Examines the influence of the Federal Council of Churches’ Department of Race Relations A Theology of Brotherhood explores how the national umbrella Christian organization, the Federal Council of Churches, acted as a crucial conduit and organizational force for the dissemination of “progressive” views on race in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on years of archival research, Curtis J. Evans shows that the Council’s theological approach to race, and in particular its anti-lynching campaign, were responsible for meaningful progress in some white Protestant churches on racial issues. The book highlights the contributions that their religious vision made in expanding and propagating a civic nationalist tradition that was grounded in a “universal brotherhood” and belief in the equality of all human beings, over against a racial nationalist ideology that conceived of America in ethno-racial terms. Evans makes the case that this predominantly white religious organization contributed a distinctive religious voice to visions of a pluralistic democracy, racial and ethnic diversity, and social and political reform. The volume adds a missing voice to the literature on lynching in the early twentieth century, which tends to focus primarily on the NAACP and other secular organizations.

In the long and tortured history of American ideas about race, religion has played a prominent role. In this book, Curtis Evans traces ideas about African American religion from the antebellum period to the middle of the twentieth century. Central to the story, he argues, is the notion-popular throughout this period-that blacks were somehow naturally religious. In the antebellum period, the religious sentiments of blacks were commonly pointed to as a signal trait of their humanity and as a potential source for their contribution to American culture. Abolitionists began linking the distinctive religious feelings of blacks to their capacity for freedom and by doing so made the first, halting steps toward multiracial democracy. Yet the very notion of a peculiar African religious sensibility masked doubts about the intellectual abilities of blacks and reflected white misgivings about the lack of spiritual and moral values in their own culture. Later, when religion was less central to the lives and thought of American cultural elites, the notion of natural religion became an obstacle to African American integration. As more and more value was placed on reason, rationality, and science, many whites pointed to blacks' natural religiosity as a sign of their inferiority and used that argument to justify their subordination. At the same time, many social scientists-both black and white-sought to debunk the idea of innate religiosity to show that blacks were in fact fully capable of assimilation into white American culture. Evans shows how interpretations of black religion played a crucial role in shaping broader views of African Americans and had real consequences in their lives. In the process, he offers an intellectual and cultural history of race in a crucial period of American history.

Religion has always been a focal element in the long and tortured history of American ideas about race. In The Burden of Black Religion, Curtis Evans traces ideas about African American religion from the antebellum period to the middle of the twentieth century.
Central to the story, he argues, was the deep-rooted notion that blacks were somehow "naturally" religious. At first, this assumed natural impulse toward religion served as a signal trait of black people's humanity -- potentially their unique contribution to American culture. Abolitionists seized on this point, linking black religion to the black capacity for freedom. Soon, however, these first halting steps toward a multiracial democracy were reversed.
As Americans began to value reason, rationality, and science over religious piety, the idea of an innate black religiosity was used to justify preserving the inequalities of the status quo. Later, social scientists -- both black and white -- sought to reverse the damage caused by these racist ideas and in the process proved that blacks were in fact fully capable of incorporation into white American culture.
This important work reveals how interpretations of black religion played a crucial role in shaping broader views of African Americans and had real consequences in their lives. In the process, Evans offers an intellectual and cultural history of race in a crucial period of American history.

The Conquest of Labor offers the first biography of Daniel Pratt (1799-1873), a New Hampshire native who became one of the South's most important industrialists. After moving to Alabama in 1833, Pratt started a cotton gin factory near Montgomery that by the eve of the Civil War had become the largest in the world. Pratt became a household name in cotton-growing states, and Prattville-the site of his operations-one of the antebellum South's most celebrated manufacturing towns. Based on a rich cache of personal and business records, Curtis J. Evans's study of Daniel Pratt and his ""Yankee"" town in the heart of the Deep South challenges the conventional portrayal of the South as a premodern region hostile to industrialization and shows that, contrary to current popular thought, the South was not so markedly different from the North.