The Gospel of Freedom: Black Evangelicals and the Underground Railroad

The Gospel of Freedom: Black Evangelicals and the Underground Railroad tells the little-known history of establishing and organizing tightly-knit networks to help enslaved people escape bondage. The book examines documented activities of enslaved people before the Revolutionary War and continued until the end of the Civil War.

While other works focusing on the Underground Railroad often herald the actions of White northern abolitionists, historian and scholar Alicestyne Turley demonstrates how enslaved Black people and White allies from the Deep South risked their lives, harnessed creativity and helped each to work toward freedom. Building the multicultural and multiracial antislavery network for more than a century created vibrant Black religious, economic, political, and social institutions in the South.

The book reflects Turley’s background in academia in tone and delivery. Through primary research and explication of family history, the author explains how the freedom movement that expanded across denominational boundaries helped strengthen Black congregations. The Underground Railroad is crucial American history that is often unspoken and untaught. Every academic library must carry this book to provide students of history with vital information that centers on the narratives of enslaved peoples in the Black American civil rights movement.