Chapter 1

"A PASSPORT TO HEAVEN'S GATE"

Carol B. Duncan

The first chapter focuses on the significance of journeying in Spiritual Baptist experience. In this way, Spiritual Baptist migration to Canada is characterized within the much longer history of the Middle Passage, slavery, and enforced African migration to the Americas and subsequent movement between territories including the Caribbean, North and South America, Western Europe, and Africa. Of particular concern here is the continued salience of the "North" as a haven for black people-a motif that has its roots in the African-American and African-Canadian experience of moving "North" to freedom via the Underground Railroad in the U.S. antebellum years of the nineteenth century.

Table of Contents for This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto by Carol B. Duncan

Preface

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

The Research Setting

The Study as a "Talking Book"

Travessao

Book Overview

1. "A PASSPORT TO HEAVEN'S GATE"

Introduction

"Heaven's Gate": Canada in the North American and Caribbean Black Imaginary

Church-Ship: Spiritual Voyaging

Spiritual Baptists in Multicultural Canada: Considering Religious and National Identities in Migration

Countercultures of Modernity and the Problem of Multiculturalism

A Historical Overview of Multiculturalism in Canada

Multiculturalism in the Spiritual Baptist Church

Spiritual Baptist Perceptions and Experiences of Multiculturalism in Canada

Conclusion

2. "THIS SPOT OF GROUND": THE EMERGENCE OF SPIRITUAL BAPTISTS IN TORONTO

Introduction

Origins of the Spiritual Baptist Church in the Caribbean

"This Spot of Ground": The Spiritual Baptist Church as "Homeplace" in Toronto

The Founding of the First Spiritual Baptist Church in Toronto (1975-1980)

Toronto Spiritual Baptist Church Organization

Conclusion

3. "SO SPIRITUALLY, SO CARNALLY": SPIRITUAL BAPTIST RITUAL, THEOLOGY, AND THE EVERYDAY WORLD IN TORONTO

Introduction

"So Carnally, So Spiritually"

Ritual as Performance and Social Commentary

Joining the Spiritual Baptist Church in Toronto

Coming to Canada

Work Experiences

"It Hurt Me Feelings": Naming Racism

"I Say You Can Call Me 'Damn Bitch'...Just Don't Call Me 'Madam'!": Challenging Sexist Racism

The Church as Community: Support Networks in the Spiritual Baptist Church

Conclusion

4. "AFRICALAND": "AFRICA" in TORONTO SPIRITUAL BAPTIST EXPERIENCE

Introduction

Africaland

Sacred Space and Place in the Spiritual Baptist Church

Sacred Time in the Spiritual Baptist Church

Travelling to Africaland

Africa as Eden

Africaland and the African Diaspora

Conclusion

5. "DEY GIVE ME A HOUSE TO GATHER IN DI CHIL'REN": MOTHERS AND DAUGHTER IN THE SPIRITUAL BAPTIST CHURCH

Introduction

An Overview of Domestic Service in Canada

The Mothers of the Church

Family in the Spirit: Extended Family in the Spiritual Baptist Church

"If You Don't Come to Me, I'm Coming to You": Ancestral Mother

"Dey Give Me a House to Gather in di Chil'ren": Spiritual Mother/Carnal Mother

"God Has Work for You to Do": Nation Mother

"It Makes You Feel Like Home": Spiritual Daughter

Conclusion

6. AUNT(Y) JEMIMA IN TORONTO SPIRITUAL BAPTIST EXPERIENCES: SPIRITUAL MOTHER OR SERVILE WOMAN?

Introduction

"Seeing" Aunt Jemima

(Re)Turning the Gaze on Aunt(y) Jemima

Re-reading Aunt(y) Jemima and the Creole Woman

Tie-head Woman

Head-ties and the Social Construction of Identity

Conclusion

CONCLUSION

"To Pick It Up and Take It Forward"

Bibliography

Index

Carol B. Duncan is Chair of the Department of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Her areas of research interest include Caribbean religion and culture in diasporic and transnational contexts. She has published on the Spiritual Baptists, the Black Church, black women and motherhood, and race, gender, and representation in film. Duncan is a co-author of the textbook Black Church Studies: An Introduction (Abingdon Press, 2007). In 2006-2007 she was a research associate in the Womens Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School and a visiting associate professor of Women's Studies and Religion and Society.