Abstract

Many commentators have suggested that the US Civil Rights Movement was led by religious figures while the current movement for racial justice, organized around the slogan Black Lives Matter, is secular. This chapter complicates that narrative. It examines ways that religious ideas and practices continue to circulate among racial justice organizers today. While some organizers identify as secular, others as Christian, and still others as embracing African-inspired spirituality, the shared vocabulary of the movement has deep Christian resonances. Concepts like love, dignity, and faith circulate on social media and in activist meetings, and this language stands ambivalently between the secular and the religious.