Dartmouth Events

As new movements for racial justice in the United States are receiving increased attention, these movements are also increasingly forging and appealing to global solidarities. Black Visions of the Holy Land analyzes the ways that African American Christian solidarities are opened up or precluded when various traditions of Black religious-political reflection and action extend beyond local and national concerns into global issues, based on divergent notions of the spiritual and political mantle of “the Black Church.” It approaches these questions in the context of American Black church activism on the issue of Israel and Palestine. Through four comparative case studies — ranging from African American Christian Zionists to Black Palestinian solidarity activists — this analysis focuses on describing how these four cases represent distinct yet overlapping modes of African American religious politics, refracted in the global political issue of Palestine and Israel. In examining competing notions of the history, identity, and mission of “the Black Church” as a contested category, it also underscores the significance of these movements in the context of their historical roots in Black religious social spaces in the United States, and within wider transnational networks of solidarity building.

Roger Baumann is an assistant professor of sociology and director of peace and justice studies at Hope College. His research and teaching focus on questions about collective identity and social action. He is especially interested in how overlapping racial, religious, and national identities contribute to how members of religious groups collectively understand who they are, where they come from, and what they should be doing in the world.