AHC/ WI Black Nationalism in the United States and Voodoo

Morty Vicar

Banned
In the OTL a lot of African Americans, particularly those involved in civil rights and black nationalism, converted to forms of Islam or Judaism (eg Nation of Islam, Black Hebrew Israelites etc). But what if instead they had converted to Voodoo, like the form in Louisiana or Haiti etc? What effect would it have on individuals like Malcolm X, and on the movement as a whole? BTW this question has no supernatural element to it, this is purely a question about the effects of a particular religion upon an individual and movement.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
Another possibility, could Black Nationalists be inspired by Mahatma Ghandi and take up Hinduism, or a form of Hinduism?
 
I think that the situation which would produce this would produce a very different self image of the black power movement in general. Because the adoption of Rasta, Judaism, and Islam was a religious movement adopted with consciousness that it was a rejection of the impact of slavery on their identities (and in the rejection of the black church leadership of the African American Community). Any adoption of Vodun (I believe the proper name of the syncretic religious practices common in Haiti and Louisiana) will be similarly self conscious that it's the process that created it into their identity. Vodun religion is not something that can historiographically be justified on the ground of going back to a spirituality before slavery. It's the conscious adoption of the legacy of slavery as the creation of a distinctly American ethnicity from the original diverse African cultures that slaves were a part of before they were slaves.

Similarly, it would easily reflect an identity which is constructed around the Caribbean and other former slaver colonies rather than based on looking back to Africa as symbolic homeland. So the Black power movement which emerges is likely to more consciously identify itself as American. Although probably not in the sense of being a part of the United States.

All of this is more tangential though. The backstory for it that I've adopted in my mind is a Black Nationalist movement taking more influence from Trotskyism than it did from Maoism. And similarly probably more theoretical influence from CLR James than there was in OTL as the progenitor of the black nationalist movement. Rather than Marcus Garvey and WEB DuBois. (Not to say they were Proto-Maoists or anything, they were just the preferred writers of the OTL Maoist black nationalists to my knowledge). Because that would produce the most change in terms of creating a very different starting point for groups like the Black Panthers. (And probably also serving the make the Socialist Workers Party and other Trotskyists more major players in the civil rights movement).

This is of course very speculative and has more to do with an attempt to justify why they adopt Vodun rather than what its impact. But this is also an AHC.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
Very interesting, thank you! The reason this question came up is because I understand why African Americans would reject Christianity for it's partial role in justifying slavery, but then Jews also had a minor role in the Transatlantic slave trade, and Muslim Arabs in North Africa still have black slaves, so it seems like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. The reason I settled on Vodun is because it has at least some lineage to Africa, and therefore is more suitable as a black nationalist religion. It would also be a good way to instil fear among the more superstitious. I think this would be a very interesting tl to write but it would be difficult to do without it seeming as though I was portraying them as the 'bad guys', when in fact just the opposite I have huge respect for the civil rights struggle and folk religions alike.
 
Very interesting, thank you! The reason this question came up is because I understand why African Americans would reject Christianity for it's partial role in justifying slavery, but then Jews also had a minor role in the Transatlantic slave trade, and Muslim Arabs in North Africa still have black slaves, so it seems like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. The reason I settled on Vodun is because it has at least some lineage to Africa, and therefore is more suitable as a black nationalist religion. It would also be a good way to instil fear among the more superstitious. I think this would be a very interesting tl to write but it would be difficult to do without it seeming as though I was portraying them as the 'bad guys', when in fact just the opposite I have huge respect for the civil rights struggle and folk religions alike.

Even while Muslims participated in the Transatlantic slave trade, there is solid historical documentation that many African slaves in the Americas were Muslim. It wasn't something imposed in the course of slavery or colonialism, unlike Chrisitanity in Africa (outside of Ethiopia, and debatably, in much of the recent growth of Chrisitanity) and the African diaspora. Black Israelism is much trickier to justify historically, relying on some fringe theories on the ten lost tribes described in the Bible, but it goes back to the notion that Judaism is the original religion of African people. And while you point to the minor role of Jews in the Transatlantic slave trade it's worth noting that Black Israelites, in their various forms, tend not to be too invested in the consensus understanding of history, and that many of them see "white" Jews as being the truly illegitimate claimants to the legacy of Abraham.

This impulse toward seeking pre-slavery religion has had an impact on black American Christianity as well. The Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black, for example, is an Orthodox Christian group, drawing on the Christian legacy of pre-Islamic Africa, especially early Egyptian ascetics.

I don't know how to expand on your challenge beyond what's already been said here, but I thought I'd clarify a bit about how things have gone IOTL.
 
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