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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until August 10, 2026

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Black Sacred Politics: (Extra)Ecclesial Eruptions in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

Gaiters, Seth Emmanuel
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1627001216586944

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Comparative Studies.
The #BlackLivesMatter Movement is one of the most influential Black political movements of the post-civil rights era. In popular and scholarly accounts, it has been characterized as “more secular” than and antithetical to the Civil Rights movement and “Black church” tradition, which, by contrast, are seen as emblematic of a larger tradition of Black religious protest. Contrary to these secularizing reductions and interpretations, this dissertation locates a politics of the sacred at the heart of #BlackLivesMatter, which is irreducible to a secular idiom. I consider the use of both spiritual and religious language and practices in the movement as a part of “sacred politics.” In what ways, I ask, do language and ideas of the sacred circulate through and inform the #BlackLivesMatter movement? How does the movement’s insistence on the sacredness of Black life serve to collapse and undercut any sharp distinction between religious and secular politics? How might we understand this movement as a part of a larger history of Black religious protest for racial justice rather than defined against it? My research explores these questions by centering the voices of participants in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. I analyze the use of rhetorics of the sacred in memoirs and other autobiographical writings, alongside images and other digital artifacts (videos, tweets, etc.) as they circulate on social media (e.g., BlackTwitter, Vine, Instagram, YouTube). My analysis of this sacred discourse is informed by and in conversation with theories drawn from religious studies, political theology, Afro-American religious thought, and Black studies. My project seeks to bring the intersection of religion and this contemporary political movement into plain site to demonstrate how sacred politics is central and not peripheral to their work for racial justice. By looking for religion not in its institutional formations but as it is embodied in the rhetoric and repertoire of activist practices—on the streets (offline) and in the digital sphere (online)—I contest a secularist repression that misrepresents #BlackLivesMatter and thus fails to recognize fully the critical resources and political potential it mobilizes for justice.
Isaac Weiner (Advisor)
Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́ (Committee Member)
Theresa Delgadillo (Committee Member)
Melissa Anne-Marie Curley (Committee Member)
Vincent Lloyd (Committee Member)
423 p.
African American Studies; Black Studies; Philosophy; Religion; Theology
Sacred; Black; Religion; Politics; Black Religion; BlackLivesMatter; Black Lives Matter; Religious Protest; Black Political Organizing, Social Movements, Life Narrative, Autobiography

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Gaiters, S. E. (2021). Black Sacred Politics: (Extra)Ecclesial Eruptions in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1627001216586944

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Gaiters, Seth. Black Sacred Politics: (Extra)Ecclesial Eruptions in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. 2021. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1627001216586944.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Gaiters, Seth. "Black Sacred Politics: (Extra)Ecclesial Eruptions in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1627001216586944

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1627001216586944
© 2021, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.