Witnessing and Testifying

by Ross, Rosetta E.

• ISBN13: 9780800636036
• ISBN10: 0800636031
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-01-01
• Publisher: Fortress Pr

Summary

The Civil Rights Movement was not only an epochal social and political event but also a profound moral turning point in American history. Here, for the first time, social ethicist Rosetta Ross examines the religiously motivated activism of black women in the Movement and its moral import.

After a chapter exploring black women's religious context and presenting early examples of work by women of the antebellum and post-Reconstruction eras, Ross looks at seven civil rights activists who continue this tradition. They are Ella Baker, Septima Poinsette Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Way DeLee, Clara Muhammad, Diane Nash, and Ruby Doris Smith Robinson. In a fascinating narrative style that draws on biography, social history, and original archival research, Ross shows how their moral formation and work reflect both womanist consciousness and practices of witness and testimony, both emergent from the black religious context.

Ross's major work is engrossing history and moving ethical challenge. Examining black women's civil rights activism as religiously impelled

Author Biography

Rosetta E. Ross is the McVay Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.

Table of Contents

Photography Credits	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Preface	xiii
Religion and Public Life: Early Traditions of Black Religious Women's Activism	1	(30)
Working for Survival and Liberation: Racial Uplift and Social Responsibility	2	(3)
Womanist Theology and ``Keeping on Down the Freedom Road''	5	(8)
Witnessing and Testifying	13	(2)
Sojourner Truth: A Black Religious Woman's Antebellum Activism	15	(6)
Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Turn-of-the-Century Activist	21	(10)
Continuing the Traditions: Attention to the ``Least'' in Civil Rights Activism	31	(58)
Ella Baker: Passing on Values of Attending to the ``Least''	32	(19)
Septima Poinsette Clark: Education for Citizenship	51	(36)
Empowering Local People as a Moral Value	87	(2)
Giving the Movement Life: Black Women's Grassroots Activism	89	(52)
Fannie Lou Hamer: Realizing Promises of Religious Faith and Hope	90	(27)
Victoria Way DeLee: Community Activism as Religious Practice	117	(21)
Self-Realization as Moral Practice from a Grassroots Perspective	138	(3)
Clara Muhammad: Supporting Movement Ideas outside Its Mainstream	141	(22)
Clara Muhammad and the Nation of Islam	141	(1)
Religious and Moral Influences in Muhammad's Early Life	142	(4)
Muhammad's Role in the Development of the Nation of Islam	146	(12)
Muhammad's Religious and Moral Perspectives	158	(5)
``Fire Shut Up in My Bones'': Black Women Students in the Movement	163	(60)
Diane Nash: Passionate Agitation for Positive Quality of Life	164	(29)
Ruby Doris Smith Robinson: Building Community and Sustaining Community Protest	193	(27)
Nash and Robinson: Young Visionary Activists	220	(3)
Testimony, Witness, and Civic Life: The Meaning of Black Women's Civil Rights Participation	223	(14)
Testifying and Witnessing	223	(3)
Values and Virtues: Models and Practices in Black Religious Women's Activism	226	(8)
Black Religious Women and Public Life	234	(3)
Notes	237	(36)
Bibliography	273	(12)
Index	285