The Shakers were remarkably progressive for their time regarding racial equality. As early as the late 18th century, they rescued and accepted African Americans as full members of their communities, treating them as equals in both spiritual and practical matters. This racial inclusivity was revolutionary for the time period, especially considering that many other religious groups still practiced segregation. The Shakers' belief that God was both male and female helped foster their egalitarian views, extending to racial equality. Several Shaker communities, particularly those in New England and New York, had significant African American populations. The Watervliet Shaker community in New York included African American members who held important roles in the community. While the Shakers were progressive in their views on racial equality, they still operated within the broader context of American society. Some communities, particularly those in the South (including Kentucky), faced greater challenges in fully implementing their egalitarian ideals due to local social pressures and laws. There were likely less black women in Pleasant Hill Shaker communities than Northern communities.
Lithograph, “Shakers, their mode of Worship,” D.W. Kellogg and Company, Hartford, CT, ca. 1835. There are many versions of this illustration, published in dozens of works on the Shakers. Two notable features include the presence of two Shakers of color on the far right side of the image, and, in the foreground, the presence of non-Shakers observing the Brothers and Sisters dance during this public worship meeting.
Excerpt from Gifts of Power, Rebecca Cox Jackson
Rebecca Cox Jackson was a black woman who became an eldress in the Shaker religion and founded a Shaker community in Philadelphia.
Rebecca was born in 1795 to a free family, and lived until the age of three or four with her grandmother, who died when Rebecca was seven. From the time Rebecca was ten, she was responsible for the care of two younger siblings; as a result, she was "the only child of my mother that had not learning." (PBS) Rebecca's mother died when she was thirteen, and she was taken in by her brother Joseph Cox, a thirty-one-year old AME minister, widower, and father of six children.
Sometime during the next twenty-two years, when her autobiography begins, Rebecca married Samuel S. Jackson, who also lived in the Cox house. In addition to managing her brother's home, Rebecca worked as a seamstress, one of the most common occupations for black women during that period.
In July 1830, Rebecca experienced a religious awakening during a severe thunderstorm. For five years, her fear of storms had been so great that "In time of thunder and lightning I would have to go to bed because it made me so sick." On this day, she was unable to contain her fear, convinced that she would die during the storm. In her moment of greatest despair, as she prayed for either death or redemption, she suddenly felt as though "the cloud burst," (PBS) and the lightning that had been "the messenger of death, was now the messenger of peace, joy, and consolation." (PBS)
After her conversion, Rebecca began to experience visions in which she discovered the presence of a divine inner voice that instructed her in the use of her spiritual gifts. She soon developed a large following among a neighborhood "Covenant Meeting," typically comprised of women, that in this case also included several men. Rebecca was harshly criticized for "aleading the men" and for her refusal to formally join any church, which several Methodist ministers saw as "chopping up our churches." (PBS) Morris Brown, who succeeded Richard Allen as Bishop of the AME Church, came to a meeting led by Rebecca with the intention of stopping her; but after listening to her, he declared, "If ever the Holy Ghost was in any place, it was in that meeting. Let her alone now." (PBS)
Rebecca's religious activism soon led to the dissolution of her marriage, as well as a separation from her brother, who "had always been kind and like a father to me." (PBS) An incident that led to the rupture in their relationship -- Joseph's failure to teach her to read, as he had promised -- also sparked a remarkable manifestation of Rebecca's "gifts of power." Frustrated with her inability to read and write for herself, Rebecca listened to the inner voice telling her that God would teach her to read, and suddenly discovered that she could!
Rebecca became an itinerant preacher, inspiring both white and black people. Her desire to preach, her insistence on absolute obedience to her inner voice, and her radical notions of "holy living" (PBS) (which included celibacy, even within marriage) created controversy within the churches. According to her account, some ministers even threatened to expel church members who opened their homes to her during her travels.
During her travels, Rebecca discovered the Shakers, whose religious views were remarkably similar to her own. Impressed by her spiritual gifts, they embraced her as a prophet, and she remained in the Watervliet, New York community for four years. Although devout in her commitment to Shaker doctrine, Rebecca was not satisfied with Shaker outreach to other blacks. A conflict over authority soon led her to return to Philadelphia with her companion and protégé, Rebecca Perot.
When Rebecca Jackson died in 1871, Rebecca Perot took the name "Mother Rebecca Jackson" and assumed leadership of the Philadelphia family, which survived another forty years. When Perot and other elderly sisters retired to Watervliet in 1896, it was believed that "Mother Jackson's colony in Philadelphia" had come to an end. However, that same year, in his pioneering study of black Philadelphia, W.E.B. DuBois found two Shaker households in the seventh ward; and in 1908, a Shaker editor noted the discovery of "a colony of Believers there, and zealous, too."
Rebecca Cox Jackson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Cox_Jackson
Source: PBS
Elder Daniel Offord Addressing Salvation Army, North Family, Mount Lebanon, NY, 1903, James West, photographer. Seated among these Shaker Sisters is a lone woman of color, who, along with a girl in the front row, is looking at the camera rather than at the visiting musicians from the Salvation Army.
Sister Phoebe Lane (Credit: Western Reserve Historical Society)
https://hancockshakervillage.org/online-exhibitions/african-american-shakers-berkshires/