The Talking Book: African Americans and the BibleYale University Press, 2008 M10 1 - 295 pages A striking narrative of the Bible’s central role in African-American history from the early days of slavery to the present The Talking Book casts the Bible as the central character in a vivid portrait of black America, tracing the origins of African-American culture from slavery’s secluded forest prayer meetings to the bright lights and bold style of today’s hip-hop artists. The Bible has profoundly influenced African Americans throughout history. From a variety of perspectives this wide-ranging book is the first to explore the Bible’s role in the triumph of the black experience. Using the Bible as a foundation, African Americans shared religious beliefs, created their own music, and shaped the ultimate key to their freedom—literacy. Allen Callahan highlights the intersection of biblical images with African-American music, politics, religion, art, and literature. The author tells a moving story of a biblically informed African-American culture, identifying four major biblical images—Exile, Exodus, Ethiopia, and Emmanuel. He brings these themes to life in a unique African-American history that grows from the harsh experience of slavery into a rich culture that endures as one of the most important forces of twenty-first-century America. |
From inside the book
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... human voice , then , and not the printed page , that the Bible came to inhabit the slave's inner world . The slaves ' Bible became musical , even as the slaves ' music became biblical . Through the peculiar liturgies of the Peculiar ...
... human than divine. Preaching, he noted, “was an easy way to make a living.” Washington illustrates the point with the tale “of a coloured man in Alabama, who, one hot day in July, while he was at work in a cotton-field, suddenly stopped ...
... humanity had been repeatedly rewarded with the lash, and his education had begun with clandestine snatches of letters. Only by Herculean effort had he taught himself to read as an adult, and only to discover what an anguished Abraham ...
... humanity of African Americans . Both men enjoyed the precious competence of literacy that made its pages available to them . But whereas Garnet was convinced that the Bible would continue to aid and abet the abolitionist cause, Douglass ...
... human- ity. All human beings, black and white, slave and free, were the descen- dants of Adam and Eve. The beginning of all stories, and all pedigrees, was to be found in the Garden of Eden and its first evicted tenants. In one African ...
Contents
1 | |
21 | |
41 | |
49 | |
5 Exodus | 83 |
6 Ethiopia | 138 |
7 Emmanuel | 185 |
Postscript | 240 |
Notes | 247 |
Subject Index | 275 |
Scripture Index | 284 |