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REHABILITATING DEMOCRACY: RESTORING CIVIL RIGHTS AND LEADING THE NEXT HUMAN RIGHTS REVOLUTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2015

Robert M. Franklin
Robert M. Franklin*
Affiliation:
James T. and Berta R. Laney Professor in Moral Leadership, Candler School of Theology
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Abstract

This article describes the culture of activist black Christian congregations that propelled campaigns to dismantle legalized racial segregation and advocate for equal justice. Historically, as the imperfections of American democracy were exposed, the most marginal people in the society acted persistently and repeatedly to extend the benefits of democracy to all citizens. The article highlights the distinctive social and intellectual contributions of the secular activist W. E. B. Du Bois and social gospel minister Martin Luther King. The author sees the contemporary discussion and faith-based mobilization around reversing mass incarceration as an outgrowth of the civil rights movement. Finally, the article suggests that leadership for the next global human rights revolution is likely to emerge from students and young leaders who are committed to radically inclusive conceptions of democracy, equality, and social justice.

Keywords

mass incarcerationblack churchescivil rightsmoral leadership
Type
SYMPOSIUM: CHRISTIANITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , October 2015 , pp. 414 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2015 

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References

1 Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2010), 47.

2 A concept developed by Emory professor Steven Tipton, in his Spring Convocation address to the Candler School of Theology, Atlanta, GA, January 2015.

3 Gayraud Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998).

4 John S. Mbiti, African Religions & Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).

5 William Galston, Justice and Human Good (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

6 Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).

7 C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990); Noel Leo Erskine, Decolonizing Theology: A Caribbean Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1981); Diana Eck, “Afro-Caribbean Traditions,” The Pluralism Project, http://www.pluralism.org/religion/afro-caribbean (last visited June 15, 2015).

8 Vincent Harding, There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America (New York: Mariner Press, 1993).

9 Aldon S. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), contains an insightful discussion of the orchestration of different types of leadership informed by Weberian sociological categories.

10 W. E. B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (New York: Schocken Books, 1920), 11.

11 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century (New York: International Publishers, 1968), 92.

12 Arnold Rampersad, The Art and Imagination of W. E. B. Du Bois (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 170.

13 Du Bois, The Autobiography of W. E .B. Du Bois, 133.

14 Ibid., 256.

15 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Signet Classics, New American Library, 1969).

16 Dr. Martin Luther King, Speech in Honor of W. E. B. Du Bois., Carnegie Hall, New York City, February 23, 1968, available at Norman Markowitz, “Martin Luther King's Speech in Honor of WEB Dubois,” Political Affairs (blog), January 25, 2014, http://politicalaffairs.net/martin-luther-king-s-speech-in-honor-of-web-dubois-by-norman-markowitz/. The occasion, the International Cultural Evening sponsored by Freedomways magazine, not only marked the centenary of Du Bois's birth but launched an “International Year” (1968) honoring his life and works.

17 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America (New York: Washington Square Press, 1970), 67 (emphasis added).

18 Ibid.

19 Martin Luther King, Jr., Address to the first Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) Mass Meeting, Montgomery, AL, December 5, 1955, available at http://mlkkpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/the_addres_to_the_first_montgomery_improvement_association_mia_mass_meeting/.

20 President Lyndon B. Johnson, Speech to Congress, March 15, 1965, available at http://www.lbjlibrary.org/press/selma-movie.

21 Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2010).

22 Darryl Pinckney, “Invisible Black America,” review of The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America, by Charles J. Ogletree Jr., and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander, New York Review of Books, March 2011.

23 Founded in 2003, the organization is named for the Rev. Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor (1921–1997), who served as senior pastor of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and president of North Carolina A&T University, and was a friend and mentor not only to King but to a vast number of other progressive clergy from various communities.

24 Michelle Alexander, foreword to Bearing Witness: A Nation in Chains, A Report of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Findings from Nine Statewide Justice Commission Hearings on Mass Incarceration (Chicago: Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc., 2014), 5, http://sdpconference.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/A-Nation-In-Chains-10.pdf.

25 Ibid., 6.

26 Ibid.

27 Bearing Witness, 15.

28 “Michelle Alexander: A System of Racial and Social Control,” interview, Frontline, April 29, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal-justice/locked-up-in-america/michelle-alexander-a-system-of-racial-and-social-control/.

29 Marc Mauer, The Crisis of the Young African American Male and the Criminal Justice System, (Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 1999), 3, http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_crisisoftheyoung.pdf.

30 Ibid., 8.

31 Gideon v. Wainright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).

32 Five Problems Facing Public Defense on the 40th Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright (Washington, DC: National Legal Aid & Defender Association, 2011), http://www.nlada.org/Defender/Defender_Gideon/Defender_Gideon_5_Problems.

33 Mauer, The Crisis of the Young African American Male and the American Justice System, 14–18.

34 Sean Gardiner, “Harvard Law Professor to Lead Brooklyn DA Conviction Review Unit,” Metropolis (blog), Wall Street Journal Online, April 7, 2014, http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2014/04/07/harvard-professor-to-lead-brooklyn-da-conviction-review-unit/.

35 Renaldo Pearson, “The Drug War and the Mass Incarceration It Caused: Where We Are and Where We Still Must Go,” The Blog (blog), Huffington Post, September 10–16, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renaldo-pearson/an-update-on-the-drug-war_b_5770050.html.

36 Alexander, foreword to Bearing Witness, 7.

37 The prosperity gospel movement is critically addressed by Raphael G. Warnock, The Divided Mind of the Black Church: Theology, Piety and Public Witness (New York: NYU Press, 2013), and Robert M. Franklin, Crisis in the Village: Restoring Hope in African American Communities (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007).

38 James T. and Berta R. Laney Program in Moral Leadership was established at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, in 2014.

39 Martin Luther King, Jr., “Draft of Chapter II, ‘Transformed Nonconformist,’” sermon, July 1962–March 1963, available at https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218225635/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol6/July1962-March1963DraftofChapterII,TransformedNonconformist.pdf/.