Bishop Beckwith

[The Star-Ledger] It has been that kind of an election.

In response to the strong emotions unleashed by a bare-knuckled campaign, dozens of churches are going beyond traditional election day prayers for the nation by scheduling events aimed at offering solace and a path toward healing.

In Englewood, St. Paul's Episcopal Church will be hosting a "vigil period of intense prayer" on Monday at 7 p.m.

Three Essex County congregations are confronting issues of race and justice in a seven-week study of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness.

The 2010 book, by Michelle Alexander, argues that much like Jim Crow laws replaced slavery as a means of subjugating black people, mass incarceration now serves as “a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.”