What is Hoodoo?

Hoodoo is a largely protestant based spiritual religious practice, created by enslaved Africans living in colonial antebellum America. It is an amalgamation of West and Central African spiritual practices and Christianity. Hoodoo is the offspring of the Transatlantic Slave Trade born of forced conversion to Christianity; Slave Codes that criminalized the African spiritual practices and forbade large gatherings of Black people.
Hoodoo was forced into the shadows in secret places out of necessity. Punishment for practicing Christianity that wasn’t sanctioned by slavers during the Antebellum period was swift and severe. Therefore enslaved people had to hide their African animist influenced Christian practices from the gaze of European Americans. They secreted charms under floorboards; in walls; above door frames and buried them away from prying eyes. Enslaved Africans stole away to “hush harbors” in the dead of night to dance and sing for the Lord and hear scripture that promised better days and freedom for all God’s children. Hush harbors also known as brush harbors for the brush used to disguise the outdoor services from the punitive gaze of overseers, patrollers and slave masters. These sacred spaces gave birth to spiritual and gospel music.

Is Hoodoo Evil . . .?

Hoodoo practices were demonized before and after emancipation. All African derived spiritual practices were outlawed during American slavery primarily because they empowered and inspired enslaved people. These belief systems and practices were not sanctioned in slave holding societies because they fell outside of the realm of European American dominion and understanding. Moreover, African derived religious practices and folkways worked. Root work often healed the sick; protected and uplifted the oppressed. African derived spiritual practices redirected what was considered the “natural order”; shifting the balance of power in the favor of a group of people who were legally and structurally never intended to have agency or power.

During the colonial and antebellum eras in the Americas, the scriptures:

Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. 1 Peter 2:18

Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. Titus 2:9-10

Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Genesis 9:25

dictated the fundamental racial and socioeconomic structure for over 400 years. It’s a wonder that enslaved and formerly enslaved people in the United States were ingenuous enough to blend African animist practices with the religious text used to justify their oppression to protect, inspire and heal themselves.

Thank you for visiting the Harlem Moon Hoodoo Room and welcome to the re-launch of our website.

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Feel free to peruse our compendium of Harlem grown botanicals.

We are working on a rolling re-launch of the website and are currently under construction. Check back often to check out what’s brewing in the Harlem Moon Hoodoo Room. Discover the new features products, and services offered.