Faith, Connection, and Social Change in Black Chicago
Featured writers: Kai Parker and Reginald Blount
Kai Parker, author of City of Black Souls: Chicago, Ethiopianism, and the Black Apocalyptic Imagination, and Reginald Blount, Director of the Center for the Church and Black Experience at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary will discuss intersections of faith and social change in twentieth-century Chicago. This program is presented in partnership with the Newberry.
This program is also presented in conjunction with the American Writers Museum’s special exhibit American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture, a powerful exhibit that takes you on the ultimate exploration through spirituality and storytelling. American Prophets is now on display at the AWM. American Prophets is supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative.
Book signing times (all signings take place in the First Floor Lobby of the library)
🖊️Reginald Blount: 2:30 – 2:50
🖊️Kai Parker: 2:30 – 2:50
About the writers:
REGINALD BLOUNT, Murray H. Leiffer Associate Professor of Formation, Leadership and Culture and Director of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, has research interests in African American identity formation, adolescent and young adult identity formation, Christian education theory, Christian education and the Black church, and African/African American spirituality. He is the author of Let Your Light Shine: Mobilizing for Justice with Children and Youth.
KAI PARKER, Assistant Professor of African American Religious History at the University of Virginia, examines how apocalyptic and messianic strains of Black faith have inspired Black social movements, cultural production, and intellectual thought while illuminating the affinities and tensions between conceptions of redemption and freedom. His research combines archival methods of history with conceptual insights drawn from theology as well as Black studies’ engagements with phenomenology.
Founded in 1887, THE NEWBERRY is one of Chicago’s most historic cultural institutions. Curious people from all over visit to research topics of interest, discover their family history, take classes, or learn something new and unexpected. The Newberry fosters a deeper understanding of our world by inspiring research and learning in the humanities and encouraging conversations about ideas that matter to diverse audiences. Their mission is rooted in a growing and accessible collection of rare and historical materials that spans more than six centuries of human experience. Learn more and explore here.
City of Black Souls: Chicago, Ethiopianism, and the Black Apocalyptic Imagination
by Kai Parker
City of Black Souls uncovers the history of how, from the late-19th to the mid-20th century, Black Protestants in Chicago created a transnational religious movement that connected the Black struggle for freedom in the United States to the global Black fight against Western imperialism. This was a movement of Ethiopianism―meaning a movement for Black religious and political independence inspired by biblical references to “Ethiopia,” particularly Psalm 68:31, “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”
Let Your Light Shine: Mobilizing for Justice with Children
edited by Reginald Blount & Virginia A. Lee