Ordinary Heroes of Racial Justice: A History of Christians in Action

Historian Johnson (One in Christ) profiles in this informative account American Christians who used their faith to push for racial reform in the 20th century. Among those spotlighted are Catherine de Hueck, who immigrated to Harlem from Russia in 1938 and founded Friendship House, an organization that provided economic support and Catholic education to working-class Blacks; John Perkins, a Black minister who moved from California to segregated Mississippi to spread a gospel that prioritized both individual spiritual advancement and social action; and Clarence Jordan, a white Baptist preacher who founded the communal Koinonia farm in Georgia, where white and Black members were paid equal wages. Throughout, the author examines how her subjects cut against prevailing ideologies to effect change, noting, for example, that Catherine de Hueck rebutted prosperity gospel-inflected notions of individual advancement with the belief “that God cares for the economically and spiritually poor.” Johnson also makes intriguing points about how faith can help Christians to study history courageously, since “we serve a God who has forgiven our sins [and] need not fear the sins of the past.... Doing history can inspire us to act in the present.” Readers will be edified and inspired. (July)