Augsburg Fortress

The Last Blues Preacher: Reverend Clay Evans, Black Lives, and the Faith that Woke the Nation

The Last Blues Preacher: Reverend Clay Evans, Black Lives, and the Faith that Woke the Nation

Born in 1925 into a life of sharecropping in Brownsville, Tennessee, Clay Evans was desperate to escape life working for the descendants of plantation owners. At night, he listened to jazz musicians like Cab Calloway and Guy Lombardo on the radio and imagined one day singing on a secular stage. But a greater calling drew Evans into ministry, and he soon stood upon a unique stage as one of America’s most famous gospel singers, civil rights heroes, and the godfather of Chicago’s black preachers. From this stage Clay sought to rescue his family from poverty and inspire a city and a nation to see, hear, and witness the dignity and value of black lives.

Zach Mills’s lively and powerful biography, The Last Blues Preacher, brings the life and work of Reverend Evans into our time and examines how current national conversations on race, religion, politics, and popular culture can and should inform contemporary activism.
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  • Publisher Fortress Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • ISBN 9781506428178
  • eBook ISBN 9781506446554
  • Age/Grade Range Adult
  • Dimensions 6 x 9
  • Pages 277
  • Publication Date May 1, 2018

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Part I: Beginnings
1. Who Me?
2. Ear All the Way Down 
3. Walk in Jerusalem 
4. A Home over in Zion
5. A Love Supreme
6. A Charge I Have to Keep
Part II: Launching the Ship
7. Got a New Name
8. It’s Growing!
9. Revered Mother York
10. What a Fellowship!
Part III: On Open Seas
11. Looking for a City Called Heaven
12. Singing in Zion
13. The Tempest is Raging
14. Breaking Bread Together
15. Sweeping through the City
Part IV: Docking the Ship
16. The Captain Retires
17. I’ve Got a Testimony
18. Last of the Blues Preachers?
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