Black Witch Thought: An Africana Feminist Religious Movement in 21st-Century America Open Access
Failla, Marcelitte (Summer 2023)
Published
Abstract
Situated at the crossroads between Black feminist studies and Africana religious studies, this dissertation engages archival research, digital media content analysis, and ethnography, especially semi-structured interviews with influential Black witches, to explore their collective histories and thought worlds. Taking seriously a nomenclature that now defines the spiritual identity of an increasing number of Black women and femmes across the United States, my scholarship examines a lineage of Black witches who possess ontological supernatural power(s) and engage African-heritage religions. The Black witch is everywhere, with a significant presence on social media, such as @thehoodwitch, who boasts over 470 thousand followers. TikTok videos with Black witch hashtags, such as #blitch, #blackwitchesoftiktok, and #blackwitch, have accumulated over 232 million views. Offline, the Black witch gathers at conferences and kitchen tables in New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore, and other cities and regions of the country.
I argue that an Africana religious philosophy firmly rooted in Black feminism—or what I call a Black feminist Africana religious orientation—is the framework Black witches employ for their understanding of self, community formation, and beliefs regarding material manifestation. Based on archival and primary source material, I maintain that Black conjure practitioners in the mid-19th to early-20th century used the terms ‘witch’ and ‘witchcraft’ to denote a variety of African-derived spiritual practices, thus challenging widely held beliefs that these terms only apply to white Neopagan practitioners. I then probe ethnographic accounts of spiritual abilities such as communicating with the dead and argue that a Black feminist Africana religious orientation informs a Black witch ontology. “Black Witch Thought” then examines the emerging movement’s political and intellectual lineages, particularly Black religious nationalism, queer theory, and Black feminism. Finally, I analyze how Black witches engage material manifestation narratives often structured through the tenets of prosperity gospel rhetoric and reconceptualize them based on a theological belief in mutual aid and anti-capitalism. The interventions each chapter makes crescendo into a scholarly exploration that illumines how spiritual and political beliefs are inseparable in Black witch thought and serves as a case study of how American religion is changing in the 21st century.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Black Witch Movement……………………………………………………….1
Chapter One: Healing, Manifestation, and Justice: African American Witchcraft…………….28
Chapter Two: Defining the Self: An Africana Ontology of Black Feminist Power…………...69
Chapter Three: A Discourse for Us All: Religiopolitical Thought in Community…………...112
Chapter Four: Manifesting Change: Spiritual Co-Creation and Religiopolitical Thought…….156
Conclusion: Charting a New Discourse……………………………………………………………...202
Selected Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………….208
About this Dissertation
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