Emory's Candler School of Theology presents “Bearing Witness: Faith, Remembrance and the Journey Toward Racial Justice” on Saturday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. in the sanctuary of Decatur First United Methodist Church. The event features author and speaker Austin Channing Brown with Emory professor, veteran journalist and award-winning author and podcast host Hank Klibanoff.
Several area churches have joined Candler to co-sponsor “Bearing Witness” with the goal of engaging communities of faith in honest reflection about the history and ongoing legacy of racial violence. The event is offered in cooperation with the DeKalb County Remembrance Project, which is working with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., to create a memorial to victims of lynching in DeKalb County, Ga.
Brown, a leading new voice on racial justice, is the author of “I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness,” which made Amazon’s top 20 bestsellers list shortly after its release in May 2018. In it, she reflects powerfully on a lifetime spent navigating the racial divide and her own personal journey toward self-worth in an era of rising racial hostility. Committed to exploring the intersections of racial justice, faith and black womanhood, Brown has a master’s degree in social justice and works with nonprofits, churches and universities for the advancement of racial justice and reconciliation. In addition to speaking and writing, she serves as resident director and multicultural liaison for Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Klibanoff is the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation” and host of the Peabody Award-winning podcast “Buried Truths,” which investigates still-relevant stories of injustice, resilience and racism in the South. A professor of practice in Emory’s Creative Writing Program, he directs the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory University, in which students examine Georgia’s modern civil rights history through the investigation of unsolved and unpunished racially motivated murders. Prior to joining Emory, Klibanoff was a reporter and editor for more than 35 years in various positions at The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Atlanta-Journal Constitution.
“Bearing Witness” is co-sponsored by the Atlanta Friends Meeting; St. Thomas More Catholic Church; Columbia Theological Seminary; Decatur First United Methodist Church; Decatur Presbyterian Church; First Baptist Church of Decatur; Holy Trinity Episcopal Church; Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary; Lutheran Church of the Messiah; and Trinity Presbyterian Church of Decatur.