Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory
A TL where the common consensus on blacks are that they are too beastly to go to heaven, leading to Southern Slave Lords not majorly investing in converting their slaves. This leads to an odd sort of Pagan-Christian syncretism becoming the major belief within the enslaved population.
Fast Forward to the 19th Century, where abolitionism is on the rise. Many abolitionist decide that if they are able to convert the slaves, they can show that blacks can enter the Heavenly Kingdom, and therefore, deserve the respect of every other son of Adam. Thousands of missionaries travel down, bringing all kinds of different sects of Christianity with them. The effort succeeds at varying levels in various places. After this proselytizing craze dies down, the country is in a bit of a mess. The South is angry at the North for a) giving their slaves a privilege they believed to be white exclusive and b) taking down one of the major justifications of slavery and the North is disgusted with the South for its refusal to end slavery. The pot eventually boils over: race riots, civil war, Emancipation, Reconstruction, KKK/White League equivalents, you know the deal.
After Emancipation, African-Americans are left with very few economic opportunities, agricultural opportunities, educational opportunities and whole bunch of hardly restrained hatred and resentment from the white counterparts. In response to this, these black community turn to their churches. The church becomes the lifeblood of the black community, a center for social welfare, spiritual healing, community and (while they have the chance to vote) political mobilization. Across the Black Belt, religious sects band together build schools, colleges and universities. In particularly large incident, blacks occupy a South Carolinian courthouse to protest against the growing reach of TTL's Redemption. However Redemption still occurs and Jim Crow is implemented.
Two generations later, black religious leaders and the black intellectual elite worry about the state of the people in America and study the black church of Reconstruction and it effect on the community. Mix that the immigration from the British West Indies, who bring people like a Marcus Garvey figure and Pan-Africanism, and soon, the blacks elite of the north have decided to form a new religious sect that meshes Christianity with ideas of Black Power, fraternity and achievement. The sect sported a religious head and a new religious text (mostly just the Bible with some revisions on descriptions of persons and places to best fit Africa and its descendants as well as new books speaking of the black forced exodus and the figures and events that led to the religious revolution).
The church never truly reaches massive numbers, as many people are suspicious of this new sect, particularly rural, uneducated Black Southerners and the well-rooted, church-involved, Black Northerners, how its congregation were essential in the mobilization of African Americans in regaining many of the rights they lost during Redemption in the following decades. Many of its leaders and even some of it lowest and youngest member would become the leading black activists, thinkers, artists, performers, athletes and scientists of their respective ages and generations.
As the TTL reaches its conclusion, it describes the focus of the church shifting from equal parts religion and activism to almost purely activism, and the resulting reduction in members as new generation continue the fight for equality without necessarily wanting the religion to go along with it. The religious head becomes somewhat benign, as they go from being an extremely powerful position to more of a cultural icons for black people all across the world, especially with social media and email allowing for direct access to them at all times (kind of like Pope Francis).
Not So-Jolly-Good-Fellows
The Cross, The Moon and the Eagle
Slavs On the Plains
