Black Hebrew Israelites

Black Hebrew Israelites (also called Hebrew Israelites, Black Hebrews, Black Israelites, and African Hebrew Israelites) are a new religious movement claiming that African Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites. Some sub-groups believe that Native and Latin Americans are descendants of the Israelites as well.

Black Hebrew Israelite teachings combine elements from a wide range of sources, incorporating their own interpretations of Christianity and Judaism, and other influences such as Freemasonry and New Thought. Many choose to identify as Hebrew Israelites or Black Hebrews rather than Jews. Black Hebrew Israelism is a non-homogenous movement composed of numerous groups with varying beliefs and practices. Black Hebrew Israelites are not associated with the mainstream Jewish community, and they do not meet the criteria that are used to identify people as Jewish by the Jewish community. They are also outside the fold of mainstream Christianity.

The Black Hebrew Israelite movement originated at the end of the 19th century, when Frank Cherry and William Saunders Crowdy claimed to have received visions that African Americans are descendants of the Hebrews in the Bible. Cherry established the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations, in 1886, and Crowdy founded the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896. Subsequently, Black Hebrew groups were founded in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from Kansas to New York City, by both African Americans and West Indian immigrants. In the mid-1980s, the number of Black Hebrews in the United States was between 25,000 and 40,000.

Various sects of Black Hebrew Israelism have been criticized by academics for their theology and historical revisionism due to the lack of evidence supporting their claims. Some sects are considered black supremacist and antisemitic. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL): "Some, but not all, [Black Hebrew Israelites] are outspoken anti-Semites and racists." The Southern Poverty Law Center designates several extremist sects as hate groups which support racial segregation, Holocaust denial, homophobia, and race war. The SPLC refers to these extremist groups as "Radical Hebrew Israelites" to distinguish between "extremist and non-extremist sects" and because not all Hebrew Israelites are black.

The origins of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement are found in Frank Cherry and William Saunders Crowdy, who both claimed that they had revelations in which they believed that God told them that African Americans are descendants of the Hebrews in the Christian Bible; Cherry established the "Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations" in 1886, and Crowdy founded the "Church of God and Saints of Christ" in 1896. Cherry taught that the Talmud was authoritative, that Jesus would return in the year A.D. 2000, and in a "square earth surrounded by three layers of heaven." The playing of the piano and the collection of tithes during Black Hebrew Israelite worship was forbidden by Cherry, who also taught the eastward direction of prayer and "denigrated white Jews as interlopers." The Church of God and Saints of Christ, originating in Kansas, retained elements of a messianic connection to Jesus. Another early key figure was William Christian. The pioneers of the movement were Freemasons, and it was strongly influenced by Masonic traditions. In the late 19th century, Cherry's and Crowdy's followers continued to propagate the claim that they were the biological descendants of the Israelites. During the following decades, many more Black Hebrew congregations were established. Similar groups selected elements of Judaism and adapted them within a structure similar to that of the Black church. After Frank Cherry's death in 1963, his son Prince Benjamin F. Cherry took over leadership of the movement.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dozens of Black Hebrew organizations were established. In Harlem alone, at least eight such groups were founded between 1919 and 1931.

Some of these include:

The oldest known Black Hebrew organization is the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations. The group was founded by Frank Cherry in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1886, and it later moved to Philadelphia. Cherry, who was from the Deep South and had worked as a seaman and for the railroads before his ministry, taught himself Hebrew and Yiddish. Theologically, the Church of the Living God mixed elements of Judaism and Christianity, counting the Christian Bible—including the New Testament—and the Talmud as essential scriptures.