Something in the Water
A 21st Century Civil Rights Odyssey
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- £13.99
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- £13.99
Publisher Description
Pastor, award-winning author, and rising civil rights leader Michael W. Waters Stakes Is High, For Beautiful Black Boys Who Believe in a Better World ruminates on the sacred places and spaces he visited as part of a cross-country trek in 2019-2020 through America’s racial history. From reflections on the river’s edge where Emmett Till’s body was recovered and the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and to more recent sites of racial violence like the Charleston church massacre and El Paso mass shooting, to the halls of government for Waters’ prayer before the U.S. House of Representatives and his convicting speech before the Dallas City Council to remove Confederate statues, Waters connects our racist past with the current sociological and political climate, offering challenges and hope. From poems and prayers to sermons and eulogies, from rally cries to commentaries, Something in the Water illuminates not just our present struggles, but also the hope and belief in a better day to come. Ultimately, Waters challenges us to consider our role, collectively and individually, in the troubled waters of racism, and what we are willing to do to create something better.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Waters (Stakes Is High), an African American pastor and civil rights activist, delivers a blistering critique of white supremacy and racial injustice in this trenchant collection of sermons, poems, and commentaries. Waters quotes extensively from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches to argue little has changed regarding American racial equality in more than half a century. Noting the silence of many church communities in the face of racial injustice, he proclaims that King's mission has failed and suggests white supremacy is growing stronger in America, as "the waters that define the social, political, theological, and economic landscapes of our nation are contaminated with the pollution of racism." He seamlessly connects historical lessons, like African Americans' mistrust of authorities stemming from the "elected officials, judges, policemen, ministers, and businessmen" who aided in the formation of the KKK, to contemporary police brutality, mass shootings, and income disparities. He ends with an urgent and persuasive call to action for people of all backgrounds to come together and reform society into something resembling Dr. King's dream through collective action and legislation that would act "as a corrective to historic harms and oppressive systems." This concise, incisive work should be a wake-up call to Americans in general and the church in particular.
