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How have American Negro Spirituals inspired later generations of oppressed and marginalized people? Which songs of suffering and hope were particularly poignant in providing courage and inspiration? Questions such as these sparked my research journey, reaching a crescendo during a lecture recital on November 10, 2023, and now culminating in a dissertation. Spirituals inspired Albert Franklin Fisher and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in New York City in 1930 during the Harlem Renaissance and traveled (via phonograph and music books) with Bonhoeffer to Nazi Germany during World War II. In America, spirituals influenced Myles and Zilphia Horton, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr. in Monteagle, TN at the Highlander Folk School during the 1960s. To say that spirituals were the primary and sole source of their inspiration is an overstatement, but to deny the influence of spirituals in these stories would be an understatement. This dissertation traces the influence of spirituals from enslaved Africans who first created these songs of lament under dehumanizing conditions, longing for freedom and seeking hope, to those who heard their songs and sought justice and freedom from oppression in the twentieth century. There are two separate studies in this dissertation that share one overarching question: “How did spirituals influence individuals suffering oppression?” The first investigation seeks to understand how spirituals influenced resistance to Nazis through the life and teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer during World War II. The second investigation seeks to understand how spirituals influenced civil rights activists involved with the Highlander Folk School, activists such as Myles and Zilphia Horton, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others. The data is presented chronologically. After the introduction of Chapter One, Chapter Two presents the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer beginning with his childhood, family, and education. It explains the dimensions of his early life that later shaped him (such as his musical abilities, theological curiosities, and diverse Jewish neighbors). The second part of Chapter Two addresses how his time in New York City, particularly his friendship with Albert Frank Fisher at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, introduced him to American Negro Spirituals. As a result, he took gramophone recordings and a published music book of spirituals with him back to Germany. The section also addresses Bonhoeffer’s collection of sheet music and records as well as his understanding of their meaning. The chapter’s final section explores Bonhoeffer’s return to Germany and the influence spirituals had on his life as a pastor and teacher, as well as his decision to join the underground resistance to Hitler. Chapter Three examines the Highlander Folk School at its beginning with Myles and Zilphia Horton. As a musician and leader at the school, Zilphia promoted folk song community singing, particularly during protests; knowing this history is vital to understanding how “We Shall Overcome” disseminated from the school. Myles’ involvement in civil rights training helped to introduce this song to key leaders of the civil rights movement, and I dedicate the middle portion of this chapter to understanding the history of “We Shall Overcome” and accurately tracing its roots to spirituals. The recent copyright lawsuit that returned “We Shall Overcome” to public domain is also detailed. The conclusion of Chapter Three celebrates the influence of spirituals in the lives of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. Finally, the testimonies about singing spirituals during the protests are documented at the end of the chapter under “The Weapon of Song in the Civil Rights Movement.” These stories of courage under suffering and oppression create an interconnected web of hope that must be heard by future generations. The singing of spirituals teaches history, celebrates diversity, comforts in suffering, inspires courage, develops empathy, and cultivates community. This topic is important to understanding both the historical importance of spirituals and the need to continue to program spirituals in performance. Learning about those who have been inspired by spirituals throughout history will influence others to advocate for justice. The purpose of this dissertation is to promote the performance of American Negro spirituals by locating their continued influence in the lives of those who suffer oppression.

This dissertation presents an account of the important but under-theorized phenomenon of political tension, and argues that contrary to appearances, tension is in fact indispensable to a healthy political process. Though the felt aspect of political tension is often unpleasant, its responsiveness to structural properties makes it a valuable asset for the purpose of social progress. Understanding the value of tension, in turn, leads us to re-examine many common assumptions about the nature and value of social stability, the importance of democracy, and the meaning of mutual recognition. Chapter 1 gives a characterization of the basic phenomenon, drawing on a variety of examples, most notably the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. A preliminary definition of political tension is proposed, and is contrasted with a variety of similar or related concepts. Chapter 2 explores the ways in which tension progresses through different stages, and further explores the claim (most famously made by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”) that tension can be deliberately exposed and channeled for the purpose of resolving otherwise intractable political disagreements. Chapter 3 presents a conceptual argument against the notion that political arrangements can be structured in such a way as to eliminate or prevent the existence of tension. Finally, Chapter 4 introduces the idea of tension-resilience, and argues that the best defense against destructive manifestations of tension is to proactively engage with that tension in its early stages, using it as a guide for addressing hidden structural issues. A conception of mutual recognition is presented as a means of formalizing the collective values of tension-resilience. A society or organization characterized by this mutual recognition, it is argued, is one that sacrifices a degree of stability for the more important (but frequently underappreciated) value of meta-stability: that is, the ability to evolve in a well-informed, deliberate fashion.

This project deals with the Black struggle for civil and human rights in Chicago during the 1960s. Because much of the scholarship dealing with Black Chicago focuses on the Chicago Freedom Movement, an actual event led by King and SCLC between 1965 and 1967, this project places emphasis primarily on the years prior to its inception. There are two groups that emerged during the Chicago campaign that are the center of this project: The Chicago Area Friends of SNCC and the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations. The CAFOS, heavily influenced by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was founded in 1962 to raise money and collect resources for SNCC workers in the South. However, they would eventually go on to begin their own battle against racism and discrimination in Chicago. The Council on the other hand, was a coalition of influential civil rights organizations that established a strong united front against existing white power structures in the city, namely the administrations of Mayor Richard Daley and Superintendent Benjamin Willis. I argue that there was a strong local movement taking place in Chicago prior to the CFM; a movement that has frequently been overshadowed if not erased. By looking more closely at the early Chicago movement and organizations such as CAFOS and the Council, it is clear that Chicago was a place of complex racial and political insurgency. These organizations laid the ground work for the CFM. These instances of activism in Chicago during the early 1960s reveal how issues of race affected those in the Midwest while also demonstrating the various ways in which Midwesterners and urban, Black citizens reacted to and engaged in the ongoing struggle for freedom.

This text seeks to explain the rhetorical appeals that Martin Luther King, Jr. used to persuade his audience of the fundamental truths of human dignity, sin, justice, and hope.

Pride and Protest in Letters and Song is a traditional historical narrative which examines racial justice advocacy, as expressed in artistic works by several preeminent jazz musicians and the writers who allied with them during the pivotal 1955 to 1965 span of the American Civil Rights Movement. The work interrogates milestone confrontations during the civil rights movement, such as the Little Rock Nine Crisis, the African Anticolonial Movement, and the pivotal 1963 direct action campaigns waged by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SCLC, the NAACP and SNCC. The aim of this method of historical inquiry is to determine why and how these events motivated the profiled musicians and writers to use their gifts to express opinions on the racial tumult of the era. It was found that the artistic works produced during the era had little real-world impact on the overwhelmingly Southern and church-based civil rights campaigns. However, what the profiled musicians and writers had to say about the civil rights movements is worth knowing because the historical record demonstrates they were thought leaders. Several of the observations they made and ideological stances they adopted were prescient, indicating future strategic shifts and points of view on the quest for racial justice in the United States and across the African Diaspora.

The study offers a practical theological examination of three congregational youth ministries located in three different multi-racial and multi-cultural contexts in the Northeastern region of the United States. In the first move of this study, I present findings from ethnographic research in the three congregational youth ministries and argue that each congregation displays a disconnect between their practices of evangelism and discipleship and young people’s questions about and experiences with race, racism, and racial identity. In the second move of this study, I argue that this disconnect is due to the pervasiveness of post-racialism in the church and society, understood as a collection of social practices that promote colorblindness as a virtue and perpetuate systemic racism as a habitus by fostering an aesthetic of forgetfulness regarding racial violence and oppression. In light of this, I suggest that a way forward in congregational youth ministries in multiracial and multicultural contexts requires a disruption of and resistance to post-racial aesthetics for the sake of meeting students’ needs. In the third move, I turn attention to Martin Luther King, Jr. to forge a way forward, as King is often taken to be a normative source for interracial congregations. However, while such interracial congregations tend to rely on a limited view of King that interprets him as an inspiration for embracing post-racialism, I argue that King’s theological praxis can be a critical resource for discerning how to resist post-racialism. In concluding the dissertation, I offer suggestions for how current practitioners can begin taking steps toward resisting post-racialism in their work with youth and young adults.

This dissertation argues that Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr.’s Roman Catholicism is undervalued when understanding his role crafting late 1950s and 1960s public policies. Shriver played a role in desegregating Chicago’s Catholic and public school systems as well as Catholic hospitals. He helped to shape and lead the Peace Corps. He also designed many of the programs launched in President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Shriver’s ability to produce new policies and agencies within a broader structure of governance is well known. However, Shriver’s Catholicism is often neglected when examining his influence on key public policy initiatives and innovations. This dissertation argues that Shriver’s Roman Catholic upbringing formed him in such a way as to understand the nature of large bureaucracies and to see possibilities for innovation within an overarching structure. Shriver encountered both Catholic religious orders and lay sodalities at a young age and developed a posture of institutional imagination. This aspect of his Roman Catholic faith helped him to pursue social innovation within the framework of government power rather than from the edges of US society. Therefore, Shriver’s Catholicism left him uniquely suited for generating new institutions within a broader context of the US government. Shriver’s penchant for innovation echoes the formation of various religious orders and lay sodalities within Roman Catholicism that found room within a much broader Roman Catholic Church for addressing emergent problems.

MAYS, NICHOLAS S, M.A. AUGUST 2014 DEPARTMENT of HISTORY NORTHTERN REDEMTION: MARTIN LUTHER KING, THE UNITEDPASTORS ASSOCIATION, AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLES IN CLEVELAND, OHIO (118 pp.) Director of Thesis: Elizabeth Smith-PryorThis study examines a turbulent time in Cleveland, Ohio, when African Americans endured racial inequality and poverty rooted in de facto segregation and discrimination. Racism and poverty led to the 1966 Hough Riot in a predominantly African American neighborhood, which left four African Americans dead. In response, local religious leaders, particularly the United Pastors Association (UPA), prompted by fears of further unrest, a desire for better race relations, and improved economic conditions—reached out to Martin Luther King. Although Northern Redemption seeks to complicate the dominant narrative regarding Martin Luther King’s Northern contribution, my chief aim is to reveal Martin Luther King’s contribution to the civil rights struggle in Cleveland, Ohio. As such, I argue that King’s direct engagement and leadership skills helped galvanize and mobilize the African American community to confront injustices against Blacks. With this in mind, I seek to understand: how did Martin Luther King convince Cleveland’s African American community that had only recently erupted in the Hough Riots to embrace nonviolent direct-action protests to achieve economic, social, and political change?In exploring Martin Luther King’s contribution to the local civil rights struggle in Cleveland, Ohio, this thesis offers a history of race relations and Black oppression in Cleveland, as well as a study of African American triumph against White aggression and racism during the latter 1960s. This thesis offers more insight on the impact of King, however, it does not attempt to perpetuate the nostalgia that already exists in many civil rights histories. Instead, this thesis recounts the way in which Martin Luther King failed in Chicago, but persisted in Cleveland, and ultimately achieved Northern redemption in at least one important northern location. This study of Martin Luther King in Cleveland draws on a variety of sources including Cleveland newspapers and television news accounts. The thesis also explores Martin Luther King’s landmark speeches and writings, as well as the SCLC papers concerning the Northern shift and the civil rights movement. The papers of Carl B. Stokes are also used. In addition, recent interviews provided by Eric Trickey of the Cleveland Magazine—conducted in 2014 with former SCLC lieutenants—offer insight regarding the inner deliberations and workings of the organization and Northern Movement.

Civil rights commemorative boulevards are an increasingly important method of framing African American community revitalization and persistent historical inequities. Often underlying planning efforts to revitalize segregated African American neighborhoods, these boulevards are one important change mechanism for realizing equitable development and challenging structural racism. This thesis demonstrates the central importance of these commemorative boulevards in framing redevelopment and maintaining community resolve during the long struggle for revitalization

The purpose of this project is to investigate the often neglected research concerning the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his scholar-activism. This project is intended to look for evidence of intellectual leadership within King's writings in an effort to classify King within the Scholar-Activist paradigm in Africana Studies. Further, the aim is to examine Martin Luther King, Jr. from the critical and centered Scholar-Activist paradigm of Africana Studies based on an analysis of his writings to determine whether his works should be included in or excluded from the canon of Africana Studies. Molefi Asante, Maulana Karenga, and Terry Kershaw, three of the most respected scholars in the field of Africana Studies, seemingly ascribe differing levels of status to King's accomplishments and value within African American history (Asante, 1990; Karenga, 2002). Such a debate grounds this project. Does King measure up to the Scholar-Activist paradigm? Whether he does or does not, should the paradigm be expanded and redefined to include King, or is it acceptable as is? King's six book length writings demonstrate a consistency of themes, which include eight major foci: (1) Economic Justice; (2) Racial Equality/Integration; (3) Existentialism; (4) Social Activism/Service; (5) Theology/Activism; (6) Revolution/Leadership; (7) Black Ideology/Liberation/Black Theology; and (8) Anti-Militarism/Anti-Poverty. This author concludes that diversity of methodological approaches within Africana Studies is normal and that King's writings should be considered for inclusion into its canons. King meets all of Terry Kershaw's requirements for inclusion in the scholar-activist paradigm.