Eavesdropping on the Most Segregated Hour: A City’s Clergy Reflect on Racial Reconciliation

In this insightful book of essays inspired by his award-winning book, Macon Black & White: An Unutterable Separation in the American Century, Andrew M. Manis recruited clergy from a broad spectrum of interracial, interreligious, and interdenominational communities of faith in Macon, Georgia, to address their congregations on the perennially controversial theme of racial reconciliation. Acknowledging the truism that eleven o'clock on Sunday morning remains the
most segregated hour
of the week, Manis argues that neither White nor Black congregations are familiar with what the other hears about race on the other side of the color line. Fourteen clergy bring their scriptural interpretations to bear on the longstanding problem of White supremacy in American life and culture. Eavesdropping on the Most Segregated Hour gives believers of a wide range of traditions the opportunity to listen in on clergy from a diversity of theological perspectives as they seek to cure souls and bring racial healing to a small Southern city. In addition, two minister-historians, a Black and a White Baptist, introduce these sermons and analyze their crucial theological and ethical challenges, not only for residents of Macon and Georgia, but for believers still struggling to defeat White supremacy in its fourth century on the North American continent. From Eavesdropping on the Most Segregated Hour, Black and White clergy and laity alike will gain strength and encouragement to cross the color line and continue
marchin’ up to Freedom Land
as they seek to build the Beloved Community in America.