Rituals of purification or moral cleansing are common in many religious traditions. For example, ritual washing before prayer, public worship, (re)inclusion, or other religious activities is present ...

For most Africans the concepts of sin, guilt and the afterlife, were new. In Africa, when one sinned, it was a mere annoyance. Often, an animal sacrifice would allow for the sin to be forgiven. In the ...

On May 20, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco sent a letter to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and a resident of the city, informing ...

For the enslaved Africans, music – rhythm in particular – became a tool of communication about their conditions. Later, it laid the foundation for spirituals and gospel songs.

The enslaved Africans who first arrived in the British colony of Virginia in 1619 after being forcefully removed from their natural environments left much behind, but their rhythms associated with ...