EVENT
Juan M. Floyd-Thomas will deliver 2021 Williams Institute lectures
‘America at the Cross(roads): A Century of Struggle from 1921 Tulsa Massacre to #BlackLivesMatter’
The Williams Institute at Methodist Theological School in Ohio will present two lectures by Juan M. Floyd-Thomas, associate professor of African American religious history at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion. He will speak at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 and 1 p.m. Nov. 3 on the theme “America at the Cross(roads): A Century of Struggle from 1921 Tulsa Massacre to #BlackLivesMatter.”
The Williams Institute lectures are open to all and will be presented online at no charge to participants. Advance Zoom registration is required for each lecture.
Floyd-Thomas’s Nov. 2 lecture is titled “‘If you are silent about your pain...’: Racial Reckoning, Religious Reflection, and Redemptive Remembrance on the Tulsa Race Massacre 100 Years Later.” Register here for 7 p.m. Nov. 2.
On Nov. 3, he will speak on the topic “‘Up from the Ashes’: The Ongoing Lessons and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.” Register here for 1 p.m. Nov. 3.
Among the emphases in Floyd-Thomas’s teaching are the intersection of race, ethnicity, and religion in United States; study of new and alternative religious movements; the varieties of African-American religious experience; and African-American churches and sociopolitical reform.
Floyd-Thomas is author of The Origins of Black Humanism: Reverend Ethelred Brown and the Unitarian Church and Liberating Black Church History: Making It Plain. He also co-authored Black Church Studies: An Introduction and The Altars Where We Worship: The Religious Significance of Popular Culture in the United States. He co-edited Religion in the Age of Obama, published in 2018.
Floyd-Thomas holds a doctorate in history from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in history from Temple University and a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University.
MTSO’s Williams Institute was begun in 1981 to honor the late Dr. Ronald L. Williams, professor of theology from 1971 until his death in 1981. The institute has featured speakers from many backgrounds, including theologians, ethicists, poets, biblical scholars, historians, pastoral psychologists and Christian educators.
Methodist Theological School in Ohio provides theological education and leadership in pursuit of a just, sustainable and generative world. In addition to the Master of Divinity degree, the school offers master’s degrees in counseling, social justice, theological studies and practical theology, along with a Doctor of Ministry degree.
CONTACT:
Danny Russell, communications director
drussell@mtso.edu, 740-362-3322