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When the Rev. Al Sharpton implored White America to 鈥済et your knee off our necks鈥� at the memorial of George Floyd, his words were carried by . Meanwhile in the United States, the Rev. William J. Barber II has been an ever-present voice in the protests, prompting some to place him as .

That people of the cloth are at the forefront of the current protests over police brutality should not be a surprise.

From the earliest times of the U.S. history, religious leaders have led the struggle for liberation and racial justice for Black Americans. As an , I see it as a common thread running through the history of the United States, from Black resistance in the earliest periods of slavery in the antebellum South, through the civil rights movement of the 1960s and up to the Black Lives Matter movement today. 

As , one of the founders of Black Lives Matters, : 鈥淭he fight to save your life is a spiritual fight.鈥�

Spiritual calling

For many Black religious leaders, civil rights and social justice are central to their spiritual calling. Their respective faith traditions place religion within the Black American experience while also being informed by African culture and the traumatic experience of the Transatlantic slave trade of African people.

We see this in Malcolm X鈥檚 1964 exhortation that Black Americans should  and 鈥渕igrate to Africa culturally, philosophically, and spiritually.鈥� Malcolm X鈥檚 desire to internationalize the struggle in the U.S. after his 1964 pilgrimage to Mecca also speaks to the role he saw Islam having in the civil rights movement. 

鈥淎merica needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem,鈥� he wrote in a letter . The struggle of Black Americans informed Malcolm X鈥檚 reading of the Quran.

Similarly, the interaction between religious text and real-world struggle informed earlier Black civil rights and antislavery leaders. Slave revolt leader Nat Turner, for example, saw rebellion as the work of God and drew upon biblical texts to inspire his actions. 

As historian and Turner biographer  noted in an , 鈥淭urner readily placed his revolt in a biblical context, comparing himself at some times to the Old Testament prophets, at another point to Jesus Christ.鈥� In his 鈥淐onfessions,鈥� dictated to a White lawyer after his 1831 arrest, Turner quoted the Gospel of Luke and alluded to numerous other passages from the Bible.

Turner had visions he interpreted as signs from God encouraging him to revolt. 

Visions

Such prophetic visions were not uncommon to early antislavery leaders鈥� and  were both spurred to action after God revealed himself to them. Lee鈥檚 antislavery preaching is also an early example of the important role that Black religious female leaders would have in the civil rights struggle. 

In arguing for her right to spread God鈥檚 message, Lee asked: 鈥淚f the man may preach, because the Saviour died for him, why not the woman? Seeing he died for her also. Is he not a whole Saviour, instead of a half one?鈥�

These early antislavery activists rejected the 鈥渙therworld鈥� theology taught to enslaved Africans by their White captors, which sought to deflect attention away from their condition in 鈥渢his world鈥� with promises of a better afterlife.

Instead, they affirmed God鈥檚 intention for freedom and liberation in both this world and the next, identifying strongly with biblical stories of freedom, such as the exodus of the Hebrew community from Egyptian enslavement and Jesus鈥� proclamation to 鈥渟et the oppressed free.鈥�

Incorporating religion into the Black antislavery movement sowed the seeds for faith being central to the struggle for racial justice to come. As the church historian  , the 鈥渧ery disorientation of their slavery and the persistent impact of systemic racism and other forms of oppression provided the opportunity鈥攊ndeed the necessity鈥攐f a new religious synthesis.鈥�

At heart, a preacher

The synthesis continued into the 20th century, with religious civil rights leaders who clearly felt compelled to make the struggle for justice central part of the role of a spiritual leader.

鈥淚n the quiet recesses of my heart, I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher,鈥� the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in a 1965 . 

Racial justice remains integral to Black Christian leadership in the 21st century. In an , Barber said: 鈥淭here is not some separation between Jesus and justice; to be Christian is to be concerned with what鈥檚 going on in the world.鈥�

Recognizing the rich legacy of Black religious leadership in the struggle of racial justice in the United States in no way diminishes the role of historic and contemporary secular leadership. From W.E.B. DuBois to , who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, and up to the current day, the civil rights movement has also benefited from those who would classify themselves as freethinkers or atheists.

But given the history of religion in the Black protest movement, it should be no surprise that the killing of George Floyd has unleashed an 鈥攂acked by supporters from different faith traditions.

This article was originally published by . It has been published here with permission.