Marshall Keeble (1878–1968) was the premier evangelist in black Churches of Christ from 1931 until his death in 1968. Born and reared in middle Tennessee, Keeble came under the influence of Preston Taylor, Samuel Womack, and Alexander Campbell, as well as the social influence of Booker T. Washington. In 1914, Keeble committed himself to full-time evangelism and by the 1920s had established himself as a noteworthy preacher. By the time of his death, he reportedly had baptized 40,000 people and had established more than 200 congregations, some of which still flourish today. Show Us How You Do It is the first critical study of Keeble and his evangelical career.

 

Based on primary sources, Edward Robinson reconstructs the life, public ministry, missionary activities, and the reception of Keeble among Churches of Christ. He also explores Keeble’s relationship with white businessmen and how he secured white support in establishing a large fellowship of African American Churches of Christ in the South. Show Us How You Do It details Keeble’s theology, ethos, and polemics toward other churches. Robinson demonstrates Keeble’s legacy in the labor of his African American co-workers and of the students who attended Nashville Christian Institute.

 

Of the approximately 2.5 million members of the Churches of Christ in the U.S., an estimated 10 percent are African-Americans, and many in this fellowship can trace their affiliation to Keeble and to those whom he trained.

Edward J. Robinson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Bible, Missions, and Ministry, Abilene Christian University, and is the author of To Save My Race from Abuse: The Life of Samuel Robert Cassius.

"Robinson's findings challenge two long-established wisdoms: that there was (or is) such a thing as the black church, an intangible entity encompassing the unique religious experience of African Americans; and that Jim Crow was the cultural message pervading life in the New South."
—Journal of Southern History

“Historians of African American and Anglo American Christianity will learn tremendously from Robinson’s research on the ambivalent strategies of whites who desired to convert blacks to their denomination as a means of maintaining white supremacism. Those seeking to understand southern culture and history more acutely will seize upon the nuance that springs from the volume’s discussion of race and religion, with great reward. Perhaps most importantly, those who have been overzealous in reducing African American Christianity to the caricature of the prophetic vanguard will find here a disciplined, sobering study of socially conservative African American Christianity that adds considerably to our knowledge of the nation’s racial and religious past.”
—Journal of American Ethnic History