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On the Heels of Freedom: The American Missionary Association's Bold Campaign to Educate Minds, Open Hearts, and Heal the Soul of a Divided Nation
This stunning book is the culmination of five years of research and collection of oral histories-conducted by Joyce Hollyday, Susan Mitchell, and the late Milton Hurst-in churches from the American Missionary Association tradition across the Southeast Conference. This sweeping saga opens with the mutiny of captured Africans on the Amistad in 1839, follows the path of northern Congregational missionaries who risked their lives to plant schools and foster churches among newly emancipated slaves in the South during the late nineteenth century, and culminates with the testimonies of descendants of those who were freed-living witnesses to the power of faith to transform the nation during the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. On the Heels of Freedom documents an extraordinary, but little known, story of rare courage and interracial partnership.
From the foreword by Andrew Young: "Little of what has offered hope for the future from generation to generation is not somehow linked to the efforts of those whose stories are so carefully told in On the Heels of Freedom and others like them."
From John H. Thomas, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ: "Joyce Hollyday's lively account provides a story that inspires and instructs."
From Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago: "To hear the story of the AMA churches and schools from the voices of those who were the beneficiaries of this tremendous effort is a blessing beyond compare that will change your life forever."
From Odessa Woolfolk, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute: "On the Heels of Freedom is an important addition to the literature of race relations in the South."
From Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary: "This book is packed with nuance and detail that will serve well our memory, which will in turn fund a healthy possible future society."
From Noel Leo Erskine, Emory University: "Written with the skill of Alice Walker, Joyce Hollyday's illuminating history is a tour de force."
On the Heels of Freedom is available through the Southeast Conference office, your local bookstore or on-line bookseller, or by going to www.crossroadpublishing.com. Proceeds support the American Missionary Association churches of the Conference.
Joyce Hollyday is an Associate Conference Minister for the Southeast Conference and a co-pastor of Circle of Mercy in Asheville, North Carolina
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