Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism

Critical Insurgencies

by Christopher Cameron

Black Freethinkers argues that, contrary to historical and popular depictions of African Americans as naturally religious, freethought has been central to black political and intellectual life from the nineteenth century to the present. Freethought encompasses many different schools of thought, including atheism, agnosticism, and nontraditional orientations such as deism and paganism. 

Christopher Cameron suggests an alternative origin of nonbelief and religious skepticism in America, namely the brutality of the institution of slavery. He also traces the growth of atheism and agnosticism among African Americans in two major political and intellectual movements of the 1920s: the New Negro Renaissance and the growth of black socialism and communism. In a final chapter, he explores the critical importance of freethought among participants in the civil rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s and 1970s. 

Examining a wealth of sources, including slave narratives, travel accounts, novels, poetry, memoirs, newspapers, and archival sources such as church records, sermons, and letters, the study follows the lives and contributions of well-known figures, including Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and Alice Walker, as well as lesser-known thinkers such as Louise Thompson Patterson, Sarah Webster Fabio, and David Cincore. 

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion, Atheism, Politics, American History

256 pages, Hardcover

Published September 15, 2019

Reviews

[Ryan Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic overview of black American secularism and its intersections with other emancipatory politics. The book begins with slavery and then looks at the Harlem Renaissance, Socialism and Black Power, and finally Civil Rights movement. At each juncture, Cameron shows how there were more black skeptics and freethinkers than anyone knows and that the movements for black liberation share a history of religious skepticism, agnosticism, and atheism.

My interview with the author will be on my podcast this week—www.lifeaftergod.org.

[Christopher Hudson Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fast historical tour through African American freethought, an often overlooked history that merits more scholarly attention. Each chapter deserves a book of it’s own, but Christopher Cameron manages to condense and highlight the important details and characters all while connecting them to the larger history of black secularism.

[David Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Cameron’s book, Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism, disputes the notion that African Americans are naturally religious and surveys the long history of freethinking, agnosticism, and atheism among prominent African Americans. Starting with the period of slavery, Cameron provides a different spin on the slave narratives, which have been used to document slave religiosity, showing that they also document the presence of religious skepticism, examining the narratives of Frederick Douglas, William Wells Brown, Harriet Jacobs and others. The sources of these irreligious tendencies was the hypocrisy of slave owners and the use of religion to justify slavery.

Cameron proceeds to document the spread of Black freethought through artistic, intellectual, and social movements throughout African American history, starting with the Harlem Renaissance and such figures as Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston. He then covers the period during and after the Great Depression when Socialism and Communism were prominent currents in American society, detailing the careers of Harry Haywood, Hubert Harrison, and Louise Thompson Patterson, winding up with the conversion of W.E.B DuBois to Communism in the latter half of his life.

Cameron then examines the period of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Here he covers such activists as James Forman, Stokely Carmichael, and the cadre of the Black Panther Party. He also analyzes the works and careers of writers James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, and Nikki Giovanni. He winds up in the afterward dealing with such figures as Alice Walker and the recent spread of Black freethought organizations, such as African Americans for Humanism and Black Nonbelievers.

Throughout the book Cameron emphasizes the intertwining of religious skepticism, agnosticism, and atheism with social justice movements, in particular the Black Liberation movement and Black feminism, or “womanism” in the terminology used by Alice Walker. In this way, Cameron demonstrates the valuable contributions black freethinkers have made to American culture and society.

[Gabby McCall · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal book, no matter your religion or lack thereof, race, gender, etc. I thought it would be a biography of notable Black leaders and writers, but it's so much more. It's a robust American history and theology lesson through a Black lens, starting before the American Revolution into the present day. I appreciate the in-depth inclusion of Black Feminism and Womanism. They weren't just added as a footnote.

Cameron also includes influential white figures in the Black Power movement, talks about Robert Ingersoll, Marx, Fidel Castro, Mao — he connects experiences before and after Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance and then to Black Lives Matter. There's African cultural references and history as well. This book covers everything!

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Students in my undergrad course on the history of unbelief in the US really likes this book! Cameron does a great job introducing readers to lesser know Black writers who fit broadly into the tradition of US freethinkers. He also draws attention to the freethought aspects of well known Black intellectuals like DuBois and Douglass, among others. It’s good to pair with something like Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers, because Cameron highlights ideas of free thought missing from Jacoby’s study, such as the unbelief of enslaved people

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating view (from my limited vantage point) into an overlooked thread that runs throughout African American history, through some of the most influential artists, political thinkers and activists, and even theologians. It was clear, in story after story, how difficult it was to hold and express such views in a Christian-centered culture, which makes the expressions all the more powerful.

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of Black Freethought history. Broken down by time period (with some Freethinkers overlapping), this book covers: 1. Slavery and Reconstruction, 2. The New Negro Renaissance, 3. Socialism and Communism, and 4. Civil Rights and Black Power, with a brief Afterword bringing it to the present. Highly recommend.