In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Acknowledgments There are books that lure you into writing them. They give you no rest until their story is told. This is one of those books. It drew me into the academy to gain the intellectual grounding and professional credentials required to tell the story of The Church in a manner that would command serious scholarly attention. Still, it could never have been written without the generous cooperation of the saints who gave of their time, shared their personal lives, and offered me more hospitality than I will ever be able to reciprocate. Their love and prayers are greatly appreciated. While the physical act of writing is a solitary act, a book grows out of communications with mentors, colleagues, and the works of intellectual ancestors. Although the work of some ancestral scholars ground this book project, they are yet to enter the canons of anthropological literature. The most notable example is Zora Neale Hurston’s The Sanctified Church (1981), which has been recognized more for its literary value than as an anthropological study. Happily, still among us is Ira Harrison, author of the first institutional analysis of storefront churches that I encountered; the richness of his archival materials, combined with the intellectual dynamism of Faye Harrison, produced the groundbreaking edited compilation African American Pioneers in Anthropology (1999), which reinserted scholars of African descent into the intellectual history of our discipline. Melvin Williams’s Community in a Black Pentecostal Church: An Anthropological Study (1974) paved the way for my book project, because of his strong message that an urban storefront church of African American “saints” demands the serious intellectual attention that anthropologists have given religious phenomena from around the world since James Frazier’s The Golden Bough. I am also indebted to Caribbeanist and humanistic anthropologist John O. Stewart for his course African American Anthropology, which he taught at Northwestern University in a way that validated the transnational study of the African x · Acknowledgments American experience as a theoretically and methodologically grounded field worthy of curricular inclusion in any reputable university. Finding scholars who appreciated an Africanist anthropologist doing research and writing about African American religion was not easy. Happily , two collaborative groups welcomed me into their circle. At Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion, a project on Women and Religion in the African Diaspora encouraged such trans-Atlantic intellectual journeys. This Ford Foundation–sponsored project was co-directed by R. Marie Griffith, now at Harvard Divinity School, and Barbara D. Savage of the University of Pennsylvania. The recently formed Black Religious Studies Group initiated by Barbara Savage and Anthea Butler, both at the University of Pennsylvania, grew in part out of the conversations stimulated by the earlier project. The interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and diasporic orientation of these two groups has been a source of ongoing inspiration. Whenever my resolve to complete this project faltered or I simply got bogged down in the minutiae of professional and personal life, it seemed that I would run into the indomitable and effervescent Edie Turner at a professional meeting or come across an especially germane article in the Journal of Anthropology and Humanism, which she edited, and the writing of this book would reassert its pull on my life. Reading Transforming Anthropology, published by the Association of Black Anthropologists, or attending this group’s panels at annual meetings of the American Association of Anthropologists, never failed to re-enliven my dedication to this book project. The support of professional colleagues with whom we work day to day is central to seeing a book to its conclusion. Two heads of Africana Studies at North Carolina State University have helped sustain me through the writing of this book. Dr. Kwesi Brookins, on whose able watch Africana Studies developed both minor and major degree programs, has been my professional rock. Dr. Sheila Smith McKoy, whose research, like mine, spans both African and African American studies, has been an ongoing source of inspiration, perspectives, and sisterly support. The Interdisciplinary Studies Division within North Carolina State University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences has supported my research in both word and deed, with release time and grants so that I could complete this manuscript. In academic life, it is important to have colleagues who are committed to seeing that a manuscript finds a publisher. Elias Bongmba read the proposal for this book and directed me to Anthony Pinn, his colleague at Rice University . Pinn was then editing a series on the history of African American...

Share