Join the discussion of "A Universal Body of Belonging: Plymouth Church Seeking Racial Justice "
3 pm Saturday, October 16. Register to receive link to the online event.
We have now come to the third and final book in this series of Plymouth Reads. Austin Channing Brown is a speaker, writer and media producer providing inspired leadership on racial justice in America. She is the author of I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness and the executive producer of the web series The Next Question. For more information on Austin Channing Brown, you can do no better than to visit her website.
Week Four Challenge The last four chapters of Austin Channing Brown’s book, I’m Still Here, is about the Church. Not solely Black church but the Christian Church. And this is where our soul searching begins. Plymouth has shown the wisdom of calling a Black woman preacher. As Brown notes, “When our (Black women’s) voices are truly desired, numbers will cease to be the sole mark of achievement.” But her hope rests in God. If called upon, the Holy Spirit will remain in the room so that we can “survive honest discussions about slavery, about convict leasing, about stolen land, deportation, discrimination, and exclusion.” “We can lament and mourn.” “We can tell the truth.” “We can trust that the Holy Spirit is here.” And that when justice is done and we are ready for real reconciliation, Jesus will lead. “Reconciliation is what Jesus does.” Where do you fit in on Plymouth Church’s journey to racial reconciliation?
Week Three Challenge In an interview (read below), Brown says that she wrote, I’m Still Her, for Black women. She hoped others would read it but what she wanted most was that Black women would see that it spoke honestly of their lives. Brown recently announced that she is taking that further. She is now “in the business of encouraging, affirming and reminding Black women of their own power.” That after so many years “exploring the myriad of ways Black women have been left out of the American story” it is time for a new day. “Today I begin to write myself back into the story. And I want this not only for myself but for Black women. All of them.” In her book, she mentions the Black women, and Black men, who have inspired her. For those who are public figures, check out the information below, along with a playlist for those who are musicians.
Week Two Challenge “I had to learn what it really means to love Blackness.” This “confession” happens in the first sentence of the second chapter, “Playing Spades.” Brown finds a way to this love of Blackness in the Black Christian church. The other two authors in this series, James Baldwin and Ibram X. Kendi left the church as adults but both grew up in homes where parents were active in the Black church. James H. Cone and Black Liberation Theology for Kendi’s parents and the Black Pentecostal church for James Baldwin’s. Both pay tribute to the influence of these very different but powerful expressions of Black Christianity in their lives. The PBS series now on Amazon Prime, The Black Church, This is Our Story, This is Our Song.
Week One Challenge Have you started reading I’m Still Here? Or finished it? Or not started yet? Wherever you are now in your reading, go to Chapter 12, “We’re Still Here” and read it like you have stepped behind Austin Channing Brown. Let her lead you through these national events as a Black woman. This is why she wrote the book. This is why we should care about this book. Check in the resources for a link to the video on the 16th Street Baptist Church killings.
Here are some additional resources which will add richness to your reading experience:
First, there is a study guide to the book
And here is an interview with Austin Channing Brown. It is short but it helps in understanding her thinking behind the book
Growing up, she listened to Luther Vandross: and Mariah Carey.
She writes about Alvin Ailey and how she admired Zora Neale Hurston, Nina Simone, and Angela Davis (read about her in Ibram X Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning (305.800973 KEN).
In a letter to her unborn son (page 162), she mentions Stevie Wonder: and Michael Jackson’s moves.
More books and authors that she mentioned - some of which we have in Plymouth Library (*):
- Nikki Giovanni
- Lucille Clifton
- Paul Laurence Dunbar (We Wear the Mask)
- Ntozake Shange (Choreopoem - For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf)
- *Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the world and me - 305.8 COA and We were eight years in power - 305.896 COA)
- Andre Lorde (Sister Outsider)
- James Cone
- *James Baldwin (The amen corner - 812 BAL and The fire next time - 326 BAL)
- Allan Boesak & Curtiss DeYoung (Radical Reconciliation)
- Jimmy Santiago Baca (A Place to Stand). This book informed her response to her cousin’s incarceration (see p. 138) It was also made into a movie.
- You may also be interested in the PBS special, "The Black Church, This is Our Story, This is Our Song,” now on Amazon Prime.
- Plymouth Library has The Black church in the African-American experience by Eric Lincoln (277.3)
- Powerful History for Brown (see page152) was the 16th Street Baptist Church Killings..
And finally, here is a playlist to accompany your reading!
- America - Tracy Chapman
- Black Rage - Lauryn Hill
- We Gotta Pray - Alicia Keys
- One Love - Elle Varner
- I Can't Breathe - H.E.R.
- What If - India Arie