Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-245) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: The transcendental blues of southern religion -- "Proud and undutifull": religion, violence, and death in the early South -- "Tumults and distractions": the revolutionaries and the revivalists -- "Being affected together": revivalism, slavery, and empire -- "Was not Christ crucified?": race and Christianities in the antebellum era -- "That was about equalization after the freedom": religion, war, and reconstruction -- "Death is ridin' all through the land": race and southern Christianities from segregation to civil rights -- "Trust God and launch out into the deep": civil rights and the transformations of southern religious history -- "They don't have to be poor anymore": politics, prosperity, and pluralism.
Summary:
The history of race and religion in the American South is infused with tragedy, survival, and water from St. Augustine on the shores of Florida's Atlantic Coast to the swampy mire of Jamestown to the floodwaters that nearly destroyed New Orleans. Determination, resistance, survival, even transcendence, shape the story of race and southern Christianities. In Christianity and Race in the American South, Paul Harvey gives us a narrative history of the South as it integrates into the story of religious history, fundamentally transforming our understanding of the importance of American Christianity and religious identity. Harvey chronicles the diversity and complexity in the intertwined histories of race and religion in the South, dating back to the first days of European settlement. He presents a history rife with strange alliances, unlikely parallels, and far too many tragedies, along the way illustrating that ideas about the role of churches in the South were critically shaped by conflicts over slavery and race that defined southern life more broadly. Race, violence, religion, and southern identity remain a volatile brew, and this book is the persuasive historical examination that is essential to making sense of it.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.