Smart Suits, Tattered Boots - by Korie Little Edwards & Michelle Oyakawa (Paperback)

About the Book

"A compelling study of how race, culture, and civic organizing impact black religious leader mobilization in contemporary America. Black ministers were at the heart of the Civil Rights movement, but in recent years their level of social mobilization has decreased, with much of their efforts being devoted to supporting the candidacies of Democratic politicians. This book explores the question of when and why black ministers mobilize for change, and attempts to explain their relative lack of involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement and the broader movement for police reform"--

Book Synopsis

Explores the complex role that Black religious leaders play--or don't play--in twenty-first-century racial justice efforts

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. along with many of his Black religious contemporaries courageously mobilized for freedom, ushering in the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. Their efforts laid the groundwork for some of the greatest legislative changes in American history. Today, however, there is relatively limited mass mobilization led by Black religious leaders against systemic racism and racial inequality. Why don't we see more Black religious leadership in today's civil rights movements, such as Black Lives Matter?

Drawing on fifty-four in-depth interviews with Black religious leaders and civic leaders in Ohio, Korie Litte Edwards and Michelle Oyakawa uncover several reasons, including a move away from engagement with independent Black-led civic groups toward white-controlled faith-based organizations, religious leaders' nostalgia for and personal links to the legacy of the civil rights movement, the challenges of organizing around race-based oppression in an allegedly post-racial world, and the hierarchical structure of the Black religious leadership network, which may impede ministers' work towards collective activism.

Black clergy continue to care deeply about social justice and racial oppression. This book offers important insights into how they approach these issues today, illuminating the social processes that impact when, how, and why they participate in civic action in twenty-first-century America. It reveals the structure and limitations of the Black religious-leader community and its capacity for broad-based mobilization in the post-civil rights era.

Review Quotes

"[Edwards and Oyakawa] work hard to highlight that the power of the black preacher is not lost and give some insights into how new leaders can help bring about a new organization that merges the black church and new community organizations. The power of the black preacher remains, but they must hold on to the ideas of the past while working with the current system to build a brighter future."-- "Reading Religion"

"An excellent analysis of how dynamics such as the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and a Black Protestant ethic shaped successful efforts by Black clergy in Ohio to get out the vote during the 2012 presidential election. The book also vividly chronicles local tensions between politics and theologies that undermined participation by many of these same leaders with activist groups like Black Lives Matter. Smart Suits, Tattered Boots is a must read for anyone interested in leadership and civic engagement among contemporary Black ministers and the processes that can foster and/or undermine such efforts."--Sandra L. Barnes, C. V. Starr Professor of Sociology, Brown University

"Featuring high quality social science research and drawing richly on a wide and appropriate range of works, Smart Suits, Tattered Boots makes an important contribution to the field."--Michael Emerson, co-author of Blacks and Whites in Christian America: How Racial Discrimination Shapes Religious Convictions

"One must go quite far back to find articles that highlight the impact of Black church leadership (or really any congregational factors) on social movements ... That makes the exposure to a top-notch analysis of the kinds of religious actors that Smart Suits, Tattered Boots provides especially important."-- "Mobilization"

About the Author

Korie Little Edwards (Author)
Korie Little Edwards is Associate Professor of Sociology at The Ohio State University. She is the author of The Elusive Dream: The Power of Race in Interracial Churches (OUP, 2008) and co-author of Against All Odds: The Struggle for Racial Integration in Religious Organizations (NYU Press, 2005).

Michelle Oyakawa (Author)
Michelle Oyakawa is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Muskingum University.