have bought into this narrative that is being sold that just doesn’t match reality.” 

Thomas aims to integrate elements of African spirituality like pouring libations and invoking the presence of deceased relatives into Black Christianity. 

“Christian spirituality is African spirituality,” Thomas said. “Christ was African.” 

He considers the modern Middle East as part of ancient Africa and points to North African theologians who were central to the development of early Christianity and church doctrine, including Clement of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo.

“That is not something people want to readily admit, but where do you think the Egypt of the Bible was?” Thomas said. “I teach that Christianity is an African traditional religion.”

According to the Old Testament, Jesus was born to Jewish parents in Bethlehem, now part of Palestine, was taken as a child to Egypt for some years and then grew up near Galilee in modern-day Israel. The Jewish people migrated from what’s now Israel, Jordan and Palestine to ancient Egypt sometime at the end of the Bronze Age (1200 BCE), according to archeology records, living as slaves for many generations before their exodus.

Many Black Americans, Thomas said, practice their Christianity in ways that are consistent with African rituals. The pouring of libations is used in Christian Kwanza services, for example. Thomas has conducted several. He also defends the practice of calling on ancestors, saying it’s frequently misinterpreted as worship for the dead. 

“Do you not remember those people who have made an impact in your life? People who fought hard battles and inspired you to be strong?” Thomas said. “Do you not hope to have a piece of them with you when you're facing a challenge? For us, it is really no different than Catholic veneration of saints.” 

Thomas also believes BLM activists who harbor spiritual wounds may have preconceived ideas about the church and unfairly blame the church, believing in a narrative of religion as a source of oppression.

“You talk about these people who have been wounded by the church or have issues with the church, and many of them haven’t even stepped foot in a church to be wounded,” Thomas said. 

Even so, Thomas thinks the BLM movement, far from being Marxist, embodies nothing more than a biblical reverence for the poor, and that there is room for Christians to disagree on issues surrounding the nuclear family while supporting the broader cause of ending police brutality and racial injustices.

“Bottom line, these folks are on the front line keeping us from dying,” Thomas said. “If you are blocking the bullet, we can get into theology later. At least I’ll be alive for the conversation.” 

Liza Vandenboom is a student at The King’s College, an intern at Religion Unplugged, and a religion columnist for the Empire State Tribune. 

Meagan Clark contributed to this report.