The Black Church

This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song

De: Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Narrado por: Dominic Hoffman

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Stony the Road and one of our most important voices on the African-American experience, a powerful new history of the Black church in America as the Black community's abiding rock and its fortress.

The companion book to the upcoming PBS series.

For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, segregated West Virginia town, the church was his family and his community's true center of gravity. Within those walls, voices were lifted up in song to call forth the best in each other, and to comfort each other when times were at their worst. In this book, his tender and magisterial reckoning with the meaning of the Black church in American history, Gates takes us from his own experience onto a journey across more than four hundred years and spanning the entire country. At road's end, we emerge with a new understanding of the centrality of the Black church to the American story--as a cultural and political force, as the center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as an unparalleled incubator of talent, and as a crucible for working through the community's most important issues, down to today.

In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black church has always been more than a sanctuary; it's been a place to nourish the deepest human needs and dreams of the African-American community. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meeting houses were subject to surveillance, and often destruction. So it continued, long after slavery's formal eradication; church burnings and church bombings by the Ku Klux Klan and others have always been a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the struggle for equality for the African-American community. The past often isn't even past--Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in Charleston's Emanuel AME Church 193 years after the church was first burned down by whites following a thwarted slave rebellion.

But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the vital center of the civil rights movement, and produced many of its leaders, from the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. on, but at the same time there have always been churches and sects that eschewed a more activist stance, even eschewed worldly political engagement altogether. That tension can be felt all the way to the Black Lives Matter movement and the work of today. Still and all, as a source of strength and a force for change, the Black church is at the center of the action at every stage of the American story, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.

*This audiobook includes a PDF of the Appendix and Acknowledgments from the book.

Both important and well done

Such an important part of our history and so well told in this book. Our white ignorance is an embarrassment; it’s long past time to get over it and start learning.

Outstanding Historical Overview

This is a Outstanding Historical Overview of the Black Church. The format is in topical order; rather than chronological.

The true meaning of the church and its origin.

What a phenomenal work of education to add to the library. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and it keeps you motivated to the next chapter.

TBChurch-Henry/Gates

Exceptional overview of B.C. beginning to Current details were researched diligently so many nuggets

Must know history

Info not presented logically, average not great, narrator. But the information? Gotta have it, Baby!

The clarity of the narration.

The book was fascinating in blending the past with the present with historical analysis. Outstanding!

wonderful book

the book was interesting and gave a concise history of the Black Church in the U.S.

Black History Course

This book gave me an opportunity to learn and review Black History highlighting its Church’s dominance throughout history. The years from the 1800s to present are woven together and explained so well. I look forward to reading other works by HL Gates, Jr.

Mission accomplished. I learned a great deal about the Black Church

I liked the details about how the Black Church evolved and has under gone change over rhe years.

Beautifully written and narrated

In anticipation of the coming series on the black church, I listened to the book on Audible. The depth and breadth of the research, so well woven together with interesting personal stories and recollections of the author and others, was stunning. The narrator’s voice was superb and while I had no particular expectations of this rendering beforehand, I was very reluctant when the Epilogue ended. I must say this is one of the best books I have read/heard in a very long time. I look forward to watching the documentary series.