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After Redemption: Jim Crow and the Transformation of African American Religion in the Delta, 1875-1915
After Redemption fills in a missing chapter in the history of African American life after freedom. It takes on the widely overlooked period between the end of Reconstruction and World War I to examine the sacred world of ex-slaves and their descendants living in the region more densely settled than any other by blacks living in this era, the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta. Drawing on a rich range of local memoirs, newspaper accounts, photographs, early blues music, and recently unearthed Works Project Administration records, John Giggie challenges the conventional view that this era marked the low point in the modern evolution of African-American religion and culture. Set against a backdrop of escalating racial violence in a region more densely populated by African Americans than any other at the time, he illuminates how blacks adapted to the defining features of the post-Reconstruction South-- including the growth of segregation, train travel, consumer capitalism, and fraternal
orders--and in the process dramatically altered their spiritual ideas and institutions. Masterfully analyzing these disparate elements, Giggie's study situates the African-American experience in the broadest context of southern, religious, and American history and sheds new light on the complexity of black religion and its role in confronting Jim Crow.
orders--and in the process dramatically altered their spiritual ideas and institutions. Masterfully analyzing these disparate elements, Giggie's study situates the African-American experience in the broadest context of southern, religious, and American history and sheds new light on the complexity of black religion and its role in confronting Jim Crow.
- GenresHistory
366 pages, Paperback
First published November 21, 2007
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January 11, 2016
Far-Reaching Novelty or Assimilation?
In After Redemption, John Giggie attempts to “reperiodicize African American religious history after slavery,” which typically relies on two watershed moments at Reconstruction and World War I that are characterized by innovation and bookend a period of stagnation and discouragement (4). Instead, he claims that the post-Reconstruction period can be described as one of “far-reaching novelty in southern black spiritual life,” an era of “intense religious transformation,” and a time when blacks “reinvented their religious lives…in ways that helped them neutralize the corrosive effects of segregation” (4, 5, 8). Although this is not an account of continual change over time or smooth, even progress, Giggie’s microhistory of religious life in the Mississippi/Arkansas Delta region attempts to demonstrate that black churches continued to adapt and transform themselves throughout the whole period under study.
Giggie use of such a wide variety of sources is admirable and arguably provides a much fuller picture of black religious life at the popular level, but his evidence does not strongly substantiate his initial claim of novelty, and at times, could be alternately interpreted as assimilation to white (or dominant) culture. Giggie’s strongest argument for reinvention and novelty occurs when he describes the creation of new black social spaces, which were prohibited by whites in the public sphere. Whether establishing black women as moral authorities in their homes or black men as civic leaders in fraternal organizations, new racial spaces that both influenced and were influenced by the black spiritual community were created and managed by black residents, affording them a level of autonomy from whites that was otherwise unavailable.
At other times in the book, Giggie makes a stronger case for cultural adaptation and transformation, rather than novelty, within the black community. The creation of something which had not previously existed in the black community is certainly “new,” but not necessarily “novel” (fresh, original, unknown), and I think that distinction is important. For instance, he interprets the fraternal orders’ provision of life insurance and burial assistance, and the churches’ later adoption of these services, as “racial self-help,” but white churches, synagogues, and societies commonly offered similar services (91). Giggie states that black material culture gave black women “racial authority” within the community as arbiters of taste and as moral leaders; yet he builds on works by David Morgan, Sally Promey, and Colleen McDannell, which address white Christians’ domestic piety during the same period (140). He notes that black churches were often located in towns with train stations, but this was a well-known pattern of settlement for most railroad towns, in which the railroad owned the land and chose the location of depots along the railway and then sold land to speculators who built homes, churches, businesses, and town halls radiating from the depot.
Because Giggie’s primary focus is fleshing out the neglected time period in black religious history, his work lacks a comparative element that could additionally situate the adaptations and possible innovations of the black church within broader culture. Without that element, the reader is unsure whether blacks were merely assimilating to the dominant culture, either for their own preference or to minimize the effects of Jim Crow, or were attempting something novel. In fact, Giggie concedes that the theme binding his chapters together is the efforts of rural blacks to use religion to “transform, assimilate, or reject” the history with which they were presented (19). Regardless of the validity of the novelty claim, however, book’s most important contribution is the new evidence that the period of time between Reconstruction and the Great Migration was one of productivity and hopefulness for members of the black spiritual community.
In After Redemption, John Giggie attempts to “reperiodicize African American religious history after slavery,” which typically relies on two watershed moments at Reconstruction and World War I that are characterized by innovation and bookend a period of stagnation and discouragement (4). Instead, he claims that the post-Reconstruction period can be described as one of “far-reaching novelty in southern black spiritual life,” an era of “intense religious transformation,” and a time when blacks “reinvented their religious lives…in ways that helped them neutralize the corrosive effects of segregation” (4, 5, 8). Although this is not an account of continual change over time or smooth, even progress, Giggie’s microhistory of religious life in the Mississippi/Arkansas Delta region attempts to demonstrate that black churches continued to adapt and transform themselves throughout the whole period under study.
Giggie use of such a wide variety of sources is admirable and arguably provides a much fuller picture of black religious life at the popular level, but his evidence does not strongly substantiate his initial claim of novelty, and at times, could be alternately interpreted as assimilation to white (or dominant) culture. Giggie’s strongest argument for reinvention and novelty occurs when he describes the creation of new black social spaces, which were prohibited by whites in the public sphere. Whether establishing black women as moral authorities in their homes or black men as civic leaders in fraternal organizations, new racial spaces that both influenced and were influenced by the black spiritual community were created and managed by black residents, affording them a level of autonomy from whites that was otherwise unavailable.
At other times in the book, Giggie makes a stronger case for cultural adaptation and transformation, rather than novelty, within the black community. The creation of something which had not previously existed in the black community is certainly “new,” but not necessarily “novel” (fresh, original, unknown), and I think that distinction is important. For instance, he interprets the fraternal orders’ provision of life insurance and burial assistance, and the churches’ later adoption of these services, as “racial self-help,” but white churches, synagogues, and societies commonly offered similar services (91). Giggie states that black material culture gave black women “racial authority” within the community as arbiters of taste and as moral leaders; yet he builds on works by David Morgan, Sally Promey, and Colleen McDannell, which address white Christians’ domestic piety during the same period (140). He notes that black churches were often located in towns with train stations, but this was a well-known pattern of settlement for most railroad towns, in which the railroad owned the land and chose the location of depots along the railway and then sold land to speculators who built homes, churches, businesses, and town halls radiating from the depot.
Because Giggie’s primary focus is fleshing out the neglected time period in black religious history, his work lacks a comparative element that could additionally situate the adaptations and possible innovations of the black church within broader culture. Without that element, the reader is unsure whether blacks were merely assimilating to the dominant culture, either for their own preference or to minimize the effects of Jim Crow, or were attempting something novel. In fact, Giggie concedes that the theme binding his chapters together is the efforts of rural blacks to use religion to “transform, assimilate, or reject” the history with which they were presented (19). Regardless of the validity of the novelty claim, however, book’s most important contribution is the new evidence that the period of time between Reconstruction and the Great Migration was one of productivity and hopefulness for members of the black spiritual community.
February 28, 2013
This book has a really interesting title, but I don't feel like it lived up to my expectations. For the first two chapters, it seems that religion is just a side note as Giggie all sorts of other things. Every once in a while he'd throw in a religion reference. It just felt very disconnected and all over the place to me. The last two chapters got better, and religion was much more of a focus; I feel like he could have just kept the last two and called it good.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews