The aim of this work is limited. It is not a detailed analysis of each black sect or cult. Its principal thrust is the setting of cults and sects in a historical context, even theological and sociological ones on occasion.By selecting highly representative sect and cult types, the intention is to reveal the universal and particular emphases of these disinherited black folk.Black religion is a concept used by the uninformed to suggest a peculiar intensity found uniquely among religious Blackamericans.There is a dimension of truth here which is ignored in the rush to categorize and stereotype. On the one hand, the variety of black religious activity which parallels whites', along with the forms created by blacks, makes black religion a meaningless term.On the other hand, there is a fundamental and common ethnic ethic shared by black people which gives continuity to their discontinuous religious expressions. It is this continuity amidst discontinuity that we seek to disclose. The ethnic ethic we suggest is the meaning of black religion.