Love March Sparks Civil Rights Revelation

I think you are in the minority. Most black Christians are happy to know Jesus Christ. How do you know that Christianity would not have come to Africa anyway? In fact, there are thriving Christian communities in Africa. Perhaps you should just attend the march and stay out of the religious part. It rings of insincerity and hypocrisy from one who says they are agnostic. Be consistent.

If only he was alive today to see some of his dreams accomplish.

Christianity, founded in the Middle East, not Europe, over 2,000 years ago, was never a "white man's religion." That is an ahistorical myth. The outreach of this faith was always universal from the beginning.
Many European Christians violated the principles of the faith by embracing white supremacy and nonwhite racial oppression, however, by the late 18th and early to mid 19th centuries, several Christian groups supported and promoted the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. Many white Christian groups allied themselves with King and other black leaders, endorsed the goals of the modern civil rights movement, and condemned racism, discrimination and racial violence.
Over 1,000 years before Europeans initiated the west African slave trade in the 15th century, there were people of color in parts of Egypt, Ethiopia and other parts of East Africa who had practiced Christianity for over 30 generations.
European missionaries did not impose that faith on those people. In fact, in the 4th century, there were some areas of Europe that had never been reached with the message of Jesus Christ.
In fact, Ethiopia became a Christian nation in the 4th century, making it the 2nd oldest Christian country in the world, after Armenia.
The fight for civil rights began in the black churches because for generations it was the only institution under total black control. It was the heart of the community, and black ministers were among their earliest leaders.
Black folk for over 250 years have regarded the church as a place of spiritual and social liberation, not bondage to white supremacy
and nationalism.
One last point. No one should ever refer to the death of Martin Luther King as a "murder." King was the victim of an ASSASSINATION, a willful, orchestrated, sudden, secret killing for a POLITICAL purpose.

Christianity existed in Africa long before it was co-opted and manipulated by Europeans or Americans.

Thank you, Jamil, for your openness to where people find hope.

CY2, did your mother ever suggest to you that "if you can't say something nice ... " ?

CY2, like the author I am agnostic. But I have had a long-standing interest in the sociology of religion.

Two things are simultaneously true. African-Americans are, on the whole, more religious than whites and Hispanics. But religiosity among African-Americans has fallen substantially in recent decades and is much lower among young vs. older people.

According to 2020 Pew Research study, nearly half (47%) of African-Americans go to church weekly or more frequently. This is higher than whites (36%) or Hispanics (39%). But the proportion of African-Americans who are nones rose 19.5% in 2008 to 34.9% in 2020, a much greater increase than for whites or Hispanics. (Nones are agnostics, atheists, and people who hold no particular religious beliefs.)

The shift is largely generational. For the population as a whole, nearly half of Millennials and slightly more than half of Gen Z identify as nones. The proportions are higher for African-Americans than for whites or Hispanics.
https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/race-generations-and-american-religion

"I didnt see the kids in church for the sermon, at least. I hope they got to go home and play Fortnite."

You can see kids in the embedded video. They're practically up front!

A white mans religion? Thats an ignorant thing to say . Let me ask , what country has the most Christians? If you say China you are correct .
Blacks in the suburbs seem to be doing pretty well. People in the big cities have been sold out for decades by their leaders both black and white. Its good the kids are marching if its in remembrance of Dr.King and a lesson in history. If they are marching in protest against some perceived racial boogie man, then its just creating another generation of strife.

Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jewish person, he was not a the European.
The Middle East is where the worlds early modern humans migrated from Africa first, and then some humans migrated further into Asia and Europe, and then to the Americas. The Christians, Jews and Muslims, (all Abrahamic religions,) all share deep roots and shared ancestors from a region of the world that had trade routes in and out and back and forth through the Middle East to Africa, Asia and Europe for thousands of years. So the people of Africa who either traveled to the Middle East and beyond, or met those who traveled to Africa had been exposed to each other and to the Christian religion as well as Jewish and Muslim and other religions introduced to the Middle East through trade and travel, long before Europeans discovered that the New World existed, or slavery was brought to the New World from the Old World where it had existed for centuries.
Christianity and the Church was one of the few places that enslaved people of African ancestry in the Americas could meet in large groups and communicate with others from many different places across the community. It is where the very heart of rebellion, resistance, education, communication, togetherness, and hope was allowed to thrive away from the control of the white supremacists system of power in our country.
Your article makes clear you have much to learn.

The speeches of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior are the most beautiful and uplifting sermons I have ever heard, and he was truly a man most deserving of a day of honor to remember him by.
His Dream is my dream, and I hope someday we will see his Dream come true.

Jamil: I write in support of your right to share your personal point of view, whether or not others approve of it.

That Sounds even more arrogant to me.
I mean i dont particularly care what anybody else holds as their god or not. But to be in denial of knowing ones own existence isnt credible. There is a certain order to the universe . Call it what you will . But if you exist you are part of it.

First of all The Africans follow African Spirituality not religion.

Early European Christian missionaries tried to destroy African Spirituality.You see Many African traditional Spirituality rites and rituals were regarded as against the Christian faith and morals.It was also believed that African Spirituality promoted the belief in witchcraft and encouraged people to worship their ancestors instead of worshiping God and was spirit, Not of doctrine. So enslaved African continued to practice African religious rites more or less openly, sometimes disguising their beliefs by merging their native African Gods with Catholic Saints.They call them The Seven African Powers, also known as the Orishas, are spirits from the Supreme Creator in African.

African Spirituality is older than christianity.The ancient roots of Yoruba Spirituality date back 5,000 years to West Nigeria. Yoruban religion is centuries older than Christianity.Also Santería ,Vodou and Candomblé.

If you go back centuries to kemet,Most of you call kemet Egypt is also older than Christianity.If you read E. A. Wallis Budge book call The Egyptian Book of the Dead.The Bible is derived from the Egyptian book of the dead.Back in the 70"s I went to kemet with the great Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannan and what he show us in those Pyramids was was unbelievable.I saw the The 42 Laws of Ma'at and Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannan told us this is where moses got theTen Commandments from.and also show us on the walls Amun Ra and told us when you say amen,you are calling Amun Ra.I also saw on the walls a cross and Ankh which I wear.Take a trip to kemet and they see for youself.

https://www.blackhistoryheroes.com/2013/02/42-laws-of-maat-under-kemet-law-and.html

It is an insult to black Christians for anyone to state as FACT that the faith generations of black families have practiced is "the white man's religion."
Such an assertion essentially questions the authenticity of the "blackness" of black Christians. It implies that Black Christians have been brainwashed by white supremacy into accepting an inferior, docile, servile mentality and status, favoring the culture of their oppressors over the culture of their African ancestors.
I first recall hearing this "white man's religion" reference to Christianity from the Nation of Islam, the black nationalist supremacist group, which used the phrase as a pejorative to attack and slander the Black Church and black Christians.
Everybody has a right to their own opinions, but facts trump opinion. Despite the author's personal views of agnosticism and Black Christianity, a greater degree of sensitivity and historical accuracy should have been utilized when doing this article about an MLK event in a Black Church. Inserting a personal controversial bias and prejudice into this story only served as a distraction from the presumed intent of the story about a Martin Luther King event.

In our Christian home, Jesus was, and is, Black. Feet of burnt brass