Christian Sociology, Civil Rights - General, African Americans - Politics and Government - History, United States Studies - General & Miscellaneous, 20th Century American History - Civil Rights, 20th Century American History - Religious Aspects, Christian

A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow

Name: A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow
Author: David L. Chappell
ISBN: 9780807856604

by David L. Chappell

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Overview

David Chappell reconsiders the intellectual roots of civil rights reform, showing how northern liberals' faith in the power of human reason to overcome prejudice was at odds with the movement's goal of immediate change. Even when liberals sincerely wanted change, they recognized that they could not necessarily inspire others to unite and fight for it. But the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament - sometimes translated into secular language - drove African American activists to unprecedented solidarity and self-sacrifice. Martin Luther King Jr. Fannie Lou Hamer, James Lawson, Modjeska Simkins, and other black leaders believed, as the Hebrew prophets believed, that they had to stand apart from society and instigate dramatic changes to force an unwilling world to abandon its sinful ways. Their impassioned campaign to stamp out "the sin of segregation" brought the vitality of a religious revival to their cause. Meanwhile, segregationists found little support within their white southern religious denominations. Although segregationists outvoted and outgunned black integrationists, the segregationists lost, Chappell concludes, largely because they did not have a religious commitment to their cause.

Synopsis

In a new assessment of the Civil Rights Movement, Chappell argues that its success was not due to the triumph of liberal ideas after decades of gradual progress, but to the tradition of prophetic religion that brought the vitality of a religious revival to the integrationist cause. Segregationists lost, he says, because they did not have support in their white southern religious denominations.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

A stunning reinterpretation of the American civil rights movement.

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Editorials

From the Publisher

"[A] pathbreaking study of prophetic Protestantism and the camapaign against Jim Crow."
— Commonwealth

The Washington Post

A Stone of Hope is a richly provocative book if only for its valuable discussion of segregationists' surprisingly speedy defeat. — David J. Garrow

Atlantic Monthly

One of the three or four most important books on the Civil Rights movement. . . . Chappell argues persuasively that revivalism engendered the Civil Rights movement's solidarity, leadership, worldview, and rhetoric . . . and that the struggle against segregation triumphed owing not only to the religious views of southern blacks, but also to the religious views of southern whites.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

A stunning reinterpretation of the American civil rights movement.

Publishers Weekly

In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. famously said that the South could hew "a stone of hope" from segregation's "mountain of despair." This book explores the role that religion played in shaping that hope. In a brilliant chapter on the grassroots character of the civil rights cause, Chappell argues that the movement could be considered less a political protest with religious dimensions than a religious revival with political and social dimensions. The civil rights struggle had many of the elements of revival-miracle stories, mass religious enthusiasm, music, "conversion" experiences, even messianic expectations. Chappell writes engagingly, drawing an important revisionist portrait of the crucial role of religion in defeating Jim Crow. (Jan. 26) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The Civil Rights Movement had a profound impact on American society, causing the collapse of the system of legalized segregation and disenfranchisement of blacks in the Southern states. Chappell (history, Univ. of Arkansas) explores the dynamics that allowed the movement to succeed and to do so, in contrast to the Civil War, with amazingly little death and violence. At the center of the movement was a religious tradition inspired by the Hebrew prophets and informed by the realism of Reinhold Niebuhr. This was a tradition that had the power to move people to commitment, sacrifice, and self-discipline, power that liberal optimism lacked, even as segregationists' rhetoric imploded. Chappell's meticulously researched yet engaging narrative gives the religious aspects of the movement their well-deserved due. At the same time, he places the account in a richly textured tapestry of American culture and intellectual life. This nuanced, compellingly argued book makes sense of the contingent factors that conspired to bring the movement success and explains why it is so difficult to marshal those dynamics for further social change. It belongs in every library.-Steve Young, McHenry Cty. Coll., Crystal Lake, IL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.