This course will engage the writings of Black intellectuals who wrestled with the meaning of race, religion, and Black identity in the United States, spanning from the era of the antebellum south to the modern day. Our interlocutors will be a mix of religious practitioners, sociologists, theologians, ethicists, historians, and cultural critics, across gender, sexuality, and political, and denominational/religious persuasions. Students will learn the variety of African American Religious thought throughout the history of the United States and ground the contexts and backgrounds for which these Black intellectuals respond. Those contexts include chattel slavery, reconstruction, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the rise of Mass Incarceration, the ascendancy of Barack Obama, the movement for Black Lives, and more.