Journalism

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images By Lerone Martin and Jonathan Eig From The New York Times For years, we’ve been trying, with some frustration, to identify the white boy who introduced Martin Luther King Jr. to racism. Dr. King told the story himself, first in a college essay, and then again in interviews, until it formed the core of his origin story. It went like this: He was 3 years old and still known as Mike, the name on his birth certificate, when he made friends with

From Literary Hub At some point during Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1944 train trip from Atlanta to Simsbury, Conn., the hungry, rambunctious teenager left the company of his fellow Morehouse students and went to the state-of-the-art dining car to enjoy Southern Railway’s fine dining on wheels. He had no idea what was awaiting him. The tagline of the Southern Railway Company was “Southern serves the South.” The company motto referred to more than just geography, but also the “Sou

The right’s claims about weaponization of the FBI don’t stand up to the historical test Published in The Washington Post The exterior of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the headquarters of the FBI, in August 2015, in Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) House Republicans have empaneled a Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to investigate the widespread belief on the right that the FBI and other agencies are attempting to “purge conservative vie

Published in APA PsychNet As social policies have changed to grant more rights to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, some Christians in the United States have suggested that LGBT rights impede Christians’ religious freedom. Across five studies, we examined the causes and consequences of zero-sum beliefs (ZSBs) about Christians and LGBT individuals. We demonstrate that Christians’ beliefs about conflict with sexual minorities are shaped by their unders

Do Christians suffer in a changing America? Published in Religion and Politics Dozens of gay Catholics hold an evening mass at the St Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. in 2013. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post/Getty Images) t is the dawn of a new era for sexual and gender minorities in the United States. The Senate and presidential transitions at the beginning of 2021 brought about increased political representation and power for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and tr

Published in The American Historian Image Credit: https://www.oah.org/ John Fea, Laura Gifford, R. Marie Griffith, and Lerone A. Martin In 2016 Donald J. Trump won the presidential election with overwhelming Christian evangelical support. Commentators and pundits have struggled to explain how a president who seems to scorn traditional Christian values—as evident in his rumored affairs, his divorces, and his alleged sexual assaults and harassment—has garnered the devotion of a

Elder Michaux, a popular black evangelist, aided the bureau’s campaign to destroy King’s reputation. Published in ARC Magazine (Getty/Polaris/Lawrence Schiller) n 2017, the National Archives released a new trove of FBI files in response to a Freedom of Information Act request I made. The security-screened documents reveal how the bureau solicited and received sacred assistance in their crusade to discredit Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement. The FBI’s ef

Published in Religious Studies News Photo: Women’s March in Seneca Falls, NY, on Jan 21, 2017, by Lindy Glennon One way to facilitate honest conversations about contemporary white supremacy and privilege in the religious studies classroom is to examine and challenge the racial scripts of color-blind racism. To this end, I use Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s (2013) Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America at the conclusion of my c

“This whole Michael Brown thing,” a local white business owner informed me, “is a case of reverse racism!” The Saint Louis native continued, “Those people over there on the north side kill and shoot each other all the time and nobody says a word. Now that it’s a white cop, it’s suddenly a big deal.” Published in ARC Magazine Source: ARC Magazine This whole Michael Brown thing,” a local white business owner informed me, “is a case of reverse racism!” The Saint Louis native con