Black Theology and The Black Panthers

Joshua S. Bartholomew is assistant professor of ethics, church, and society at Saint Paul School of Theology.

Joshua Bartholomew’s project is one of excavation, critical examination, and inspiration. For Bartholomew, the anticolonial, anticapitalist vision of the Black Panthers established a praxis of liberation that we need today, urgently, as partisans of social justice navigate a hyper-racialized, hyper-exploitative landscape that is, if anything, even uglier and more damaging than the world the Panthers confronted in the 1960s and 1970s. Bartholomew’s brilliant and nuanced exploration places Panther praxis into dialogue with Black theology and womanism, thereby providing us with a vision of practice to reorient contemporary struggles in ways that just might promote genuine, enduring, racial and economic justice.

• PrefaceIntroductionChapter One: Black Theology and Modern Economic ThoughtChapter Two: The Panthers’ Praxis from 1967-1971Chapter Three: A Consideration of PraxisChapter Four: Ethics of DismantlingBibliographyAbout the Author