Scholars and practitioners revisit Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech “The Other America,” considering how it speaks to the contemporary African American context and asking how necessary change can take place today.
Otis Moss III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, draws on the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in this sermon on the nation’s current darkness and God’s coming light.
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Marne Campbell, chair of the department of African American Church Studies at Loyola Marymount University, addresses the structural racism in the United States and the need for comprehensive change to happen on every level of society.
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Christin Fort, assistant professor of psychology at Wheaton College, examines the effects poverty and poor mental health have on each other, the oppressive cycle created as a result, and the church’s role to take action.
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Luke Bobo speaks about how the wealth gap and limited economic opportunities breeds present day suffering to African American communities in the US, and he challenges the church to respond in love and justice.
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Marne Campbell, Christin Fort, and Luke Bobo discuss Martin Luther King Jr., the Black church, and Black experience in this panel discussion with Vince Bantu and Dwight Radcliff.
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Otis Moss III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, discusses representation, prophetic and ancestral voices, and the Black experience in this Q&A with Dwight Radcliff.
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Held by the William E. Pannell Center for Black Church Studies, the 2021 Martin Luther King Jr. Virtual Celebration revisited his speech “The Other America.” Scholars and practitioners explored what Dr. King described as a triple ghetto—of race, poverty, and human misery—faced by African Americans and asked how the necessary changes to this country can take place today.