Kiana Cox is a senior researcher on the Race and Ethnicity team at Pew Research Center. She leads our National Survey of Black Americans, which engages on questions of Black identity, politics, and economic mobility. She is also co-author of the Center’s groundbreaking study, “Faith Among Black Americans”. Prior to joining the Center in 2018, Kiana was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at SIU-Edwardsville where she taught courses on race, gender, Black history, social movements, statistics and research methodology. She earned her Ph.D. in sociology with a concentration in race and gender from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
75% of Black Americans say that opposing racism is essential to their faith or sense of morality, a view that extends across faith traditions.
The vast majority of religiously unaffiliated Black Americans believe in God and about half pray regularly, although few attend services.
Today, most Black adults say they rely on prayer to help make major decisions, and view opposing racism as essential to their religious faith.
More Black adults now say the country has work to do to address racial inequality; attitudes of White adults have changed little since 2019.
Six-in-ten black adults say it is important for houses of worship to address “political topics such as immigration and race relations.”
Black Americans are the most likely to say that what happens to people from their racial group affects them personally.
Most Americans (65%) – including majorities across racial and ethnic groups – say it has become more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views since Trump was elected president.
Research has shown that men in the United States are generally less religious than women. And while this pattern holds true among black Americans, black men are still a highly religious group.
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