Celebrating Black History Month / Black History Month

Bitter the Chastening Rod follows in the footsteps of the first collection of African American biblical interpretation, Stony the Road We Trod (1991). Nineteen Africana biblical scholars contribute cutting-edge essays reading Jesus, criminalization, the enslaved, and whitened interpretations of the enslaved. They present pedagogical strategies for teaching, hermeneutics, and bible translation that center Black Lives Matter and black culture. Biblical narratives, news media, and personal stories intertwine in critical discussions of black rage, protest, anti-blackness, and mothering in the context of black precarity.

Become Black with the oppressed Christ.     Contemporary Black theology is complex and far-reaching. In this concise yet thorough volume, Noel Leo Erskine examines Black theology from every angle, seeking to answer the question, Why would Africa's children turn to the God of their oppressors for liberation?   Beginning with the Middle Passage, which brought millions of Africans into the Caribbean and United States, Erskine unpacks the background and distinctive ideas of Black theology. Erskine covers major thinkers and illumines various areas of inquiry: suffering and theodicy, sin and reconciliation, baptism and the sacraments, womanism and Christology, and others. What unites these strands is the goal of liberation--of a faith that delivers not theoretical orthodoxies but real change in the lives of those buckling under racist oppression.   Black Theology and Black Faith is the perfect reading for students and scholars looking to recenter the voices of the marginalized in their theology. Readers will leave its pages with a faith more alive to God's call to institute his kingdom on Earth.

In Black Lives Matter and The Image of God: A Theo-Anthropological Study, the author argues that "God" mirrors humankind rather than the other way around. "God" for him is made in the image of man. Humankind is not created by "God." What one means by "God" is thus subjective and informed by one's context. Consequently, Black lives matter to "God" only if they matter to the theologian. The depth of the matter depends on his or her experience. Hence, this book is memoiristic in discussing systematic loci like "God," humankind, Christ, and the Trinity. The author concludes that "God's" future is inseparable from humane values that eschew white supremacy and other modes of self-deification in favor of ethics that cultivate life for all human beings.

This collection of essays encourages us to pursue Christ-exalting diversity. Each contribution recognizes that only the cross and empty tomb of Christ can bring true unity, and each notes that the gospel demands justice in all its forms. This was a truth that Dr. King fought and gave his life for, and this is a truth that these modern day "drum majors for justice" continue to beat.

This volume analyzes the legal and cultural origins and theological implications of armed self-defense. An Episcopal priest and a professor of religion, Douglas (Goucher College) focuses on the killing of Trayvon Martin, one of hundreds of innocent, unarmed blacks killed with impunity, despite posing no lethal threat, by white police officers and civilians. Douglas explicates the structural racism and social systems that permit the white killers of innocent, unarmed blacks to enjoy the legal privilege of innocence.

What if racial reconciliation doesn't look like what you expected? The high-profile killings of young black men and women by white police officers, and the protests and violence that ensued, have convinced many white Christians to reexamine their intuitions when it comes to race and justice. In this provocative book, theologian and blogger Drew G. I. Hart places police brutality, mass incarceration, anti-black stereotypes, poverty, and everyday acts of racism within the larger framework of white supremacy. He argues that white Christians have repeatedly gotten it wrong about race because dominant culture and white privilege have so thoroughly shaped their assumptions. He also challenges black Christians about neglecting the most vulnerable in their own communities. Leading readers toward Jesus, Hart offers concrete practices for churches that seek solidarity with the oppressed and are committed to racial justice. What if all Christians listened to the stories of those on the racialized margins? How might the church be changed by the trouble they've seen? "This book is a gift from the heart of one of the sharpest young theologians in the United States. Hold it carefully, and allow it to transform you--and our blood-stained streets."--Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution Free downloadable study guide available here.

In a work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

America's problem with race has deep roots, with the country's foundation tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another. Racism is truly our nation's original sin. "It's time we right this unacceptable wrong," says bestselling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis. Fifty years ago, Wallis was driven away from his faith by a white church that considered dealing with racism to be taboo. His participation in the civil rights movement brought him back when he discovered a faith that commands racial justice. Yet as recent tragedies confirm, we continue to suffer from the legacy of racism. The old patterns of white privilege are colliding with the changing demographics of a diverse nation. The church has been slow to respond, and Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week. In America's Original Sin, Wallis offers a prophetic and deeply personal call to action in overcoming the racism so ingrained in American society. He speaks candidly to Christians--particularly white Christians--urging them to cross a new bridge toward racial justice and healing. Whenever divided cultures and gridlocked power structures fail to end systemic sin, faith communities can help lead the way to grassroots change. Probing yet positive, biblically rooted yet highly practical, this book shows people of faith how they can work together to overcome the embedded racism in America, galvanizing a movement to cross the bridge to a multiracial church and a new America.

Told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves,The Half Has Never Been Told offers a radical new interpretation of American history. It forces readers to reckon with the violence at the root of American supremacy, but also with the survival and resistance that brought about slavery's end--and created a culture that sustains America's deepest dreams of freedom.

His brother died in his arms, shot by a deputy marshall. He was beaten and tortured by the sheriff and state police. But through it all he returned good for evil, love for hate, progress for prejudice, and brought hope to black and white alike. The story of John Perkins is no ordinary story but a gripping portrayal of what happens when faith thrusts a person into the midst of a struggle against racism, oppression, and injustice.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of African American religious history from the African Traditional Religions, slavery, the development of black churches, the rise of black new religious movements, and the Civil Rights movement to the emergence of black megachurches, and examines contemporary issues and challenges facing the study of African American religion today.

In the pews of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, under the leadership of Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., Bonhoeffer absorbed the Christianity of the Harlem Renaissance. This Christianity included a Jesus who stands with the oppressed rather than joins the oppressors and a theology that challenges the way God can be used to underwrite a union of race and religion.

An African-American theologian presents this timely critique of the "victimology" theme within black liberation theology and its long-standing spiritual and social implications.

Black Practical Theology brings together the hermeneutical conversation between scholars working within the traditional disciplines of theological education and those scholars working within practical theology. To this ongoing conversation, Andrews and Smith add the voices of pastors of black congregations and para-church leaders who serve the communities of faith who daily confront the challenges this work addresses.

This volume has an important role in bringing Christian thought into confrontation with one of the central challenges of modernity, namely the problem of race and racism. This Companion puts theological themes in conversation with issues of ethnicity, gender, social analysis, politics and class and is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students.

How Can an African-American consciousness and Reformed theology benefit each other? Where was God in the Atlantic Slave Trade? How does Christianity triumph among people historically oppressed in part by the church itself? Anthony Carter brings positive, informed responses to such questions, thereby enriching our understanding and furthering racial reconciliation.

In his reflections on God, Jesus, suffering, and liberation, James H. Cone relates the gospel message to the experience of the black community. But a wider theme of the book is the role that social and historical context plays in framing the questions we address to God as well as the mode of the answers provided.

Fields challenges the church to allow its theology to be formed by black theology's confrontational ministry, believing this will lead to forgiveness and reconciliation for both the oppressed and the oppressor. This short, accessible introduction to black theology draws upon history, hermeneutics, culture, and Scripture to create a dialogue of respect and reconciliation between blacks and whites within the evangelical church.

Hobson offers the first in-depth study of prophetic traditions in African American religion. Drawing on contemporary speeches, essays, sermons, reminiscences, and works of theological speculation from 1800 to 1950, he shows how African American prophets shared a belief in a ''God of the oppressed." It also examines the conflict between the African American prophets who believed that the nation could one day be redeemed through struggle, and those who felt that its hypocrisy and malevolence lay too deep for redemption.

In this volume, sixteen theologians assess the impact and import of black theology and the new challenges presented by today's intellectual, social, religious, and geopolitical situation. Including two chapters by James H. Cone, the pioneer of black theology, the volume examines black theology and the black churches, black theology and the white churches, black theology in light of global religions, and the ongoing spiritual challenges to African Americans today. A major focus of the volume is the contribution of womanist thought.

Leading contemporary theologians and scholars present essays on the themes of liberation and reconciliation in tribute to J. Deotis Roberts. The essays are divided into the following sections: Theological Reflection, Faith in Dialogue, and Shaping the Practice of Ministry. The compilation presents an interesting array of perspectives on the ways in which Christian theology, ethics, and ministry are involved in the quests for liberation and reconciliation in North America and the rest of the world.

This rich and insightful new book on the African American religious experience gives both critique and appreciation to the Africentrism articulated by Molefi Asante. Both author and Asante beleive that "to embrace a religion is to anchor oneself into the culture out of which the original religion emerged." Roberts tries to connect Christian faith with African culture, without losing the essential integrity and uniqueness of either.

An expansion of the 1971 classic text, this second edition of Liberation and Reconciliation argues for a balance between the quest for liberation and the need for reconciliation in black-white relations. Written by one of the pioneers of Black Theology, it examines biblical and theological themes from the perspective of Black experience and concludes that nonviolent reconciliation is the best response to racial oppression.

Hill brings two of the most prominent theologians of our time, Martin Luther King Jr. and Desmond Tutu, into conversation to explore the meaning of the Christian ideas of reconciliation, multiculturalism, and social justice for today's world. It offers a comprehensive analysis of King and Tutu's theology with implications for contemporary issues.

Beginning with King's theology anchored in the black church tradition, Erskine places King in conversation with Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, and James Cone. He skillfully explains how King was nourished by, and helped to nourish, these teeming theological crosscurrents. Erskine proposes that womanist theology provides an insightful critique of King's thought and helps supply a critical missing element in King's vision - the explicit acknowledgment of the rightful place of women in the Beloved Community.

In this book, Richard W. Wills Sr. offers a comprehensive analysis of King's appeal for civil rights by investigating his understanding of imago Dei. While King shared with many of his black church forebears the view that humanity's creation by God was a powerful argument for the equality of all people, he also took the concept much further. For King, being made in God's image meant that human beings have not only the right but also the power to reshape society and to build a "beloved community" on earth.

In The Color of Christ, Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey weave a tapestry of American dreams and visions--from witch hunts to web pages, Harlem to Hollywood, slave cabins to South Park, Mormon revelations to Indian reservations--to show how Americans remade the Son of God visually time and again into a sacred symbol of their greatest aspirations, deepest terrors, and mightiest strivings for racial power and justice.

This compelling portrait of who Jesus is for the black community surveys the history of the Black Christ from the early slave testimonies to the writings of prominent religious and literary figures through the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.

Enfleshing Freedom harvests insights of black women's historical experience for theology and rethinks what it means to be human in light of African American experience.

In light of globalization, ongoing issues of race, gender, and class, and the rapidly changing roles of institutions, this volume asserts that Christian social ethics must be reframed completely. Three questions are at the heart of this vital inquiry: How can moral community flourish in a global context? What kinds of leadership do we need to nurture global moral community? How shall we construe social institutions and social movements for change in the twenty–first century?

This volume in the Library of Theological Ethics series draws on writings from the early nineteenth through the late twentieth centuries to explore the intersection of black experience and Christian faith throughout the history of the United States.

This book provides a brief review of the rich heritage of African American female proclaimers and examines contemporary African American women's sermon preparation, content, delivery, and personhood. Brown draws heavily on interviews and conversations, as well as audio and video tapes of women proclaiming God's word, to relate how and why African American women tell others about God despite resistance (weary throats) and with the help of support (new songs) in religious and social communities.

This historic collection of never-before-published sermons by African American women preachers gives voice to the long-ignored founding mothers of the African American church. It provides long overdue access to the original text of the sermons coupled with expert contextual analysis by Dr. Bettye Collier-Thomas, a respected scholar of African American history.

In This Is My Story, thirteen successful African American women clergy tell the powerful, inspirational, and sometimes heartbreaking stories of their calls and ministerial journeys, which they experienced in the midst of anguish, uncertainty, and in many cases unfriendly leadership environments. Each of the women includes a sermon of particular importance to her.

This collection of essays encourages us to pursue Christ-exalting diversity. Each contribution recognizes that only the cross and empty tomb of Christ can bring true unity, and each notes that the gospel demands justice in all its forms. This was a truth that Dr. King fought and gave his life for, and this is a truth that these modern day "drum majors for justice" continue to beat.

Ruth's rich selection of primary documents presents readers with a vibrant snapshot of this dynamic church and its pastor, Charles Price Jones, caught between factors that threatened the existence of the congregation itself: Jim Crow racism, conflicting visions for the church, appropriate Christian piety, and social aspirations.

This volume analyzes the legal and cultural origins and theological implications of armed self-defense. An Episcopal priest and a professor of religion, Douglas (Goucher College) focuses on the killing of Trayvon Martin, one of hundreds of innocent, unarmed blacks killed with impunity, despite posing no lethal threat, by white police officers and civilians. Douglas explicates the structural racism and social systems that permit the white killers of innocent, unarmed blacks to enjoy the legal privilege of innocence.

What if racial reconciliation doesn't look like what you expected? The high-profile killings of young black men and women by white police officers, and the protests and violence that ensued, have convinced many white Christians to reexamine their intuitions when it comes to race and justice. In this provocative book, theologian and blogger Drew G. I. Hart places police brutality, mass incarceration, anti-black stereotypes, poverty, and everyday acts of racism within the larger framework of white supremacy. He argues that white Christians have repeatedly gotten it wrong about race because dominant culture and white privilege have so thoroughly shaped their assumptions. He also challenges black Christians about neglecting the most vulnerable in their own communities. Leading readers toward Jesus, Hart offers concrete practices for churches that seek solidarity with the oppressed and are committed to racial justice. What if all Christians listened to the stories of those on the racialized margins? How might the church be changed by the trouble they've seen? "This book is a gift from the heart of one of the sharpest young theologians in the United States. Hold it carefully, and allow it to transform you--and our blood-stained streets."--Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution Free downloadable study guide available here.

Weaving together the stories of Zurara, the royal chronicler of Prince Henry, the Jesuit theologian Jose de Acosta, the famed Anglican Bishop John William Colenso, and the former slave writer Olaudah Equiano, Jennings narrates a tale of loss, forgetfulness, and missed opportunities for the transformation of Christian communities. Touching on issues of slavery, geography, Native American history, Jewish-Christian relations, literacy, and translation, he exposes how the loss of land and the supersessionist ideas behind the Christian missionary movement are both deeply implicated in the invention of race.

Edwards presents the surprising results of an in-depth study of interracial churches: they help perpetuate the very racial inequality they aim to abolish. To arrive at this conclusion, she combines a nuanced analysis of national survey data with an in-depth examination of one particular church. She shows that mixed-race churches adhere strongly to white norms. African Americans in multiracial settings adapt their behavior to make white congregants comfortable.

This book gives readers a broad understanding of the Black Church in America and a sense of its uniqueness in the wider world. It explores the history of the Black Church in America, its African roots, beliefs, practices, politics, and contemporary moral dilemmas. It argues that in the Black Church, individual and communal destiny are bound together.

Mighty Like a River addresses such questions as: How widespread and effective is the community activity of black churches? What are the patterns of activities being undertaken today? How do activist churches confront such problems as family instability, youth development, AIDS and other health issues, and care for the elderly? Includes profiles of the remarkable black heroes and heroines who helped create the activist church and a compelling agenda for expanding the black church's role in society at large.

Black Church Studies seeks to give an account of the broad meaning of Christian faith in the African American experience. Drawing on the work of specialists in several fields, it introduces the core theological disciplines from an African American standpoint – from African American biblical interpretation to womanist theology and ethics to sociological understandings of the life of African American churches.

The black social gospel emerged from the trauma of Reconstruction to ask what a "new abolition" would require in American society. In this groundbreaking work, Gary Dorrien describes the early history of the black social gospel from its nineteenth-century founding to its close association in the twentieth century with W. E. B. Du Bois. He offers a new perspective on modern Christianity and the civil rights era by delineating the tradition of social justice theology and activism that led to Martin Luther King Jr.

In The Burden of Black Religion, Curtis Evans traces ideas about African American religion from the antebellum period to the middle of the twentieth century. Central to the story, he argues, was the deep-rooted notion that blacks were somehow "naturally" religious. This important work reveals how interpretations of black religion played a crucial role in shaping broader views of African Americans and had real consequences in their lives.

This book narrates the transformation of Black faith and culture in the North American context from enslavement to emancipation, discusses Black people's confrontation with the crisis of segregation and how it led to the culmination of the civil rights struggle in the United States and beyond, and focuses on the contemporary developments in the religious experience of African Americans as they moved from the Black Power era to the Age of Obama.

Hayes (Georgetown Univ.) offers a passionate, perceptive summary overview of African American spirituality from its beginnings in African traditional religions to the present.

Beyond the Suffering seeks to uncover the buried treasure of wisdom about soul care and spiritual direction contained in the history of African American Christianity. Written with blended perspectives, Beyond the Suffering offers an in-depth exploration of this rich tradition, showing Christians proven ways to help people find hope in the midst of deep pain and sorrow.

In Preaching on Wax, Lerone A. Martin offers the first full-length account of the oft-overlooked religious history of the phonograph industry. He explains why a critical mass of African American ministers teamed up with the major phonograph labels of the day, how and why black consumers eagerly purchased their religious records, and how this phonograph religion significantly contributed to the shaping of modern African American Christianity.

Black Church Beginnings provides an intimate look at the struggles of African Americans to establish spiritual communities in the harsh world of slavery in the American colonies. Written by one of today's foremost experts on African American religion, this book traces the growth of the black church from its start in the mid-1700s to the end of the nineteenth century. As Henry Mitchell shows, the first African American churches didn't just organize; they labored hard, long, and sacrificially to form a meaningful, independent faith.

Pinn describes themes in the history of the Black Church as well as the major beliefs and forms of worship that define this tradition. He then focuses on the practices of the Black Church, especially as it has engaged in issues of economic development and justice, and struggles with such issues as the full inclusion of women, sexuality, and health. Throughout, Pinn highlights the important and creative tension between "spiritual" and "mundane" concerns to which the Black Church must respond and by which it is shaped.

This volume provides an overview of the shape and history of major black religious bodies: Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal. It introduces the denominations and their demographics before relating their historical development – from the eighteenth century to the end of the Civil Rights Movement – into the groups we know today. A final chapter sketches the state of the black Christian church bodies today and their ongoing contributions to a more just American society.

Samuel DeWitt Proctor's voice is essential to understanding the black social gospel. Proctor brought a black middle class understanding of America to his preaching and had a notion of faith that presented an alternative reality to the pervasive racism in the United States and sought to honor the inherent dignity of all humanity.

This book explores the entire scope of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s spirituality: its roots, formation, growth, nature, character, and dynamics as well as its political aspects, which were shaped by his experience and influences. The author contends that understanding King's multifaceted spirituality will enable the faithful to build the Beloved Community, which he equates to the Promised Land.

A prizewinning historian pens this biography of C.L. Franklin, the greatest African-American preacher of his generation, father of Aretha, and civil rights pioneer.

Estrelda Alexander was raised "in an urban, black, working-class, oneness Pentecostal congregation in the 1950s and 1960s", but she discovered that many Christians not only knew little of her heritage but considered it strange. Even today, most North Americans remain ignorant of black Pentecostalism. Black Fire remedies a lack of historical consciousness by recounting the story of African American Pentecostal origins and development.

First published in 1993 on the one-year anniversary of the L.A. riots, Race Matters has since become an American classic. The issues that it addresses are as controversial and urgent as before, and West's insights remain fresh, exciting, and timely. Now more than ever, Race Matters is a book for all Americans-one that will help us build a genuine multiracial democracy.

Barndt traces the history of racism, especially in white America, revealing its various forms and offering specific ways in which all people can work to bring racism to an end. He includes the newest data on conditions of People of Color, including their progress relative to the minimal standards of equality in housing, income and wealth, education, and health., also discussing current dimensions of race as they appear in controversies over 9/11, New Orleans, and undocumented workers.

In a work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Deeply embedded in American minds and institutions, the white racial frame has for centuries functioned as a broad worldview, one essential to the routine legitimization, scripting, and maintenance of systemic racism in the United States. Feagin examines how and why this white racial frame emerged in North America, how it has evolved socially over time, how it has operated in the past and in the present , and how the Americans of color have long responded with strategies of resistance that include enduring counter-frames.

In A Dreadful Deceit, award-winning social historian Jacqueline Jones traces the lives of six African Americans from the colonial era to the late 20th century, using their stories to illustrate the complex ways in which racial ideologies in this country have changed since the first Africans arrived on the nation's shores hundreds of years ago. The very idea of "blackness," she shows, has changed fundamentally over this period."

America's problem with race has deep roots, with the country's foundation tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another. Racism is truly our nation's original sin. "It's time we right this unacceptable wrong," says bestselling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis. Fifty years ago, Wallis was driven away from his faith by a white church that considered dealing with racism to be taboo. His participation in the civil rights movement brought him back when he discovered a faith that commands racial justice. Yet as recent tragedies confirm, we continue to suffer from the legacy of racism. The old patterns of white privilege are colliding with the changing demographics of a diverse nation. The church has been slow to respond, and Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week. In America's Original Sin, Wallis offers a prophetic and deeply personal call to action in overcoming the racism so ingrained in American society. He speaks candidly to Christians--particularly white Christians--urging them to cross a new bridge toward racial justice and healing. Whenever divided cultures and gridlocked power structures fail to end systemic sin, faith communities can help lead the way to grassroots change. Probing yet positive, biblically rooted yet highly practical, this book shows people of faith how they can work together to overcome the embedded racism in America, galvanizing a movement to cross the bridge to a multiracial church and a new America.

In this new book Rosemary Cowan provides a clear and highly accessible introduction to the work of Cornel West, a provocative and eclectic thinker who has emerged as one of America's foremost public intellectuals

Dyson's passion for contemporary black culture informs Between God and Gangsta' Rap, his latest foray into the ongoing debate about African-American identity which embraces the hopes of the church and the cool reality of hip-hop. Bringing together writings on music, religion, politics, and identity, and offering a multi-faceted view of black life, the book charts the progress of Dyson's own soul, from his roots in the Detroit ghetto, to his current status as a Baptist minister, professor, cultural critic, husband, and father.

This anthology reveals the dazzling range of West’s work, from his explorations of ”Prophetic Pragmatism” to his philosophizing on hip-hop. The Cornel West Reader traces the development of West’s extraordinary career as academic, public intellectual, and activist. In his essays, articles, books, and interviews, West emerges as America’s social conscience, urging attention to complicated issues of racial and economic justice, sexuality and gender, history and politics.

With Cornel West, nine of America's most influential artists, scholars, and public figures -- Maya Angelou, Bill Bradley, Harry Belafonte, Patricia Williams, Wynton Marsalis, Anna Deveare Smith, James Washington, James Forbes, and Haki Madhubuti -- explore the origins of their political awareness, the relationship between art and politics, and the possibility of hope among African-Americans today. Defining the crucial issues of our times, they offer a transformative vision of the next century for black and white Americans alike.

Told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves,The Half Has Never Been Told offers a radical new interpretation of American history. It forces readers to reckon with the violence at the root of American supremacy, but also with the survival and resistance that brought about slavery's end--and created a culture that sustains America's deepest dreams of freedom.

This book is the first to set King’s speech within the cultural and rhetorical traditions on which the civil rights leader drew in crafting his oratory, as well as its essential historical contexts. At a time when the meaning of the speech has been obscured by its appropriation for every conceivable cause, Sundquist clarifies the transformative power of King’s "Second Emancipation Proclamation” and its continuing relevance for contemporary arguments about equality.

Drawing on personal prayers that King recited throughout his life, award-winning historian Lewis Baldwin explains how King turned to both private prayer and meditation for his own spiritual fulfillment, and to public prayer as part of his sermonic discourse, as an aspect of his pastoral care, and as a way of moving, inspiring, and reaffirming people in the context of a crusade for equal rights, social justice, and peace.

In this book, Lewis Baldwin explores King's complex relationship with the Christian church, from his days growing up at Ebenezer Baptist, to his work as a pastor, to his battles with American churches over civil rights, to his vision for the global church. King, Baldwin argues, had a robust and multifaceted view of the nature and purpose of the church that serves as a model for the church in the 21st century.

In spite of extensive research and publishing on King, not nearly enough attention has been given to the convergence of ideas and action in his life. In an era where people are often sorted into the categories of 'thinker' and 'doer', King stands out - a rare mix of the deeply profound thinker and intellect. Burrow examines both the origins and informal influences of key ideas that undergird King's adoption of formal theories of social action and nonviolent protest.

Rieder delves deeper than anyone before into the Letter from Birmingham Jail, illuminating both its timeless message and its crucial position in the history of civil rights. Rieder has interviewed King's surviving colleagues, and located rare audiotapes of King speaking in the mass meetings of 1963. This book gives us a startling perspective on the Letter and the man who wrote it: an angry prophet who chastised American whites, found solace in the faith and resilience of the slaves, and knew that moral appeal without struggle never brings justice.

Ross shows how female civil rights activists' moral formation and work reflect both womanist consciousness and practices of witness and testimony, both emergent from the black religious context. Examining black women's civil rights activism as religiously impelled moral practices brings new insight on the movement and lifts up a paradigm for engagement in the challenges of contemporary social life.

Here is the definitive account of a dramatic and pivotal moment in American history, a critical episode that transformed the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Raymond Arsenault offers a meticulously researched and grippingly written account of the Freedom Rides, one of the most compelling chapters in the history of civil rights.

While Civil Rights leaders often used America's founding documents and ideals to depict Jim Crow's contradictory ways, the language of the Bible was often brought to bear on many events and issues. This volume chronicles how national movement leaders and local activists moved a nation to live up to the biblical ideals it often professed but infrequently practiced.

From A. Philip Randolph's defiant call in 1941 for African Americans to march on Washington to Alice Walker in 1973, Reporting Civil Rights presents firsthand accounts of the revolutionary events that overthrew segregation in the United States. This two-volume anthology brings together for the first time nearly 200 newspaper and magazine reports and book excerpts, and features 151 writers, including James Baldwin, Robert Penn Warren, David Halberstam, Lillian Smith, Gordon Parks, Murray Kempton, Ted Poston, Claude Sitton, and Anne Moody.

Pioneering historian, sociologist, editor, novelist, poet, and organizer, W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the foremost intellectuals of the twentieth century. While Du Bois is remembered for his monumental contributions to scholarship and civil rights activism, the spiritual aspects of his work have been misunderstood, even negated. This book illuminates the spirituality that is essential to understanding his efforts and achievements in the political and intellectual world.

Pauli Murray (1910-1985) is regarded as one of the least discussed figures in the history of twentieth-century African American women's activism. She was a highly regarded Feminist, who called attention to the plight of women, especially the colored and working poor.

His brother died in his arms, shot by a deputy marshall. He was beaten and tortured by the sheriff and state police. But through it all he returned good for evil, love for hate, progress for prejudice, and brought hope to black and white alike. The story of John Perkins is no ordinary story but a gripping portrayal of what happens when faith thrusts a person into the midst of a struggle against racism, oppression, and injustice.

A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present--edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire. "A vital addition to [the] curriculum on race in America . . . a gateway to the solo works of all the voices in Kendi and Blain's impressive choir."--The Washington Post   "From journalist Hannah P. Jones on Jamestown's first slaves to historian Annette Gordon-Reed's portrait of Sally Hemings to the seductive cadences of poets Jericho Brown and Patricia Smith, Four Hundred Souls weaves a tapestry of unspeakable suffering and unexpected transcendence."--O: The Oprah Magazine The story begins in 1619--a year before the Mayflower--when the White Lion disgorges "some 20-and-odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history.  Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume "community" history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith--instead it unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness.  This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present.