We Testify with Our Lives: How Religion Transformed Radical Thought from Black Power to Black Lives Matter

Terrence L. Johnson

Published by Columbia University Press 2021

We Testify with Our Lives

How Religion Transformed Radical Thought from Black Power to Black Lives Matter

Terrence L. Johnson

https://doi.org/10.7312/john20044

Overview
Contents

About this book

Terrence L. Johnson argues that the Black radical tradition derives its force from its unacknowledged ethical and religious dimensions. We Testify with Our Lives traces Black religion’s sustained influence from SNCC to the present, reconstructing a radical lived ethics of freedom and justice.

Author / Editor information

Terrence L. Johnson is associate professor of religion and politics in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. He is the author of Tragic Soul-Life: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Moral Crisis Facing American Democracy (2012).

Reviews

Alex Zamalin, author of Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism:
In this beautifully written book, Terrence L. Johnson masterfully reframes our understanding of Black political thought and moral virtue. Through a gripping narrative that brings us into the presence of ideas in action, Johnson challenges prevailing misconceptions about the Black Power movement and its legacies. This is a groundbreaking book that will command the attention of scholars and students for many years. Essential reading.

Dianne M. Stewart, author of Black Women, Black Love: America's War on African American Marriage:
Terrence Johnson's sublime meditations on Black counter-publics take readers from Black women's literary imagination to the Black freedom movement's ethical turn during the rise of Black Power; from the Black Church to Black vernacular reasoning and spiritual intelligence, illustrating how, like Kongo minkisi, they hold and conceal antidotes to Black captivity yet to be discovered. This is a magnificent scholarly intervention—none other than a love letter to Black ancestors, artists, freedom dreamers, activists, homileticians, healers and ritual experts that constructs from their testimonies and creative works a compelling theory of 'sacred subjectivity.' To apprehend Johnson's theoretical arguments readers must be prepared to probe African American letters for narratives of 'sacred subjectivity' and enter the realm of Black interiority where he explores an ethics of 'saltiness' and an ethics of disclosure in Black radical political movements and cultural institutions that heal and provide pathways to wholeness. Black radical traditions of moral reasoning, Johnson argues, invite us to study the brokenness of Black captives and disclose 'sacred subjectivity' as the source of Black repudiation of America's terrifying and irredeemable legacies of liberal democracy. Diving deeper for answers within said movements and institutions, Johnson turns first to elaborating a political spirituality that indeed nurtures a range of political philosophies rooted in Black ethical frameworks rather than liberal democratic ideals that traffic in anti-Blackness. This text is also exemplary for its razor-sharp focus on indigenous Black thought. Through conversations with foundational Black thinkers and movement leaders—Lorde, Fanon, Gordon, Baker, Carmichael, X, Cone, Cannon and others—Johnson identifies overlooked conceptions of humanism in Black radicalism and argues that those who become the 'salt of the earth' have an ethical responsibility to keep company with the 'damned of the earth' and find sonic sanctuary in the cacophony of Black public cries for freedom, breath and wholeness.

Anthony B. Pinn, author of Interplay of Things: Religion, Art, and Presence Together:
Johnson provides an intriguing discussion of a profound ethical turn responsive to the dilemma outlined by Audre Lorde in the 1980s. In so doing, We Testify with Our Lives makes a compelling case for reexamining dynamics of Black religious life and thought, and from that exploration gathering creative and transformative approaches to well-being in all its sociopolitical manifestations. I highly recommend it.

Lawrie Balfour, author of Democracy's Reconstruction: Thinking Politically with W. E. B. Du Bois:
Terrence L. Johnson draws from the deep wells of African American thought to illuminate the religion of Black politics and the politics of Black religion. We Testify with Our Lives makes a vital contribution to the radical project of multiracial democracy.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
PROLOGUE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. POLITICS OF HEALING Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. AWAKENING TO BLACK POWER CONSCIOUSNESS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
3. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.’S RELIGIOUS RADICALISM Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
4. MALCOLM X AND THE SPIRIT OF HUMANISTIC ACTIVISM Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
5. HUMANISTIC NATIONALISM AND THE ETHICAL TURN Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
6. SNCC’s PALESTINIAN PROBLEM Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
7. THE RELIGION OF BLACK POWER Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
CONCLUSION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	287

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: September 8, 2021
ISBN: 9780231553629