America’s first Black bishop and his struggle to rebuild the African American presence inside the Episcopal Church In 1918, the Right Reverend Edward T. Demby took up the reins as Suffragan (assistant) Bishop for Colored Work in Arkansas and the Province of the Southwest, an area encompassing Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and New Mexico. Set within the context of a series of experiments in black leadership conducted by the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas in the early decades of the twentieth century, Demby's tenure in a segregated ministry illuminates the larger American experience of segregation disguised as a social good. Intent on demonstrating the industry and self-reliance of black Episcopalians to the church at large, Demby set about securing black priests for the diocese, baptizing and confirming communicants, and building schools and other institutions of community service. A gifted leader and a committed Episcopalian, Demby recognized that black service institutions, such as schools, hospitals, and orphanages, would be the means to draw African Americans back to the Episcopal Church, which they had abandoned in droves after emancipation as the church of their former masters. For more than twenty years, hamstrung by white apathy, lack of funds, jurisdictional ambiguity, and the Great Depression, Demby doggedly tried to establish the credibility of a ministry that was as ill-conceived as it was well intended. Michael J. Beary skillfully narrates the shifting alliances within the Episcopal Church and shows how race was but one aspect of a more elemental struggle for power. He demonstrates how Demby's steadiness of purpose and non-confrontational manner gathered allies on both sides of the color line and how, ultimately, his judgment and the weight of his experience carried the church past its segregationist experiment.

The dark and alluring first novel in New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop’s beloved Black Jewels series introduces Jaenelle Angelline, a witch with astonishing power and a dangerous destiny, and Daemon Sadi, the lethal Warlord Prince born to be her lover. Seven hundred years ago, a Black Widow witch saw an ancient prophecy come to life in her web of dreams and visions. Now the Dark Kingdom readies itself for the arrival of its Queen, a Witch who will wield more power than even the High Lord of Hell himself. But she is still young, still open to influence—and corruption. Whoever controls the Queen controls the darkness. Three men—sworn enemies—know this. And they know the power that hides behind the blue eyes of an innocent young girl. And so begins a ruthless game of politics and intrigue, magic and betrayal, where the weapons are hate and love—and the prize could be terrible beyond imagining...

The Black Jewels Trilogy established Anne Bishop as an author whose “sublime skill...blend[s] the darkly macabre with spine-tingling emotional intensity”(SF Site). Now, the saga continues in this collection that includes four more adventures of Jaenelle and her kindred… Jaenelle is the most powerful Witch ever known, centuries of hopes and dreams made flesh at last. She has forged ties with three of the realm’s mightiest Blood warriors: Saetan, the High Lord of Hell, who trains Jaenelle in magic and adopts her as his daughter; Lucivar, the winged Eyrien warlord who becomes her protector; and the near-immortal Daemon, born to be Witch’s lover. Jaenelle has assumed her rightful place as Queen of the Darkness and restored order and peace to the realms, but at a terrible cost. Collected here are the beguiling stories about the origin of the mystical Jewels, the forbidden passion between Lucivar and a simple hearth witch, the clash between Saetan and a Priestess, and the choice Jaenelle must make, between her magic and happiness with Daemon...

“Joyce’s Book of the Dark gives us such a blend of exciting intelligence and impressive erudition that it will surely become established as one of the most fascinating and readable Finnegans Wake studies now available.”—Margot Norris, James Joyce Literary Supplement

Through exhaustive research and graceful writing, Newman shows all the sides of Richard Allen: activist, institution-builder of the AME church, theologian and writer, and pulpit politician.

Henry McNeal Turner was an "epoch-making man, " as his colleague Reverdy Ransom called him. A bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1880 to 1915, Turner was also a politician and Georgia legislator during Reconstruction, U.S. Army chaplain, newspaper editor, prohibition advocate, civil rights and back-to-Africa activist, African missionary, and early proponent of black theology. This richly detailed book, the first full-length critical biography of Turner, firmly places him alongside DuBois and Washington as a preeminent visionary of the postbellum African-American experience. The strength and vitality of today's black church tradition owes much to the herculean labors of pioneers such as Turner, one of the most skillful denominational builders in American history. When emancipation created the prerequisites for a strong national religious organization, Turner, with his boldness, charisma, political wisdom, eloquence, and energy, took full advantage of the opportunity. Combining evangelicalism with forthright agitation for racial freedom, he instigated the most momentous transformation in A.M.E. Church history--the mission to the South. Stephen Angell views Turner's advocacy of ordination for women and his missionary work in Africa as a further outgrowth of the bishop's deep evangelical commitment. The book's epilogue offers the first serious analysis of Turner's theology and his replies to racist distortions of the Christian message.