Breaking White Supremacy: The Black Social Gospel as New Abolitionism

The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s left a lasting impact on how our society addresses racial injustices. With noteworthy spiritual leaders such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the helm, the movement has influenced generations of social justice advocates. But what influenced the Civil Rights Movement?

In his Grawemeyer Award winning book, The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel, renowned social ethicist Gary Dorrien describes the early history of the Black Social Gospel from its nineteenth-century founding to its close association in the twentieth century with W. E. B. Du Bois. He offers a new perspective on modern Christianity and the Civil Rights Era by delineating the tradition of social justice theology and activism that led to Martin Luther King, Jr.

In his lecture, “Breaking White Supremacy: The Black Social Gospel as New Abolitionism,” Dorrien will discuss how the Black Social Gospel became an important tradition of religious thought and resistance, helping to create an alternative public sphere of excluded voices and providing the intellectual underpinnings of the civil rights movement.