Christians often express selective outrage.
Author: Jemar Tisby
Jemar Tisby is the founder of The Witness, Inc. and a staff writer for The Witness BCC. He is the author of How to Fight Racism and the New York Times bestseller, The Color of Compromise. Follow him @JemarTisby
In February of 2018, during Black History Month, I had the honor of co-leading a pilgrimage to Charleston, South Carolina. That city served as the major point of entry on the East Coast for newly arrived black slaves. The deplorable institution of race-based chattel slavery shaped the entire history of the city and the state […]
Memorial Day is a day of remembrance. By setting aside a time to recall soldiers who died fighting for this nation, American citizens rightly honor their sacrifice and that of their family and friends. What often gets overlooked in the observance of Memorial Day, though, is the different experience of African American soldiers. In one […]
Against this backdrop of unremitting suffering, black people looked to religion for answers.
Montgomery, AL– Bryan Stevenson and his team at the Equal Justice Initiative capped off the grand opening of the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice with an evening filled with honoring heroes past and present as well as soul from deep within the black tradition. After several other acts and speakers, a […]
No Christian truly feels at home in the world.
It pains me to see people overlooking Black History Month because Black history (just like Hispanic, Asian, European, and Native history) belongs to all of us — black and white, men and women, young and old. The impact African Americans have made on this country is part of our collective consciousness.
In the current state of public discourse offensive statements have become commonplace. I tend to ignore most of those comments, but occasionally some of them deserve a response. After reading Rod Dreher’s blog post entitled “Of Shitholes and Second Thoughts” I decided this is one of those perspectives that cannot go unchallenged. I shared my […]
King’s emphasis on the social dimensions of Christianity, especially regarding race relations, angered many white evangelicals in his day.
After reading dozens of U.S. history books for my PhD coursework this year, I find myself circling back to a few works time and again. So I decided to put them in a of list my ten favorite history books that I read in 2017. I say “favorite” because this list is entirely subjective and […]
Much virtual ink has been spilled discussing the merits of the term “evangelical.” But the energetic attempts to declare #notallevangelicals fall short if they fail to ask, “Why does our theology lead to Republicanism?” The Politics of White Evangelicals The latest debate about evangelicalism relates to the voting habits of white evangelicals in recent elections. […]
NOTE: This article originally appeared in “Opinion” section of the New York Times. JACKSON, Miss. — When President Trump decided at the last minute to attend the grand opening of the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum here on Saturday, the museums’ staff flew into overdrive. I saw it in their sincere but […]
Recent polls indicating strong white evangelical support for morally-questionable political candidates coupled with ongoing racial tensions within evangelical churches and institutions has compelled many Christians to ask, “Am I an evangelical?” We asked a panel of women and black Christians to discuss this question and give perspectives we sometimes don’t get to hear. Panelists include: […]
Listen Now Bryan Stevenson is an award-winning lawyer, speaker, as well as the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization based in Montgomery, Alabama, that is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice and to protecting basic human rights for […]
American citizens should not be surprised at the paucity of character we are currently seeing in our politicians.
Tyler Burns, Beau York, and Jemar Tisby sit down on the launch day for The Witness: A Black Christian Collective. They talk about the background of the name as well as the many announcements coming out of Pass The Mic and The Witness. They also show random trophies they’ve earned and Martin Luther even makes […]
Note: This article originally appeared on Vox.com I almost swerved off the road the first time I saw cotton in full bloom. I had seen the dull green cotton plants crawling toward the sky through the summer months. Then, practically overnight, the cotton bolls exploded to reveal their fluffy prize. Nothing moves fast in the […]
The Witness is not the voice of black Christians; it is the microphone that amplifies those who have often gone unheard.
September 16, 1963 brought news of one of the most horrific acts of hate and violence ever perpetrated during the Civil Rights movement. Four young black girls–Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Diane Wesley, and Carole Robertson–were killed in a church bombing planned by white supremacists. One could scarcely think of more innocent […]
August 28 marks the anniversary of one of the most iconic speeches in American history and a high point of the twentieth century Civil Rights Movement. On this day, Martin Luther King, Jr., a preacher and scholar from the Deep South, gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. In it he articulated a vision for […]
