The theme of the 2024 Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. event was "Fires of Freedom and Cloud of Witnesses." In worship and the panel discussion, we heard stories of biblical, historical, and local women who kindled and tended the fires of freedom, often from behind the scenes. As a continuation of that theme, the synod’s Authentic Diversity and Justice team invites you to join in reading Have You Got Good Religion: Black Women’s Faith, Courage, & Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement by Dr. AnneMarie Mingo of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Cancelled
Thursday, August 15
7 PM
On Zoom
Whether you’ve completed the book, are part way through, or haven’t started yet, you are able to join with members of the Authentic Diversity and Justice team for conversation.
Online Conversation
Thursday, September 12
7 PM
On Zoom (Link to Join >>)
Dr. Mingo will join us for a presentation on her book and the theme of people working behind the scenes for change and justice.
RSVP
Have You Got Good Religion?
Black Women's Faith, Courage, and Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement
What compels a person to risk her life to change deeply rooted systems of injustice in ways that may not benefit her? The thousands of Black Churchwomen who took part in civil rights protests drew on faith, courage, and moral imagination to acquire the lived experiences at the heart of the answers to that question. AnneMarie Mingo brings these forgotten witnesses into the historical narrative to explore the moral and ethical world of a generation of Black Churchwomen and the extraordinary liberation theology they created. These women acted out of belief that what they did was bigger than themselves. Taking as their goal nothing less than the moral transformation of American society, they joined the movement because it was something they had to do. Their personal accounts of a lived religion enacted in the world provide powerful insights into how faith steels human beings to face threats, jail, violence, and seemingly implacable hatred. Throughout, Mingo draws on their experiences to construct an ethical model meant to guide contemporary activists in the ongoing pursuit of justice.
A depiction of moral imagination that resonates today, Have You Got Good Religion? reveals how Black Churchwomen’s understanding of God became action and transformed a nation.
Dr. AnneMarie Mingo
AnneMarie Mingo is an Associate Professor of Ethics, Culture, and Moral Leadership and the Director of the Metro-Urban Institute at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She previously served as Assistant Professor of African American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University, and an affiliate faculty member in the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State. In 2018-2019 she was the Ella Baker Visiting Professor of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Drawing on oral histories and ethnographies, her work in Social Ethics centers on the lived experiences of Black Churchwomen who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Her research interests include 20th and 21st Century Black Freedom Struggles with a specific focus on the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, South African Apartheid Movement, and global Movement for Black Lives, socio-religious activism of Black women, and theological and ethical influences in social movements.
She also writes in areas of Black Church activism, peace and reconciliation, and the influence of Black music and media on social activism. She is the founder of the Cultivating Courageous Resisters project that works collaboratively to expand the work and equip intergenerational religious activists to help meet critical contemporary needs for social justice.
Prior to entering the academy, she worked as a corporate marketing executive with The Procter and Gamble Company for over eight years. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, FL; a Master of Business Administration from Rollins College - Crummer Graduate School in Winter Park, FL; a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ; and a Ph.D. from Emory University in Atlanta, GA.
As an international speaker, AnneMarie has inspired and empowered people throughout the United States, Caribbean, southern and western Africa, and southeast Asia. An ordained Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, she has served as an associate minister at St. James A.M.E. Church in Pittsburgh, Big Bethel A.M.E. Church in Atlanta, GA, St. James A.M.E. Church in Newark, NJ, and maintains membership at St. Mark A.M.E. Church in Orlando, FL. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, and active in numerous academic guilds including serving on the Board of Directors for the Society of Christian Ethics. She is a co-editor of the Studies in Social Ethics, Ethnography, and Theologies book series with Bloomsbury Press.
AnneMarie is the founder of Sister Scholars, an organization that supports Black women with or pursuing doctorate degrees. Dr. Mingo seeks to join theory and praxis in the Academy, the Church, and broader society in ways that transforms lives and transforms the world.