God with Us: Lived Theology and the Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942-1976

by Ansley L. Quiros

Overview

For many, the struggle over civil rights was not just about lunch counters, waiting rooms, or even access to the vote; it was also about Christian theology. Since both activists and segregationists ardently claimed that God was on their side, racial issues were imbued with religious meanings from all sides. Whether in the traditional sanctuaries of the major white Protestant denominations, in the mass meetings in black churches, or in Christian expressions of interracialism, southerners resisted, pursued, and questioned racial change within various theological traditions.

God with Us examines the theological struggle over racial justice through the story of one southern town — Americus, Georgia — where ordinary Americans sought and confronted racial change in the twentieth century. Documenting the passion and virulence of these contestations, this book offers insight into how midcentury battles over theology and race affected the rise of the Religious Right and indeed continue to resonate deeply in American life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469646763
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	11/19/2018
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ansley L. Quiros is assistant professor of history at the University of North Alabama.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“I grew up around Americus, and Quiros has captured something I remember well: a community in flux and the tension between neighbors over issues of race and religion. The people and scenes are vivid and the story well told. Additionally, it captures something dear to me — the power found in Christian theology.” — President Jimmy Carter

“This outstanding book tells a new story of the civil rights movement in southwest Georgia, inflecting the national and regional conversation with local flare. Quiros allows us to see how the bright light moments of the movement played out in ordinary lives.” — Doug Thompson, Mercer University

“Ansley Quiros argues that the freedom struggle must be seen as a theological and religious movement as much as a political event, and deftly deploys the concept of lived theology in service of her thesis. Her intense focus on the particular locale of Americus, Georgia gives the thesis, and the book, its vibrant life.” — Paul Harvey, University of Colorado

“I've been eagerly awaiting the publication of this book, and I'm thrilled to say it exceeds all expectations. Quiros unravels the mystery of Koinonia Farm’s complicated relation to the civil rights movement and brings high theological drama to the Americus story. Deeply researched and beautifully written, each page is a revelation. It’s the rare academic study that speaks directly to the most vexing and persisting challenges of the day. I will carry this book into classrooms, public lectures, congregations, and community-building initiatives, and cleave to its insights, wisdom, and chastened hopes in the uncertain years ahead.” — Charles Marsh, University of Virginia

Editorial Reviews

“A valuable resource for movement historians, practical theologians, and sociologists of American religion . . . A significant attempt to contextualize the local Americus conflict within the larger movement and white resistance to it.”—Sociology of Religion

“Rigorously researched, passionately written, and historically nuanced, God with Us: Lived Theology and the Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942–1976 contributes to our understanding of the religious forces at play in the South during the mid-twentieth-century phase of the long black freedom struggle.”—Journal of Southern History

“Both a compelling read and a valuable resource, God with Us is well-researched, well-written, and voluminously documented. The intersections it describes—between Koininia Farm and the surrounding community, between the SNCC and SCLC and the freedom movements in Americus and Albany, between non-violent direct action and random murder, between Clarence Jordan and Martin Luther King, Jr., —make this book a signal contribution to our understanding of the lived theologies that animated both the civil rights movement and those who rejected it.”—The Journal of Southern Religion

“The book’s strength is Quiros’s ability to use the national civil rights movement as a backdrop for local people and events. She reminds readers that the freedom struggle occurred beyond the streets of Birmingham and Albany. Instead, it occurred in small towns such as Americus, and its implications reach beyond the successes and failures of the movement in the 1960s.”—Journal of American History

“A fascinating history of an important but understudied place in the civil rights movement with a remarkable degree of understanding for the people.”—H-Slavery

“A pathbreaking book.. . . Previous studies of the civil rights movement—some groundbreaking in their own ways—have discussed the roles of religion in interracial communalism, the Black freedom struggle, or white massive resistance. Yet historians have typically treated these topics separately. By focusing on lived theology in Americus, Georgia, Ansley L. Quiros is able to provide a clearer understanding of the competing Christian orthodoxies that gave rise to three distinct responses to the Black freedom struggle and, importantly, their interactions with each other.”—American Historical Review

From the Publisher