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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... tion masters helped to secure for them a compensatory , beatific afterlife . " The State of your Negroes in this World , must be low , and mean , and abject ; a State of Servitude . No Great Things in this World can be done for them ...
... tion that urged them to accept slavery as divinely ordained, and those texts were heard but rarely read by the slave: many colonists and virtually all slaves were illiterate. This status quo was challenged by Evangelicalism, that ...
... tion championed universal literacy as a necessity for the advancement of democracy, and plans for the education of African Americans even accompanied emancipation in some postrevolutionary state actions.14 Thus at the end of the ...
... tion of black Methodists founded in 1818 after several thousand blacks had withdrawn their memberships from white Methodist churches in Charleston following a dispute over a segregated burial ground . It became the venue of another ...
... tion . Though he " could not read a word , " Macon Dead copies the name Pilate from the Bible and hands it to the midwife . When the horrified midwife tries to consign to the flames the slip of paper on which the baby's name is written ...
Contents
1 | |
21 | |
3 The Good Book | 41 |
4 Exile | 49 |
5 Exodus | 83 |
6 Ethiopia | 138 |
7 Emmanuel | 185 |
Postscript | 240 |
Notes | 247 |
275 | |
284 | |