“Sometimes, atheism is seen as a whites-only club by black people and in the United States, African American history, slavery and the civil rights movement are all closely tied to Christianity. Religion has very much become part of the tradition of black history and culture. Even when there is a strong atheist or secular humanist movement in the African diaspora, it has been ignored. In surveys of history, black expressions of humanism and secularism have been ignored by historians. African-Americans who come out as atheist may face a "prohibitive" social cost. Journalist Jamila Bey wrote, "It's difficult - if not impossible - to divorce religion from black culture." This social cost is not unique to blacks who leave Christianity, but also occurs among black Muslims who leave the religion. Some atheists who have left Islam have been disowned by family or received death threats. Black atheists in the United Kingdom face similar problems, where coming out as an atheist is associated with the fear of being "ostracised and demonised." For this reason London Black Atheists was formed in the United Kingdom by Clive Aruede and Lola Tinubu. At an atheist conference which took place next to a Christian conference in 2015, one of the black atheist attendees found herself attacked and accused by a black Christian woman for having a "slave mentality" and being "demon possessed."

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