Black Suffering: Silent Pain, Hidden Hope
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
In Black Suffering, James Henry Harris explores the nexus of injustices, privations, and pains that contribute to the daily suffering seen and felt in the lives of Black folks. This suffering is so normalized in American life that it often goes unnoticed, unseen, and even—more often—purposely ignored. The reality of Black suffering is both omnipresent and complicated—both a reaction to and a result of the reality of white supremacy, its psychological and historical legacy, and its many insidious and fractured expressions within contemporary culture. Because Black suffering is so wholly disregarded, it must be named, discussed, and analyzed.
Black Suffering articulates suffering as an everyday reality of Black life. Harris names suffering’s many manifestations, both in history and in the present moment, and provides a unique portrait of the ways Black suffering has been understood by others. Drawing on decades of personal experience as a pastor, theologian, and educator, Harris gives voice to suffering's practical impact on church leaders as they seek to forge a path forward to address this huge and troubling issue. Black Suffering is both a mixtape and a call to consciousness, a work that identifies Black suffering, shines a light on the insidious normalization of the phenomenon, and begins a larger conversation about correcting the historical weight of suffering carried by Black people.
The book combines elements of memoir, philosophy, historical analysis, literary criticism, sermonic discourse, and even creative nonfiction to present a "remix" of the suffering experienced daily by Black people.
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- Represents a call to consciousness concerning the suffering that Black people have experienced throughout history
- Explores the persisent suffering that society has come to be normalized against the Black community
- Includes narrative essays as well as short-story interludes and homiletical reflections by the author
- Prelude: “The Color of Suffering”
- Evil and Black Suffering
- Interlude: “Brothers of Randolph Street”
- W.E.B. Du Blois and Black Consciousness
- Interlude: “The Prison Visit”
- Nat Turner
- Interlude: “Plantation”
- Reading Toni Morrison
- Dimensions of Suffering and Hope
- Interlude: “Powell Street Station-Purgatory in Paradise”
- Black Suffering and Struggle
- The Un-Silent Side of the Oppressed
- Suffering and Hope
Drawing upon the resources of ethnography, storytelling, history, literature, philosophy, and theology. [James Henry Harris] analyzes and describes the pathos of Black suffering from the time of slavery up to the present day. This perceptive meditation on the experience of suffering and hope will inspire all readers to think and work more diligently for a better world.
Peter J. Paris, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary
Black Suffering: Silent Pain, Hidden Pain provides readers an opportunity to think deeply about a collective response to the universality of Black Suffering. In an era where increasingly #BlackLivesDontMatter, this text is a timely reminder of the poignant strands of hope that call us individually and collectively to the work of justice.
Angela D. Sims, president, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School
James Henry Harris has crafted a creative book on the perennial problem of Black suffering, a text that is more relevant now than ever.... Every American who cares about America and understanding where it now stands and how much work is left to be done should read this book.
Stephen C. Finley, associate professor, Louisiana State University