This Far by Faith is the story of how religious faith inspired the greatest social movement in American history -- the U.S. Civil Rights movement.America's struggle; rise; and triumph from slavery to equal rights for all is a living testament to the power of deep; personal faith for Americans of all colors. The black experience in America; even black music; is defined by a steady; burning religious faith and the power it offered to people who were viewed as powerless; even less than human; until the flame of faith showed them that they were equal members of God's family. That everlasting faith in God and trust in God's justice; as well as the power of prayer and its appeals to conscience; remains central to the concept of democracy and one nation under God that all Americans value.Arriving on ships named Brotherhood and John the Baptist; slaves who had previously embraced tribal religions in their home countries faced the Christianity of their captors. Africans did not simply adopt the religion of the European colonists; they used the power; principles; and practices of Christianity to blaze a path to freedom and deliverance. In the process; the moral fabric of the nation was tested and took on a new texture and strength unique to America.In the early to mid-twentieth century; black people used organized faith to meet; finance; and plan their struggle for freedom. The church was a living well of strength and comfort for black Americans; the one place where they maintained their public dignity. It was the black church that produced civil rights leaders from Martin Luther King Jr. to Malcolm X. And the white churches and synagogues provided key allies that were necessary to boost the Civil Rights movement to success.Juan Williams; author of Eyes on the Prize; the landmark book on the history of the Civil Rights movement; and Quinton Dixie; a professor of religious studies and African American studies at Indiana University; bring to life the pivotal moments facing men and women of faith in this monumental history. The stories begin with ministers leading rebellions against slavery and towering men and women who used faith in God to rise above the brutality of being demeaned as slaves. Here are stories of politics; tent revivals; and the importance of black churches as touchstones for every step of the faith journey that became the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.Using archival and contemporary photography; historical research; and modern-day interviews; and featuring messages from some of today's foremost clergymen and women; This Far by Faith is the first in-depth treatment of this social history and a companion to a major public television series.
#7020490 in Books 1996-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 10.00 x 6.50 x 1.75l; #File Name: 0060170360464 pages
Review
6 of 10 people found the following review helpful. A disappointing effortBy Matthew BudmanSure; the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But so is the road to mediocrity. Kennell Jackson's question-and-answer "America Is Me" is a fresh; spirited effort to make black history lively and accessible. But Jackson's book; modeled on Kenneth C. Davis' wonderful "Don't Know Much About History;" suffers from arbitrary inclusions and exclusions; a tendency toward feel-good revisionism; and; worse; a consistent failure to link events of different eras; to show how one movement or character inspired one decades later. There's a striking lack of long-range vision. Jackson never addresses; directly or indirectly; the overriding questions about black America: Why hasn't black advancement mirrored that of other ethnic groups? Why did the civil rights movement fail to achieve economic equality for African-Americans?The reader who makes it through "America Is Me" -- which reads quite easily despite its failings -- will have trouble reconciling Jackson's chronicle of achievement with the enormous difficulties facing black America.Problems begin early in the chronology; as Jackson; a Stanford University associate professor of history; appears to accept the implausible claims of historical Afrocentrism: "[N]ew evidence suggests that ancient Greek thought owes a debt to Egypt and; hence; to Africa;" he writes. "It is now clear; for instance; that Greek gods derived from Egyptian deities. And the Greek language owes some of its vocabulary to Egyptian." Those casual assertions are flatly untrue; writes classicist scholar Mary Lefkowitz in "Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History;" a slim; authoritative book (that appeared the same month and from; ironically; the same publishing house as "America Is Me") that shows precisely how some modern black scholars -- the same ones Jackson quotes and cites -- deliberately misinterpret and invent facts to claim Egyptian credit for Greek thought and culture. You'd think that an impartial history book would; at the least; re! port Afrocentrists' assertions as dubious. But Jackson (qualifying the claims with only the occasional "Sharp clashes of opinion have erupted over these points" and the like) assimilates a broad range of Afrocentrism; for instance listing Hannibal and Saint Augustine in a register of "great male movers and shakers of Old Africa." Lefkowitz explains that these North African natives were Carthiginian or Roman; not black.Far more damaging than this type of misinformation is Jackson's frequent omission of an issue's historical significance. "Nixon and Blacks were never on the same wavelength;" he writes; citing the president's failure to appoint black officials or support integration efforts. Not a word about how Nixon's campaigns and governance pitted whites ("us") against blacks ("them"); driving a divisive wedge that Republicans continue to exploit. A cursory reference to a 1995 book on repairing black-Jewish relations highlights the absence of discussion of those relations elsewhere in the book. Jackson mentions Jesse Jackson's "Hymietown" remark; calling it "morally reprehensible;" but provides no context for the controversy.Elsewhere the most interesting information is left out. "During his first term; Reagan named only one Black to a high post -- the outstanding lawyer Samuel Riley Pierce Jr. as secretary of housing and urban development;" Jackson writes; neglecting to note that the only achievement of the "outstanding" Pierce (who was so invisible to Reagan that the president greeted him as "Mr. Mayor" at a 1981 public function) was to escape indictment for creating the late-'80s HUD scandal. And Jackson spends two and a half pages debunking "The Bell Curve" without addressing a far more provocative question: Why has the political climate shifted so much that discredited questions about race and IQ have become more legitimate?A few times Jackson assigns *too much* importance to events and characters: Many characters are introduced as "one of the greatest --- in American history." For example; ! a page is devoted to Olaudah Equiano's 1789 slave narrative (for some reason; Jackson omits Equiano's English name); calling it "an eighteenth-century classic that would become as influential as Voltaire's `Candide' . . . and Benjamin Franklin's `Autobiography.'" Now; it's one thing to call a book interesting and important -- which the 1789 memoir was -- and another to make a hyperbolic; patently false claim for it. Isn't it enough that the book was popular and influential when published and is still occasionally cited in current texts? And "America Is Me"'s haphazard distribution of facts -- a cascade of trivia on one topic; virtually nothing on the next -- belies a general carelessness. Lynching gets just seven paragraphs; immediately following six on a turn-of-the-century bicyclist. Only three paragraphs discuss baseball's Negro Leagues -- and there's nothing at all on how Jackie Robinson's ascent to the majors signaled black baseball's sad demise. Jackson devotes a page and a half to Terry McMillan's novel "Waiting to Exhale" but gives only a cursory mention of Alice Walker's "The Color Purple.""America Is Me" isn't a total loss. There's a need for books with a non-narrative approach to history; and Jackson does ask some incisive questions ("What is the status of the word *nigger* today?" he asks; citing its use in "Pulp Fiction" and rap music). But Black History Month deserves a cleaner; more comprehensive book than this.3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Award WinnerBy A CustomerThe Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) chose this book as a 1997 Nonfiction Honor Book. The awards recognize excellence in adult fiction and nonfiction by African American authors
