Exodus: Religion, Race, and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America

by Glaude, Eddie S., Jr.

• ISBN13: 9780226298207
• ISBN10: 0226298205
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: UNIV OF CHICAGO PRESS

Summary

No other story in the Bible has fired the imaginations of African Americans quite like that of Exodus. Its tale of suffering and the journey to redemption offered hope and a sense of possibility to people facing seemingly insurmountable evil. Exodus!shows how this biblical story inspired a pragmatic tradition of racial advocacy among African Americans in the early nineteenth centurya tradition based not on race but on a moral politics of respectability. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., begins by comparing the historical uses of Exodus by black and white Americans and the concepts of "nation" it generated. He then traces the roles that Exodus played in the National Negro Convention movement, from its first meeting in 1830 to 1843, when the convention decidedby one voteagainst supporting Henry Highland Garnet's call for slave insurrection. Exodus!reveals the deep historical roots of debates over African-American national identity that continue to rage today. It will engage anyone interested in the story of black nationalism and the promise of African-American religious culture.

Author Biography

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is theWilliam S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University. He is the author of In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America and editor of Is It Nation Time? Contemporary Essays on Black Power and Black Nationalism, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
PART ONE Exodus History	1	(104)
``Bent Twigs and Broken Backs'': An Introduction	3	(16)
Of the Black Church and the Making of a Black Public	19	(25)
Exodus, Race, and the Politics of Nation	44	(19)
Race, Nation, and the Ideology of Chosenness	63	(19)
The Nation and Freedom Celebrations	82	(23)
PART TWO Exodus Politics	105	(55)
The Initial Years of the Black Convention Movement	107	(19)
Respectability and Race, 1835-1842	126	(17)
``Pharaoh's on Both Sides of the Blood-Red Waters'': Henry Highland Garnet and the National Convention of 1843	143	(17)
Epilogue: The Tragedy of African American Politics	160	(9)
Notes	169	(36)
Index	205