The Social Gospel in Black and White

“[Luker] has given the proper prescription to cure the astigmatism of the historians looking at the social gospel and racial reform, and provided a gold mine of references for more extensive digging.” — Christian Century

“Luker makes a good case for broadening the definition of the Social Gospel to include the white and African-American reformers who struggled for solutions to racial strife and injustice. . . . Superb.” — American Historical Review

“Massive, thoroughly documented, clearly written, [and] judicious.” — Church History

“Historians of American racial reform in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have treated this movement largely in secular terms. Through prodigious research in manuscripts and dusty tracts, Ralph Luker has enriched and corrected that literature by a detailed account of the role of social gospel leaders and footsoldiers in the work of black social amelioration, education, and social protest. He presents the social gospel spokesmen in all their diversity, black and white, conservative and liberal, enthusiastic and agonizing. After Luker’s work, the black-white struggle over social justice will never be the same, particularly in its intellectual and attitudinal dimensions.” — Louis R. Harlan, University of Maryland at College Park

“Broadly conceived and meticulously researched, this is the most thorough study yet done of religion and racial reform in the Social Gospel era. Luker has made a major contribution to a reinterpretation of American religious history that makes race continuously (and not just intermittently) a central theme in the story.” — David W. Wills, Amherst College