“Well, bless ye little heart, honey, ye say ye is wan’ me to tell ye ‘bout how de people lived way back dere in slavery time. Honey, I dunno wha’ to tell ye cause I ain’ never been treated no ways but good in my life by my Missus.”1 These are the supposed first words spoken by Mom Hester Hunter, a maternal eighty-five-year-old former slave from Marion, South Carolina, to her interviewer, Annie Ruth Davis, a white Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.)... Read more

Tomorrow I will be going to a friend’s 7th grade classroom presentation of “famous people in history.” She has 120 students who will be dressing up as someone in history and doing a presentation board about this person—as well as dressing in costume. She asked me to come in costume as Frida Kahlo. As many of you know, I admire/adore Frida Kahlo and wrote a blog last year extolling her praises; actually it was a “valentine towards an ethics of loving... Read more

A group of progressive Catholic organizations writing under the banner of the Nuns Justice Project has sent an open letter to Pope Francis asking him to personally intervene to remove the “unjust mandates” placed on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious by the Vatican.  They say that the recent harsh criticism of the LCWR and Sister Elizabeth Johnson, “one of the most beloved and respected theologians in the world,” by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, “eclipsed any opportunity for public dialogue” and “communicates that faithful Catholic female leaders are disrespected... Read more

Throughout American history presidents have often used religious rhetoric for various reasons: to provide comfort and consolation, argue that God providentially directs our nation, celebrate our Christian heritage, defend democracy, hold citizens and the country accountable to transcendent standards, help accomplish their own political aims, justify America’s actions, foster traditional morality and justice, promote prayer and Bible reading, call for national and individual repentance, unite Americans, and satisfy citizens’ expectations. No matter what their private religious beliefs, presidents have been... Read more

Last week, the Public Religion Research Institute published a study showing that Americans want their fellow citizens to think they are more religiously observant than they really are. When asked by a live human being on the telephone how often they attend religious services, respondents were more likely to say they attend frequently. When filling out a self-administered online survey, by contrast, they were more likely to admit that they do not. Surprising? Not terribly. But this may be: Liberals were more... Read more

Vincent Harding, a historian, author and activist who wrote one of the most polarizing speeches ever given by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in which Dr. King expressed ardent opposition to the Vietnam War, died on Monday in Philadelphia. He was 82. His death, from an aneurysm, was confirmed by the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, where he was emeritus professor of religion and social transformation. A Denver resident, Dr. Harding had been lecturing on the East... Read more

Not long ago, I visited Topeka, Kan., to teach at one of those grand old mainline churches that got caught in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education. It was around the corner from the modest home of a railroad worker named Oliver Brown who decided his daughter Linda shouldn’t have to attend an elementary school far from home just because the neighborhood school was for whites only. The Supreme Court agreed and, in 1954, struck down the “separate... Read more

2014 African American Communication and Culture Division and Black Caucus Outstanding Research Awards

 The African American Communication & Culture Division (AACCD) and the Black Caucus of NCA seeks nominations from division and caucus members for the 2014 annual research awards. Awards will be granted to the author(s) of theory and/or research on specific issues of concern to African Americans, Black ethnicity, or people of the African Diaspora representing a variety of communication contexts, processes, practices, theory development, or innovative research... Read more

William Jennings Bryan earned a permanent place in American history nearly nine decades ago in the Scopes trial, when he stood in a courtroom here and successfully prosecuted a case under a state law that banned the teaching of evolution in public schools. While not quite “the fantastic cross between a circus and a holy war” that captivated the nation in 1925, as Time magazine put it, a similar debate is again playing out in Dayton, this time at an evangelical... Read more

On April 28, 2014, the United Church of Christ—joined by clergy from Lutheran, Baptist, Unitarian Universalist, and Jewish congregations—and six same-sex couples filed a lawsuit in the federal district court in Charlotte, North Carolina, challenging the constitutionality of the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. Similar to the 66 pending lawsuits in other jurisdictions across the country (including two lawsuits in the federal district court in Greensboro, North Carolina), these plaintiffs allege that North Carolina’s “Amendment One,” approved in 2012 by... Read more