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The book traces the ideas about the relationship between
African American religion and African American political involvement.
That is, shows the ways in which black people have argued
amongst themselves for over a century about the
public role that black churches ought to play, that is beyond simply
providing a very important spiritual resource,
how are the ways in which black people have also thought about
a broader public responsibility and
a broader public duty for black religious institutions.
I was very happy and honored and in some ways
I felt, actually, that it vindicated the work.
Not vindicated in terms of vindicating my work,
but of vindicating the people I was writing about
and the people I had been researching,
because part of what I was trying to do was to bring back to life
a whole group of folks who were very thoughtful on questions about
religion and politics and who had been lost to history,
but who I thought deserved to be brought back into our consciousness
and also to have us be reminded of their
examples of courage and commitment.
In the days that I’ve been here on campus and also at the seminary
have been very impressed by the longevity and the legacy
of the award itself and not just the ways it will encourage more scholarship
and more commitments, but also as a very
particular kind of philanthropy that really is not, um, that really is
dedicated to the pursuit of ideas and the importance of ideas,
even if we don’t all agree about them and really leading the way
and having broader civic involvement and community involvement
with thinking about ideas for the sake of learning and learning together.