Barack Obama, Rev. Wright, and the Post-Civil Rights Movemen October 17, 2008

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/09/23/The_African-American_Church_and_American_Politics

Biblical scholar Obrey Hendricks and historian Barbara Savage argue that Senator Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright are parallel figures of the post-Civil Rights movement.

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What is the past and continuing influence of African-American churches on U.S. politics?

Biblical scholar Obery Hendricks, historian Barbara Savage, and theologian Yolanda Pierce discuss religion and power in America.

Obery Hendricks is a Professor of Biblical Interpretation at the New York Theological Seminary. He earned his M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was later a visiting scholar, and his Ph.D. at Princeton University. He has served as a professor at Drew University and as president of Payne Theological Seminary. He is an Ordained Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the author of The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus' Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted and Living Water, a novel.

Barbara Dianne Savage is Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1995. Her research and her teaching center on twentieth century African American political and religious history and the historical relationship between race, media, and politics. She is the author, most recently, of Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion. In addition, she served as the co-editor (along with R. Marie Griffith, Princeton University) of Women and Religion in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power, and Performance. She is the author of the award-winning Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948, as well as articles on African American religion and politics. She has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Schomburg Center for the Study of Black Culture, the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton, and the Smithsonian Institution. Prior to receiving her graduate degree from Yale University, she was the Director of Federal Relations, Office of the General Counsel, Yale University; she also has served on the staff for the United States Congress and the Children's Defense Fund.