In Search of a Black Men's Theology? Part Two

Black Men's Theology

In light of today's Washington Post article, cited on page A4, and its forthcoming, new feature series entitled, "Being a Black Man," I felt it was necessary to dedicate the June issue of Phoenix to the subject: "Black Men's Theology."


The discipline of Black Men’s Studies calls for a Critical Black Men’s Theology, one that uses as its standpoint the theological doctrine of humanity. It represents a critical Black Men’s Theology that is in dialogue with Womanist and Black Feminist Theology. It seeks to address relevant criticisms of the black theology project raised by Jacquelyn Grant and other womanist theologians concerning the issue of gender in theological and black church spheres-the public and private. Parallel to that understanding is the question of whether black men have also possessed souls worthy of examination. This discussion is supported and promoted with a serious reading and critique of the writings of many Black men religious intellectuals, including Benjamin Mays, Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, James Baldwin, and others.


Black men do have a gender as theologian Dwight Hopkins reminds us in his classic work Head and Heart: Black Theology: Past, Present, and Future.
Hopkins asserts:

Too many people within the African American community, church, and black
theology believe that gender concerns only women. When the gender issue becomes the center of discussion, most black men, for example, become like corpses. Their tongues grow silent; their bodies drop to a limp posture; and their presence fades into a ghostlike absence. Gender, from their vantage point, relates only to black women. If this logic is true, they reason, then it would be another example of black male sexism to enter the conversation and dominate what is said and not said. The flip side of this belief is that African American men do have a gender, which is obviously false. Black men have a male gender, so gender refers to both men and women.[1]


While I agree with Hopkins’ basic argument, I do depart on one aspect, the aspect of linking the term “male” to gender identity. Such a categorization fits a physiological definition. However, as one considers the socio-cultural and historical condition of black men in America, past, present, nationally, and transnationally, black men must reclaim the definition of their own gender identity and must define that as that of a “man.” Even as it is agreed that the designation of “manhood” is a social construction, so also it must be affirmed that the designation, “male” holds a parallel, socially constructed connotation.


The distinction between the two terms has been interpreted by black men psychologists as being inadequate depictions of a much more complex reality perpetually facing black men, throughout our average shorter life spans. Na’im Akbar, argues that the term “male” translates more closely to “boy” and “mannish,” and indicates that both designations fail miserably in attempting to “represent” or actually achieve a healthy, spiritually holistic, progressive manhood. So, why do we continually choose to put new wine into old wineskins?
Even when one adopts the in between and ambivalent perspective shared by Claude Brown in his important novel, Manchild in the Promised Land,” one has to go beyond maleness and masculinity in order to fully understand the enormous complexities constitutive of transnational black manhood.[2] Economically marginalized sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee affirmed in thought and deed that they were indeed, “Men.” Placards read, “I Am a Man,” with no reference to male, manchild, or the equivalent.


Womanist Theology and the Development of a Black Men’s Theology

To be sure, black men, in adopting a critical Black Men’s Theology, musty come to terms with the good, bad, and the ugly of our existence and the relationships bettered and hampered by our traumatic experience in America. One such arena where we must answer the bell is in the area of theology and the lay church. Womanist theologians Jacquelyn Grant, Delores Williams, and Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, in calling for a Womanist theology, led the charge in critiquing black theology for avoiding the gender issue in the seminary, through scholarly writing, and within the lay black church. In keeping with the womanist critique of black theology, the works of James Cone, J. DeOtis Roberts, and Dwight N. Hopkins establishe the intellectual foundations for a critical Black Men’s Theology, as well as makes a larger case for a Black Men’s Religious Studies. Hopkins, in his books, Head and Heart: Black Theology—Past, Present, and Future and Being Human: Race, Culture, and Religion offers a type of humane and probing portrayal of black men from a religio-spiritual standpoint, one which adheres to notions of personal accountability as much as it promotes collective liberation for the souls, bodies, and minds of black men. [3]


Other examples undergirding the foundation of a Black Men’s Theology can be located in the lives, examples, autobiographies, testimonies, and institutions of many black men religious intellectuals, theologians, and believers. Among the more notable luminaries included in this group are Benjamin Mays, Howard W. Thurman, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Albert Cleage, Jr., James Cone, James H. Evans, the Hon. Louis Farrakhan, Ben Ami, and everyday working class black men. Although I posit Black Men’s Theology from a Black Christian theological standpoint, it evident in such a construction are the tremendous influences resulting from the cultural fusion of various religious worldviews adopted and practiced by black men in America, including traditional African religion, Judaism, Islam, and many others.


Lastly, a relevant Black Men’s Theology must come to grips with the critical work done in the area of African American Religious Humanism by Dr. Anthony B. Pinn. Among his notable works, applicable to linking black men and the practice of religious humanism or secular humanism, that must be read include: Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black religion (2003), African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of Nimrod (2004), Loving the Black Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic (2004), and By These Hands: A Documentary History of African American Humanism, and Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music (2003). Future issues of Phoenix will explore the relationship of African American men to this growing religious and spiritual sensibility called humanism.


But I end on offering this set of question:s Where is the Humanism in Black religion, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc? Why do the masses of black men reject religion and need to locate other areas of life (sports, gangs, etc) in which to express their humanity, even if it is wayward? Put another way: Who took the humanity out of the Black Church?


[1] Dwight N. Hopkins. Between Head and Heart: Black Theology, Past, Present, and Future. New York: Palgrave, 2003, 91.

[2] . Na’im Akbar. Visions for Black Men. Tallahassee: Mind Productions & Associates, 1993; Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land. New York: New American Library, 1965.

[3] Jame H. Cone and Gayraud Wilmore, eds. Black Theology: A Documentary History Volume Two, 1980-1992. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1993, 257-344.

Black Religious Thought and the Black Religious Intellectual: Foundations For a Black Men's Theology and Religious Studies

By Dr. Zachery Williams


My argument herein is that there is an important relationship between the religious thought of black men religious intellectuals and thinkers on the one hand, and what I would call black men’s theology and what could be called black men’s religious studies. In fact, it is the black religious thought of black religious thinkers, broadly defined, that informs and undergirds both the areas of black men’s theology in the seminary and a black men’s religious studies in the academy. My goal in this essay is to develop a framework by which to link these various entities into a coherent whole. While I will not provide an exhaustive survey of black men’s religious thought or the entire spectrum of black religious intellectuals, I will offer a beginning exploration of the relationship between the two, utilizing the important work of a number of prominent black religious thinkers. Lastly, I intend to provide a brief assessment of the manner by which black men’s religious thought, and the intellectuals who develop that thought, contribute to the formation of both a black men’s theology and a black men’s religious studies.


The notion of who is considered a black religious intellectual and what that represents is an often precarious and frequently debated question. Recent scholars, most notably, Cornel West and Eddie Glaude and Clarence Taylor have argued for a reassessment of the category and definition of what constitutes a legitimate, authentic black religious intellectual. [1]By examining 20th century U.S. culture, one can identify various black intellectuals who are distinct from figures who are predominately clergy and or academicians or theologians. In this essay, I will examine a number of 20th century black intellectuals whose representation surpassed that of solely clergy or academicians to encompass characteristics of both, and even some instances, representations uniquely their own. The focus group of black religious intellectuals that I am examining are those with some religious bent, particularly as outlined in Henry J. Young’s Major Black Religious Leaders Since 1940; this group includes preachers, social philosophers, ministers, activists, educators, and others, be they Christian, Muslim, Christian nationalist, or other. In this sense, I use the term black religious intellectual to distinguish this group of intellectuals who combine various modes of thought and practice distinguishable in clergy, academicians, theologians, and activists but whom are distinct in their unique individual representation of these attributes and who differ in their representation from each individual group mentioned. Not all black clergy have been or identify as intellectuals and not all black intellectuals have encompassed or epitomized “religious” or morally prophetic selves to match accepted scholarly representations and functions. Furthermore, black men, not identified as preachers, pastors, or theologians, have as much of a relevant religious thought and understanding of theology, in their own right. This latter subject must be explored in much more detail at another time.


Among the specific black religious intellectuals that I include in this grouping are Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Howard Thurman, Benjamin E. Mays, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Cleage Jr., C. Eric Lincoln, James Cone, and others. There are too many to name in this one essay. I would also link very closely with this group of thinkers, 19th century black nationalist thinkers, Henry McNeil Turner, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Alexander Crummell. Herein, I will use a number of typologies to aid in my description of the category of these figures, which situates them within the unique category of black religious intellectuals. The primary typologies that I use to develop this analysis include Peter J. Paris’s black religious leadership paradigm found in his work, Black Religious Leaders: Conflict In Unity, Cornel West’s examination of black intellectuals in Prophecy Deliverance!: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity, and James Cone’s discussion of the genealogy of black nationalist and integrationist leaders in Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream of Nightmare.


As corollary models to discussing the black religious intellectual, it is also necessary to examine three other related phenomena, which impact on the role and representation of these unique figures within the black protest tradition. These models and the previous ones mentioned earlier will also assist me in my analysis of how black religious intellectuals have been and can continue to be effective within doctrinal, pastoral, and ritualistic structures of conventional religious denominations. Lastly, these models serve to allow for a sound examination of how these particular intellectuals have embodied and represented, in diverse ways, the public intellectual who functions as the moral and social conscience of America. The models which I am suggesting here include Gayraud Wilmore’s discussion of the links between black religion and black radicalism in Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Examination of the Black Religious Experience in Religion; Dwight N. Hopkins’s discussion of black religion and black faith as public talk in Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power; Cheryl J. Sanders’ depiction of the Black religious intellectual and the exilic tradition in her important work, Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture; and Willie James Jennings’ article discussing the dilemmas of the black religious intellectual in “The Burden of the Black Leader.”


Peter J. Paris, in Black Religious Leaders, establishes four leadership types that he argues can be applied to all black religious leaders, regardless of who they are. The types Paris mentions are the priestly, prophetic, political, and nationalistic. Paris defines the priestly type as being your conventional, conservative black preacher who functions mainly to administer the rituals of the church, safeguard the temple or the church, and attend to the spiritual needs of his or her congregation. He argues that the priestly type is the most prevalent type in America and is characterized by a non-threatening and accommodationist stance toward American society, choosing to stay within the narrow confines of church doctrine and biblical interpretation. [2]


By contrast, the prophetic type is in direct conflict with the priestly type due to its tendency to challenge American power elites to live up to the promises of equality and freedom as expressed in the nation’s most sacred documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Although all black religious leaders and intellectuals, be they prophetic of priestly, originate from the same origins of the black folk tradition as Sanders and West assert, Paris argues that the prophetic type differs in orientation. Prophetic black religious intellectuals and leaders still believe in the American dream but function as biblical prophets, in the spirit of Isaiah, proclaiming God’s truth in the hopes of pricking the consciences of whites, and thereby challenging white supremacy’s legitimacy. The 20th century prophetic type of black religious leaders, including Benjamin Mays, Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jesse Jackson, have focused strident attacks on American society’s complicity towards, tolerance of , and support for racism, segregation, and discrimination as the main targets of their admonitions. [3]


In regards to the political type of black religious leader and intellectual, Paris argues that most prophetic types eventually transition to this level of characterization. Political types who encompass prophetic tendencies are dulled somewhat in their criticisms as they are forced, by their expanded role, to embrace a larger constituency beyond the confines of the black church. Here they fall in a place of confinement, one of the paradoxes of the black religious intellectual, as espoused by Willie James Jennings in “The Burden of the Black Leader,” and are pulled at one end by their commitment to black equality and at the other end by their desire to find acceptance and applicability in either American democracy or black nationalism. This is indeed a precarious position to be in as it creates a peculiar double-consciousness on the part of these figures as they seek to balance these seemingly opposing selves. It is difficult for many to be political figures and prophetic figures at the same time. Some figures who most epitomize the political archetype, such as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Jesse Jackson have been, at one time or another, able to navigate through the murky waters of this identity in order to combine priestly, prophetic, and political characteristics into one unique amalgam. Other black religious leaders who have represented the political type that is inclusive of other types are figures such as William Gray III, Floyd Flake, Andrew Young, and Walter Fauntroy among others.[4]


The advantage of the political type is that especially given their prophetic and religious background, they function with the most contacts and networks across sacred and secular lines as well as lines of race, gender, class, nation, religion, etc. While they are confined in many ways to the democratic process, as predominately priestly types are to church laws and ecclesiastical traditions, they still function in a very unique place vis-à-vis most black religious figures. Certainly not a utopian position, as none of these types are, the political type is critical as it engages the black church as the center of the black public sphere, in dialogue and conversation, with the larger American society and global world.


Paris’s characterization of the nationalist type dovetails with James Cone’s depiction of the nationalist tradition inherent in African American intellectual history. Paris characterizes nationalist black religious intellectuals, such as Bishop Henry McNeil Turner, Alexander Crummell, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Albert Cleage Jr., and Malcolm X as being adversely critical of American society, to the point where they advocate segregation from whites due to their belief that there is no serious attempt or possibility for the mainstream culture to grant blacks unequivocal equality and freedom of opportunity. Paris and Cone’s interpretations of the nationalist tradition in black religious intellectual life contrasts, in many ways, with the integrationist tradition that the latter correspondingly discusses. [5]


For Cone, the integrationist tradition dated back to figures such as Frederick Douglass and also include luminaries such as Mordecai Johnson, Benjamin E. Mays, Howard Thurman, and Martin Luther King Jr. The idea that connects these thinkers is their belief in the potential of America to live up to the promises of equality and their strivings to ensure that freedom and equality are realized by African Americans and all people. Another important theme among integrationist black religious intellectuals, as is with their nationalist counterparts, is the significance of education to strivings toward black advancement. In Richard I. McKinney’s critical biography Moredcai, the Man and His Message: The Story of Mordecai Wyatt Johnson and Henry Young’s sketch of Johnson as a religious figure in Major Black Religious Leaders Since 1940, Mordecai Johnson is presented as a prophetic black religious intellectual who boldly holds on to his faith in American society while stressing the value of higher education as necessary to assist in the black acquisition of equality. Correspondingly, Benjamin E. Mays, in his revealing autobiography, Born To Rebel, expresses the importance of black history and culture to his own intellectual formation and uses education and character development as the cornerstones and signature markers of his legacies as Dean of the Howard School of Religion at Howard University and as President of Morehouse College.[6]


Mays’s molding of Morehouse men, support the claim that Young, Hopkins, and Jennings make in regards to the importance of the black church and black education in the character development of black Americans. One last thing must be understood about the integrationist and nationalist traditions and the same can be said for Paris’ black religious leadership typology: understanding of these two traditions entails the idea that one could not exist without the other, and that depending on the particular circumstance, many black religious intellectuals found it necessary to adopt varying degrees pf nationalistic and integrationist stances and approaches. As with Paris’s typology, most black religious leaders held a combination of the four types and only through a comprehensive examination of all four could an accurate assessment of each leader be arrived at.


The question of whether black religious intellectuals can be effective within the doctrinal, pastoral, and ritualistic structures of conventional religious denominations is an issue loaded with challenge and complexity. Dwight N. Hopkins, in Black Faith and Public Talk, accurately observes of his mentor James Cone, that the latter’s theory of black liberation theology gained some adherents during the black power era but has not gained complete acceptance within traditional black communities that operate predominately within the accommodationist and conservative confines of the Negro Church as advocated by E. Franklin Frazier in The Negro Church in America and, correspondingly critiqued by C. Eric Lincoln in The Black Church Since Frazier.[7]


Black theology originated out of the black power movement as its theological arm, as Gayraud Wilmore contends, alongside African American Studies. As Manning Marable eloquently states, in Wilmore’s edited work, African American Religious Studies: An Introductory Anthology, the paradox of the black church in being both progressive and conservative, radical and moderate, at the same time, produces another dilemma for the black religious intellectual in the pursuit of producing insightful and liberating religious thought, while attempting to operate within the confines of traditional religious denominations.[8]


In many ways, black religious intellectuals such as Howard Thurman have carved out a niche within these traditional denominations, assuming a double consciousness as Du Bois articulated and as Cone reasserts. Thurman’ s representation as a black religious intellectual met tremendous misunderstanding and opposition from traditional church leaders of the priestly type, while he simultaneously faced a similar ostracism and marginality from major civil rights organizations and leaders, even as he influenced much of that same leadership. It is this in-between place, characteristic of many black religious intellectuals, as Jennings discusses, that ascribes to them the volatile role as the representatives of black America who are simultaneously left vulnerable to criticism from within and without the black community. This criticism parallels Cornel West’s characterization of the black intellectual’s vocation, in The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual, sacred or secular, as one of “self-imposed marginality.” Certainly, transcendent figures such as Thurman understood this and decided to assume this particular undertaking of identity, regardless of the costs or consequences.


Often misunderstood, the burden of the black religious intellectual, whether one speaks of Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Albert Cleage Jr., Malcolm X, or Thurman, or any black theologian, signifies a situation where these leaders and thinkers press forward clutching to their belief that God ordained their visions, leadership, and theology. Ironically, as Jennings professes, it is this chaotic trial by fire that makes these leaders distinct in that it exists as their lives do in the public eye, be it the black public or the larger American or global public, elucidating their role and representation as public intellectuals. Many of these figures accept their fate relying on their individual relationship to God, even if others within their denominations and throughout various black communities question their legitimacy.[9]


As Henry Young denotes some black religious intellectuals such as Howard Thurman and Malcolm X discovered that they could not exist within traditional confines of the traditional black church, be it Muslim or Christian. Both Thurman and Malcolm had very diverse religious origins but soon found that their unique visions could not fit within the traditional confines of the religious denominations, which they had operated in and were similarly nurtured in. Thurman, grounded in the Black Baptist tradition, found that his visions of transcending the confines of racial segregation, sexism, and religious intolerance of the traditional black church required him to found his own interracial and interdenominational church in San Francisco in 1944. Furthermore, other influences such as mysticism and Gandhian nonviolence and pacifism indicated to him that he needed to move to higher ground so to speak.[10]


Malcolm, on the other hand, after absolving his connection with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, went on to found the Muslim Mosque Inc., in addition to the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Due to the Nation of Islam’s stance against involvement in politics, during the lifetime of Muhammad, and his own evolving global Pan-Africanist ideology, Malcolm realized that he could no longer be restricted by the boundaries firmly entrenched by the Nation of Islam, during that period. Malcolm’s abiding interest in Pan-Africanism as well as radicalism related to the radicalism of Cone and Albert Cleage Jr., creating a radical Pan-Africanism and laying the foundations for a radical critique of Christianity, which Cleage and Cone would advance. This interest in black radicalism and Pan-Africanism was not new to the black church. In terms of continuity, as Wilmore argues, black radicalism was inseparable from black religion since the nation’s founding and many 19th century black nationalists including Garvey, Turner, Crummell, and Blyden were adherents of some form of Christianity. This fact demonstrates that Black Christian Nationalism, and the apparent emphasis on manhood rights, bespeaks of a nascent form of Black Men’s Theology and opens the door to mine the literary texts of these figures which will in turn paves the way for serious intellectual and spiritual engagement with a Black Men’s Religious Studies. Furthermore, any variant of nationalism, such as radicalism or Pan-Africanism, could not exist without the influence of the black church. Within this context, as Louis DeCaro Jr., in On the Side of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X discusses, Malcolm established significant relationships with Christian nationalist thinkers such as Rev. Albert Cleage Jr., founder of the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Detroit. Some could arguably say Malcolm, and his protégé, the Hon. Louis Farrakhan, were as influenced by Christianity as they may certainly have influenced its development within black publics. [11]


These renewed relationships with Christian nationalists and proposed ones with civil rights leaders further distinguished Malcolm as a unique black religious intellectual, along the lines of a Gramscian “organic intellectual.” A challenge facing many black religious intellectuals today, particularly within black Christian denominations is the difficulty in navigating amidst the increasing levels of continuity and change existent between the Negro and the Black Church. This statement is presupposed by the idea that the contemporary Black church continues to exist in a state of “double consciousness,” unable to emerge with a clear identity as an institution. The closest likeness of some uniformity comes with the Mega-Church phenomena. The problem with the Mega Church is that it also faces an identity crisis as many pastors within its confines attempt to distance themselves from the social justice tradition so deeply ingrained in the black Christianity.


Lincoln and Young argue that the presence of aspects of the Negro Church within the emerging black church, which arose during the 1960s suggest that a close but tenuous relationship exists between the two. Taken a step further, the presence of remnants of the conservative and accommodationist Negro Church, at times competing with the direction and function of the black church, as represented through members and some preachers who are more inclined moreso to the priestly type, often caused conflict for unique black religious intellectuals such as Thurman and others. Although highly critical of the conservative nature of the black Christian church, the Nation of Islam experience of Malcolm X revealed the same conclusion: that conservatism was not the sole preserve of black Christian churches and that it contradicted the otherwise radical representation projected by that body. Discovering this contradiction as well as other questions concerning the leadership of Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X set his sights on establishing an independent black religious and cultural vehicle and expanding his influence and platform as a viable and autonomous public intellectual.[12]


In addressing the role of black religious intellectuals as the natural embodiments of the public intellectual, who functions as moral and social conscience of America, Paris, Hopkins, and Wilmore argue that the black church has produced numerous types of black leaders, sacred and secular. Among this list include politicians, intellectuals, educators, and others. As one example of a black religious leader who represented a public intellectual and served as a bridge between the 19th and 20th century black protest traditions was Alexander Crummell. As William J. Moses’s Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History and Alfred Moss’s The American Negro Academy: Voice of the Talented Tenth, Crummell, an Episcopalian minister, spearheaded the founding of one of the first African American think tanks in the nation, the American Negro Academy. The ANA, located in Washington, D.C., represented an impressive collection of black public intellectuals including W.E.B Du Bois and had some continuity with 20th century religious historian and intellectual Vincent Harding’s Institute of the Black World, founded during the height of the black power era in 1969. Although there is more change than continuity between Crummell’s ANA and Harding’s IBW, the fact that these two black religious intellectuals had a huge impact on black public intellectual life, both in their participation in these groups and the influence they projected on subsequent generations of black public intellectuals, is one that must not go undocumented.[13]


Walter Earl Fluker and Catherine Tumber in A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious and Public Life demonstrate Thurman as being one of the prototypical black religious intellectuals who were truly public intellectuals. Despite popularly held and arguably accurate notions that there exists a crisis among black intellectuals leaders, Fluker and Tumber argue that Thurman never deserted his role as a public intellectual. Correspondingly, as Alton B. Pollard demonstrates, in his essay chapter, “Magnificient Manhood: The Transcendent Witness of Howard Thurman,” Thurman not only served as a bridge between the integrationist goals of the civil rights movement and the nationalist goals of the black power movement, he also nurtured numerous generations of civil rights leaders and black religious intellectuals such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and countless others.


Similarly, Jennings argues against the claim that there is a crisis within black public leadership. To this end, Jennings argues that most black public religious intellectuals are born in crisis and nurtured by it as Wilmore states with respect to the black church at large. Furthermore, as C. Eric Lincoln asserts in The Black Experience in Religion, since black preachers are the main figures within the black church, there is an incredible symbiotic relationship between the evolution of the black church, the emergence of the black preacher, and thus, the evolution of black religious intellectuals and the thought, and theology which is produced of them.[14]


In regards to the idea of black religious intellectuals as being the most representative public intellectuals in American society, Cone, Hopkins, Sanders, and West offer four important characterizations that can help bring about more understanding of this relationship between black religious leadership, black religious thought, public intellectuality, and black men’s theology and religious studies. Cone argues that both integrationists and nationalists are important so as to project the drive for black advancement to its greatest levels. He adds that if only one exists, then it will tend to be less effective. Both categories are needed to represent a comprehensive picture of black reality and life. There are three sides to the truth and the truth is usually found somewhere in the middle. The truth in terms of the black religious experience comes by using a comprehensive approach that demonstrates how nationalism and integrationism impact upon one another to depict more of a total picture of the black experience.[15]


Hopkins argues that black faith is public talk and that there is no separation between the secular and sacred as one discusses black religion, the activities of the black church, and black religious intellectual thought. Throughout the history and evolution of the black church and its preachers and religious intellectuals, the idea of using the church as a public faith institution has been ingrained since the inception of the black church in the days of the invisible institution. Before President Bush’s new “faith based initiative,” the black church and its leaders and intellectuals, historically performed every social, cultural, economic, political, and scholarly function that the black community needed. The black church, and the Negro church before it, provided for its members education programs such as the Boy Scouts and Rites of Passage programs; voter and economic assistance; marched against the injustices of segregation and police brutality; developed the cultural needs of the black community through plays and other mediums; produced leaders for the community of a secular and sacred nature, and performed many other vital functions. It has been in this environment that black men religious intellectuals, as well as women, have articulated religious thought and in the process espoused the rudiments of a relevant and multi-varied black men’s theology and religious orientation. In this manner, black men religious intellectuals have used the church as a platform and springboard for their roles and representations as public intellectuals.[16]


Cheryl J. Sanders’s essay, “Black Intellectuals and Storefront Religion in the Age of Black Consciousness,” in her larger work, Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture, sets up a method of characterizing black religious intellectuals by examining them through an exilic experience. Sanders argues that most black religious intellectuals, are perpetually conditioned by the fact that they are exiles in a strange land. This exilic experience she argues, conditions their relationship to mainstream American society as well as their relationship to various black communities. Furthermore, as Cone demonstrates, black religious intellectuals have usually taken one of two roads in their attack on racism and discrimination in American society: the integrationist path that affirms that black Americans can be both an American and a Negro or the nationalist approach which asserts the need to create a greater attachment to the exilic experience through separatist means.[17]


Similarly, religious philosopher Cornel West’s characterizations of black intellectuals in Prophecy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity, is very applicable to the present discussion. West establishes four categories of black leadership, each grounded in the black religious tradition. Also, Sanders uses this typology to support her explanation of the exilic experience of black religious intellectuals. The first type West establishes is that of the exceptionalist who lauds black culture above all other cultures. The second type, as represented by sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, is the acommodationist type who views black culture as pathological. The third type, represented by James Baldwin, illustrates the marginalist camp who view American society as oppositional and limiting. Lastly, West defines the humanist, which he places writer Ralph Ellison within, as a type that praises the contributions of black culture but fails to raise the culture above or beneath others, adopting a somewhat neutral stance.


Added to such a characterization of black religious intellectuals is the recent work of historian Clarence Taylor, Black Religious Intellectuals: The Fight For Equality From Jim Crow To the 21st Century. Taylor offers a reassessment of the way we characterize who is a black religious intellectual, in an attempt to expand traditional notions to incorporate those black men intellectuals who held some sort of religious standpoint, even if they were not integrated within the black popular press or accepted within the traditional black church. This revisionist work, focusing on black men religious intellectuals such as Bishop Smallwood Williams and A. Phillip Randolph, appropriately leads us into a concluding discussion of how the black religious thought, of black men religious intellectuals, functions as the source-bed for the articulation of a relevant black men’s theology and black men’s religious studies[18]


This essay is only a beginning attempt to document the importance of black men religious intellectual’s thought to the development of black men’s religious studies for the academy and community and black men’s theology for the seminary and church. Both the similarities and differences between the religious study of black men and the study of their theology must be advanced and examined in greater detail. The necessary next step in this process involves continuing to unravel the complicated and multi-varied contours of the religious thought of all black men, regardless of class or status, sexual orientation, or political perspective. As this work is continually undertaken, the fields of black men’s religious studies and black men’s theology will take form and receive the intellectual and spiritual breath needed for life.


Bibliography

Cone, James. Malcolm & Martin & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. New York: Orbis
Books, 1992.

DeCaro, Louis, Jr. On The Side of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X. New
York: New York University Press, 1996.

Frazier, E. Franklin. The Negro Church in America and C. Eric Lincoln, The Black
Church Since Frazier. New York: Schocken Books, 1974.

Hopkins, Dwight N. Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s
Black Theology and Black Power. New York: Orbis Books, 1999.

Jennings, Willie James. “The Burden of the Black Leader,” Christianity Today. 1988.

Lincoln. C. Eric. The Black Experience in Religion. Garden City, New York: Anchor
Books, 1974.

McKinney, Richard I. Mordecai, The Man and His Message: The Story of Mordecai
Wyatt Johnson. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997.

Mays, Benjamin E. Born To Rebel: An Autobiography. Athens: University of Georgia,
2003.

Moses, Wilson Jeremiah. Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Moss, Alfred A. The American Negro Academy: Voice of the Talented Tenth. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981.

Paris, Peter J. Black Religious Leaders: Unity in Conflict. Louisville: Westminister/
John Knox Press, 1991.

Sanders, Cheryl J. Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African
American Religion and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Taylor, Clarence. Black Religious Intellectuals: The Fight For Equality From Jim Crow
To the 21st Century. New York: Routledge, 2002.

West, Cornel and Eddie Glaude, ed. African American Religious Thought: An Anthology.
Louisville: Westminister/John Know Press, 2003.

___________. “The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual,” Cultural Critique. No. 1.
Autumn, 1985.

Wilmore, Gayraud. African American Religious Studies: An Interdisciplinary Anthology.
Durham: Duke University Press, 1989.

Young, Henry James. Major Black Religious Leaders Since 1940. Nashville; Abingdon,
1979.

Endnotes

[1] . Cornel West and Eddie Glaude, ed. African American Religious Thought: An Anthology. (Louisville: Westminister/John Know Press, 2003). xi-xxvi.

[2] . Peter J. Paris. Black Religious Leaders: Unity in Conflict. (Louisville: Westminister/John Know Press, 1991). 17-18.

[3] . Paris, Black Religious Leaders, 20-21.

[4] . Paris, Black Religious Leaders, 21-22.

[5] Paris, Black Religious Leaders, 22-28; James Cone. Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. (New York: Orbis, 1992). 1-17.

[6] . Richard I. McKinney. Mordecai, The Man and His Message: The Story of Mordecai Wyatt Johnson. (Washington, D.C: Howard University Press, 1997); Benjamin E. Mays. Born To Rebel: An Autobiography. (Athens: University of Georgia, 2003). 139-148; 234-236.


[7] . Dwight N. Hopkins. Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power. (New York: Orbis, 1999). 1-7; E. Franklin Frazier. The Negro Church in America and C. Eric Lincoln. The Black Church Since Frazier. (New York: Schocken Books, 1974).

[8] Gayraud Wilmore. African American Religious Studies: An Interdisciplinary Anthology. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989)

[9] . Cornel West, “The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual,” Cultural Critique . No. 1 (Autumn, 1985). 109-124; Willie James Jennings, “The Burden of the Black Leader,” Christianity Today (1988).

[10] Young, Major Black Religious Leadersr Since 1940. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), 46-53.

[11] Young, Major Black Religious Leaders, 73-80.

[12] . Louis DeCaro, Jr. On the Side of my People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X. (New York: New York University Press, 1996).

[13] . Wilson Jeremiah Moses. Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Alfred A. Moss. The American Negro Academy: Voice of the Talented Tenth. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981).

[14] . C. Eric Lincoln. The Black Experience in Religion. (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1974).

[15] . Cone, Malcolm & Martin & America, 13-17.

[16] Hopkins, Black Faith and Public Talk, 1-3.

[17] Cheryl J. Sanders. Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 106-122.


[18] . Clarence Taylor. Black Religious Intellectuals: The Fight For Equality From Jim Crow To The 21st Century. (New York: Routledge, 2002). 1-10.

In Search of a Black Men's Theology: Part One

The Doctrine of Humanity, the Humanity of Black Men, and the
the Development of a Black Men’s Theology

By Dr. Zachery Williams


Noted African American theologian Howard Thurman, developed a model of critical self-engagement of the spiritual self, which he called the process by which one listens to the sound of the genuine within. This model of worship and spiritual soul-searching provides a model from which African American men, in all varieties, can develop a specific doctrine of their humanity in relation to the God in whose image they were made. In many ways, Thurman’s model resonates with the writings of Dr. James Evans, Dwight Hopkins, and even Stanley Grenz. Grenz makes an important statement concerning the doctrine of humanity in general in his important work, Theology for the Community of God.


In discussing God’s ultimate purpose as establishing community among his creation, he also lays out the significance of an anthropological understanding of Christian belief. Grenz argues that this notion of “Christian anthropology, “or the understanding of the humanity of creation is related to this doctrine of God. It entails the relationship between the creation’s responsibilities to the Creator as well as to co-members of creation. This connection between the doctrine of God and Humanity opens the door for theological community as long as the relationship is maintained. Unfortunately for humanity generally, and African American men specifically, man, because of sin and sinful acts, has fallen and has needed reconciliation in order to re-establish that relationship and community as one with God. The need for reconciliation still holds true for many black men who are not in the church, who are disproportionately representative of those imprisoned, as well as overwhelmingly involved in dangerous life-styles, ranging from gangs and drug cartels to participation in deviant sexual behaviors with deleterious effects upon themselves, black women, and the black community itself. While many decry the continued uselessness of black men as spiritual beings, I affirm, as an African American Christian man, the belief and hope that African American men can be raised from their deadened states. This calls for atonement much as Minister Louis Farrakhan called for at the 1995 Million Man March. The only difference is that instead of abandoning Christianity in favor of Islam as the true religion of the Black man, I posit that Christianity, taught in a manner that recognizes the humanity of black men and demonstrates their inseparable relationship to God, is the way of truth and light for the community of men of African descent.[1]


In his discussion of Christian anthropology, Grenz offers that human beings deal with an identity crisis that is a consequence of their separation from God, the Creator. In agreeing with Grenz, the human identity problem is primarily “religious in nature.” Grenz formulates three aspects of identity that are useful for this discussion. Acknowledging the belief that we are the creation of God, it also must be understood that as creation we are good creations, and despite our challenges with sin, we have the ever-present possibility of reconciliation because as Grenz states, “we are also the object of God’s redemptive activity.” African American men have had major problems seeing themselves in the image of God and within the framework of God’s plan. Primarily, these understandings of God have been shaped by racism and socialization which has devalued the worth and humanity of Black men. Rebelling against this evident attack on their humanity, many black men have, over the decades of their sojourn in America, internalized and adopted these negative assessments, often with very harmful effects on themselves, black women, and black children in the form of abuse, violence, and intimidation. The idea of who God is has not fully been resolved by Black men in America as a whole and is still in question.[2]


As briefly discussed in the opening of this essay, models of understanding God for African American men will come from, largely, although not solely, other African American men. To address the question of humanity of black men, the lives of countless black men must be examined and mined, so as to look for nuggets of wisdom, which can provide revelation as to the depth of the problem facing them, from their perspective, as well as avenues of redemption in light of a critical engagement with their lives. Men such as Howard Thurman, Tu Pac Shakur and Malcolm X, who held definite, and differing religious orientations, offer instructive lessons for contemporary African American Men of all ages. Although the church functions as the predominant framework by which we must examine the religious understanding of God and the human identity problem of Black men, we must not delimit or disassociate that lens from the social location and lived reality out of which it emerges for varieties of black men. The two are inseparable and mutually dependent on one another.


Since there are evidently varieties of black men, there will also be varieties of responses and non-responses to God, located in various arenas. In this sense, the scope of the black religious sphere as well as the arena for salvation, for many black men, will be wherever they are in their encounter, positive or negative, with God. As we know, God can reach and meet his creation in the depths of the earth and valleys of life as God is believed to be omnipresent. If we hold to this time held, belief within the African American Christian context, we must also affirm that African American men can find God in unconventional places. The church must not be the only venue for redemption, although it is the primary facilitator of that process. To function as the useful facilitator, the church and the community of believers, including redeemed black men, must go beyond the walls of the church, and connect the larger socio-geographic community to the institution that we understand as the black church. Jesus, in his self-sacrificing acts of atonement, including his public ministry, the calling of disciples, as well as his crucifixion experience provide a model for us to contextualize upon our specific socio-cultural landscape.


Many of these redemptive social arenas and forms will include locations that on the surface would be distracting environments, such as gang and drug groups, hip hop culture, and other less valued arenas. For the community of black men, many of those who are lost and separated from God, an appreciation of their place and social location as well as their struggle is the first step in their redemption. No experience by black men can be undervalued or ignored. God’s approach towards us does not privilege any experience over the other, although we as humans do and certainly society does. However, despite this latter fact, we must adopt the position of God in relating to one another. While we can offer models of Christian understandings such as those considered less radical and more conventional, we must not ignore the reality that God works trough humans to bring redemption to creation, and often in vessels and contexts considered foolish by many. It must be added that many who devalue certain experiences of other men, have either forgotten or decontextualized their redemptive conversion experience or those of the type who they appropriate. For instance, Howard Thurman was, and still is often misunderstood in many Christian circles, because of his innovative religious worship styles. Martin Luther King Jr. was challenged on his public stance against the war in Vietnam and economic inequality in America.


Furthermore, even Frederick Douglass was dismissed due to another challenge facing black men historically and today: being involved with or married to a white woman. Many other differing experiences of alienation from the community of God abound, having been experienced by Black men, popular and unknown, but no less real and relevant. Regardless of the level and reason why black men are actually separated from God, it is the responsibility of all members of the community to participate actively in the redemptive process of others. In that process, many, will also find greater levels of redemption for themselves as well. This is true as the ongoing mental, physical, and spiritual burden or racism, sexism, and men’s cultural and religious socialization daily challenge Black men in any effort to understand God from their experience as well as try to understand their own humanity in light of who they believe themselves to be in relationship to God and others in the community.


The struggle of African American Men to define their humanity in the context of an oppressive environment, bent on their destruction, has played itself out in various ways. One of the major ways is through the assertion of the notion of freedom, a connected freedom that linked the individual self, the realities and experiences of all black men, and all black people. Two ways that many black men religious leaders sought to develop and preserve was through the methods of integration and separatism. In the context of those strategies, black men found vehicles through which to assert their humanity as men, in ways that also sought to promote the freedom of black people everywhere.


James Evans in his work, We Have Been Believers: An African American Systematic Theology, discusses the notion of the doctrine of humanity as related to the African American experience of struggle. Evans asserts that, in the context of the African American experience, one cannot talk about the existence of an individual reality of humanity without discussing the related evolution and development of the entire community’s humanity, In this sense, the Afrocentric philosophical notion, “I Am because We are,” appropriately applies to an understanding of the embattled black experience, as we also understand that the humanity of various black communities, as a whole, has been formed and shaped through the formation of the individual in the context of community and struggle. Correspondingly, the individual identity of black people in general and black men in particular, in the context of America, has been deeply influenced and shaped by the collective understandings of humanity by communities of black men as well as the larger black community itself. There has been and continues to be a symbiotic relationship between the individual black self and the communal black. Theologian, John S. Mbiti, although a critic of Black Theology, offers an interesting assessment of the doctrine of humanity with respect to the African experience, one that is applicable to the Diaspora African in North America. Mbiti writes:

What then is the individual and where is his [or her] place in the community? In
traditional life, the individual does not and cannot exist alone except corporately. He
owes his existence to other people, including those of past generations and his
contemporaries. He is simply part of the whole. The community must therefore
make, create or produce the individual, for the individual depends on the corporate
group.[3]


In this context, one can also examine the particular understandings of self of black men, to get a handle on the manner in which they developed modes and models of manhood, in a foreign environment that sought to destroy such agency. In addition, from a proper application of Mbiti’s quote to the African American experience, one can arrive at a proper understanding of the importance of community and brotherhood among black men in America. Such an understanding should lead one to conclude that a critical black men’s theology must be undertaken, one that is reflective of the dialectic between the individual humanity of black men and the tradition or communal humanity that comes out of the imagined and real black experience. Undoubtedly, black men in America have always, whether they recognized it or not, evolved out of a tradition of men and women who have passed down a tradition of understandings of black men’s humanity. Particularly, for the Christian church, this tradition must be revisited and reinterpreted so as to arrive at a clear and useful black men’s theology of practice for the “fishers of men.”[4]


Specifically, Riggins Earl, Jr. in his chapter, “Apologists and Ideologues of Black Manhood and Brotherhood,” seeks to use various typologies of black men religious intellectuals, to arrive at an understanding of what black manhood represents. He presents four typologies to depicting what he believes to be various responses of black men, attempting to define their humanity in the context of struggle. First, he asserts the notion of the “generic man” model of black manhood, as represented by Frederick Douglass, a type that espoused generic qualities of manhood such as notions of color-blindness, manly character, and the universality of humanity. Earl’s sees his second category, that of the utility man, best evidenced by the example of Booker T. Washington whom he credited with being able to promote useful and industrious character traits as self-dignity, love, and compromise as being indicative of a “representative man.” Thirdly, W.E. B. Du Bois represents “the dialectic self-conscious man,” who is critically aware of his own “self-conscious manhood,” desiring to merge his double self into a new and better man, and able to intentionally articulate black strivings by being a co-worker with God in his kingdom on earth. Lastly, Marcus Garvey, attains the label of “self-confident man,” who sought to instill a type of manhood in black men that promoted a cultural and nationalist self-reliance and an understanding of the meaning of brotherhood, through the vehicle of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Garvey, espousing a strong black manhood, with evident Christian overtones, served as a model for the theological foundation of the Nation of Islam and its most prized member, Malcolm Little, whose father was a Garveyite himself. Furthermore, Earl seeks to develop the concept of “Salutatory Brothers of New Paradigms,” focusing on the example and theological insights of Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X, whereby he examines the models of manhood of both figures through priestly and prophetic lenses. Overall, he develops the idea that an examination of these types will illicit a more informed standpoint from which to determine the struggles of individual black men by which to understand themselves in relation to God, creation, and redemption. [5]


James Cone, in his book, Malcolm, Martin and America, discusses in the introduction, two distinct, yet related traditions of black men religious intellectuals who sought to achieve equality for black people. One tradition promoted equality through the notion of integration and the other tradition, asserted the notion of separatism. The point where Cone advances the argument beyond Earl is that the former illicits a type of Du Boisian double consciousness among many adherents of both the integrationist and nationalist traditions, one that affirms the idea of dual existence of both traditions, that are dependent on one another and dovetail over time, as influenced by the cultural and political context of the times as well as their social location. This is most evident as one analyzes, for instance, the manner in which both the integrationism of both Martin Luther King Jr., and Frederick Douglass, becomes, towards the end of their lives, more radicalized and hence, sympathetic to aspects of the nationalist/separatist argument. Conversely, the theological and political view of such black men religious intellectuals as Malcolm X and Martin Delany, at the end of their lives, evidences a shift in radical views more towards the center, at least to the point where they are open to a more inclusive separatism, and possibly exhibit openness to a radical integrationism. As one connects, Evans, Cone, and Earl, one sees that there is an ideal of brotherhood, whether overt of subtle, that has asserted an idea of humanity for black men which resonates to black men as a community and even to a larger African American community, beyond the individual self. [6]


In conclusion, any model for the construction of the doctrine of humanity of black men must be contextual in that “context influences meaning,” as Amy-Jill Levine argues for women. Furthermore, all contexts where black men reside, must be equally valued and examined. Functioning in community, and utilizing both past and present lives and models to create an ever evolving and multi-dimensional experiences should be the goal of a relevant 21st century black theology. The works of Evans, Cone, and Earl, as well as others, provide useful material to redeem our humanity as we as black men seek to simultaneously enter in with God in the redemptive process of reconciliation with the Father/Mother, Son, and Holy Spirit. This model and text is ever-evolving and in dialogue with many aspects of itself. In this way, the schizophrenia and identity crises or varieties of double and multiple consciousness are turned on their heads and will not emerge unchanged. The challenge is that as we engage in the connected theological and practical tasks of redemption and reconciliation of the minds, bodies, and souls of black men, we yield to God and see ourselves as a composite of not only the sum of our experiences but also as the composite of who God is, was, and will always be. We are not God, and have never been, even in our various messianic moments, but we do share aspects of God’s character and personality, as we function as in community with our Creator in the redemption of our communities and that of the world.


In order to fully articulate and manifest the Doctrine of Humanity of Black Men, a relevant Black Men’s Theology must be developed. This theology has a theoretical and theological component on the one hand, which articulate what it is and what persons have contributed to its construction. On the other hand, such a doctrine and theology must develop a parallel and contextual model of praxis. I have discussed aspects that can begin to contribute to the development of the theoretical component and will add few additional thoughts regarding that aspect. However the majority of the remainder of the paper will deal with the assertion of a beginning praxis model, based on different elements.


J. Deotis Roberts offers an interesting beginning statement on a doctrine of humanity for black men, and, process, a Black Men’s Theology. He argues:

A doctrine of man in black theology should begin with the human condition and
aim at liberation of through wholeness. Wholeness is related to a total view of man
as body, soul, and spirit. Theologies of the body are likely to be concerned with the
carnal man and man’s place in nature. Theologies of revolution aim primarily at the
collective. The approach of black theology must be existential as well as political.[7]

Roberts argues that a narrow examination of the humanity of black men is insufficient and heretofore, has only complicated the continued search by black men for a tangible and affirmative identity. Unless a comprehensive theology can be developed, one that incorporates all the dimensions of the complicated self of black men then the notion of humanity and freedom will continue to elude every black man, regardless of social class or status. Roberts continues and asserts that such a doctrine, and theology must come from black men themselves. Here he alludes to such:

We need an understanding of human nature that can bring to black people, under
the conditions of their existence sanity and wholeness. A perfectly rational
interpretation of man, however, much applauded by white theologians, would be
‘dry bones’ for the faith of the black masses if they did not take seriously their life
and death struggle in this society.[8]

In offering explanation of Roberts’ anthropological discussion of the doctrine of humanity, Evans contends that it is “centered on the notion of the collective dimension of human existence.” So, in this regard, black men must define for themselves what a doctrine of their humanity truly represents as well as locating this definition in the context of the varied community of black men and black people.


The discussion by Roberts points us toward a discussion of models for the holistic development of black men. One such model that should be incorporated into the development of a doctrine of black men’s humanity and theology is that of the “Morehouse Man.” Of course, the model itself was exemplified and established from the person and example of Dr. Benjamin E. Mays. Dr. Mays, President of Morehouse College for twenty seven years, in addition to writing numerous books about the Black religious experience, also developed a model of manhood that has stood the test of time. Mays’ model of the Morehouse man takes into account much of Roberts’ understandings and articulations of wholeness. Proof of the effectiveness of such a model can be found in the countless graduates of the College who have gone on to impact the world, including the perceptions of black men. Usage of such as model as well as those offered by the Nation of Islam, Masons, and Fraternities can provide contributing parts, designed to create a multi-level framework that can help bring about reconciliation. The deciding factor that would make this amalgam distinctively Black Christian, and evidence of manhood would be the foundation of the example and gospel of the Black Christ, Jesus.


In an article in The Phylon Quarterly, Edward Jones lays out the five tenets of the Morehouse Mystique as articulated by Mays at the Ninetieth Anniversary Convocation of the College. The first tenet is the “training of the mind to think logically, constructively, and discriminatingly.” Further explaining this tenet, he specifies that the training of the student mind should be undertaken “whether an ordinary or a brilliant one.” Secondly, Mays stated that an emphasis at Morehouse was placed on the development of “men of sound character and integrity: men who are dependable, reliable, trustworthy, honest, true-men who can be trusted to carry responsibility both in private and in public life.” For Mays it was “a dangerous thing” to train a man’s mind without at the same time training him to be good. A third tenet of the Morehouse Mystique examines the significance of community responsibility and depicts a man “who is concerned for the welfare of the community and who participates in the affairs of that community and lends whatever support he can to further the ideals of progress, democratic living, and interracial goodwill. Lastly, the fifth element of the Morehouse Mystique deals with the issue of string self-esteem, placing “confidence in themselves and confidence in their future.” Such confidence teaches Morehouse men, to this very day, “not to accept the ceiling as the limit but the sky, and that a better tomorrow….must be molded by them.” All in all, this framework and lifestyle has exuded a great degree of humanity and manhood for graduate of Morehouse. For the purposes of this essay, it provides a critical example from which to draw from in re-envisioning a doctrine of humanity and black men’s theology for black men of all backgrounds and experiences. [9]


Evans notes the utility of black spiritual autobiography as relevant for the re-creation of a doctrine of humanity for black men. Using an autobiographical statement of sorts, African theologian Manas Buthelezi offers a useful assessment of the doctrine of humanity as applied to black men. Buthelezi writes:

Man suddenly discovers his humanity in caricature form: he realizes that he is neither what he thought he was nor what he would like to be. Out of this mental and
emotional torture arise a number of existential questions: After all, who am I: What
is the destiny of my being and mode of existence? How can I so live as to overcome
what militates against the realization of my destiny as a human being? This in
essence is the quest for true authentic humanity, For a black man, such as I am, this
issue is loaded with historical accidents which project a peculiar dimension of the
basic quest: Can I realize my authentic humanity in the medium of my blackness? Is
my blackness some fatalistic road block in life within which God has made it
possible for me to be an authentic man?[10]

Buthelezi’s statement offers an interesting perspective from which to examine black spiritual autobiography as contributive to a substantive doctrine of humanity. It allows black men of various identities to examine, question, and probe, from the context of their distinctive social and cultural location, the meaning of who they are as men, and hopefully, discover it in the process. Furthermore, black spiritual autobiography is not relegated to theologians or men of the cloth. For the variety of Black men, there are countless and unique relationships and experiences of the divine and, in essence of one’s humanity. Therefore, each experience must be valued equally within the context of the community. As a community of voices echoing and bouncing off of one another, there will be evident parallels as well as divergencies that will be instructive for each member so long as mutual respect and value can be placed on teach voice. Examples of black men’s spiritual autobiography include notable public figures such as James Baldwin, W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Mays, Howard Thurman, Martin L. Kings, Jr. and countless others. In addition to more notable intellectuals, ministers, and activists, other groups must be included into this framework including divergent groups such as the hip hop community, former gang members, black gay men, everyday working class men, as well as other varieties not commonly privileged.


Asian theologian Andrew Sung Park provides the interesting framework of Han, which discusses elements of healing, reflection, and reconciliation, among others, in the context of the Christian doctrine of sin. Han is described as the relational consequence of sin and is exhibited by the spiritual, emotional, and cultural scars in victims by those who have perpetrated some form of oppression. It also discusses the idea of blending different experiences in order to create a more balanced whole. Evidence of this within the experiences of black men in America can be seen in the religious search for meaning by many black men, known and unknown. Everything from sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee holding signs proclaiming: “I Am a Man” to the idea of the idea of the Beloved Community of Mordecai Johnson, Howard Thurman, and Martin King can find common ground with the religious ethos of Garveyism, the Nation of Islam and the Black Hebrew Israelites. In addition, a theology of sexuality as advanced by theologian Kelly Brown Douglass can be interpreted by black gay Christian men and young men of the Hip Hop generation, so as to articulate a relevant theology that voices their specific concerns. Not that a nice and neat unified whole will ever be created. That is not and should not be the goal of unity of reconciliation. The primary motive and driving force should be healing and a desired reconnection with the creator God, in whose image, each and every variety of Black man was made and is being fashioned.



Bibliography

The Amplified Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1987.

Cone, James H. Malcolm, Martin, and America: A Dream of a Nightmare. Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1992.

Earl, Riggins, Jr., Dark Salutations: Ritual, God, and Greetings in the African American
Community. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001.

Evans, James H. We Have Been Believers: an African American Systematic Theology.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

Grenz, Stanley J. Theology For the Community of God. Vancouver: Regent College
Publishers, 1994.

Jones, Edward A. “Morehouse College in Business Ninety Years—Building Men,” The
Phylon Quarterly. Vol. 18, No. 3, 1957.

Mbiti, John S. African Religions and Philosophy. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970.

Roberts, J. Deotis. A Black Political Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974.


Endnotes

[1] . Stanley J. Grenz. Theology For the Community of God (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1994). 125.

[2] . Grenz, pp. 125-127.

[3] . John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970), 119.

[4]. Matthew 4:19. The Amplified Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1987, 1076.



[5] . Riggins R. Earl, Jr., Dark Salutations: Ritual, God, and Greetings in the African American Community (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001), 114-

[6] . James H. Cone. Malcolm, Martin, and America: A Dream or a Nightmare. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis), 1992.

[7] . J. Deotis Roberts, A Black Political Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974), 84.

[8] . Roberts, A Black Political Theology, 90.

[9] . Edward A. Jones, “Morehouse College in Business Ninety Years—Building Men,” The Phylon Quarterly. Vol 18, No. 3, 1957, p. 233.

[10] . Evans, We Have Been Believers: An African American Systematic Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 114.

Black Men's Studies: Part II

Groundings With My Sisters and My Brothers: Black Men’s Studies in dialogue with Black Women’s Studies

In asserting an intellectual justification for Black Men’s Studies, the answer is found in the strongest critique of black manhood: black women’s studies. Black women’s studies as I attempt to argue, is inclusive of black feminist thought, Africana womanism, and womanist theology, among other areas. In terms of an interrogation of patriarchy, Historian Manning Marable, in “Groundings With My Sisters: Patriarchy and the Exploitation of Black Women,” establishes the fact that black men must assume responsibility for their role played in the oppression and exploitation of black women.


While I agree wholeheartedly with this fact, I also call for a deeper investigation of the roots of patriarchy committed by black men. Primary upon the manifestations of patriarchy among black men, one identifies the violence and sexually-based acts of oppression inflicted, verbally and physically, upon black women minds, bodies, and souls. By contrast, the roots of black men’s contextual adoption of patriarchy can be traced to their inability and, oftentimes, unwillingness and powerlessness, to reconcile their own identities as men, in a holistic sense. A consequence of this inability manifests itself as sociologist Nathan Hare describes it as “frustrated masculinity,” the effect of which results in recklessness, physical abuse and the like against black men deemed "unmanly" as well as black women.


As a response to this unbearable reality, one notices the more recent attempt by black men to make sense out of senselessness and, in so doing, locate themselves in solidarity with black feminist thought. Among the works in this vein include Michael Awkward’s, “A Black Man’s Place in Black Feminist Criticism,” and more recently scholar Mark Anthony Neal’s call to arms, New Black Man. As I resonate with the messages of “black male feminist” intellectuals, being the product of three strong black working class women from South Carolina, I am compelled to look inwardly in order to fill a void left by the lack of self-disclosure of the black men in my life, ranging from my father to my departed great uncle who served in Vietnam.


Is the beginning and ending of the history and story of black men solely grounded in patriarchy, abuse, shame, and regret? Even as one confronts the nightside of what philosopher Alain Locke characterized as “Self-Criticism: the Third Dimension of Culture,” one has to seek freedom through resolution of wrongs perpetrated against self and others as well as wrongs inflicted upon self. From the standpoint of history and historically-based cultural criticism, Black Men’s Studies seeks to probe deep into the spiritual and historical consciousness of black men, as theologian Howard Thurman admonished in his inspiring autobiography, With Head and Heart.[1]


As a black man historian, theologian, and intellectual, my search for a critical theory that emanates from within black men’s experience has led me to the point of proposing Black Men’s Studies. In the path-breaking book on Black men’s Studies to date, The American Black Male: His Present Status and His Future, edited by Richard Majors and Jacob Gordon, the late Clyde W. Franklin, in referencing the popular James Brown hit, “It’s a Man’s World,” queried …. But is it a Black Man’s world?” Understanding the socially constructed nature of manhood and womanhood, Franklin proceeded to ask whether black males could ever be considered “men.” In the same piece, Taylor argues that not until the late 1960s did black men ever really begin to exercise truly self-styled masculinity-what many women’s studies and masculinity studies scholars accurately label as “hypermasculinity.”


Whether one speaks of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, black Christian churches, or any organization in black life, the reality has been, as Richard Majors articulated, that black men, out of developing survival mechanisms, have developed the “cool pose,” or macho sensibility in order to cope with the realities of violence and terror visited upon them and black people generally.


With this understanding in mind, it is difficult to believe, from a historical standpoint, individually and collectively, that the motivations of black men have been solely mere reactions to or imitations of white manhood. Amidst black men’s reactionary rhetoric and imitation of white men’s lives, seemingly lay a deeper and distinctive reality and history of black men in America-one which has been projected beyond the national borders-yet one which has remained buried in the souls of black men.


Hence, there is a definite need to avoid essentializing any one identity of black men as being representative of all black men. Black Masculinity Studies, black sexuality studies, black male feminist theory, or an amorphous black men’s studies alone cannot define the complicated and multi-dimensional reality of varieties of black men.[2]


In the same volume edited by Majors and Gordon, Manning Marable, probes this critical and confrontational men’s identity in all of its necessary parts. Marable delineates the need for black men to confront white history, the black woman, and himself, in order to move beyond a limited fixation on stereotypical and narrow notions of manhood. Marable seems to call for the kind of comprehensive theory that Black Men’s Studies seeks to provide. Marable ponders:


What is a Black Man? Husband and father. Son and brother. Lover and boyfriend.
Uncle and grandfather. Construction worker and sharecropper. Minister and ghetto
Hustler. Doctor and mineworker. Auto mechanic and presidential candidate. What is a Black man in an institutionally racist society, in the social system of modern
capitalist America? The essential tragedy of being Black and male is our inability, as
as men and as people of African descent, to define ourselves without the stereotypes
the larger society imposes upon us and through various institutional means
perpetuates and permeates within our entire culture. Our relations with our sisters,
our parents and children, and indeed across the entire spectrum of human relations
are imprisoned by images of the past, false distortions that seldom if ever capture the
essence of our being. We cannot come to terms with Black women until we
understand the half-hidden stereotypes that have crippled our development and
social consciouness. We cannot challenge racial and sexual inequality, both within
the Black community and across the larger America society, unless we comprehend
the critical difference between the myths about ourselves and the harsh reality of
being Black men.[3]


In this chapter, Marable lends credence to the need for Black Men’s Studies. The only point of departure I would assume would be in the ordering of confrontations. The acts of self-critical confrontations should follow as such: black men, black women, white history, white men and white women. Such an arrangement orients the origns of self-critical examnination as beginning in an interior-directed manner. Black Men’s studies posits the notion that what has been left out of the gender studies equation is a methodical and self-conscious effort on the part of black men, themselves, to deal with their own realities, history, and challenges. The texts and source material, needed in this vital undertaking are available, yet un-mined.


Gloria T. Hull and Barbara Smith, elaborating on the politics and meaning of Black Women’s Studies, offer instructive tools for scholars of a critical Black Men’s Studies. Hull and Smith stated the case for the field clearly, articulating:


Merely to use the term ‘Black women’s studies’ is an act charged with political significance. At the very least, the combining of these words to name a discipline means taking the stance that Black women exist-and exist positively-a stance that is in direct opposition to most of what passes for culture and thought on the North American continent. To use the term and to act on it in a white-male world is an act of political courage.[4]


In contextualizing the need for black women’s studies, the authors elaborate on the condition of black women, which gives rise to the need for an area of study to examine that condition. They continue:

Like any politically disfranchised group, Black women could not exist consciously until we began to name ourselves. The growth of Black women’s studies is an essential aspect of that process of naming. The very fact that Black women’s studies describes something that is really happening, a burgeoning field of study, indicates that there are political changes afoot which have made possible that growth. To examine the politics of Black women’s studies means to consider not only what it is, but why it is and what it can be. Politics is used here in the widest sense to mean any situation/relationship of differential power between groups or individuals.[5]

Silimilarly, black men intellectuals, via the avenue of Black Men's studies, must participate in the same sort of multi-layered engagement.

Echoing the continuity in the Black Women’s Studies project, subsequent black women intellectuals have provided further foundational theory for the discipline. In a 1997 interview on the subject of “Whither Black Women’s Studies” noted feminist scholar Beverly Guy-Sheftall, in support of the position of Hull, Bell-Scott, and Smith, argued that feminism represented the most appropriate and effective vehicle for the furtherance of black women’s studies. Guy-Sheftall explains the history and reasoning behind this position. She argues:

Black women’s studies, almost from its inception, wanted to theorize about the oppression of women of African descent but also wanted very much to talk about the ways that black women resisted. Black women’s studies consciously and very explicitly wanted not to construct a discourse that primarily emphasized black women’s victimhood. At the same time though, black women’s studies advocates were up against the notion that black women were in fact not oppressed and had not been victimized. So we had to find a balance between the two premises because within African American communities there’s the notion that black women have not been victimized at all, particularly vis-à-vis black men. This was the difficult balance that black women’s studies had to negotiate."[6]

By contrast, black women intellectuals advancing the notion of African Womanism, rose to challenge the idea that Black Women’s Studies should find sole representation in a feminist voice. An oppositional voice to black feminism, Clenora Hudson-Weems in the early 1990s introduced the concept of Africana Womanism. In defining Africana womanism, in contrast to black feminism, Hudson-Weems asserted in her 1993 work by the same name, the following:

Neither an outgrowth nor an addendum to feminism, Africana Womanism is not Black feminism, African feminism, or Walker’s womanism that some Africana women have come to embrace. Africana Womanism is an ideology created and designed for all women of African descent. It is grounded in African culture, and therefore, it necessarily focuses on the unique experiences, struggles, needs, and desires of Africana women. It critically addresses the dynamics of the conflict between the mainstream feminist, the Black feminist, the African feminist, and the Africana womanist. The conclusion is that Africana Womanism and its agenda are unique and separate from both White feminism and Black feminism, and moreover, to the extent of naming in particular, Africana Womanism differs from African feminism. [7]

Hudson-Weems, while providing justification for Africana Womanism as a philosophy and theoretical construct from which to redefine black women’s studies, also provides in her work, a parallel justification legitimizing black men’s studies. In the tradition of Hudson-Weems, other Afrocentric scholars, such as Nah Dove, have provided continuity for this particular ideological perspective within Black Women’s Studies. Dove echoes Hudson-Weems in criticizing black feminist thought for being narrowly focused and for its overreliance on European paradigms.[8] Hudson-Weems writes:

the Africana woman, in realizing and properly assessing herself and her movement, must properly name herself and her movement-Africana womanist and Africana womanism. This is a key step which many women of African descent have failed to address. While they have taken the initiative to differentiate their struggle from the white woman’s struggle to some degree, they have yet to give their struggle its own name.[9]

These conversations and heated debates, occurring within black women’s studies over the past two or three decades, have not commenced within Black Men’ Studies. In fact, Black Men’s Studies has yet to be defined.

While similar questions can and should be raised within scholarly circles of black men intellectuals, few have publicly arisen in such a way as to define an area as broad as what is proposed herein. Guy-Sheftall and Hudson-Weems are correct to assert that black women’s studies must properly and effectively define itself in order to engage the struggle faced by the many varied men and women who compose gendered black identities. Much of what has come to represent characteristic notions of the socialized nature of black men, has, as a result, rendered many of these men as replicas of their former self, preferring instead to adopt a reclusive, hidden, and mysteriously cold posture.

Currently, this blanket identification with black masculinity has positioned black men as non-humans, posturing notions that their identity is relegated exclusively to the sexual, profane, and erotic realms. In the academy, black masculinity studies has come to represent, in its totality, black men’s studies by default and without discussion, evidencing a lack of serious dialogue and constructive engagement within the community of men. Despite evident diversities, the composition of black men transcends sexuality.

In terms of nommo or naming, most black men intellectuals cannot bring themselves to the point to call themselves men, which begs the question queried since our arrival on these shores: Am I a Man? Are We Men? Perceptively, communications studies scholar Ronald Jackson raises a critical indictment against Black masculinist scholarship for its uncritical acceptance, approval and adoption of “the same cultural, social, and political agendas as traditional White masculinist scholarship.” Jackson concedes that there exist shared theoretical commonalities between the study of white men and black men, but forcefully argues that “there is a distinction that emerges where gender meets culture.”[10]

While black feminist thought is a critical aspect of black women’s studies, it, alone cannot represent black women’s studies; it also needs to operate in dialogue with Africana womanism, and vice versa. Comparatively, black masculinity studies and black sexuality studies represent legitimate and critical areas of investigation within the broader framework of black men’s studies. However, alone, these areas cannot completely “represent” black men’s studies, especially a holistic study of black men and all of their/our complexities.

So, I propose a larger umbrella and framework that includes the study of masculinity but so much more; hence the need to usher into the academy the arrival of black men’s studies. Furthermore, black women’s studies, both black feminist thought and African womanism, cannot fully achieve its goal of dismantling oppression and patriarchy, while fighting to obtain full recognition and realization of the humanity and equality for black women of African descent, until black men are ready to equally come to the table; prepared to honestly dialogue with them about the challenges, pain, patriarchy, co-struggles, etc of our individual and collective sojourn in America. We cannot do that as males or with the cover of masculinity. We can only effectively enter the conversation by first removing the mask and concluding the performance.

Similarly, as was the case with black women’s studies, to argue for the efficacy and legitimacy for black men’s studies as a field of study is “an act charged with political significance.” However, it is more politically charged considering the persistent labeling and association of black men with white patriarchy. It is true that, in response to the continuing assault on black manhood in America, either knowingly or unknowingly, black men in varying manners and instances have sought, to imitate the model of masculinity and manhood as that of white men in America. However, at no point in time in American history or cultural life, especially on a transnational level, have black men and white men ever been on the same footing.

Despite the apparent difficulties of making this case, especially in the academy, it is a necessary argument that must commence. Black men do have a gender as theologian Dwight Hopkins reminds us in his classic work Head and Heart: Black Theology: Past, Present, and Future. Hopkins asserts:

Too many people within the African American community, church, and black theology believe that gender concerns only women. When the gender issue becomes the center of discussion, most black men, for example, become like corpses. Their tongues grow silent; their bodies drop to a limp posture; and their presence fades into a ghostlike absence. Gender, from their vantage point, relates only to black women. If this logic is true, they reason, then it would be another example of black male sexism to enter the conversation and dominate what is said and not said. The flip side of this belief is that African American men do have a gender, which is obviously false. Black men have a male gender, so gender refers to both men and women.[11]

While I agree with Hopkins’ basic argument, I do depart on one aspect, the aspect of linking the term “male” to gender identity. Such a categorization fits a physiological definition. However, as one considers the socio-cultural and historical condition of black men in America, past, present, nationally, and transnationally, black men must reclaim the definition of their own gender identity and must define that as that of a “man.” Even as it is agreed that the designation of “manhood” is a social construction, so also it must be affirmed that the designation, “male” holds a parallel, socially constructed connotation. The inherent challenge lies in constructing an accountable and progressive manhood.

The difference between the two terms has been interpreted by black men psychologists such as Na’im Akbar. Akbar and others argue that the term “male” translates more closely to “boy” and “mannish,” both descriptors failing miserably as attempts at achieving or depicting complex states of manhood.

Even when one adopts the in between and ambivalent perspective shared by Claude Brown in his important novel, Manchild in the Promised Land, one has to go beyond maleness and masculinity in order to fully understand the enormous complexities constitutive of transnational black manhood.[12] Economically marginalized sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee affirmed in thought and deed that they were indeed, “Men.” Placards read, “I Am a Man,” with no reference to male, manchild, or the equivalent.

To date, the area of Men’s Studies has been preoccupied with a fixation on the study of white men, devoid of consistent and comprehensive examinations of black men’s specific histories. Black studies, which does find its way into the work of Michael Kimmel, Henry Brod, and others, seems to imitate the socio-cultural condition of white men, especially intra-racial, gendered discourses. The criticism Jackson leveled against black masculinist scholarship holds sway here, evidencing a tremendous void in the literature of men’s studies. Similarly, Whiteness Studies has become increasingly ghettoized as many of its scholars have chosen to distance themselves from a careful critique of the complexities and realities of white manhood in America. While some studies exist to refute such a claim, the majority of works, developed in recent years, clearly demonstrate an inability to confront head on that particular reality.

While important, these studies fail to, comparatively, provide insightful analysis of the historical relationship between black men and white men. Few historians with the exception of David Roediger and Darlene Clark Hine, respectively, have entered the conversation to correct incomplete and inaccurate historical analysis offered by some social theorists and literary scholars, including post-modernists, who are themselves criticized by Patricia Hill Collins in her work, Black Feminist Thought.

Consequently, the result of more black men intellectuals choosing to bypass the issue of theorizing their own histories and critiquing themselves has intensified the criticism levied against them for historic and current irresponsibility, patriarchy, and powerlessness. Much of the continued criticism could be attributed, in part, to the fact that more black men remain outside of the realm of discourse occurring among gendered publics. Even amidst serious criticisms that black men who assert an identity of agency are being patriarchal, without black men engaging in increasing levels of self-criticism, scholars of black women’s studies and black sexuality studies will find themselves continually “playing in the dark.”[13]

Black men must also confront the ghosts and demons of having to live up to the standard of white manhood in America and the contentious and multi-dimensional fallout that stems from this historic and often difficult relationship among men, involving issues of power, oppression, and domination. As a critical part of black men’s studies, this dialogue and study of the complex relationships among black and white men, on social, psychological, physical, emotional, and religious/spiritual levels, intertwined in various subsets of study, what could be roughly called black/white manhood studies, could offer much substantive matter that will unlock other aspects of the issue of manhood for both groups. Not only has white womanhood represented the standard bearer for womanhood in America since the founding of the republic, “white manhood,’ has always functioned as the standard bearer for what being a man in America means.[14]

Furthermore, the shadow of white manhood has continued to haunt black men and women, in terms of hindering the development of other progressive models of manhood and womanhood. From this Du Boisian internal and extraneous struggle within the souls, minds, hearts and bodies of black men, have come the cool pose influenced masculinity tactics that have utilized representation, overrepresentation, sexuality, and other criteria to serve as defense mechanisms, in an attempt to deal with the weight, burden, and impossible challenge of manhood in America.

This shadow has contributed, in varying ways, to the “invisibility” and phantom-like existence that both Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin articulated so well. Such an existence has propelled black intellectuals such as Ellison, Albert Murray, and Stanley Crouch to adopt what amounts to a neutral positional identity, one that hopes to maintain a unity between the two selves Du Bois hoped would never be torn asunder.

In the process, the battle over manhood became a battle over representation and sexuality, with notions of religion/spirituality and intellect mixed in a strange psycho-social-historical brew. In this sense, not only has rac perplexed and plagued black men of varying sexualities, religions, and intellects, it has also served to cast a veil over its connected and conjoined twin: gender. For example, black men were lynched in the period Rayford Logan characterizes as “the nadir” not only because they were “black” but because they were men. The challenges of numerous historical moments forced black men to assert either some self-defined negotiation of the Du Boisian dual identity or submerge any feeling at all.

The realization of this definitive moment has been decidedly stark for many black men, realizing that their inability to offer an effective response and resolution to the threat of white manhood and the inverse fear of black manhood, could end in injury or death. As in the case of Emmit Till, any assumed assertion of agency or authentic black manhood posed too much for the wages of white manhood. Subsequently, black men, in varying ways, chose to descend down into the underground, in a manner likened to Ellison’s “invisible man.” Today, the over-preoccupation and concentration on “masculinity” is reflective of such a reoccurring and sad trend in American life and culture. Instead of carving out new terrain, gender and cultures studies have chosen, thus far, to focus on illustrating, as opposed to interpreting the reasoning for the escapism of black men.[15]

Black men’s studies involves the following theoretical components but is certainly not limited to these. Over time, the dimensions and parameters of the field will expand as further research is explored, re-examined, and re-conceptualized. Black Men’s Studies will redefine historic and contemporary discussions of men’s lives and will include discussions on the following important areas: 1) the Masculinity vs. Manhood debate. 2) the relationship between the study and reality of black men vis-a-via the American Men’s Studies movement. 3) the investigation of varieties of black men and black manhood. 4) engagement with other areas of gender studies, black studies, and black theology including black feminist thought, Africana womanism, and womanist theology in a fruitful conversation. 5) Black Men’s Studies works to define the role of black men who historically and contemporarily have operated as public intellectuals in various black, white, and varied publics. 6) Lastly, Black Men’s Studies seeks to engage Womanist Theology, by articulating and searching for a critical Black Men’s Theology; one which offers the gender counterpart that has been missing from Black Theology and black religious studies.

In summation, related fields of Black Men’s Studies consist of areas incorporating theory building within the field itself: U.S. black men’s history, black men’s literary and cultural studies, biographical and autobiographical studies, oral tradition studies, black masculinity studies, black sexuality studies, black men intellectual studies, and black men’s theology. This series will end with a postscript of sorts that provides recommendations of where we go from here, mirroring the example set out by Hull-Bell-Scott, and Smith.

Much as Cornel West and Eddie Glaude set forth in African American Religious Thought, concerning the need for black religious studies to re-conceptualize its discipline, black men’s studies assumes a similar theoretical justification of revisonist inclusion. West and Glaude’s re-conceptualization of black religious studies, carves out a new integration of the important themes influencing black religious thought. Among these areas include black religious history, the sociology of black religion, gender configurations, and the influence of cultural criticism on the study of black religion. In a related vein, black men’s studies centrally situates the study of black men’s history, as the fulcrum fuelling the call for a new gendered discipline among men.[16]

To study black men properly, one must do so from a transnational and interdisciplinary standpoint-one that examines critically, humanely, and holistically the music, writings, memoirs, achievements, shortcomings, etc of all black men. In support of the conjoined black men’s history and studies project, Hine and Perkins argue in the introduction to volume two of A Question of Manhood: A Reader in U.S. Black Men’s History and Masculinity:

It is hoped that the two volumes of A Question of Manhood: A Reader in Black Men’s History and Masculinity will contribute to the growing interest in African American masculinities. Much erroneous information about black men exists, and is widely circulated in the popular media, Most of it depicts black men as negligent, criminal, and genetically prone to violence. But we have chosen historical essays that tell a more complex reality. They convey some sense of the depth and complexity of black men’s multifaceted experiences in the United States. Historically, the great struggle that has engaged black men and women since the first days of their sojourn in the western world has been the survival of all peoples of African descent in the diaspora. As Aldon D. Morris wrote in the foreword to the first volume, we embrace and place before you ‘the noble side of the notion of what it means to be a man.”[17]

While I agree with virtually everything that Perkins and Hine offer concerning black men and manhood in this statement, I still find the ideal of masculinity or masculinities as being inadequate, especially from a historical standpoint, which undergirdes much of black men’s studies theory. In addition to contributing to the growing body of literature of African American masculinities, Perkins and Hine’s groundbreaking study, as well as the works of Patricia Hill Collins; Hull, Bell-Scott, and Smith, Hudson-Weems and others, more centrally signal a need for a larger framework for the study of black men, one larger than black masculinity studies can be expected to or should be expected to meet or fulfill.

Lastly, Black Men’s Studies must examine black manhood as it appears in all walks of life. Not only should the of the field interpret “Great Black Men” of history and view black men as objects of desire, envy, and property, but black men’s studies must examine all black men as subjects and actors in their own unfolding historical drama, in all of our complexities, nuances, creative moments, etc.

For example the songs of Sam Cooke, the lyrics of The Game; the films of Oscar Micheaux, the photography of Gordan Parks, and the art of Jacob Lawrence are as relevant texts as are the prose of Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.E.B. Du Bois, Sterling Brown, and Cornel West. Similarly relevany are the revelations of my uncle about the joys and frustrations of his life. They all tell a story and in their stories, black communities and families, including black women, can acheive sustained social justice, truth, and healing. Henry Louis Gates' important offering, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, highlighted thirteen personal portraits of black men, with the understanding that thirteen examples are not nearly enough to capture the diversity of experience embedded within that gender. Black Men’s Studies stands to provide limitless intellectual space for the continued interrogation of these diverse experiences of men.

[1] . Rudolph P. Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, eds. Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001, 177-193.; Mark Anthony Neal. New Black Man. New York: Routledge, 2005; Alain Locke, “Self-Criticism: The Third Dimension in Culture,” Phylon. Vol. 11, No. 4. (4th Quarter, 1950), 391-394.

[2] . Richard Majors and Jacob Gordon, eds. The American Black Male: His Present Status and His Future. Chicago, Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1994.

[3] . Manning Marable, “The Black Male: Searching Beyond Stereotypes,” in Richard Majors and Jacob Gordon, eds. The American Black Male: His Present Status and His Future.Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1994, 70.

[4] . Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds. All the Women are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. New York: The Feminist Press, 1982, xvii.

[5] . Hull, Bell-Scott, and Smith, eds. All the Women are White, xvii.

[6] . Beverly Guy-Sheftall with Evelyn M. Hammonds, “Whither Women’s Studies. Interview.” Difference: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies.. 9. 3. 1997, 36.

[7] . Clenora Hudson-Weems. Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves. Troy, Michigan: Bedford Publishers, 1993, 24.

[8] . Nah Dove, “African Womanism: An Afriocentric Theory,” Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 28, No. 5. (May, 1998), 515.

[9] . Hudson-Weems, Africana Womanism, 55-56.

[10] . Ronald L. Jackson, II, “Black Manhood as Xenophobe: An Ontological Exploration of the Hegelian Dialectic,” Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 27, No. 6. (July 1997): 731-732. For a detailed history of Black Men in America, see Christopher Booker. “I Will Wear No Chain!” A Social History of African American Males. Westport: Praeger, 2000.

[11] Dwight N. Hopkins. Between Head and Heart: Black Theology, Past, Present, and Future. New York: Palgrave, 2003, 91.

[12] . Na’im Akbar. Visions for Black Men. Tallahassee: Mind Productions & Associates, 1993; Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land. New York: New American Library, 1965.

[13] . Patricia Hill Collins. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 1991; David Roediger. Colored White: Transcending The Racial Past. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002; David Roediger, ed. Black on White: Black Writers on What it Means to Be White. New York: Shocken Books, 1998; Bruce Triaster, “Academic Viagara: The Rise of American Masculinity Studies,” American Studies Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2 (June 2000), 274-284.

[14] . Dana D. Nelson. National Manhood: Capitalist Citizenship and the Imagined Fraternity of White Men. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998; Toni Morrison. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992; Johnetta B. Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. Gender Talk: The Struggle For Women’s Equality in African American Communities. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.


[15] . Grace Hale. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation, 1890-1940. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998; 13-35; Daniel P. Black. Dismantling Black Manhood: An Historical and Literary Analysis of the Legacy of Slavery. New York: Garland Publishers, 1997.

[16] . Cornel West and Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., eds. African American Religious Thought: An Anthology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.

[17] . Earnestine Jenkins and Darlene Clark Hine, ed. A Question of Manhood: A Reader in U.S. Black Men’s History and Masculinity. Vol. 2. The Nineteenth Century: From Emancipation to Jim Crow. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000, 11.