This book is a critique of the black church's response to the injustice within its community; it specifically examines the author's own church, it's focal points upon his arrival and the changes implemented in addressing the mindset of the churches leaders and lay person.

This book is a critique of the black church’s response to the injustice within its community; it specifically examines the author’s own church, it’s focal points upon his arrival and the changes implemented in addressing the mindset of the churches leaders and lay person.

2017 Wilbur Non-Fiction Award Recipient Winner of the 2018 Author's Award in scholarly non-fiction, presented by the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance Winner, 2020 Kornitzer Book Prize, given by Drew University Examines the oft overlooked role of non-elite black women in the growth of northern suburbs and American Protestantism in the first half of the twentieth century When a domestic servant named Violet Johnson moved to the affluent white suburb of Summit, New Jersey in 1897, she became one of just barely a hundred black residents in the town of six thousand. In this avowedly liberal Protestant community, the very definition of “the suburbs” depended on observance of unmarked and fluctuating race and class barriers. But Johnson did not intend to accept the status quo. Establishing a Baptist church a year later, a seemingly moderate act that would have implications far beyond weekly worship, Johnson challenged assumptions of gender and race, advocating for a politics of civic righteousness that would grant African Americans an equal place in a Christian nation. Johnson’s story is powerful, but she was just one among the many working-class activists integral to the budding days of the civil rights movement. Focusing on the strategies and organizational models church women employed in the fight for social justice, Adams tracks the intersections of politics and religion, race and gender, and place and space in a New York City suburb, a local example that offers new insights on northern racial oppression and civil rights protest. As this book makes clear, religion made a key difference in the lives and activism of ordinary black women who lived, worked, and worshiped on the margin during this tumultuous time.

When a domestic servant named Violet Johnson moved to the affluent white suburb of Summit, New Jersey in 1897, she became one of just barely 100 black residents in the town of 6000. In this avowedly liberal Protestant community, the very definition of 'the suburbs' depended on observance of unmarked and fluctuating race and class barriers. But Johnson did not intend to accept the status quo. Establishing a Baptist church a year later, a seemingly moderate act that would have implications far beyond weekly worship, Johnson challenged assumptions of gender and race, advocating for a politics of civic righteousness that would grant African Americans an equal place in a Christian nation. In 'Black Women's Christian Activism', Betty Livingston Adams examines the oft overlooked role of black women in the growth of northern suburbs and American Protestantism in the first half of the 20th century.

What will it take for the Black church to engage in social justice activism? For this nation to reverse course and overcome the current firestorm of injustice, the Black Church must take its place in leading and facilitating a course correction. The battle is not just about the state of the union; it is about the state of the nation's soul. Christ expects us as individuals to acknowledge our sin and repent. It is no different for a nation. This book is not written to disparage, minimize, or demonize anyone, any belief, or organization. It is designed to demonstrate and model how God dealt with injustice in the Old and New Testaments. We cannot erase the past, but we can impact change for the future. We do not have to subscribe to the way it has always been. America walked away from God. He is calling us home. The church must take its place in leading change with love.

Volatile social dissonance in America’s urban landscape is the backdrop as Valerie A. Miles-Tribble examines tensions in ecclesiology and public theology, focusing on theoethical dilemmas that complicate churches’ public justice witness as prophetic change agents. She attributes churches’ reticence to confront unjust disparities to conflicting views, for example, of Black Lives Matter protests as “mere politics,” and disparities in leader and congregant preparation for public justice roles. As a practical theologian with experience in organizational leadership, Miles-Tribble applies adaptive change theory, public justice theory, and a womanist communitarian perspective, engaging Emilie Townes’s construct of cultural evil as she presents a model of social reform activism re-envisioned as public discipleship. She contends that urban churches are urgently needed to embrace active prophetic roles and thus increase public justice witness. “Black Lives Matter times” compel churches to connect faith with public roles as spiritual catalysts of change.

One of the first book-length studies in decades solely devoted to religion and African-American political activism, Something Within explores how Afro-Christianity encourages political activism among African-Americans. Combining ethnography, history, contextual analysis, and survey research, this book illustrates the participatory effects of Afro-Christianity by examining its institutional, psychological, and cultural influences. Moving beyond the current debates on the subject, Fredrick C. Harris advances a new theory of religion as a political resource for a "civic culture in opposition."