Albert Raboteau and his colleagues in Religious and African American Studies Eddie Glaude and Jeffrey Stout will be discussing his new book American Prophets: Seven Religious Leaders and Their Struggle (Princeton Univ. Press $29.95) at Labyrinth Books on Wednesday, November 30 at 6 p.m.

Described by Tavis Smiley as “a powerful text, empowering to read,” American Prophets tells the stories of Abraham Joshua Heschel, A. J. Muste, Dorothy Day, Howard Thurman, Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Fannie Lou Hamer, individuals who succeeded in conveying their vision to the broader public through writing, speaking, demonstrating, and organizing. Mr. Raboteau traces how their paths crossed and their lives intertwined, examining the influences that shaped their ideas.

According to Publishers Weekly, “This scholarly yet accessible primer to the role of faith in the lives of American activists challenges contemporary notions of the role of religion in politics and argues that empathy is a critical first step in addressing the suffering of others.”

Albert J. Raboteau is Professor of Religion Emeritus at Princeton University. His books include Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South, A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-American Religious History, and Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans. Eddie Glaude is professor of Religious and African American Studies at Princeton and the Chair of the Center for African American Studies. His books include Exodus! Religion, Race, and Nation in Early 19th Century Black America, In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, and most recently of Democracy in Black. Jeffrey Stout is professor of Religion at Princeton University and the author of The Flight from Authority, Ethics after Babel, Democracy and Tradition, and Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America.

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