The Talking Book: African Americans and the BibleYale University Press, 2008 M10 1 - 295 pages A striking narrative of the Bible’s central role in African-American history from the early days of slavery to the present The Talking Book casts the Bible as the central character in a vivid portrait of black America, tracing the origins of African-American culture from slavery’s secluded forest prayer meetings to the bright lights and bold style of today’s hip-hop artists. The Bible has profoundly influenced African Americans throughout history. From a variety of perspectives this wide-ranging book is the first to explore the Bible’s role in the triumph of the black experience. Using the Bible as a foundation, African Americans shared religious beliefs, created their own music, and shaped the ultimate key to their freedom—literacy. Allen Callahan highlights the intersection of biblical images with African-American music, politics, religion, art, and literature. The author tells a moving story of a biblically informed African-American culture, identifying four major biblical images—Exile, Exodus, Ethiopia, and Emmanuel. He brings these themes to life in a unique African-American history that grows from the harsh experience of slavery into a rich culture that endures as one of the most important forces of twenty-first-century America. |
From inside the book
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... North America, both the Puritans and the Anglicans made modest attempts to introduce slaves to Christianity throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some clergymen composed special catechisms of biblical phrases and ...
... North America in waves of religious revival from the middle of the eighteenth century through the first half of the nineteenth. Evangelical preachers traveled through the colonies — and later the states and territories of the new nation ...
... North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana all enacted legislation making the education of slaves punishable by fine or imprisonment and completely prohibiting unsupervised slave gatherings and slave preaching.27 During a ...
... North Star reported that Garnet described Douglass's scathing verbal attack as “poison from such a lofty place.”2 Douglass, acknowledged in his own time as the most eloquent man in America, denounced the plan with all the sound and fury ...
... North, duly ordained in a white denomination, and practiced in defending his freedom by force of arms, Garnet saw the liberating power of the Bible as self-evident. It was so for him: he assumed it would be so for slaves in the South ...
Contents
1 | |
21 | |
41 | |
49 | |
5 Exodus | 83 |
6 Ethiopia | 138 |
7 Emmanuel | 185 |
Postscript | 240 |
Notes | 247 |
Subject Index | 275 |
Scripture Index | 284 |