“Citizenship is salvation,” preached Noble Drew Ali, leader of
the Moorish Science Temple of America in the early twentieth
century. Ali’s message was an aspirational call for black
Americans to undertake a struggle for recognition from the state,
one that would both ensure protection for all Americans under
rights guaranteed by the law and correct the unjust implementation
of law that prevailed in the racially segregated United States. Ali
and his followers took on this mission of citizenship as a
religious calling, working to carve out a place for themselves in
American democracy and to bring about a society that lived up to
what they considered the sacred purpose of the law. In The Aliites,
Spencer Dew traces the history and impact of Ali’s radical fusion
of law and faith. Dew uncovers the influence of Ali’s teaching,
including the many movements it inspired. As Dew shows, Ali’s
teachings demonstrate an implicit, yet critical component of the
American approach to law: that it should express our highest ideals
for society, even if it is rarely perfect in practice. Examining
this robustly creative yet largely overlooked lineage of African
American religious thought, Dew provides a window onto religion,
race, citizenship, and law in America.
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