The Black Presence at the World's Parliament of Religions, 1893

Abstract

Countering traditional views of the World's Parliament of Religions as primarily an event of religious pluralism, this paper examines how the African Methodist Episcopal Church transformed the Parliament into a world court of opinion regarding racial equality. Using Higginbotham's idea of the Black church as a ‘discursive, critical arena’, I show how Black religionists constructed a rhetoric of equality, challenging the themes of unity that pervaded the Parliament. I argue that in locating their challenge at the world's fair, a major event of cultural self-examination, Blacks acted out some of the most original purposes of a church, working with symbols to generate reform.