African Americans have pioneered in cross cultural missions since the 1700s. For a brief perspective on the history of African American missions, see pp. 33-68 of this document.
The African American Experience in World Mission: A Call Beyond Community, edited by Vaughn Walston and Robert Stevens, is probably the best contemporary reader in this branch of Christian global outreach.
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matt. 6:21 (NIV). In tabular form, giving to overseas missions in some major Black denominations is compared with giving 40 years previous, and with various White denominational foreign missions giving. Go here for this document.
What have been the impediments to global missions outreach and why are there no excuses to pursue global missions? See this chart for an overview.
What mission structures has the Black church used and now uses? See this chart.
Vaughn Walston compiled an excellent print bibliography concerning African American missions.
A bibliography through 1998 for researchers of African American missions is located here.
Scholarly websites for African American and Africana studies abound. Go here for links to some selected sites, which themselves link to hundreds of other locations. Links were good as of 1/2006.
No research documenting African American overseas missionaries has been available for over 20 years, of which we are aware. That research in 1998 was in an unpublished doctoral dissertation, also available on this website. An article summarizing some of that earlier research, primarily to assist mission executives in recruiting African Americans, can be downloaded here (PDF). Prior to 1998, systematic research by Wilbur Harr (1945) and Sylvia Jacobs (1982) focused upon Black missionaries in Africa. We hope this work will inform, assist, and motivate toward realizing the huge potential of the African American church for global Christian mission!
This is the accepted manuscript for the (very slightly updated) article appearing in the April, 2023 edition of Missiology: An International Review. We deeply appreciate the assistance of many in the African American mission mobilization community, as well as significant help from mission executives. While the authors hold the copyright, and while you may freely download the article, Sage Publications controls reproduction beyond personal use—please see the text box on p. 1 for permissions. https://rmni.org/files/afam/HistoryandResearch/African-American-Missionaries-Serving-Overseas.pdf
