LibGuides: Katie Geneva Cannon Research Collection: Womanist Religious Studies

In the Library

Can a Sistah Get a Little Help? by Teresa L. Fry Brown
ISBN: 9780829817430
The author shares many of her rich life experiences as a black clergywoman and seminary professor. She preaches and teaches to all women so they can begin to break through the very real brick ceiling that threatens to hold them in and keep them from their call to ministry, using the coping mechanisms familiar to the African American experience. Each chapter includes invaluable practical suggestions to help women in ministry faithfully navigate the internal and external challenges at every turn.

Weary Throats and New Songs by Teresa L. Fry Brown
ISBN: 9780687030132
This book provides a brief review of the rich heritage of African American female proclaimers and examines contemporary African American women's sermon preparation, content, delivery, and personhood. Brown draws heavily on interviews and conversations, as well as audio and video tapes of women proclaiming God's word, to relate how and why African American women tell others about God despite resistance (weary throats) and with the help of support (new songs) in religious and social communities.

I Bring the Voices of My People by Chanequa Walker-Barnes
ISBN: ISBN:9780802877208
Racism is not about feelings or friendship -- Racism is not a stand-alone issue -- The unbearable whiteness of being -- Reconciliation begins with a curse -- Our spiritual strivings.

Parable of the Brown Girl by Khristi Lauren Adams
ISBN: 9781506455686
The stories of girls of color are often overlooked and ignored rather than valued and heard. Instead of relegating these young women to the margins, minister and youth advocate Khristi Lauren Adams brings their stories front and center where they belong. Thought-provoking and inspirational, Parable of the Brown Girl is a powerful example of how God uses the narratives we most often ignore to teach us the most important lessons in life.

African American Female Mysticism by Joy R. Bostic
ISBN: 9781137375056
This title adds to the burgeoning conversation regarding African-American female mysticism. The primary subjects of this book are three icons of black female spirituality and religious activism: Jarena Lee, Sojourner Truth, and Rebecca Cox Jackson.

I Bring the Voices of My People by Chanequa Walker-Barnes
ISBN: ISBN:9780802877208
Racism is not about feelings or friendship -- Racism is not a stand-alone issue -- The unbearable whiteness of being -- Reconciliation begins with a curse -- Our spiritual strivings.

Too Heavy a Yoke by Chanequa Walker-Barnes
ISBN: 9781620320662
Walker-Barnes examines the burdensome yoke that the "Strong Black Woman" ideology places upon African American women. She demonstrates how its three core features -- emotional strength, caregiving, and independence -- constrain African American women and predispose them to physical and emotional health problems, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and anxiety. She traces the influences that resulted in the evolution and maintenance of the Strong Black Woman, including the Christian church, R & B and hip-hop artists, and popular television and film. Drawing upon womanist pastoral theology and twelve-step philosophy, she calls upon pastoral caregivers to aid in the healing of African American women's identities and crafts a twelve-step program for Strong Black Women in recovery.

Womanists as Prophetic Preachers by Donna E. Allen
Allen, Donna E. “Womanists as Prophetic Preachers.” Review; Expositor, vol. 109, no. 3, 1 Aug. 2012, pp. 387–396. Sage Journals, doi: 10.1177/003463731210900306.

"In the Middle of Everyday Life: The Spaces Black Clergywomen Create" by Deborah Austin
Austin, Deborah A. “In the Middle of Everyday Life: The Spaces Black Clergywomen Create.” The Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center 22, no. 2 (Spr 1995): 209–29.

It's a Jazz Thang: interdisciplinarity and critical imagining in the construction of a womanist theological method by Joy Bostic
Bostic, Joy, Kate Conway-Turner, Suzanne Cherrin, Jessica Schiffman, and Kathleen Doherty Turkel. 1998. “It’s a Jazz Thang: Interdisciplinarity and Critical Imagining in the Construction of a Womanist Theological Method.” Women’s Studies in Transition: The Pursuit of Interdisciplinarity, 138–55.

Womanist consciousness: Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of Saint Luke by Elsa Barkley Brown
In the first decades of the twentieth century Maggie Lena Walker repeatedly challenged her contemporaries to 'make history as Negro women.' Yet she and her colleagues in the Independent Order of Saint Luke, like most black and other women of color, have been virtually invisible in women's history and women's studies. This article recounts how in 1903 she founded the Saint Luke Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia, and was thus the first woman bank president in the United States. The bank was also an opportunity to expand the very limited opportunities for black women--to give some the prospect of becoming bookkeepers, secretaries and clerks. White opposition led to the demise of a department store run by women from 1905 to 1912. Also recounted are Walker's many other accomplishments in the thirty-five years she served as head of the Order. (review by S. WHALEY)

Barkley Brown, Elsa. 1989. “Womanist Consciousness: Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of Saint Luke.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 14: 610–33.