I've heard some claims that African-American slaves in the US, having converted to Christianity, ascribed huge symbolic importance within their religious communities to the Exodus narrative, due to the obvious similarities of a people in slavery in a foreign land, and slave preachers would regularly liken themselves to Moses and the Israelites.

This seems an interesting topic, and obviously it fits very well with MLK's "Promised Land" speech just before his death, so I was wondering if there was anyone here who could tell me if the claim is accurate, and if so, give a bit more detail about it?