In his classic meditation on the spirituals, Deep River, Howard Thurman, made a profound observation about the role of Christian slaves in the nation's history. "By some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst."

First initiated as Negro History Week in 1926 by the black historian Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History to remedy the wide-spread ignorance, neglect and distortion of African-American history due to racism, the observance was extended to a month in 1976...

Martin Luther King Day memorials tend to celebrate King the Civil Rights leader, stressing his activism on behalf of interracial equality and reconciliation. We slight his emphasis on the link between racism and poverty and so neglect King the advocate of the poor. At the time of his assassination King...