Bereavement within the older adult population has been repeatedly studied by virtue of the fact that with increased age, the likelihood of losing a close loved one increases. In most bereavement and grief literature, partner loss is the focus of investigation. This study investigated whether or not religion and spirituality, often studied as coping mechanisms in bereavement and grief literature, have an effect on depressive outcomes specifically within the African American population, such that religious and spiritual endorsement act as protective factors against the onset and development of depression, without the influence of perceived social support. Fourteen African American adults aged 45 and older participated in a semi-structured interview detailing their grief experience, and thirty-one participants were administered the Prolonged Grief 13 (PG-13), Texas Revised Inventory of Grief (TRIG), Duke University Religion Index (DUREL), the Spirituality Scale (SS), the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Revised (CESD-R), and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) through the online Qualtrics survey platform. A series of multiple regression analytic techniques yielded non-significant results for the role of religion and spirituality in protecting against depression in grieving African American middle to older aged adults. However, in analyses of qualitative interview data, the majority of participants reported a beneficial role of religion and spirituality in their grief experience. Implications suggest more heavy integration of bereavement treatment groups into religious settings and the potential for implementation of positive psychological interventions into bereavement treatment.