African American Jews and Jews of Color

A couple years ago, my synagogue welcomed a new family into the community. They were an African American Jewish family that had just moved to Munster and joined my synagogue, and one of their kids was making aliyah later in the year. I remember being there for Shabbat services on one of their first times there. When I met them, I thought it was one of the coolest things I've seen in recent memory, and it was. For a long time I've always wondered what it would be like to have an encounter with African American Jews in general, let alone in my synagogue, and the experience proved to be a great one as I got to take a look at their customs that they brought to our synagogue, mainly what they wore to it as everyone from the family wore fascinatingly bright and large garments for their Shabbat clothes. After services, the entire family came up to give me the most heartfelt compliments about leading a very musical filled Musaf service. I could tell it really struck a chord with the family because that was the kind of ruach or spirit that they were looking for in a Jewish community.
When taking a look at the documentary, Black Israel, it was so wonderful to see so many things that African American Jews brought to the Jewish table. It was a total eye-opener to me in terms of what they did at services, bringing their own unique vibe to it by soul singing along to all the prayers while using various percussion. It was great to see that the Black Jewish community became so involved in Judaism as much as they could and still continue to do so. It may seem very different to whatever social norm that other Jews may be used to, but it's wonderful to see such a unique movement within the Jewish world as well as the African American world.
The family that I met that day years ago still regularly goes to my shul and it always brightens my Shabbat as well as theirs just to get to talk them about anything.