A Supreme Love

by William Edgar

2022 · InterVarsity Press

Theologian and jazz pianist William Edgar places jazz within the context of the African American experience and explores the work of musicians like Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald, arguing that jazz, which moves from deep lament to inextinguishable joy, deeply resonates with the hope that is ultimately found in the good news of Jesus Christ.

Black Intellectuals

by William M. Banks

1996 · W. W. Norton & Company

In the volumes of literature on black history and thought too few books have focused on the black thinkers who have helped shape the course of American culture. Now, this landmark work reveals the complex and vital role of African American intellectuals in the United States. It is a rich history, beginning with the arrival of Africans as slaves, when medicine men and conjurers held ancient, powerful wisdom. Author William Banks discusses with absorbing insight prominent figures ranging from such black pioneers as Alexander Crummell, Frederick Douglass, and Anna Cooper to intellectuals of the modern age such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, E. Franklin Frazier, and Toni Morrison. These and hundreds of other black scholars and artists - many of them interviewed for this volume - people an enlightened and imaginative landscape, fascinating in both its range and its diversity. Full in historical scope and cultural vision, Black Intellectuals also illuminates facets of American history such as African tribal traditions; American slavery; and black schools, churches, politics, and popular culture. It is a comprehensive and readable history of African American intellectuals.