Reverend Albert Cleage Jr. and the Black Prophetic Tradition: A Reintroduction of The Black Messiah considers how Albert Cleage Jr., in his groundbreaking book of sermons, The Black Messiah (1969), reconfigures the rules of the game as it relates to Christianity and the social political realities of Black people in Detroit and across the country. Taking a rhetorical approach, this book explores how and what The Black Messiah (1969) has contributed to the broader scope of Black Liberation Theology and Black religious rhetoric. Scholars of rhetoric, communication, religious studies, and African American history will find this book particularly useful.

"Malcolm X asked: Does Christianity have nothing more to offer than spiritual "novocaine," enabling Black Americans to suffer peacefully?"--

Teaching to Live explores the connections between religion, education, and struggles for freedom within African American communities throughout the twentieth century by examining the lives of African American activist-educators. Almeda M. Wright interrogates how religion inspired them to educate in radical and transformative ways and invites readers to continue exploring how these concepts will evolve for future generations of activist-educators.

Expanding the scope of religious rhetoric Over the past twenty-five years, the intersection of rhetoric and religion has become one of the most dynamic areas of inquiry in rhetoric and writing studies. One of few volumes to include multiple traditions in one conversation, Rhetoric and Religion in the Twenty-First Century engages with religious discourses and issues that continue to shape public life in the United States. This collection of essays centralizes the study of religious persuasion and pluralism, considers religion’s place in U.S. society, and expands the study of rhetoric and religion in generative ways. The volume showcases a wide range of religious traditions and challenges the very concepts of rhetoric and religion. The book’s eight essays explore African American, Buddhist, Christian, Indigenous, Islamic, and Jewish rhetoric and discuss the intersection of religion with feminism, race, and queer rhetoric—along with offering reflections on how to approach religious traditions through research and teaching. In addition, the volume includes seven short interludes in which some of the field’s most accomplished scholars recount their experiences exploring religious rhetorics and invite readers to engage these exigent lines of inquiry. By featuring these diverse religious perspectives, Rhetoric and Religion in the Twenty-First Century complicates the field’s emphasis on Western, Hellenistic, and Christian ideologies. The collection also offers teachers of writing and rhetoric a range of valuable approaches for preparing today’s students for public citizenship in our religiously diverse global context.

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, protests broke out in Minneapolis and quickly spread across the United States. National unrest led to the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and added to calls for justice in other American cities, including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Tulsa, and Louisville, Kentucky, where only months earlier, Breonna Taylor was killed by police. By some estimates, BLM protesters numbered between fifteen million and twenty-six million in the US and abroad. The Summer of 2020: George Floyd and the Resurgence of the Black Lives Matter Movement spotlights the perspectives of individual participants who contributed to the movement’s revived impact and global success throughout 2020. Authors Andre E. Johnson and Amanda Nell Edgar interview the movement’s activists—from seasoned organizers to first-time protesters—to discover what Black Lives Matter meant to those who participated in one of America’s largest social movements. Johnson and Edgar’s fieldwork reveals the complexity of taking a stand, especially in the face of increasing threats from white supremacist groups, continuing police aggression, and a persisting global pandemic. In a time with unprecedented levels of political polarization, the wave of support for the Black Lives Matter movement powerfully disrupted that expectation. Without a clear sense of what led to the surge in support for Black Lives Matter, racial justice advocates are left ill-equipped to maintain and harness the political momentum necessary to achieve lasting equity and justice. In delving beyond a conventional focus on leaders and figureheads, this volume bolsters social movement research by accounting for the increasing numbers of Black Lives Matter supporters and demonstrators and the lasting power of their message.

It is rarely the case that an intellectual movement can point to an individual figure as its founder. Yet James Cone has been heralded as the acknowledged genius and the creator of black theology. In nearly 50 years of published work, James Cone redefined the intent of academic theology and defined a whole new movement in intellectual thought. In Introducing James H. Cone Anthony Reddie offers us an accessible and engaging assessment of Cone’s legacy, from his first book Black Theology and Black Power in 1969 through to his final intellectual autobiography I Said I wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody in 2018. It is an indispensable field guide to perhaps the greatest black theologian of recent times.

In You Must Be Born Again: Phillis Wheatley as Prophetic Poet, the author argues that Phillis Wheatley is the mother of liberation theology. The author uses Wheatley’s poetry and life experiences to create a portrait of Wheatley beyond that of a poet. Wheatley is described as both poet and visionary who wrestles with God during the creative process. The lyrical expressions of Wheatley’s poetry unlock the spiritual impressions on her heart. The author sets up the racial dynamics of Wheatley’s time and her engagement with those politics. As a preacher, Wheatley combats the immoral undercurrent that erodes the community’s social, economic, and spiritual foundation as well as its political systems. The author positions Wheatley as one uniquely qualified to address the hypocrisy within her world and, by implication, present-day society by calling for immersion into a radical understanding of love and justice, resulting in a renewed hope for equality and a pathway toward equity.

In The Black God Trope and Rhetorical Resistance: A Tradition of Race and Religion, Armondo R. Collins theorizes Black Nationalist rhetorical strategies as an avenue to better understanding African American communication practices. The author demonstrates how Black rhetors use writing about God to create a language that reflects African Americans’ shifting subjectivity within the American experience. This book highlights how the Black God trope and Black Nationalist religious rhetoric function as an embodied rhetoric. Collins also addresses how the Black God trope functions as a gendered critique of white western patriarchy, to demonstrate how an ideological position like womanism is voiced by authors using the Black God trope as a means of public address. Scholars of rhetoric, African American literature, and religious studies will find this book of particular interest.

In this collection, black religious scholars and pastors whose expertise range from theology, ethics, and the psychology of religion, to preaching, religious aesthetics, and religious education, discuss the legacy of Albert B. Cleage Jr. and the idea of the Black Madonna and child. Easter Sunday, 2017 will mark the fifty year anniversary of Albert B. Cleage Jr.’s unveiling of a mural of the Black Madonna and child in his church in Detroit, Michigan. This unveiling symbolized a radical theological departure and disruption. The mural helped symbolically launch Black Christian Nationalism and influenced the Black Power movement in the United States. But fifty years later, what has been the lasting impact of this act of theological innovation? What is the legacy of Cleage’s emphasis on the literal blackness of Jesus? How has the idea of a Black Madonna and child informed notions of black womanhood, motherhood? LGBTQ communities? How has Cleage’s theology influenced Christian education, Africana pastoral theology, and the Black Arts Movement? The contributors to this work discuss answers to these and many more questions.

No Country For Black Men captures the plight and possibilities of what it means to be Black and male in the United States past and present. Through storytelling and sociological data analysis, the author weaves a powerful story about challenges and opportunities faced by Black males of all ages today. From mental health parity to disproportionality and myths about Black male sexuality, this body of work is bent on naming the persistent and historical challenges Black men are confronted with throughout their development. Each chapter is anchored in and punctuated by the author's personal experiences as an immigrant, a father, a husband and a scholar-practitioner. The mission of No Country For Black Men is to add to the scholarship and conversation among educators, mental health providers, religious leaders, and other service providers about ways to improve the academic, economic and health outcome for Black males in the United States.