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

Author: Terrence L. Johnson

August 1, 2021

In this book, Senior Research Fellow Terrence L. Johnson traces Black religion’s sustained influence from the SNCC to the present, reconstructing a radical lived ethics of freedom and justice. Johnson demonstrates that Black Power fundamentally contests liberalism’s abstract understanding of democracy, calling instead for new embodied frameworks to achieve human flourishing and dignity. Black bodies represent the primary form of resistance against violent and oppressive regimes of white supremacy and exploitation, and the individual and collective struggles of Black life bear witness to the dogged determination to cultivate beauty, rage, and joy. We Testify with Our Lives was published by Columbia University Press in August 2021.

related Berkley Forum | Black Faith and the Black Radical Tradition

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