Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel. By Gary Dorrien. Hew Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. 632 pp. $45.00 hardcover.

2018 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 1269-1271
Author(s):  
Ansley L. Quiros
Author(s):  
Gary Dorrien

Breaking White Supremacy analyzes the twentieth-century heyday of the black social gospel and its influence on the Civil Rights Movement. Asserting that Martin Luther King Jr. did not come from nowhere, it describes major figures who influenced King, offers a detailed analysis of King’s leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and his catalyzing and unifying role in the southern and northern Civil Rights Movements, and interprets the legacy of King and the black social gospel tradition.


Author(s):  
Gary Dorrien

Benjamin E. Mays and Howard Thurman differently exemplified the black social gospel as theologians, lecture circuit speakers, and academics. In their early careers they formed a social gospel trio with Mordecai Johnson at Howard University. Later they influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Mays was an educator, theologian, and activist in the Johnson mode, while the later Thurman gave himself to mystical theology and ecumenical ministry.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document