Yale University Library Research Guides: African American Religious History: Black Pentecostals

Churches of Christ

Hard-Fighting Soldiers: A History of African American Churches of Christ by Edward J. Robinson Provides a comprehensive look at the Church of Christ's improbable development against a backdrop of African American oppression.
Race and Restoration: Churches of Christ and the Black Freedom Struggle (Online) by Barclay Key Focuses on how the Churches of Christ managed race relations during the Jim Crow era and how they adapted to the dramatic changes of the 1960s.
Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America by Richard T. Hughes Chronicles the history of Churches of Christ in America from their inception in the early nineteenth century to the 1990s, taking full account of the complexity of their origins, the mainstream of their heritage for almost two hundred years, and their voices of protest and dissent, especially in the twentieth century.

Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism by Estrelda Y. Alexander The story of African American Pentecostal origins and development.
Divine Callings: Understanding the Call to Ministry in Black Pentecostalism by Richard N. Pitt A sociological examination of the phenomenon of calling to ministry within black churches. Richard N. Pitt draws on over 100 in-depth interviews with Black Pentecostal ministers in the Church of God in Christ--both those ordained and licensed and those aspiring--to examine how these men and women experience and pursue "the call."
The Labor of Faith: Gender and Power in Black Apostolic Pentecostalism (Online) by Judith Casselberry Examines the material and spiritual labor of the women of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, Inc., which is based in Harlem and one of the oldest and largest historically Black Pentecostal denominations in the United States.
Righteous Riches: The Word of Faith Movement in Contemporary African American Religion by Milmon F. Harrison Analyzing the Word of Faith movement's appeal to African Americans, Harrison argues that, because of their history of oppression and discrimination, African American religious institutions have always had to address the material--as well as spiritual--concerns of their members.

The Rise to Respectability: Race, Religion, and the Church of God in Christ (Online) by Calvin Jr White Documents the history of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and examines its cultural and religious impact on African Americans and on the history of the South.
Women in the Church of God in Christ (Online) by Anthea Butler Examines the religious and social lives of the women in the COGIC Women's Department from its founding in 1911 through the mid-1960s. Argues that the sanctification, or spiritual purity, that these women sought earned them social power both in the church and in the black community.