In the summer of 1964, the turmoil of the civil rights movement reached its peak in Mississippi, with activists across the political spectrum claiming that God was on their side in the struggle over racial justice. This was the summer when violence against blacks increased at an alarming rate and when the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi resulted in national media attention. Charles Marsh takes us back to this place and time, when the lives of activists on all sides of the civil rights issue converged and their images of God clashed. He weaves their voices into a gripping narrative: a Ku Klux Klansman, for example, borrows fiery language from the Bible to link attacks on blacks to his "priestly calling"; a middle-aged woman describes how the Gospel inspired her to rally other African Americans to fight peacefully for their dignity; a SNCC worker tells of harrowing encounters with angry white mobs and his pilgrimage toward a new racial spirituality called Black Power. Through these emotionally charged stories, Marsh invites us to consider the civil rights movement anew, in terms of religion as a powerful yet protean force driving social action.
The book's central figures are Fannie Lou Hamer, who "worked for Jesus" in civil rights activism; Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi; William Douglas Hudgins, an influential white Baptist pastor and unofficial theologian of the "closed society"; Ed King, a white Methodist minister and Mississippi native who campaigned to integrate Protestant congregations; and Cleveland Sellers, a SNCC staff member turned black militant.
Marsh focuses on the events and religious convictions that led each person into the political upheaval of 1964. He presents an unforgettable American social landscape, one that is by turns shameful and inspiring. In conclusion, Marsh suggests that it may be possible to sift among these narratives and lay the groundwork for a new thinking about racial reconciliation and the beloved community. He maintains that the person who embraces faith's life-affirming energies will leave behind a most powerful legacy of social activism and compassion.
Charles Marsh thinks historians who argue the civil rights movement was about rights have made a big mistake. In God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights, he takes a different stance. He says the civil rights movement was about God. Marsh defends this controversial thesis with five profiles of civil rights leaders (ranging from cotton fieldworker and political activist Fannie Lou Hamer to the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi, Sam Bowers), each of whom understood their work in fundamentally theological terms. Marsh's fluid, engaging prose aims to persuade readers that the ongoing fight for civil rights is best understood in spiritual terms and to arm believers with a clear understanding of the ultimate stakes of this country's continuing struggle with racism. --Michael Joseph Gross
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Religion, religion, religion!:
There's a lot of in-bickering within the intellectual community as to the primary motivation for any particular event. People who have majored in political science will argue that politics is always the key. People who have majored in sociology will argue that it's social change that's the key. People, like myself, who have majored in religion will always seem to find that religion is the key. Perhaps that's why I like this book so much. Marsh undertakes an exhaustive study of various figures in... more info
"Faith" and civil rights in Mississippi.:
Highly recommended account of the role of "faith" in the lives of five prominent figures in Mississippi during the civil rights movement. Saints (Fannie Lou Hamer, Edwin King, Cleveland Sellers) and sinners (Sam Bowers and Douglas Hudgins) are both represented. Hudgins and other Jackson elites come off nearly as loathsome as Bowers. Marsh's prose is brilliant, providing for a lively and inspiring read.
A College Student's review:
God's Long Summer covers a very exciting and troubled time in American History. The various points of view Marsh used to complete this book is the key to understanding this time period. However, the unnecessary abundance of religious references and the slow pace of the book make it almost unreadable. It is heartbreaking to read through one uninteresting point of view, to discover the next chapter is just as dull.
Where was God during the Civil Rights Movement?:
Marsh's book is a truly poignant view of real Southern people during the civil rights movement. He is able to capture each of the five individual's quite different understandings of God and His actual place in their lives during this time of great struggle. Marsh takes you on a journey of different Christian imaginations as he examines the beliefs of an outstanding woman fighting for her rights as a black woman, an ex-headmaster of the Ku Klux Klan, a black militant leader, a middle-of-the-road preacher,... more info
