Despite the racism black Christians experienced, they did not abandon the faith. In fact, the decades before the Civil War served as an incubator for a newborn black American Christianity. Black Christians began developing distinctive practices that would come to characterize the historic black church tradition. Black Christianity in the United States grew alongside the explosive expansion of slavery and the hardening of racial boundaries in the United States. The faith of black Christians helped them endure and even inspired some believers to resist oppression.
