Standing in the Need of Prayer

Download or read book Standing in the Need of Prayer written by Schomburg Ctr for Resrch in Black Cultur and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Striking photographs and powerful prayers drawn from the collections of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture span the broad spectrum of black religious traditions through the ages. From the darkest days on slave ships to the defiant times of the Civil Rights Movement, prayer has embodied the most intense expression of African and African-American spirituality. As Mrs. Coretta Scott King writes in her foreword to Standing in the Need of Prayer, "It is said that every prayer is heard and every prayer is answered in some way [and] I still believe that the millions of prayers spoken by African Americans from the Middle Passage on down to today have been heard by a righteous and loving God." This extraordinary volume reflects the struggle, despair, determination, and triumph of the black experience during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Drawing from faiths as diverse as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Vodou, the book also includes prayers from some of history's most powerful voices, among them Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King, Jr. At once beautiful and evocative, Standing in the Need of Prayer captures the most varied, striking, and powerful photographic and poetic expressions of prayer in a joyous celebration of the rich spiritual roots of a courageous people whose incredible spiritual journey will inspire generations to come.