We Are One Voice

Black theology of liberation in the USA and South Africa (SA) both began from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. They carried the energy of the youth who were eager to change the world so that all peoples would enjoy life and live as neighbors. Legal racial laws still existed in parts of the US in the mid-1960s. And apartheid laws on separation of races were as normal and accepted as breathing air. Given the major racial divides and the presence of human differences in all of society, concerned individuals, in both countries, realized that religious practice or the study of religion could not be done separate from the everyday lives of ordinary people.
In response to racial laws, blacks created a vibrant renaissance of black culture and organizations. Song, stories, histories, and coalitions flourished. Blacks of all classes became energized and participated in a rebirth of what it meant to be black. What was a true citizenship rooted in justice? In fact, it was a profound striving to produce a new vision of the US and South Africa. Deep and broad hope filled these communities and many throughout both countries. Black religious leaders and ordinary people of faith were heavily impacted by this bubbling and creative black renaissance. The founders of black liberation theology in both countries emerged out of this larger movement to redefine what is a healthy community with healthy individuals.
In recent years, USA and SA have had their first black elected presidents (i.e., Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama). Such historic and amazing developments show strides in both countries across the Atlantic.
Yet, the economic success after US legal segregation and SA apartheid seemed to have gone primarily to only the top 5 percent of black people. The republication of We Are One Voice is still needed today. Questions of poor and working people, women's rights, and the importance of connecting spiritualty and faith to culture, politics, and economics are even more pressing in the twenty-first century than they were in the last.

""The republication of We Are One Voice gives us an amazing opportunity to reconsider the incredible insights gained from these pioneering dialogues and ask ourselves new questions. What have we forgotten, forgone, or lost sight of? Can we revive, restore, and reengage these relevant ideas and reassess the similarities and differences of black theology in North America and South Africa to aide us in our collective search for ways to address the issues confronting the Black communities today? We need this book for now and the future.""
Addie Lorraine Walker, SSND, PhD and Director, Sankofa Institute for African American Pastoral Leadership, Oblate School of Theology

""The development of Black theology is indebted to the powerful resistance of African Americans and Black South Africans in their respective fights against White supremacy. We Are One Voice: Black Theology in the USA and South Africa remains the pivotal text in outlining the groundbreaking emergence of Black theology in both contexts. This book remains a must read!""

Anthony G. Reddie - Editor of Black Theology: An International Journal. Extraordinary Professor, University of South Africa.

""The republication of this book reaffirms the fact that we are still one voice. At the same time, it begs of us to be self-critical of how far we have come. It realises that the issue of race and racism is as relevant as it was when black theology was first conceptualised. More than that, in a context were we have noted that our histories were deliberately distorted and contorted, we are called to assert that for black theology to be relevant today in the USA and South Africa, it must insist that African epistemologies and worldviews become central in our theological reflections.""

Rothney Tsha