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Black Theology: A Documentary History

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James Hal Cone (born 1938) is the founder of Black Liberation Theology, a Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary, and author of books such as Black Theology and Black Power, A Black Theology of Liberation, God of the Oppressed, etc. Gayraud Stephen Wilmore (born 1921) is a writer, historian, educator, and theologian who was a prominent figure in the civil rights movement.

Wilmore writes in his General Introduction to this 1979 collection of essays, "A few years ago James H. Cone asked me if I had considered editing a book for seminary students that would collect and appraise the various sources for Black Theology embedded in the history and culture of our people in the Americas and West Africa... This book is, in a way, a much less ambitious version of what Professor Cone proposed... Our purpose is threefold. First, we wanted to gather together the most significant documents of the Black churches and church-related movements which would present the origin and development of Black Theology... Second, we wanted to fill out the picture with articles and essays that presented the program of Black Theology, or played a significant part in setting Black preachers and scholars in motion... Finally, it was our intention to write the kind of critical commentaries that would reflect our own personal experience as participants in what transpired."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"Black Theology has been a Black-male-dominated enterprise and to the extent that it continues to be so, our sisters say quite clearly, it cannot be an authentic means of liberation." (Pg. 7)
"I was always sorry that more black leaders did not share the outrage of Martin Luther King, Jr., about the war, for---in spite of all inherited deprivations and handicaps---articulate blacks could have had considerable influence on public opinion and on the Federal Government." (Pg. 179)
"Black theologians however, need to guard against equating 'God being on the side of the oppressed' with 'the oppressed being on the side of God.' According to the Bible, there is no merit in being oppressed or poor. It is by God's gracious love that he takes their side and acts for their liberation." (Pg. 234)
"To believe in Blackness is not to despise whiteness. To work for Black liberation is not synonymous with white alienation. We believe that it is God's will that all men should live together in a state of harmonious mutuality and creative good will." (Pg. 299)
"As yet, there is no real Black evangelical Black Theology." (Pg. 313)
"Although Black women represent more than one-half of the population in the Black community and 75 percent of the Black Church, their experience has not been visibly present in the development of Black Theology." (Pg. 363)