Month: February 2021

By Stephanie Clintonia Boddie, February 23, 2021, (The Conversation) The Black Church is an institution that was forged in crises. Through slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation and the civil rights era, the network of places of worship serving traditionally Black congregations has seen its fair share of traumatic events. In 2016, the Rev. Robert Franklin, former president of Morehouse …

How Philadelphia’s Black churches overcame disease, depression and civil strife Read More »

The Transatlantic Roundtable on Religion and Race in collaboration with Krik Krak presents BlakPak Critical Conversations. A series of sparkling international dialogues with leading thinkers from across the global African Diaspora2020 saw the world rise up enraged at the death of George Floyd and support the slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’, but how much do Black Lives really matter in …

Critical Conversations: State of the Race, The African Diaspora Across the Globe Read More »

Here is an article with links to more than 180 Black-owned businesses: https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/support-black-owned-businesses/

by Allan Aubrey Boesak, December 2, 2020 (Black Theology Project) Former president Barack Obama has a new book out, and it is guaranteed to be another best seller. In that book, he, as he has done before, devoted a page or two to retired preacher Dr Jeremiah A Wright. Someone sent me the pages from …

Barack Obama and jeremiah Wright: “A fire no water can put out” Read More »

by R. Drew Smith, July 23, 2020 (Public Seminar) In recent decades, in reacting to threats to public health, the U.S. government has often resisted mobilizing a robust response until the dangers were perceived as hitting “close-to-home.” A closer look at what counts as “home” suggests that experts often assumed the term meant the white homeland understood …

The Hidden Structural Racism in the American Response to Public Health Emergencies Read More »

by R. Drew Smith, July 7, 2020 (Black Perspectives) The atrocity of George Floyd’s killing by police has stoked anger over systemic racism while also helping redraw geographic, demographic, and conceptual lines of antiracism advocacy. Encompassing young and old, urban and rural, and a diversity of nationalities, religious orientations, sexual and gender identifications, and racial …

Ties that Bind? Emerging Race-Conscious Alliances Between African Immigrants and Black Americans Read More »

by William Ackah, May 22, 2020 (Birkbeck Comments) I watched my first virtual funeral this week. I and around 80 others joined the 15 or so people who were physically present in Bristol UK to say goodbye to an amazing woman. I first met this woman nearly 20 years ago, when I moved to the …

Many Days Late and Many Dollars Short: COVID-19 Institutionalised Racism and the Black British Experience Read More »

by R. Drew Smith, April 30, 2020 (Black Perspectives) Against all odds, a movement for racial justice took hold in mid-20th-century America, emerging from within the racially-heated South, and drawing sustenance from a rich-array of Black religious sources. A cadre of activist Black clergypersons were among the central figures in this historic social movement, with organizations such …

Undaunted Resistance: Joseph Lowery and the Spirit of SCLC Read More »

by William Ackah, January 21, 2020 (Birkbeck Comments) Meghan’s Blackness has lost its sparkle even quicker than I originally envisioned when I wrote an initial comment piece shortly after the royal wedding. As I alluded to at the time and reiterate here, the sparkle of Meghan’s Blackness could not last because at its core Britain is …

Time to Shut Up! Racism, Royalty and the limitations of Britishness Read More »

by R. Drew Smith, January 15, 2020 (Sojourners) In 2020, January remembrances of Martin Luther King Jr. are occurring against the backdrop of two high-profile films emphasizing sacrificial servant leadership. First, the film Harriet provided a renewed focus on celebrated abolitionist Harriet Tubman. This biopic chronicles her mid-19th century enslavement in Maryland, her daring escape to a …

‘Until we are all free’: Learning from tubman, king, and stevenson Read More »