Scholar Traces How Black Churches Became Centers of Political Engagement
March 9, 2023
Black churches became centers of political engagement during the 19th century when Black Christians determined to achieve the full benefits of citizenship in U.S. society, scholar Nicole Myers Turner said during a Baptist History and Heritage Society webinar. Racial politics was driven “by the need to access resources that free Black people had been denied and a deep sense that Black freedom and equality must be recognized,” she said. “There was a development of this resistance to being marginalized in the post-emancipation period.” Myers Turner, an assistant professor of American religious history at Yale University, lectured on her 2020 book, “Soul