Seminary professor’s new book examines the disconnect between Black freedom fighters and their white allies
When Eastern Mennonite Seminary Professor David Evans set out to write his book about religious white progressives in the fight for Black freedom, he didn’t expect that his main thesis would flip by nearly 180 degrees. But after seven years of research and writing, Damned Whiteness: How White Christian Allies Failed the Black Freedom Movement is just weeks away from publication. The book offers an unflinching history of white allies—namely Clarence Jordan, Dorothy Day, and Ralph Templin—and the fracturing relationships that followed when their strategies and philosophies didn’t align with Black leaders and communities.
