A History of Black Preaching Before Dr. King

I wanted to write a book that gave even treatment of Black preaching as a distinctive religious discourse in North America. Too long has its genius been relegated to delivery and performance alone. And outside dreadful caricature, the wider culture remains badly informed about the social identity of and functional roles performed by Black preachers in our society today. Preachers function from their orientation, which are inseparable from the congregation’s expectation. They come in varied stripes: social activists, social poets, evangelical-moralists, mystic-spiritualists, entrepreneurial agents, clerico-politicians, and rancher-pontiffs.