[Morristown Green] How could white Christians condone the persecution of blacks for centuries in America?
And how were African Americans able to persevere and survive such oppression?
James Cone, a scholar known as the founder of black liberation theology, spent a decade researching those complex subjects for his 2011 book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree.
The author pulled no punches in a recent talk at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown, where he delivered a powerful and passionate analysis of racism, faith, love and hope as guest lecturer in the Christine Mary and John Shelby Spong Lecture Series.
“I have been wrestling with the question of how blacks were able to survive 300 years of white terrorism, yet were able to love each other, marry and raise their children,” said Cone, a professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
“In the deepest sense, I have been writing this book all my life,” he said.
