The study explores the dynamics of African American religio-cultural projection in the 1950 and 1960s in speeches and sermons of Vernon Johns and Martin Luther King, Jr., as representatives of the Black Church, as well as Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X as representative leaders of the Nation of Islam.
The study explores the dynamics of African American religio-cultural projection in the 1950s and 1960s in speeches and sermons of Vernon Johns and Martin Luther King, Jr., as representatives of the Black Church, as well as Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X as representative leaders of the Nation of Islam. In the vortex of a newly emerging cultural pluralism in the period examined, the previous societal positioning of African Americans is relativized and liberated for reconceptualization, offering them both the possibility and the urge to redefine themselves and thus to embrace and communicate radically new cultural identities. In this societal climate new and renewed ways emerge to realize an authentic black self and, simultaneously, to project it toward the African American ingroup and the mainstream American outgroup. An inherently intercultural discourse, projection reveals the nuances of identificatory anchorage as communicated toward both groups.
I. Introduction - II. African American Religiosity - The Black Church and African American Culture - Black Muslims in America - III. African American Religiosity from a Co-Cultural Perspective - Intercultural Communication and Co-Cultural Theory - IV. Memory, Trauma, and the Sacred in an Intercultural Context - Malcolm X: Islam, Pan-Africanism, and Interculturation - Martin Luther King, Jr.: Cultural Memory and Countering History through Memory - Elijah Muhammad: Cultural Trauma and Traumatizing Culture - Vernon Johns: (Inter)Cultural Identity and the Sacred - V. Conclusion - Works Cited
Péter Gaál-Szabó is a college professor at the Debrecen Reformed Theological University. He received his PhD (2010) and habilitation (2016) in Literary and Cultural Studies from the University of Debrecen (UD), Hungary. His research focuses on African American literature and culture, cultural spaces, religio-cultural identity, and intercultural communication.
