Fredrick C. Harris

R. Drew Smith

This book on black churches and urban politics uses case studies from various cities to examine the strategies and tactics of activist clergy and congregations. These case studies illustrate how black activist clergy and congregations negotiate the political terrains of their respective cities. The cases show that the political culture of a city--whether that culture is shaped by machine politics, a legacy of political protest, racial and ethnic factionalism, or a city whose power resides in the mayor's office rather than the city council chamber--can influence the tactics of activist clergy and congregations. These cases also show how strategies and tactics vary across congregations as well as within and across cities. Not only do activist churches emphasize political empowerment or economic development, their tactics to pursue their goals may take different forms. They can form coalitions with other churches and/or political organizations, lobby public officials, use personal appeals to persuade politicians, or mobilize voters for candidates who support the congregation's agenda. By taking stock of the strategies that activist black clergy and congregations adopt and the tactics they use to research their goals, the cases in this book highlight nuances in black clergy and church activism that are captured beyond a single case or a focus on national politics. The three sections of Black Churches and Local Politics examine the many ways that black activist clergy and congregations voice their concerns in urban politics. The tactics explored are the use of personal influence by activist ministers, the formation of coalitions with churches and community organizations, and pressure groups that lobby government institutions and leaders on behalf of minority communities.

Clergy Influence, Organizational Partnerships, and Civic Empowerment

Black Churches and Local Politics

Essays on the civil rights movement outside the South and since the 1960s. It has become popular to confine discussion of the American civil rights movement to the mid-twentieth-century South. From Every Mountainside contains essays that refuse to bracket the quest for civil rights in this manner, treating the subject as an enduring topic yet to be worked out in American politics and society. Individual essays point to the multiple directions the quest for civil rights has taken, into the North and West, and into policy areas left unresolved since the end of the 1960s, including immigrant and gay rights, health care for the uninsured, and the persistent denials of black voting rights and school equality. In exploring these issues, the volume’s contributors shed light on distinctive regional dimensions of African American political and church life that bear in significant ways on both the mobilization of civil rights activism and the achievement of its goals. R. Drew Smith is Scholar-in-Residence in the Leadership Center at Morehouse College. He is the editor of several books, including Freedom’s Distant Shores: American Protestants and Post-Colonial Alliances with Africa and Long March Ahead: African American Churches and Public Policy in Post-Civil Rights America.

Black Churches and the Broad Terrain of Civil Rights

From Every Mountainside

This volume examines relations between U.S. Protestants and Africa since the end of colonial rule. It draws attention to shifting ecclesiastical and socio-political priorities, especially the decreased momentum of social justice advocacy and the growing missionary influence of churches emphasizing spiritual revival and personal prosperity. The book provides a thought-provoking assessment of U.S. Protestant involvements with Africa, and it proposes forms of engagement that build upon ecclesiastical dynamism within American and African contexts.

R. Drew Smith

About

Books

Join the club