"That's Not How the Story Ends:" Vincent Harding's Liberating Vision of African American Religious History. Issue 3 (2nd September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Floyd-Thomas, Juan M.
• Is Part Of: Black theology. Volume 17:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 176
• Page End: 194
• Publication Date: 2019-09-02
• Subjects: Vincent G. Harding -- Black lives matter movement -- Martin Luther King Jr -- theology of hope -- Black freedom struggle; Black theology -- Periodicals; Black people -- Religion -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 230.08996
• DOI: 10.1080/14769948.2019.1680515
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1476-9948

Abstract

ABSTRACT: A critical reappraisal of Vincent Harding's transformative work as a preeminent historian of the African American freedom struggle is long overdue. Examining Harding's major works – There Is A River (1981), Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero (1996), and Hope and History (1990) – this paper focuses on Harding's revisionist approach to US religious history by addressing three historiographical elements: radical reinterpretation of historical narrative from the perspective of the oppressed; the uses and abuses of biography in the historical representations of Dr. King in popular culture and collective memory; and articulation of a philosophy of history rooted in a theology of hope and human flourishing. This paper illustrates how Harding's writings advance a liberating vision for history as both a discipline and discursive realm in service to social justice and human dignity.