The Evolution of Soul

In the context of African American spirituality and holistic well-being, the term “soul care” represents an expansive cultural life-force, heritage, and expression of resilience born from centuries of survival, creativity, and community. The term aligns with a history of communal resilience, cultural vocabulary, and a view of survival that predates modern psychology and social work.

In her book, Soul Care in African American Practice (2020), Dr. Barbara Peacock argues that while terms like “spiritual direction” or “contemplative practices” have historically been framed through a Western, Eurocentric lens, “soul care” practices have always been deeply embedded within the fabric and heritage of the Black church and African American culture. Rather than viewing spiritual growth purely through personal piety or silent meditation isolated from the world, Peacock shows how Black spirituality seamlessly integrates personal devotion with social justice.

Emerging strongly during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s, “soul” became a badge of honor and self-determination. People embraced terms like “soul brother” and “soul sister” to celebrate Black heritage. In music, the term “soulful” describes a raw, unfiltered emotional delivery rooted in the Black church, gospel, blues, and jazz. Whether in a sermon or a song, it is an innate quality felt through vocal grit, rhythm, and physical expression. As cuisine, “soul food” represents traditional African American cooking originating from the South during and after slavery, where history, family memory, and love are infused into every dish. Not only that; but the term also has connotations for spiritual survival. Rooted in both African worldviews and the Black church, soul is the deep inner spirit that resisted erasure through the Middle Passage, slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic marginalization.

Peacock’s book is uniquely structured around ten significant historical and contemporary African American spiritual leaders, including Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Howard Thurman, Darrell Griffin, Renita Weems, Harold Carter, Jessica Ingram, and James Washington. Each chapter uses a leader’s life to highlight a specific element of soul care, such as prayer, meditation, lament, detachment, or community leadership. Through their stories, Peacock illustrates that practices of spiritual formation were not luxury exercises completed in isolation, but vital tools of survival, deliverance, and resistance used to navigate oppression and systemic racism.

Peacock traces the earliest foundations of these practices to North Africa, specifically highlighting the Desert Mothers and Desert Fathers. She reminds readers that Christianity and contemplative practices (such as silence, solitude, and meditation) thrived on the African continent long before the transatlantic slave trade. The true “evolution” of distinct African American soul care began in the horrors of the Middle Passage. Peacock notes that even when stowed like animals below deck, enslaved Africans engaged in profound soul care, turning their eyes of faith toward the North Star. In the American South, this manifested as the “hush harbors” and secret prayer meetings where enslaved people practiced communal prayer, lament, and song away from the eyes of White slave owners.

Over the centuries, this survival-based spirituality evolved into the modern Black church. It was embodied not only in expressive preaching and joyful worship, but also in the deep, reflective undercurrents of contemplative prayer and spiritual guidance. Soul care understands the soul as encompassing not only the spiritual dimension but also the physical, emotional, relational, and moral aspects of human experience. Peacock noted, “We speak soul to soul and spirit to spirit as we seek God and the hearts of our sisters and brothers.”[1]

Therefore, when I mention the “caring for the soul,” I am referring to accompanying someone through the particular circumstances of their life, making room for suffering, grief, trauma, and questions of meaning. Such care must consider how culture and trauma shape a person’s experiences and concerns and should respond with attentive presence that seeks to understand the person’s unique cultural-historical situation.[2]  Caring for the soul must also include attention to non-material needs, particularly how people interpret their circumstances and adapt to socio-political change.[3]  Engaging in soul care can help people of African descent and their communities respond to the psychological, spiritual, and relational harms of structural oppression.

Soul Care Amid Structural Oppression

Systemic racism, economic injustice, and institutional marginalization can diminish dignity, belonging, and a sense of inherent worth, reducing people to categories rather than recognizing them as whole persons. Soul care resists this dehumanization and acknowledges that each person’s worth takes shape in reflection, spiritual practice, and supportive relationships, allowing people to resist deficit-based definitions imposed on them and ground their identities in their inherent dignity, or, for those whose faith includes this understanding, in their reflection of the Divine.[4]

For purposes of this discussion, I am defining “soul care” as the intentional practice of tending to one’s inner life, including the person’s thoughts, emotions, will, and spiritual well-being. My operational definition of soul care also creates space for communal grief and lament. Marginalized people may be expected to conceal their pain while their anger is dismissed or treated as a problem. My definition recognizes sorrow, rage, and despair as understandable responses to injustice. Through poetry, song, prayer, storytelling, or silence, individuals and their communities can express grief together and ensure it is witnessed rather than buried or carried alone. These practices can help name moral injury, and in the process, confront the unjust conditions with compassion without minimizing the harm.[5]

Moreover, because oppression can shape how people understand themselves, soul care must include examining beliefs and traditions used to justify inequality, submission, or shame. This can involve discerning which interpretations have been distorted or imposed and which sources offer wisdom, belonging, and life. Reconnecting with ancestral practices and spiritual traditions that communities have preserved or reclaimed can foster meaning and resilience.

In this regard, I define a “soul-care companion” as a compassionate helper who walks alongside another person in a holistic and supportive role. Soul-care companions can be counselors, psychologists, chaplains, pastors, social workers, caregivers, pastors, deacons, teachers, educators, life coaches, Big Mamas or anyone else with appropriate spiritual grounding, trauma-informed training, and experience.

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[1] Peacock, Barbara L.. Soul care in African American practice (p. 5). (Function). Kindle Edition.

[2] Johnson. R. (2026). systemic oppression and depression in Black Women: A path forward through pastoral and spiritual care. Seabury Books.

[3] Bradford, K. L. (2023). Relating soul to spirit. Pastoral Thinking.

[4] Peacock, B. L. (2020). Soul care.

[5] Peacock, B. L. (2020). Soul care.