Title: Honoring the ancestors
First published: 1998
Description: Donald Matthews affirms once and for all the African foundation of African-American religious practice.

Because the Negro spiritual is the earliest extant body of African-American folk religious narration, Matthews believes that it holds the key to understanding African-American religion. He explores the works of such seminal black scholars as W. E. B. DuBois, Melville Herskovits, and Zora Neale Hurston, tracing the early development of the African-centered approach to the interpretation of African-American religion.

This book poses a challenge to end the battle between Afrocentrists and multiculturalists by acknowledging their common intellectual heritage in the works of DuBois, Herskovits, and Hurston. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of African-American religion and culture and those interested in Afrocentric literature.
Subjects: Religion, History and criticism, African Americans, Black theology, Spirituals (Songs), African Independent Churches, African culture, Information management, Christianity, United States, Schwarze, Subsaharan Africa, Negrospiritual, Godsdienst, Religious songs, Spirituals, Negers, African americans, religion, Spirituals (songs), history and criticism
LC classification: BT82.7 .M38 1998