Individuals and Ideas are Important, by Golly!

Out this month in the fall edition of Tennessee Baptist History, in time for a handful of specialists to read, is Troy Kickler‘s article “A Limited Revolution: Black Baptists in Reconstruction Nashville, 1865-1877.” In this essay, Troy does two things: 1) challenges Eric Foner’s argument that black agency during Reconstruction was radical and revolutionary (a Marxist argument, to be sure);  2) challenge the liberationist and Marxist theologians who argue that blacks’ religion was simply a means to fight economic and racial oppression. Troy argues that the Black Baptists in Nashville, at least their leaders, genuinely believed religious ideas and considered themselves as more Baptist than Black.  And maybe more importantly, he argues that by lumping all African Americans into a category, historians many times overlook the diversity of ideas and practices within the Black community.