Religio-Cultural Projection in African American Sermons and Speeches in the 1950s and 1960s

The study explores the dynamics of African American religio-cultural projection in the 1950s and 1960s in speeches and sermons of Vernon Johns and Martin Luther King, Jr., as representatives of the Black Church, as well as Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X as representative leaders of the Nation of Islam. In the vortex of a newly emerging cultural pluralism in the period examined, the previous societal positioning of African Americans is relativized and liberated for reconceptualization, offering them both the possibility and the urge to redefine themselves and thus to embrace and communicate radically new cultural identities. In this societal climate new and renewed ways emerge to realize an authentic black self and, simultaneously, to project it toward the African American ingroup and the mainstream American outgroup. An inherently intercultural discourse, projection reveals the nuances of identificatory anchorage as communicated toward both groups.