The Challenge of Joseph H. Jackson: How America's Most Powerful Black Preacher Became a Forgotten Man

In The Challenge of Joseph H. Jackson, Jared Alcántara offers a definitive biography of one of the most controversial, complex--and, eventually, forgotten--luminaries of the twentieth century. Alcántara chronicles Jackson's rise to power as pastor of the largest Black church in the United States, the 15,000-member Olivet Baptist in Chicago, and as the longest-tenured president of the six-million-member National Baptist Convention, at one time the nation's largest Black organization. Sociologist E. Franklin Frazier contended that holding an office like this was akin to being the president of a "nation within a nation," the president of Black America. Nicknamed the "Negro Pope" along with "Silver Tongue," Jackson was known foremost for his oratorical talents. But his significance to twentieth-century Black Christianity and U.S. history more broadly has not yet been fully understood. Alcántara here provides a compelling examination of Jackson's humble beginnings, rise to power, and gradual fall from grace. The Challenge of Joseph H. Jackson examines Jackson's political alliances, describes his controversial views on race, catalogues his global ecumenical work, explains his fallout with the family of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and connects his eloquence to the maintenance of power in a tradition that prizes sacred oratory. Drawing on extensive archival material from the Chicago History Museum, Alcántara deftly chronicles the life and legacy of one of the most complex figures in African American history.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Preface Chapter 1 Child of the Delta Chapter 2 Black Church in the Black Metropolis Chapter 3 Ascending the Ranks: Jackson's Rise to Power Chapter 4 "His Mantle Will Fall on You" Chapter 5 "The Greatest Young Preacher Ever Lived" Chapter 6 "The Man who Would Be President" Chapter 7 Cracks in the Foundations Chapter 8 Schism in the Air Chapter 9 "Don't Be Angry, Let Me Stay" Chapter 10 As I Come to a Close: Three Cities that Shaped the Last Three Decades of Jackson's Life Conclusion Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Jared E. Alcántara is Professor of Preaching and holds the Paul W. Powell Endowed Chair in Preaching at Baylor University's Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas. His recent publications include How to Preach Proverbs, Let the Legends Preach, and The Practices of Christian Preaching. Alcántara is a member of the Academy of Homiletics, the Evangelical Homiletics Society, and the Hispanic Theological Initiative. An ordained Baptist minister, he has also served as a youth pastor, associate pastor, and teaching pastor in Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon, and New Jersey.

Review :
This work succeeds brilliantly at humanizing a person usually demonized in African American history. Drawing from records no one else has used so extensively, Jared E. Alcántara recreates the world of an African American pastor at the center of the saga of the mid-century migration to the North, the building of one of the most important and influential congregations in the United States, and power struggles in the black Baptist convention. There is no other full-length work remotely like this covering this important but largely forgotten figure. Jared E. Alcántara has written a sensitive, balanced, and engaging biography of one of the most important religious figures of the twentieth century. Exhaustively researched and well-crafted, this book reveals J. H. Jackson in all his complexity, paradox, and prophetic vision, as Alcántara neither praises nor vilifies a man who often generated and was worthy of both. With The Challenge of Joseph H. Jackson, Alcántara has brought Jackson back from a puzzling fall into obscurity to his rightful place among America's greatest preachers and denominational leaders, broadening our understanding of the range of civil rights activism along the way. Alcántara provides a blueprint for resuscitating the biographical witness of ecclesial leaders who were famous and have now faded from memory. In resisting the sensationalism of Jackson's feud with King, Jr., he rescues him from being a mere cartoonvillain, to someone who has earned their rightful place in the history books. I predict that this biography will stand the test of time as the solitary reference point for scholastic pursuits about the history of Black Baptists and for those interested in counternarratives to the modern civil rights movement.