front cover of Keeping the Faith
Keeping the Faith
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives
Wayne Flynt
University of Alabama Press, 2011
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This historical memoir by the widely recognized scholar, Wayne Flynt, chronicles the inner workings of his academic career at Samford and Auburn Universities, as well as his many contributions to the general history of Alabama. Flynt has traveled the state and the South lecturing and teaching both lay and academic groups, calling on his detailed knowledge of both the history and power structures in Alabama to reveal uncomfortable truths wherever he finds them, whether in academic institutions that fall short of their stated missions, in government and industry leaders who seek and hold power by playing to the fears and prejudices of the public, or in religious groups who abandon their original missions and instead seek financial and emotional comfort in lip service only.
 
In doing so he has not only energized those who think the State of Alabama can and must do better, but  also has earned the enmity of those who prosper, profit, and prevaricate for their own selfish ends. Nevertheless, Flynt utilizes a lifetime of learning and reflection to voice the conscience of his community. Keeping the Faith: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives tells the story of his life and his courageous battles against an indifferent or hostile hierarchy with modesty and honesty. In doing so he tells us how Alabama institutions really are manipulated and, more importantly, why we should care.

 
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front cover of Kingdom Come
Kingdom Come
The Politics of Faith and Freedom in Segregationist South Africa and Beyond
Tshepo Masango Chéry
Duke University Press, 2023
In Kingdom Come, Tshepo Masango Chéry charts a new genealogy of early twentieth-century Black Christian activists who challenged racism in South Africa before the solidification of apartheid by using faith as a strategy against global racism. Masango Chéry traces this Black freedom struggle and the ways that South African church leaders defied colonial domination by creating, in solidarity with Black Christians worldwide, Black-controlled religious institutions that were geared toward their liberation. She demonstrates how Black Christians positioned the church as a site of political resistance and centered specifically African visions of freedom in their organizing. Drawing on archival research spanning South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Masango Chéry tells a global story of the twentieth century that illuminates the formations of racial identity, state control, and religious belief. Masango Chéry’s recentering of South Africa in the history of worldwide Black liberation changes understandings of spiritual and intellectual routes of dissemination throughout the diaspora.
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