In the summer of 1964, the turmoil of the civil rights movement reached its peak in Mississippi, with activists
across the political spectrum claiming that God was on their side in the struggle over racial justice. This was
the summer when violence against blacks increased at an alarming rate and when the murder of three civil rights
workers in Mississippi resulted in national media attention. Charles Marsh takes us back to this place and time,
when the lives of activists on all sides of the civil rights issue converged and their images of God clashed. He
weaves their voices into a gripping narrative: a Ku Klux Klansman, for example, borrows fiery language from the
Bible to link attacks on blacks to his "priestly calling"; a middle-aged woman describes how the Gospel
inspired her to rally other African Americans to fight peacefully for their dignity; a SNCC worker tells of harrowing
encounters with angry white mobs and his pilgrimage toward a new racial spirituality called Black Power. Through
these emotionally charged stories, Marsh invites us to consider the civil rights movement anew, in terms of religion
as a powerful yet protean force driving social action.
The book's central figures are Fannie Lou Hamer, who "worked for Jesus" in civil rights activism; Sam
Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi; William Douglas Hudgins, an
influential white Baptist pastor and unofficial theologian of the "closed society"; Ed King, a white
Methodist minister and Mississippi native who campaigned to integrate Protestant congregations; and Cleveland Sellers,
a SNCC staff member turned black militant.
Marsh focuses on the events andreligious convictions that led each person into the political upheaval of 1964.
He presents an unforgettable American social landscape, one that is by turns shameful and inspiring. In conclusion,
Marsh suggests that it may be possible to sift among these narratives and lay the groundwork for a new thinking
about racial reconciliation and the beloved community. He maintains that the person who embraces faith's life-affirming
energies will leave behind a most powerful legacy of social activism and compassion.