The skanner., January 10, 2018, SPECIAL EDITION, Page 41, Image 41

January 10, 2018 The Skanner Page 21
Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
What Shaped King’s Prophetic Vision?
AP PHOTO/JT, FILE
Preaching,” I discuss the
historical formation of
the black preacher. My
work on African Amer-
ican prophetic preach-
ing shows that King’s
clarion calls for justice
were offspring of earli-
er prophetic preaching
that flowered as a conse-
quence of the racism in
the U.S.
An April 30, 1966 file photo of King Jr. addressing a rally in Birmingham, Alabama
Kenyatta R. Gilbert,
Howard University
(THE
CONVERSA-
TION) The name Martin
Luther King Jr. is icon-
ic in the United States.
President Barack Obama
spoke of King in both
his Democratic National
Convention nomination
acceptance and victory
speeches in 2008:
“[King] brought Amer-
icans from every corner
of this land to stand to-
gether on a Mall in Wash-
ington, before Lincoln’s
Memorial…to speak of
his dream.”
Indeed, much of King’s
legacy lives on in such
arresting oral perfor-
mances. They made him
a global figure.
King’s preaching used
the power of language
to interpret the gospel
in the context of Black
misery and Christian
hope. He directed people
to life-giving resources
and spoke provocatively
of a present and active
divine interventionist
who summons preachers
to name reality in places
where pain, oppression
and neglect abound.
In other words, King
used a prophetic voice
in his preaching – the
hopeful voice that begins
in prayer and attends
to human tragedy. In-
deed, the best of African
American preaching is
three-dimensional — it
is priestly, it is sage, it is
prophetic.
So what led to the rise
of the Black preacher and
shaped King’s prophetic
voice?
In my book, “The
Journey and Promise
of African American
From Slavery to the
Great Migration
First, let’s look at some
of the social, cultural and
political challenges that
gave birth to the black
religious leader, specifi-
cally those who assumed
political roles with the
community’s
blessing
and beyond the church
proper.
In slave society, Black
preachers played an im-
portant role in the com-
munity: they acted as
seers interpreting the
significance of events; as
pastors calling for uni-
ty and solidarity; and as
messianic figures pro-
voking the first stirrings
of resentment against
oppressors.
The religious revival-
ism or the Great Awak-
ening of the 18th century
brought to America a
Bible-centered brand of
Christianity – evangeli-
calism — that dominated
the religious landscape
by the early 19th century.
Evangelicals emphasized
a “personal relationship”
with God through Jesus
Christ.
This new movement
made Christianity more
accessible, livelier, with-
out overtaxing educa-
tional demands. Africans
converted to Christianity
in large numbers during
the revivals and most be-
came Baptists and Meth-
odists. With fewer educa-
tional restrictions placed
on them, black preachers
emerged in the period as
preachers and teachers,
despite their slave status.
Africans viewed the re-
vivals as a way to reclaim
some of the remnants
of African culture in a
strange new world. They
incorporated and adopt-
ed religious symbols into
a new cultural system
with relative ease.
Rise of the Black
Cleric-politician
Despite the develop-
ment of black preachers
and the significant social
and religious advance-
ments of blacks during
this period of revival,
Reconstruction — the
process of rebuilding the
South soon after the Civil
War — posed numerous
challenges for White
slaveholders who resent-
ed the political advance-
ment of newly freed Af-
ricans.
As independent Black
churches proliferated in
Reconstruction Amer-
ica, Black ministers
preached to their own.
Some became bivoca-
tional. It was not out of
the norm to find pastors
who led congregations
on Sunday and held jobs
as school teachers and
administrators during
the work week.
Others held important
political positions. Alto-
gether, 16 African Amer-
icans served in the U.S.
Congress during Recon-
struction. For example,
South Carolina’s House
of Representatives’ Rich-
ard Harvey Cain, who at-
tended Wilberforce Uni-
versity, the first private
Black American univer-
sity, served in the 43rd
and 45th Congresses and
as pastor of a series of Af-
rican Methodist church-
es.
Others, such as former
slave and Methodist min-
See VISION on page 23