Liberating Black Church History

Making It Plain

Book - Paperback
Liberating Black Church History
Paperback ISBN: 9780687332755
$20.99 Show Buy
E-Book ISBN: 9781426786822
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Published May 2014

How the horrible yet hopeful dimensions of African American faith took shape on American shores.

This book lays out how the lessons of the dark past shaped a people’s religious quest for liberation and their long struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. The book bears witness to the story of a liberating faith in action in three moves.


First, the book narrates the transformation of Black faith and culture in the North American context from enslavement to emancipation.


Second, it 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.


Finally, the author 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.

About the Author

Juan M. Floyd-Thomas

Juan Floyd-Thomas is Associate Professor of African American Religious History at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee.