Black Religion, Social Justice and the Radical MLK

We’re proud to introduce the Justice Revival Lecture series!

In 2022, we will be hosting conversations with academics, clergy, and movement leaders to explore a range of pressing justice issues and the role religious power plays in shaping our society. Speakers will help participants think about the relationships between faith and social movements to inform current efforts for change across the Central Valley.

Our kickoff conversation this month will be with Dr. Reggie Williams, who will center Martin Luther King as a radical activist in contrast to the mainstream sanitized versions of his life and ministry. Dr. Williams will also elevate the intersections between Black religion and Black-led justice movements

Reggie Williams is Professor of Christian ethics at McCormick Theological Seminary, in Chicago, Illinois. He does work at the intersection of Black theology, Blackness studies, aesthetics, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer studies. Williams’ book “Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance”, published by Baylor University Press, examines the impact of exposure to Black Christianity, in Harlem NY, during the Harlem Renaissance, on the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis in 1945 for his activism against them. Dr. Williams’ current work employs Blackness studies to examine the ethical claims of Christian anthropology in the theology of Bonhoeffer. Dr. Williams and his wife Stacy Williams are the parents of a son, Darion, and a daughter, Simone.