Over the past two years, the word “Juneteenth” has been one of the most-searched terms on the Baptist News Global website. That quest for understanding coincides with a sudden growing awareness of this milestone day in civil rights history, fueled…
How the church in Maryland became the primary auction block for slaves
The Maryland General Assembly passed the first of a series of race laws in 1664. The first iteration transformed enslavement to a lifelong identity rather than a state of indenture or a condition that could be changed. The Maryland General…
One in 10 Black Americans are now foreign-born; here’s why that matters to the right-wing backlash against immigration
When Americans debate about immigration, they most often think of people coming from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Seldom do they first think of Black migrants. Yet Pew Research Center reports that today one in 10 Black people in…
Willie McLaurin appointed interim Executive Committee president, becoming the SBC’s first-ever Black entity head
Willie McLaurin, Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee vice president for Great Commission relations and mobilization, has been appointed interim president and CEO of the Executive Committee. The appointment came 10 days before the four-month mark of Ronnie Floyd’s resignation from…
Princeton Seminary removes name of slaveholding founder from its chapel
Princeton Theological Seminary announced Jan. 25 that it has changed the name on its campus chapel to avoid further association with a slaveholding professor. Samuel Miller was the second professor hired at the Presbyterian seminary. Born in 1769, he was…
White supremacists are hell-bent on repeating history
Mark Wingfield recently wrote an article reporting on the defeat of a Black pastor who had served for 17 years on a public school board in Houston. The defeat was orchestrated by right-wing white parents opposed to Critical Race Theory and…
How does the period before the Civil War resemble our current social climate?
Taking lessons from history can be challenging. History is not static. It is not one thing, and historians are constantly revising and changing their interpretations and frameworks for thinking about the past. It may not be helpful to compare the…
Who’s behind the nationwide attacks on local school boards over Critical Race Theory?
School boards across America are under attack by conservative parents whose fears of woke liberalism are being stoked by national organizations affiliated with Donald Trump and the Republican Party, as well as Fox News and other conservative media outlets. The…
In praise of Shiprah and Puah and all their descendants
The Bible is full of women heroes, exemplars of courage. We do not give them attention, and very few end up in the stained-glass windows. Two of these heroes are Shiphrah and Puah, Hebrew midwives in Egypt during the Hebrews’…