Cori Tucker-Price

When researching for a course on migration and the religious imaginary, Cori Tucker-Price, a PhD candidate in religion, read a book about religion in Chicago, which got her wondering about another city. “What was the religious imaginary like in Los Angeles when migrants moved there?” she asks. “I couldn’t find a book about it, which really intrigued me.”

Tucker-Price’s work focuses on African-American migration to Los Angeles in the 20th century and how religious institutions helped them make claims for citizenship and participation in the wartime effort. She focuses on one such institution, People’s Independent Church of Christ in Los Angeles, which attracted many migrants and helped mobilize them into a political constituency advocating for its own rights. “They wanted to craft a religious practice that modelled democracy and empowered participants to think of themselves as active political agents.”

Through extensive ethnographic research, Tucker-Price focuses on 40 years of People’s Independent’s religious history, as well as its relationship to the community in Los Angeles. She also shows how the church was closely aligned with the rise of black Hollywood and how this contributed to a particular racial aesthetic. “The second pastor Clayton Russell was close to black Hollywood celebrities such as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Paul Robeson, and Hattie McDaniel, many of who would go to the church after performing.”

Tucker-Price’s work suggests that the creation of a black political consciousness happened in the 1940s instead of 1960s, which is when the civil rights movement is commonly understood to have begun. “The histories we have of black LA often leave out religion as a force in the creation of the community or of the city,” she says. “By telling the story of a church very involved in the cultural, political and social formation of Los Angeles, I show how religion can be an incubator for social change and cultural innovation.”