The communities, congregations, and faith-based coalitions that have been working for racial justice over the past fifty years
Have progressive religious organizations been missing in action in recent struggles for racial justice? In Faith Communities and the Fight for Racial Justice, Robert Wuthnow shows that, contrary to activists' accusations of complacency, Black and White faith leaders have fought steadily for racial and social justice since the end of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Wuthnow introduces us to the communities, congregations, and faith-based coalitions that have worked on fair housing, school desegregation, affirmative action, criminal justice, and other issues over many years. Often overshadowed by the Religious Right, these progressive faith-based racial justice advocates kept up the fight even as media attention shifted elsewhere.
Wuthnow tells the stories of the faith-based affordable housing project in St. Louis that sparked controversy in the Nixon White House; a pastor's lawsuit in North Carolina that launched the nation's first busing program for school desegregation; the faith outreach initiative for Barack Obama's presidential campaign; and church-mobilized protests following the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, and George Floyd. Drawing on extensive materials from denominations, journalists, and social scientists, Wuthnow offers a detailed and frank discussion of both the achievements and the limitations of faith leaders' roles. He focuses on different issues that emerged at different times, tracing the efforts of Black and White faith leaders who sometimes worked cooperatively and more often tackled problems in complementary ways. Taken together, these stories provide lessons in what faith communities have done and how they can better advocate for racial justice in the years ahead. Robert Wuthnow is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Philosophical Society, a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, former president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and the recipient of numerous awards for his scholarly work. He is the author of Why Religion Is Good for American Democracy and What Happens When We Practice Religion? Textures of Devotion in Everyday Life (both Princeton) and many other books. "Faith Communities and the Fight for Racial Justice captures the quotidian rhythms of racial justice work by otherwise unheralded laborers. Wuthnow's powerful research reveals that the arc of the moral universe may be long, but those who engage in the gritty work of advocacy and community organizing bend our nation toward justice."-Jonathan Lee Walton, president of Princeton Theological Seminary
"The machinations of the Religious Right, beginning in the late 1970s, have overshadowed the commendable efforts of progressive faith-based communities in addressing matters of racial justice. In this informative and inspiring book, one of our finest sociologists examines what has worked, and what hasn't, in the fight for racial equality. Robert Wuthnow is no cheerleader, however; Faith Communities and the Fight for Racial Justice provides a critical and thoughtful analysis of how best to pursue this important work."-Randall Balmer, author of Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right "an important contribution in bringing to light the efforts, however small and short-lived, of Black and White Christian progressives pursuing solutions to problems that most White Americans could care less for.... While most media attention is focused on the story of religious conservatives motivated by their faith toward political ends, this work reminds us that religious progressives can and sometimes do act based on their theological convictions."---Jerry Z. Park, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
