In this text, James Cone (the father of Black Liberation Theology) examines the life and the ideas of Malcolm X and MLK. In doing so, he also explicates the difference between the Black Nationalist and Black Integrationist movements. Well worth reading.
-Law
Cone’s an interesting figure and his decision to take Christianity into black liberation in large part as a way of keeping young black men in the church (many were falling away to Islam, NOI, or communism) may not have worked like he wanted it to but it certainly helped keep liberation theology alive in the US long enough to be a factor (at least briefly) in the last presidential election.
http://www.memphisseminary.edu/James-Cone-Lecture-2008
dmf:
He has been influential in seminaries, but largely forgotten by clergy working in the parish. Sure, they read him and think of him fondly, but his impact is largely unfelt.
He is still an original thinker.
He took the Liberation Theology that was bouncing around in Latin American Catholic communities (Gustavo Gutiérrez) and remixed it for black folk.
I wish more people were aware of him.
me too, would be better than the plague of the gospel of prosperity, not sure where the faith (religious or otherwise) to resist our ascending oligarchy will come from, certainly we are seeing how the conservative shift in the Catholic church is playing out in US politics. Here is Simon Critchley waxing philo on his hopes for a Faith for the Faithless:
http://stirtoaction.com/?p=1174