Exodus!: Religion, Race, and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America

By Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Book Overview

No other story in the Bible has fired the imaginations of African Americans quite like that of Exodus. Its tale of suffering and the journey to redemption offered hope and a sense of possibility to people facing seemingly insurmountable evil.

Exodus shows how this biblical story inspired a pragmatic tradition of racial advocacy among African Americans in the early nineteenth century--a tradition based not on race but on a moral politics of respectability. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., begins by comparing the historical uses of Exodus by black and white Americans and the concepts of "nation" it generated. He then traces the roles that Exodus played in the National Negro Convention movement, from its first meeting in 1830 to 1843, when the convention decided--by one vote--against supporting Henry Highland Garnet's call for slave insurrection.

Exodus reveals the deep historical roots of debates over African-American national identity that continue to rage today. It will engage anyone interested in the story of black nationalism and the promise of African-American religious culture.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226298205
• ISBN13: 9780226298207
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Promised Land Revisited

Eddie Glaude's book is a lucid examination of the connection between the Exodus myth and Afro-American politics. Its subject and critical approach are unique, and its insights into the relationship between religion and politics in 19th century black America are priceless. In limpid, concise prose--unadorned with the jargon that bogs down so many academic books--Mr. Glaude provides us with a new lens through which to view the origins of black political life and, by extension, to understand the full-fledged nationalist movements that were to take hold in the 20th century. I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it is a ground-breaking work written with the confidence of a Baldwin, with the trenchant vision of an Isaiah Berlin, and with a spirited energy that evokes the eponymous Bob Marley song.