ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the modes and impacts of St. Louisan African immigrants’ religiosity and varies forms of expressive spiritualities, including the valuable role of their institutional trajectories and specific ritual modalities that frame the construction of their social identities. It also focuses upon the functional idioms and trajectories that serve as coping strategies in mitigating the stress of the immigration process and their diurnal existence within urban America. The African immigrants to St. Louis are vital contributors toward the development of their host communities. Many among them are entrepreneurs and professionals, such as physicians, lawyers, computer scientists, engineers, and small business owners. In their diverse operational engagements, they vivify different aspects of human development and the social ecology of the St. Louis metro area.1
