Offers an ethnographic study of blackness as it is understood within a specific community--that of the First Afrikan Church, a middle class Afrocentric congregation in Atlanta, Georgia. Drawing on nearly two years of participant observation and in-depth interviews, Andrea C. Abrams examines how this community has employed Afrocentrism and black theology as a means of negotiating the unreconciled natures of thoughts and ideals that are part of being both black and American. Specifically, Abrams examines the ways in which First Afrikan's construction of community is influenced by shared understandings of blackness and probes the means through which individuals negotiate the tensions created by competing constructions of their black identity. This book examines questions of political identity, religious expression, and gender dynamics through the lens of a unique black church"--From back cover.