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April 2021 Issue [Reviews]

Tongues of Fire

The history of the black church
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, by William H. Johnson. Courtesy the Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of the Harmon Foundation

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, by William H. Johnson. Courtesy the Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of the Harmon Foundation 

[Reviews]

Tongues of Fire

The history of the black church
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Discussed in this essay:

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Penguin Press. 304 pages. $30. / PBS. Four hours.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. belongs to the postwar generation that grew up during, and then helped to shape, a shift in black consciousness from a sense of alienation to one of affirmation. When Gates was a student in the late Sixties, HBCUs had long taught Negro history, but the writers of what is sometimes referred to as the first generation of Black Studies brought to campus a…

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 is the author, most recently, of Busted in New York and Other Essays.


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