The Black Church is not a single story but is a tapestry of stories that must be heard in context, speakers said at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference Feb. 23-26 in Chicago. In session after session, speakers returned to the…
‘You don’t know the half’ of the Good Samaritan story
In a sermon at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference preached from Luke 10:29–35, Reginald Sharpe Jr. circled a phrase that refuses to let the church remain comfortable: “You don’t know the half.” Sharpe did not give us a scholarly sermon…
Proctor Conference marks leadership transition
Tears flowed and applause resounded as the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference marked its first-ever leadership transition at the annual gathering in Chicago Feb. 23. Iva E. Carruthers, who was the founding general secretary of the nonprofit, has taken on emeritus…
‘If you want to honor my father, then do what he did’
“If you want to honor my father, then do what he did,” Jonathan L. Jackson told the opening session of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference in Chicago Feb. 23. The son of Civil Rights leader Jesse Jackson brought the crowd…
That time Freddie Haynes preached like Jeremiah Wright
Sometimes writing a news story is not sufficient to convey the importance of an event. This is one of those times. The emotion of what I witnessed in Little Rock, Ark., today cannot be conveyed in a cut-and-dried news story….




