Lift Up Your Voice Like a Trumpet (eBook)

When the Supreme Court declared in 1954 that segregated publicschools were unconstitutional, the highest echelons ofProtestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious organizationsenthusiastically supported the ruling, and black civil rightsworkers expected and actively sought the cooperation of theirwhite religious cohorts. Many white southern clergy, however,were outspoken in their defense of segregation, and even thosewho supported integration were wary of risking their positions byurging parishioners to act on their avowed religious beliefs in acommon humanity. Those who did so found themselves abandoned by friends, attacked by white supremacists, and often driven fromtheir communities. Michael Friedland here offers a collective biography of severalsouthern and nationally known white religious leaders who didstep forward to join the major social protest movements of themid-twentieth century, lending their support first to the civilrights movement and later to protests over American involvementin Vietnam. Profiling such activists as William Sloane CoffinJr., Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Abraham Joshua Heschel, EugeneCarson Blake, Robert McAfee Brown, and Will D. Campbell, hereveals the passions and commitment behind their involvement in these protests and places their actions in the context of a burgeoning ecumenical movement.