Danielle Boaz

Bar Admissions

• Florida State Bar (2009)
• North Carolina State Bar (2017)

Education

• Ph.D. in African diaspora, Caribbean and African History, University of Miami
• J.D. with a concentration in International Law, University of Toledo
• LL.M. in Intercultural Human Rights, St. Thomas University School of Law

Publications

Books

• Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).
• Banning Black Gods: Law and Religions of the African Diaspora (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, Africana Religions Book Series, 2021).

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

• Danielle Boaz. “African Diaspora Religions.” Religious Minorities Online. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1515/rmo.20695329.
• Danielle Boaz, “Moral, Environmental, and Physical Contamination: Africana Religions and Public Health before and during the Covid-19 Pandemic,” International Journal for Religious Freedom 16, no. 1 (2023): 57-74.
• Danielle Boaz, “Exoticizing Terrorism: Religious Bias and the Unchecked Threat of Evangelical Extremism in Brazil,” Journal of Religion & Society 23 (2021): 1-20.
• Danielle Boaz, “Racial vs. Religious Discrimination: Black Hair in Public Service Jobs,” Africana Studies Review 7 (2021): 138-156.
• Danielle Boaz, “Between ‘Essential Services’ and Culpable Homicide: State Responses to Religious Organizations and the Spread of the Novel Coronavirus in 2020,” Journal of Law, Religion, and State 8, no. 2-3 (2020): 129–151.
• Danielle Boaz, “‘Spiritual Warfare’ or ‘Crimes against Humanity’?: Evangelized Drug Traffickers and Violence against Afro-Brazilian Religions in Rio de Janeiro,” Religions: Special Issue on Religion and Violence 11, no. 12 (2020): 640-657.
• Danielle Boaz, “The ‘Horrors of Imputed Witchcraft,’ the ‘Cruelties of Paganism,’ and the Colonial Project in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, 1830s-1870s,” South African Historical Journal 72, no. 2 (2020): 1-22
• Danielle Boaz, “Indian and Immigrant Religious Freedom: the lesser-known impact of Obeah Laws in the 21st Century Caribbean,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics: Special Issue on Exploring Contradictions in Faith in the Caribbean Context 58, no. 3 (2020): 320-343, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14662043.2020.1773114
• Danielle Boaz, “The ‘Abhorrent’ Practice of Animal Sacrifice and Religious Discrimination in the Global South,” Religions: Special Issue on Religious Freedom in the Global South 10, no. 3 (2019): 1-20. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/3/160  
• Danielle Boaz, “Fraud, Vagrancy and the ‘Pretended’ Exercise of Supernatural Powers in England, South Africa and Jamaica,” Law & History 5, no.1 (2018): 54-84.
• Danielle Boaz, “The Voodoo Cult of Detroit: Race, Human Sacrifice, and the Nation of Islam from the 1930s to the 1970s,” The Journal of Interreligious Studies 23 (2018): 17-30. http://irstudies.org/journal/the-voodoo-cult-of-detroit-race-human-sacrifice-and-the-nation-of-islam-from-the-1930s-to-the-1970s-by-danielle-n-boaz/
• Danielle Boaz, “Obeah, Vagrancy, and the Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Analyzing the Proscription of ‘Pretending to Possess Supernatural Powers’ in the Anglophone Caribbean,” Journal of Law and Religion 32, no. 3 (2017): 423–448. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-law-and-religion/issue/E9B9B4A389B5EDADE2FAB152710C398E
• Tracey Benson and Danielle Boaz, “Leadership Amidst Racial Trauma and Unrest: UNC Charlotte’s Response to the Shooting of Keith Scott,” Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership (2017): 1- 14. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1555458917741919
• Danielle Boaz, “Introducing Religious Reparations: Repairing the Perceptions of African Religions through Expansions in Education,” Journal of Law and Religion 26 (2010): 213-248.

Book Chapters

• Danielle Boaz, “Practices ‘Odious among the Northern and Western Nations of Europe’: Whiteness and Religious Freedom in the United States,” in Relating Worlds of Racism: Dehumanization, Belonging and the Normativity of Whiteness, ed. Karen Farquharson, Elisa White, Kathryn Pillay, and Philomena Essed (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 39-62. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-319-78990-3.pdf
• Danielle Boaz, “Modern Legal Issues in the Practice of African Diaspora Religions,” in Contemporary Perspectives on Religions in Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. Ibigbolade Aderibigde and Carolyn Jones Medine (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 217-234. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9781137498052_17
• Danielle Boaz, “‘Instruments of Obeah’: The Significance of Ritual Objects in the Jamaican Legal System, 1760-Present,” in Materialities, Meanings and Modernities of Rituals in the Black Atlantic, eds., Akinwumi Ogundiran and Paula Saunders (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014).

Law Review/Law Journal Articles

• Danielle Boaz, “Dividing Stereotype and Religion: The Legal Implications of the Ambiguous References to ‘Voodoo’ in U.S. Court Proceedings,” The Scholar: St. Mary’s Law Review on Race & Social Justice 14(2) (2011): 251-299
• Danielle Boaz, “Examining Creole Languages in the Context of International Language Rights,” Human Rights and Globalization Law Review 2 (2008): 45-71. 
• Danielle Boaz, “Religious Reparations from the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Creating Demons, Cults, and Zombies to Justify Black Enslavement,” St. Thomas Law Review 20 (2008): 604-621.
• Danielle Boaz, “Equality does not mean Conformity: Reevaluating the use of Segregated Schools to Create a Culturally Appropriate Education for African American Children,” Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal 7 (2007): 1-49.

Other Publications

•  Danielle Boaz, “Ten Facts about the Racist History of “Voodoo” American Anthropological Association, August 9, 2023, https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/ten-facts-about-the-racist-history-of-voodoo/
• Danielle Boaz, “From Christchurch to Emanuel AME, We Must Recognize the Patterns of White Supremacy,” Religion News Service, March 20, 2023, https://religionnews.com/2023/03/20/from-christchurch-to-emanuel-ame-we-must-recognize-the-patterns-of-white-supremacy/
• Danielle Boaz, “Acarajé, Religious Attire, and Conflict in Brazil,” Canopy Forum on the Interactions of Law and Religion, Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University, December 12, 2022, https://canopyforum.org/2022/12/12/acaraje-religious-attire-and-conflict-in-brazil/
• Danielle Boaz, “Surveys Suggest that Public Opinion on Race Is at Odds with Anti-Critical Race Theory Laws,” Public Religion Research Institute, November 4, 2022, https://www.prri.org/spotlight/surveys-suggest-that-public-opinion-on-race-is-at-odds-with-anti-critical-race-theory-laws/
• Danielle Boaz, “Proud Boys and Afro-Cuban Religion,” Uncivil Religion: January 6, 2021, Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama & The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, January 6, 2022, http://uncivilreligion.org/home/proud-boys-and-afro-cuban-religion
• Danielle Boaz, “Religious Racism: An Overlooked Form of Anti-Black Prejudice,” Canopy Forum on the Interactions of Law and Religion, Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University, March 5, 2020, https://canopyforum.org/2020/03/05/religious-racism-an-overlooked-form-of-anti-black-prejudice-by-danielle-boaz/
• Danielle Boaz, “African Religions in U.S. Courts,” History Process Blog, Organization of American Historians, August 8, 2017, http://www.processhistory.org/boaz-african-religions-us-courts/

In 2019, Dr. Boaz founded the International Commission to Combat Religious Racism (ICCRR). In November 2019, the ICCRR released a report and two digital maps tracking “religious racism” in Brazil (intolerance against Afro-Brazilian religions). Visit www.religiousracism.org/brazil to learn more.

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