Black Christologies

The image is the March 1969 cover of EBONY magazine. The main story was titled “The Quest for a Black Christ.” For a short video reflection on the cover and the fallout, and the effects of “colour symbolism,” see:

Blum, Edward J. “‘There Won’t Be Any Rich People in Heaven’: The Black Christ, White Hypocrisy, and the Gospel According to W. E. B. Du Bois.” The Journal of African American History 90, no. 4 (2005): 368–86.

Boshoff, Carel Willem Hendrik. “Christ in Black Theology.” Missionalia 9, no. 3 (1981): 107–25.

Chike, Chigor. “Black Christology for the Twenty-First Century.” Black Theology 8, no. 3 (2010): 357–78.

Cleage, Albert B. “The Black Messiah and the Black Revolution.” In Quest for a Black Theology, edited by James J. Gardiner, and James Deotis Roberts, Philadelphia, PA: Pilgrim Press, 1971.

Cone, James H. “Strange Fruit: The Cross and the Lynching Tree.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 148 (2014): 7–17.

Cone, James H. “Who is Jesus Christ for us Today?” Christianity and Crisis 35, no. 6 (1975): 81–85.

Douglas, Kelly Brown. The Black Christ. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993.

Grant, Jacquelyn. “Black Christology: Interpreting Aspects of the Apostolic Faith.” Mid-Stream 24, no. 4 (1985): 366–75.

Hoyt, Thomas. “Christology and the African-American Pilgrimage.” In Christology in Dialogue, edited by R. F. Berkey, and S. A. Edwards, 292–307. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1993.

McClendon III, John H. Black Christology and the Quest for Authenticity. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

Siker, Jeffrey S. “Historicizing a Racialized Jesus: Case Studies in the ‘Black Christ,’ the ‘Mestizo Christ,’ and White Critique.” Biblical Interpretation 15, no. 1 (2007): 26–53.

Witvliet, Theo. “In Search of a Black Christology: The Dialectic of Cross and Resurrection.” Cross Currents 37, no. 1 (1987): 17–32.