Nick Salvatore, Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America

Nick Salvatore, Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America - The main theme of this book is that social change can be effected by anyone with the determination to make a difference, including a religious man with conservative views. Unlike much of today's moral preaching that right is right and everyone else deserves to be burned if they commit heresy like defending gay marriage or claiming that the pro-life vs. women's rights is an economic war, the Reverend C. L. Franklin supported civil and individual rights as common decency for everyone. He used a voice that Motown would have wanted to have to spread the word of freedom to his followers in Detroit and others as a leader in the Civil Rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Nick Salvatore, using public records, family information, and interviewing older members of Reverend Franklin's New Bethel Baptist Church puts together quite a full picture, especially of the pulpit over three decades just after World War II until he was shot and fell into a coma, ultimately dying. Readers get a feel for inner-city Detroit politics and social upheaval as a backdrop to a deep look at one of the most influential civil rights spokespersons of the era.

Harriet Klausner