Education

Ph.D., M.Div., Emory University
M.A., Howard University
B.A., The College of Charleston

Biography

Awards & Honors
2014 | Emory University, Candler School of Theology, Alumna Centennial Medalist
2012 | United Methodist Women’s Division of International Ministries Academic Work Grant, with Evelyn Parker.
2012 | Black Religious Scholars Group Womanist Legend.
2011 | UNCF/Mellon Summer Residency Grant.
2010 | UNCF/Mellon Archival Research Faculty Seminar/Grant.
2008 | Morehouse College, Martin Luther King, Jr., International Collegium of Scholars Inductee.
2006 | Emory University , Graduate Division of Religion, Distinguished Alumnus Award.
2005 | UNCF/Mellon Faculty Development Award.
2000-2001 | Association of Theological Schools Lilly Research Grant. 
2000 | Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research Fellow.
1994 | Coolidge Colloquium Research Fellow.

Courses Taught

Introduction to the Study of Religion
African Derived Religions in the Americas
Womanist and Feminist Theologies
Introduction to the History of Christian Ethics
Love and Christian Tradition
African Religions and Culture

Research Interests

Ruby Ruffin Hawkins Hurley: The Making of an Activist. This book project examines the meaning of Ruby Hurley’s NAACP work among early to mid-twentieth century black Atlantic religious and political expressions. Other research general interests include Religion and Black Women’s Activism; Religion and Africana Women’s Quality of Life; Religion and Society.

Publications

Books
Unraveling and Reweaving: Reimagining Sacred Canon in Africana Womanhood, co-edited with Rose Mary Amenga-Etego, Lexington Books/Roman and Littlefield, 2015. 

Witnessing and Testifying: Black Women, Religion, and Civil Rights, Fortress, 2003.

The Status of Racial-Ethnic Minority Clergywomen in the United Methodist Church, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church, 2004, (with Jung Ha Kim).

Articles
“Leading in Challenging Times: Martin Luther King, Jr., Ruby Hurley, and the Meaning of Black Leadership” (with Shirley T. Geiger) in The Domestication of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Clarence B. Jones, Right-Wing Conservatism, and the Manipulation of the King Legacy, ed. Lewis V. Baldwin and Rufus Burrow, Jr., Cascade Books Division of Wipf and Stock, 2013.  

“Ruby Hurley, U.S. Protestantism, and NAACP Student Work, 1940 to 1950” in From Every Mountainside: Black Churches and the Broad Terrain of Civil Rights, ed. R. Drew Smith, State University of New York, 2013.

“Black Theology and the History of U.S. Black Religions: Post Civil Rights Approaches to the Study of African American Religions,” Religion Compass 6, no. 4 (2012): 249–261.

“Overcoming Misinterpretation and Irrationality: Doing Ethics at the Intersection of Social Justice, Liberation, and Civil/Human Rights” in Religious Education, 107 no. 3 (May-June 2012): 241-245.

“Overcoming Christianization: Thoughts on Reconciling Spiritual and Intellectual Resources in African American Christianity” in Ethics that Matters: African, Caribbean, and African American Sources, ed. Marcia Y. Riggs and James Logan, Fortress, 2012.

“John Howard Yoder on Pacifism” in Beyond the Pale: Reading Ethics from the Margins, ed. Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas and Miguel A De La Torre, Westminster/John Knox, 2011.

“Resisting the Imperial Peace: Black Women and Self-Love,” Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Religion 1, no. 13.9 (December 2010).

Encyclopedia Entries
“Sojourner Truth,” in Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, ed. John H. Moore, Gale, 2007.

“The Civil Rights Movement” in Encyclopedia of Women in Religion in America, Volume 3, ed. Rosemary Keller and Rosemary Radford Reuther, Indiana University, 2006.

“Eleanor Holmes Norton” in African American Lives, ed. Henry Louis Gates and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Oxford, 2004.

“Marian Wright Edelman” in African American Lives, ed. Henry Louis Gates and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Oxford, 2004.

“Harriet Tubman” in African American Lives, ed. Henry Louis Gates and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Oxford, 2004.

“Feminist Ethics” in Encyclopedia of Christianity, Volume 2, ed. Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Milic Lochman, John Mbiti, Jaroslav Pelikan, Lukas Vischer, Eerdmans-Brill, 2000, 149-151.

“Grace” in the Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, ed. Letty Russell and Shannon Clarkson, Westminster John Knox, 1996.