https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to civil rights movement en https://religiondispatches.org/2022/04/04/honoring-and-renewing-dr-kings-other-more-challenging-dream-55-years-later Fifty-four years ago—on April 4, 1968—Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Exactly one year earlier—on April 4, 1967—Dr. King created a huge furor by coming out strongly against the Vietnam War before a packed crowd at New York’s… Mon, 04 Apr 2022 08:38:44 EDT Peter Laarman 2c3b994f-07d8-492b-969f-fea6e4a80cbb https://religiondispatches.org/2022/02/08/biblical-inerrancys-long-history-evangelical-activist-white-patriarchy Last week saw another clash about women’s (in)equality play out online between leaders in evangelical Christian culture. In the clamor for the high-ground of evangelical legitimacy, something happened that outsiders may not fully appreciate the implications of: the participants contested… Tue, 08 Feb 2022 05:46:10 EST Stephen Young 2737cee1-ea6d-4582-ad87-2cc9cded26f7 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/01/24/florida-attempts-make-it-illegal-argument-sacred-work-white-discomfort In Florida, a state senate committee wants to make it illegal to cause discomfort to white people. This bill, which reads like a scene from 1984 , is a doozy. You can, and should, read the full text of it… Mon, 24 Jan 2022 06:27:41 EST Robert P. Jones ba57c5a8-05f8-4fcb-9688-c0e49a17f741 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/03/10/im-not-here-fix-evangelicals-show-them-who-they-are-interview-author-white-evangelical For readers of RD, Anthea Butler scarcely needs an introduction. Since 2009, shortly after RD’s launch, Anthea has contributed well over 100 pieces on topics as wide-ranging as the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church and the Politics of… Wed, 10 Mar 2021 05:41:29 EST Chrissy Stroop 7efcb2cc-9a55-4dd8-b226-237dc14b2d37 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/04/16/new-book-trump-and-evangelicals-gets-it-mostly-right In the wake of Donald Trump’s election (and since) many tried to answer the question, “Why would evangelicals support him?” According to the Pew Research Center 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, an astonishing margin given Trump’s… Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:22:37 EDT Greg Carey a2df701d-b4a5-4f6d-a399-ac967d7bc926 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/03/30/why-i-wrote-freedom-seder-and-why-its-still-necessary-50-years-after-dr-kings Fifty years ago, on April 4, 1968, the transformation of my life began with the volcanic news that Dr. Martin Luther King had been killed. Just a week later—a week of upheaval in my city and our country—the volcano of… Fri, 30 Mar 2018 03:39:57 EDT Arthur Waskow aa68d2e6-cef4-43b0-b1fd-ee82d27e87fd https://religiondispatches.org/2018/01/14/original-sin-flattering-mirror-uses-and-misuses-civil-rights-history By the turn of the millennium, the history of the civil rights movement had become a national story. When asked to name a “most famous American” other than a president “from Columbus to today,” high school students most often chose… Sun, 14 Jan 2018 11:59:02 EST Jeanne Theoharis caf3c78d-149c-439d-b041-8bf2d1e91278 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/10/28/audacity-melancholy-race-tragedy-and-anguish-progress In this RD10Q, Joseph Winters explores a new interpretation of hope that makes space for black melancholy and vulnerability. Fri, 28 Oct 2016 12:03:30 EDT Joseph Winters 6a2b3dc1-a432-4bc1-aba7-a8bf00b955dc https://religiondispatches.org/2016/06/20/baptist-resolutions-signal-more-culture-war Because of the outspoken opposition to Donald Trump by some of its leaders, and its call (in a resolution just passed at its annual meeting in St. Louis) for removal of the Confederate flags from public places and churches, the… Mon, 20 Jun 2016 03:04:58 EDT Paul Harvey d894a2cc-2a11-4995-a13f-b48098d206a8 https://religiondispatches.org/2014/08/21/why-isnt-ferguson-start-new-civil-rights-movement The news out of Ferguson has been dominated by discussions of police brutality and the role of race in an in increasingly militarized police force. While the majority of this focus has been on the protests, police violence (including the… Thu, 21 Aug 2014 03:35:07 EDT Rebecca Sager e87b0e34-3b22-4e40-bba1-10d64530ca30 https://religiondispatches.org/2014/05/22/vincent-harding-1931-2014-appreciation My heart skipped a beat when I spotted Vincent Harding’s obituary in the New York Times. I only met Harding a couple of times (although I felt that I’d “met” him long before through his powerful writing— There Is A… Thu, 22 May 2014 03:26:20 EDT Peter Laarman 769f3a5c-1e30-419a-9c68-16926c4a7a6b https://religiondispatches.org/2013/12/12/ex-gay-gospel-star-donnie-mcclurkin-and-decline-public-theology Last week there was a flurry of controversy over the public disinviting of gospel star Donnie Mclurkin to a DC celebration of in advance of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. The mayor’s… Thu, 12 Dec 2013 06:10:47 EST Joshua L. Lazard 8ce58f3c-1f91-45cf-a327-cc38cc58c7b3 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/02/05/not-so-lofty-origins-evangelical-pro-life-movement As the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade passed, evangelical leaders marked the occasion with histories of how their community took up the anti-abortion cause. Tue, 05 Feb 2013 11:05:38 EST Jonathan Dudley da2679d8-c8a7-4b17-82a8-302d04c821c9 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/08/14/how-sikhs-handle-hate Something like the immortal words of one prosecutor to the KKK: “kiss my ass.” Tue, 14 Aug 2012 07:31:49 EDT Rajdeep Singh, Simran Jeet Singh 769f7965-3d12-40cd-bd3c-1232d292bb02 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/08/09/herman-cain-sings-press Jesus may be looking beyond the candidate’s faults, but we’re not. Thu, 09 Aug 2012 06:53:28 EDT Anthea Butler e1a667bf-19e0-42d4-891b-bf463b37425b https://religiondispatches.org/2012/07/02/ross-douthats-rosy-old-time-religion In his latest the Times’ conservative Wunderkind Ross Douthat attempts to explain the current crisis as the result of our nation’s departure from orthodoxy. An honest look at the history of orthodoxy and he might see a past rife with the sin and brutality, enforced less by faith than by coercion. Mon, 02 Jul 2012 12:17:25 EDT Jerome E. Copulsky 9973c479-a934-44e8-bc24-b22bc97ebd8f https://religiondispatches.org/2012/06/25/gay-black-and-quaker-history-catches-bayard-rustin As NAACP President Ben Jealous told the Times last week, “it’s become clear that, just as Bayard Rustin admonished us all, that we would either stand together or die apart.” “ Who admonished us?” readers must have asked. Bayard Rustin’s role as advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and as organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech) should have assured his place in American social and political history. But Rustin has long been denied his proper place—largely because he was an openly gay man. Mon, 25 Jun 2012 05:05:16 EDT Leigh Eason 666d85fa-d921-453f-ac8f-b77c21bd65bd https://religiondispatches.org/2012/04/04/split-root-adrienne-rich-and-religious-identity Rich’s approach to her religious identity was of a piece with her approach to every aspect of her identity. For Rich, any identity worth achieving involved struggle and resistance—be it national identity (“a patriot is one who wrestles for the / soul of her country / as she wrestles for her own being”), gender identity (“A thinking woman sleeps with monsters. / The beak that grips her, she becomes.”), or the committed poet’s identity (“She cannot teach the end of bonds; but she can refuse to justify, accord with, ignore their existence”). Wed, 04 Apr 2012 02:40:43 EDT Ryan Harper 7b65bc63-6b24-4a3f-b624-d166d8a6d7ab https://religiondispatches.org/2012/02/22/keeping-southern-southern-baptist-convention For leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, if heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie—with low taxes, fewer regulations, a decreased state involvement in public welfare and institutions, denial of coverage for women’s health concerns, and bitter attacks on the Obama administration launched from every available platform—then they don’t want to go. And even the city slickers running Mitt Romney’s campaigns and the rowdy friends at Ron Paul’s rallies should be able to appreciate that. Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:22:12 EST Paul Harvey ddbf1e68-1af6-4a6d-86fd-101fe00b0945 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/01/17/martin-luther-king-era-occupy The prophetic tradition of black Christianity remains alive, if embattled. It is impossible to conceive of the civil rights movement without placing black Christianity at its center, for it empowered the rank and file who made the movement move. And when it moved, it was able to demolish the system of legal segregation. The history of black Christianity in America made that transformation possible, even as it frustrated some of the deeper-rooted aims of some activists who sought to address issues of income and wealth inequality as much as the formal legal structures of “civil rights.” That remains the prophetic task of the generation misleadingly labeled as “post-racial.” Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:47:05 EST Paul Harvey 6ea2e5f4-d3e6-4797-b8cc-55f9756e801a https://religiondispatches.org/2011/10/17/god-dissolves-occupy-movement Saturday’s surge of Occupy Wall Street-themed actions could be a turning point. There’s obviously more to be felt and said about this than any journalistic treatment could hope to engage; nonetheless, four RD contributors, moderated by Senior Editor Sarah Posner, shared their own thoughts about a movement that remains fluid and thrilling and quite literally indescribable. Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:45:53 EDT Nathan Schneider 7845628e-5e78-4b3a-9a59-2ffd0d285710 https://religiondispatches.org/2011/10/07/civil-rights-roughneck-preacher-rev-fred-shuttlesworth-1922-2011 As a historian I actually like the no-nonsense preacher more than MLK. Fri, 07 Oct 2011 06:01:42 EDT Anthea Butler 0c7f9c1b-0eef-450e-93aa-606e8f88d1dd https://religiondispatches.org/2011/06/01/melissa-harris-perry-lgbt-advocates-need-public-progressive-faith “As a black, feminist, marriage-equality advocate I reside at an important intersection in this struggle. This movement must acknowledge the unique history of racial oppression, while still revealing the interconnections of all marriage exclusion. This work must reflect the feminist critique of marriage, while still acknowledging the ancient, cross-cultural, human attachment to marriage. This work must be staunchly supportive of same-sex marriage, while rejecting a marriage-normative framework that silences the contributions of queer life.” Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:39:38 EDT Peter Montgomery 803efd26-5fda-4fda-81cf-145ed7bb8a6e https://religiondispatches.org/2011/01/18/illinois-pastors-and-politicians-paint-king-homophobe Once again the religious right has sought to recreate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in its own image. Tue, 18 Jan 2011 02:44:40 EST Candace Chellew-Hodge 8100922e-6cd3-477e-81e9-4ebb9de8d9e7 https://religiondispatches.org/2010/11/10/gay-black-church-interview-bishop-yvette-flunder African-American people were taught Christianity in the context of oppression. When people are disempowered, they are often empowered at someone else’s expense, whether it’s women or children or gay people. How do we get through that? Wed, 10 Nov 2010 04:26:28 EST Lisa Webster d0e12f51-6380-4c6c-aaae-102dc8638ca4