A Stone of Hope
Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow
By David L. Chappell
360 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 24 illus., appends., notes, bibl., index
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Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-5660-4
Published: August 2005 -
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-9557-3
Published: December 2009 -
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-7523-5
Published: December 2009
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Awards & distinctions
An Associated Press Notable Religion Book of 2004
Chappell reconsiders the intellectual roots of civil rights reform, showing how northern liberals' faith in the power of human reason to overcome prejudice was at odds with the movement's goal of immediate change. Even when liberals sincerely wanted change, they recognized that they could not necessarily inspire others to unite and fight for it. But the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament--sometimes translated into secular language--drove African American activists to unprecedented solidarity and self-sacrifice. Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, James Lawson, Modjeska Simkins, and other black leaders believed, as the Hebrew prophets believed, that they had to stand apart from society and instigate dramatic changes to force an unwilling world to abandon its sinful ways. Their impassioned campaign to stamp out "the sin of segregation" brought the vitality of a religious revival to their cause. Meanwhile, segregationists found little support within their white southern religious denominations. Although segregationists outvoted and outgunned black integrationists, the segregationists lost, Chappell concludes, largely because they did not have a religious commitment to their cause.
About the Author
David L. Chappell is Rothbaum Professor of Modern American History at the University of Oklahoma. He is author of Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement.
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Reviews
"It's impossible to read the book without doing some fundamental rethinking about the role religion can play in . . . public life. . . . Intricate, dazzling in its reach into so many corners of Black and white southern life and fascinating at every turn. . . . In its mix of rigor, daring and perceptiveness, A Stone of Hope is a spectacular work."--New York Times Book Review
"Chappell's new interpretation of the civil rights movement is a first-rate work of history. . . . The book is a major contribution to civil-rights history: clearly written, prodigiously researched and forcefully argued. . . . A Stone of Hope respects the public power of religion, but it also brings Dr. King and his co-workers down from the mountaintop, transfiguring them into human beings."--Wall Street Journal
"A stunning reinterpretation of the American civil rights movement."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
"David Chappell convincingly likens the civil rights movement to a religious revival, showing how black Southerners inspired by the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament spearheaded the drive to abolish 'the sin of segregation.'"--The Nation
“One of the three or four most important books on the civil rights movement. . . . This unusually sophisticated and subtle study takes an unconventional and imaginative approach by examining both sides of the struggle. . . . [Chappell] argues persuasively that revivalism engendered the civil rights movement’s solidarity, leadership, worldview, and rhetoric . . . [and] that the struggle against segregation triumphed owing not only to the religious views of southern blacks, but also to the religious views of southern whites.”--The Atlantic
"A pathbreaking study of prophetic Protestantism and the camapaign against Jim Crow."--Commonwealth
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