In many ways, Black people in the United States are more religious than Americans of other races. This is especially true for immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, who tend to be more religious than U.S.-born Black adults or immigrants from the Caribbean, according to a Pew Research Center Survey.

For example, around half of African immigrants in the U.S. (54%) say they attend religious services at least weekly, compared with about three-in-ten U.S.-born (32%) and Caribbean-born (30%) Black adults. And about seven-in-ten African immigrants (72%) say religion is very important to them, compared with 59% of U.S.- and Caribbean-born Black adults who say this.

In addition, immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa are much less likely than other U.S. Black adults to be religiously unaffiliated (that is, to identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”). Just 6% of African immigrants identify in one of these ways, compared with 22% of U.S.-born Black adults and 23% of Black immigrants from the Caribbean.

The religious profiles of immigrant groups differ in other ways, too. Both African and Caribbean immigrants are somewhat less likely to be Protestant, and more likely to be Catholic, than U.S.-born Black adults. And African immigrants are more likely than other Black Americans to identify with other Christian faiths such as Orthodox Christianity, or with non-Christian faiths such as Islam.

While the vast majority of the 47 million Black Americans were born in the U.S., the Black immigrant population has roughly doubled over the last two decades to 4.6 million in 2019, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. In 2019, roughly one-in-ten Black Americans were born outside of the U.S., including 4% who were born in sub-Saharan Africa and 5% who were born in the Caribbean.

More Black Americans come from Jamaica, Haiti, Nigeria and Ethiopia than from any other African or Caribbean countries, according to Pew Research Center tabulations of the Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey.

Some Black Christian immigrants go to churches associated with historically Black Protestant denominations based in the U.S., such as the Progressive National Baptist Convention, while others go to congregations of Haitian Baptists, Pentecostals and Catholics, or those associated with African denominations such as the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and the Nigeria-based Church of the Lord.

African immigrants also distinguish themselves in the survey through their beliefs about scripture and conversion. Immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to say they believe in God as described in their religion’s holy scripture – such as the Bible for Christians or the Quran for Muslims – than are U.S.-born Black adults.

About eight-in-ten African immigrants (84%) say they believe this, compared with around three-quarters in the other groups. And roughly seven-in-ten African immigrants (68%) say people of faith have a duty to convert nonbelievers, compared with approximately half of U.S.-born and Caribbean-born adults who feel this way.

African immigrants also stand out on certain social and cultural issues. Fewer than half of African-born Americans (38%) say homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with 63% of U.S.-born Black adults. Caribbean-born immigrants fall between the other two groups, with roughly half (52%) saying that homosexuality should be accepted by society. (In general, opposition to homosexuality is far more common in sub-Saharan Africa than it is in the U.S.)

And African immigrants tend to be more supportive of traditional gender norms, in some ways, than U.S.-born Black adults. For example, those born in Sub-Saharan Africa differ from other Black Americans on questions about how men and women should share duties in households that have both a mother and father.

African immigrants are more likely than other Black adults to say the father should be mostly responsible for providing for the family financially, and that the mother should be mostly responsible for taking care of the children. However, the most common view in all groups is that both parents should divide these responsibilities equally.  Pew Research Center

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The Court of Appeal has stopped more than 1,300 coffee pickers from having their battle with late Cabinet Minister Njenga Karume (pictured) over a 518-acre piece of land worth Sh3 billion in Kiambu County heard by the Supreme Court.

According to Justices Wanjiru Karanja, Hannah Okwengu and Sankale Ole Kantai, the issues they want to raise before the highest court in the land are similar to what had been settled and there were no conflicting verdicts that would prompt the court to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.

 “The identified issues do not raise any novel issues that have not been determined before nor is there in existence conflicting decisions arising from similar situations which will require the Supreme Court to address,” the court ruled.

This saga began when Ms Norah Fangor sold the piece of land and moved to Malindi where she died, leaving two warring factions, one led by former powerful minister Njenga Karume and the other consisting of coffee pickers, fighting over ownership.

The battle over Kiu River Farm involves Gitamaiyu Trading Farmers and the Nyakinyua Mugumo Kiambaa company and has outlasted the reigns of Presidents Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki, and spilt into President Uhuru Kenyatta rule.

The pickers first sought the President’s intervention and when that failed, they turned to the courts. The Gitamaiyu group, comprising 600 members, most of them landless, claimed they bought the expansive land, causing Mzee Kenyatta to summon Karume to State House Nakuru to explain what was happening.

In a letter dated August 15, 1977, by Francis Da Gama Rose and Company advocates and signed by the then Gitamayu chairman Njuguna Kaguima, treasurer Charity Wanjiku and Secretary Peter Waruinge, it was alleged that Fangor offered that to sell her land for the first time in 1973 at a cost of Sh1.5 million.

She allegedly raised the price one year later, in 1974, to Sh2 million, which Gitamayu members claimed they agreed to pay. Gitamayu alleges that they signed a sale agreement for the land in February 1977, but without transfer since Norah failed to sign land consent forms.

In total, Gitamaiyu claims they paid Sh1 million in cash to Fangor and the remaining cash in coffee picking dues.

But in a rebuttal, Karume claimed that the first sale proposal was to him in 1975 at Sh 2.68 million, which he was allegedly required to pay 10 per cent deposit within a day, which he did.

“I am replying to your letter dated January 3, 1980, which was attached with a petition by members of Gitamaiyu Trading Company Limited to His Excellency the President. The above farm was offered to me in 1975 at Sh 268,000 and the owner gave me one day to pay a 10 per cent deposit.

“I accepted the offer and promised to pay the deposit as required,” the late Karume explained to the District Commissioner in a letter dated January 30, 1981.

Karume said that he opted to look for potential groups which would buy the land but found none. He opted to ask Ite Farmers, whose membership incorporated some of his employees. He stated that two days after his proposal to Ite Farmers, Gitamaiyu directors approached him offering to refund his deposit as they had allegedly collected Sh300,000. They, however, did not honour their promise.

“They told me they had been collecting money to buy that farm on which some of their members lived as squatters,” Karume said.

He claimed that the seller returned his deposit and that he approached Kiambaa and Nyakinyua Women who were over 300 in number with an offer for the land.

The Gitamaiyu group claimed that Karume’s wife, Wariara Karume, was the chairperson of Mugumo Nyakinyua Farmers Company.

But in his letter, Karume denied that his wife Wariara was the chairperson of the Mugumo group. He said that she was only persuaded to become a shareholder by the women in the group, adding that some of the women were even linked to the Gitamaiyu one.

“After the women bought 100 per cent shares in the company, the directors of Gitamaiyu went to the late President and told him that I had denied them the right to buy the farm and instead bought it for myself.

“On coming back from overseas, I was called (sic) to Nakuru. I told him that this farm was bought by Mugumo Nyakinyua Kiambaa Co.Ltd,” the letter read.

According to Karume, Fangor died before signing the land consent form, but Charles Njonjo, who was minister for Home and Constitutional Affairs in President Moi’s Government at that time, allegedly intervened.

The standoff spilt into the courts in 1994 and was determined by High Court judge Aggrey Muchelule who dismissed Gitamaiyu’s case. They filed an appeal in 2013. The case is yet to be determined to date. - Kamau Muthoni, The Standard