The historical origins of Kanye West's inflammatory comment, 'Black people are actually Jew[s]'

(JTA) — In 1892, an Oklahoma preacher born into slavery received a series of divine revelations that compelled him to launch a new church and, with it, a new religious movement in the United States: Black Israelism, better known as the Black Hebrew Israelite movement.

More than a century later, the movement’s central tenet — that African Americans are the genealogical descendants of the ancient Israelites — has repeatedly found its way into popular culture through the expressions of non-Jewish African-American entertainers and athletes such as Kendrick Lamar, Kodak Black, Nick Cannon and DeSea...