Facing Our Legacy of Lynching

COVER STORY

Facing Our Legacy of Lynching
How a memorial could help lead America — and Christians — to repentance from a dark history.
D. L. Mayfield
More than 4,000 African Americans were lynched between 1877 and the rise of the civil rights movement in the early 1950s. Lynching was a brutal public tactic for maintaining white supremacy, frequently used with the tacit blessing of government authorities. It was a part of my heritage I had never been taught, despite my homeschool community's heavy focus on American history and despite brave efforts by activists like Ida B. Wells, perhaps the 19th century's most famous anti-lynching voice, to draw attention to the epidemic. continue reading >>

Editor's Note Our September Issue: Our Checkered Pasts Are God's Glory Why redemption is sweeter without selective memory. Andy Olsen

Book Review When He Died Upon the Tree James Cone's seminal book gives a theological response to the dark history of lynchings in America. Bruce Fields

Propaganda's 'Crooked' Balances Raw Humility with Prophetic Fire 'Ain't we all a little bit a monster?' Matthew Linder

The Exchange One-on-One with Author Mark Silk on the Future of Religion, Especially Evangelicalism, in America (Part One) Evangelicalism is now the normative form of non-Catholic Christianity in America. Ed Stetzer