Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus by Reggie Williams
If you didn't know, Bonhoeffer was in NYC as a Sloan Fellow at Union Theological. He was 24, post doctoral. It was 1930-31. He actually got involved at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and taught Sunday School there. "On Jan 12, 1931 ... an African American man was accused of rape in Maryville, Missouri, chained to a schoolhouse roof, and burned to death by a white mob. Bonhoeffer read the story of that lynching and viewed the graphic photographs." (22) I knew some of this from other biographies, but what Williams does is dive deeper into what Bonhoeffer was reading and where he traveled, as well as what was going on in Harlem -- Alan Locke's New Negro and what James Weldon Johnson called the Harlem Renaissance. Williams even sought and spoke with Albert Fisher's family for more insight. (Fisher was an black theology student who introduced Bonhoeffer to Harlem). Williams also introduces us to Harlem and the movements taking place there (I am so excited that i...