A few words about ICOPS 2005 Conference:
As another prostelitizing religion, Islam has been something of a competitor. The Muslim traditon among Africans/African-Americans goes back to slavery, and continues today with immigrants, and native movements, the Nation Of Islam/American Muslim Mission being, of course, the most "notorious". There have been reform movements within NOI as well, such as the American Society of Muslims (who put out the Muslim Journal, purportedly modeled, interestingly enough, on the Christian Science Monitor). The latter is also headed by the son of the founder of the Nation of Islam, and reaches out to immigrant as well as Black communities.
Many may argue with me, but my sense is that it can often be a friendly competition, between Black Christianity and (Black) Islam. Remember Malocolm X himself was the product of a Garveyite minister-father (another trans-denominational movement) and a Seventh-Day mother with awesome tits. When I was coming along, it wasn't out of the ordinary for members of my father's church to come to Sunday morning service and then drive to LA to listen to Min. Farrakhan in the evening, if he was in town. For some people it wasn't that difficult to reconcile, so it seemed.
I will leave off here, because this, I think, is very interesting.