On Oct. 23, faculty at Wake Forest University gathered to offer a film screening and panel discussion hosted by the institution’s Slavery, Race and Memory Project, an academic committee dedicated to the “examination of the history of slavery and its…
In the footsteps of James Baldwin: An excerpt from The Gospel According to James Baldwin
This week, I’m returning to the Shomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem to read letters from James Baldwin to literary, political and Civil Rights leaders. Then on Sunday, at the historic Church of the Incarnation on Madison…
‘Genesis stories are never accidental’: A conversation with Robert P. Jones
Last week, I welcomed Robert P. Jones back to Baylor University for a conversation about race, religion, James Baldwin and American democracy. Jones was a keynote speaker for our first Baylor conference on racism in the church in 2021, and…
What does the future of BWIM hold?
There is something inherently beautiful about gathering with Baptist Women in Ministry. The stories we share with one another are sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious and often a little bit of both. We giggle our way through stories of the inappropriate…
Baptist Women in Ministry challenged to reach out to women of color
In plenary addresses at the 40th anniversary gathering of Baptist Women in Ministry, two ordained Baptist women of color urged the organization to expand its horizons beyond the predominantly white constituency it traditionally has served. Carolyn Gordon, associate professor of…
LBJ’s Great Society hurt Blacks more than slavery, Tim Scott declares
Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” has been more destructive to Black Americans than slavery or Jim Crow or segregation, according to the only Black Republican running for president. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., made the statement during the Sept. 27 GOP…
For the Bible tells me so: The Bible and the Civil Rights movement
Many chapters in the story of the Civil Rights movement have been forgotten, modified or intentionally misrepresented. White Americans tend to imagine the movement as less controversial than it was, white resistance as less violent than it was, and the…
SBC expels Oklahoma church over pastor’s racial impersonations
An Oklahoma church has been expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention because the pastor performed in blackface at a church event and impersonated a Native American woman at another. Matoaka Baptist Church in Ocheleta, Okla., was deemed “not in friendly…
Fear of dancing and the courage to be serious
On May 2, 1963, more than 1,000 students walked out of class in Birmingham, Ala. They gathered at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church to march downtown as part of the ongoing Southern Freedom Movement, of which Birmingham was the epicenter. Children,…