When black women lead
A century before Alicia Garza came Anna Arnold Hedgeman, Violet Johnson, and Florence Spearing Randolph.
Why black American theologians went to India
The Ebola outbreak is centered in three West African countries where almost 4,500 people have died; 17 people have been treated for the disease in Europe and North America, most of whom are health and aid workers who contracted the disease in West Africa. Americans are vigorously debating whether to place a travel ban on anyone trying to enter the nation from affected regions. Advocates of interreligious engagement—through their willingness to move across dangerous boundaries—show us how exchange does not necessarily beget vulnerability; it can bolster our humanity.
Harlem's experiment in interracial, pacifist community
The Harlem Ashram (1940-1948) was a grand experiment that didn't go very far. The interracial Christian commune at Fifth Avenue and 125th Street was modeled after ashrams, or Hindu religious centers, that Gandhi had established in India. Its founders were two white men, Ralph Templin and Jay Holmes Smith, who had been Methodist missionaries in India in the 1930s. There they became interested in Gandhi's synthesis of religion, politics, and nonviolent protest.
Templin and Smith were part of a cohort of American pacifists who saw Gandhi’s work as a potential model for political and religious activism in the United States.
Ghanaian independence after oil
Last week, Ghana’s parliament approved a Ghanaian company to explore oil fields off its coast. This is noteworthy because most companies working to extract Ghana’s oil are American or European. In fact, in 2007 it was a U.S.-based company that discovered the vast oil reserve. To transnational piracy and the increased U.S. military presence that have accompanied oil, Ghana has responded with lively, public debate about neocolonialism—a term coined by Ghana’s founding father Kwame Nkrumah.