About the Author
Garrett M. Thomas is a scholar of African-American church history and preaching whose research focuses on the cultural contributions of the African diaspora to American Christianity, revivalism, and homiletics. His work engages the intersection of race, religion, and culture in the formation of American spiritual identity.
Abstract
This paper argues that African culture—despite attempts by some scholars to deny its survival through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade—was the pre-eminent driving force behind the success of American revivalism in both the First Great Awakening (1730–1760) and the Second Great Awakening (1800–1830). Drawing on the work of Herskovits, DuBois, Sobel, and others, the author demonstrates that African cultural elements including ring dancing, shouting, folk preaching, and the call-and-response oratorical tradition survived slavery and were subsequently adopted by influential white preachers such as George Whitefield, Francis Asbury, and Devereux Jarrett. The paper traces this cultural transmission through figures like Harry Hoosier and Henry Evans, arguing that American Christianity—and indeed American popular culture—would not exist in its present form without the profound and underacknowledged contribution of African and African-American culture.
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