Teaching The Color Purple offers an excellent opportunity to educate your students not only about slavery in America, but about the faith that African-Americans, particularly African American women, fostered to persevere. While Walker’s book is not a “religious” text, the main character Celie often speaks through letters written to God. Other times, there are things that she chooses not to tell God. The work, therefore, raises the challenging questions: What role does faith play in the lives of slaves? What way did it provide comfort for them? Did it also influence them to accept the status quo? All of these questions are dealt with in the powerful 2003 PBS documentary film This Far by Faith.

As educators begin to tell the history of the United States through the prospective of African Americans, religious people, places, and ideas are also important part of the story.

Commemorating the anniversary of 1965 “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma Alabama it is no coincidence that democratic candidates Sen. Barak Obama Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church and Sen. Hillary Clinton spoke at the First Baptist Church across the street. Not only were they going to community centers of the African American community they preached at these churches because they are at the heart of African American history and experience.

Talking about history through the lens of religion can be no easy task. More than simply a history of places and events the history of African Americans is a history of thoughts and the ways in which thought influenced actions. Films like This Far by Faith capture the history African-American religious thought, from the “beliefs and rituals Africans brought to America to the influence of Christian teachings imposed on slaves in the new world” (www.pbs.org/ thisfarbyfaith). But equally important, focusing on faith helps create a complex and rich picture of development of underground churches, and attempts by slaves and free blacks to unify the black community. Students get a much clear picture of why African Americans rose up against oppression and how the institutions such as churches became a unifying force within the African American community.
In unpacking the different way faith inspires Action This Far By Faith tells the stories of Sojourner Truth and Denmark Vesey. Both were born enslaved; both used the Gospel to shape their identities. However, both used their voices in very different ways-one chooses retribution and the other, engagement.  While these concepts can fell vague an oversimplified in lectures and written texts showing as opposed to telling the story allows students to connect to the ways faith has shaped the history of African Americans on both personal, communal and societal levels. 

To purchase This Far by Faith click here