Sixty years ago Friday (Sept. 15), four Ku Klux Klan members planted 19 sticks of dynamite next to a Black church in Birmingham, Alabama. Inside 16th Street Baptist Church, people gathered for Sunday worship. Then an apocalypse came.
“Sixty years ago, Martin Luther King talked about a dream,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, referring to King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. “Sixty years later, we’re the dreamers — the problem is we're facing the schemers.”
In this issue of A Public Witness, we virtually meet in St. Louis to hear from the Progressive National Baptist Convention as they advocate for an engaged faith on the ninth anniversary of Michael Brown's death in nearby Ferguson, Missouri.
In "We Will Be Free: The Life and Faith of Sojourner Truth," Nancy Koester brings to life the powerful story of a complicated woman whose voice still needs to be heard — especially at this moment when so many Christians want to whitewash and ignore
Andrew Young is marking his birthday with a four-day celebration from March 9–12, starting with a livestreamed “Global Prayer for Peace” worship service at the Atlanta church, followed by a peace walk, debut of the book The Many Lives of Andrew Young, and a sold-out gala.
In a video call hosted by the Associated Press, Rev. James Lawson and three of his workshop participants discussed their civil rights work and how it reverberates in today’s justice movements like Black Lives Matter and voting rights in Georgia.
Bill Leonard: The murders of Jonathan Daniels, et al., listed here and beyond, document this sobering truth: The right to vote in the land of the free and the home of white supremacy is literally a matter of life and death.
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Before passing away last July, famed civil rights activist C.T. Vivian started working on his autobiography, which will be released next week. In the book, he reflected on his role in key civil rights moments. And he suggested the “origins” of his character could be