Daughters of Thunder:
Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons

Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons

1850-1979, Hardcover
By Bettye Collier-Thomas
Pages: 368
Size: 6" x 9"
Publish Date: 1997
Publisher: JOSSEY-BASS

Though religion and the church have always played an important role in the lives of black Americans, the role that black women have played in the church is not as well-known. Daughters of Thunder, a collection of 38 sermons by 14 black women preachers from the 1850s to the 1970s, is thus an important resource: it offers the voices of black women on matters both theological and political. As editor Bettye Collier-Thomas, an associate professor of history at Temple University, tells us, these women are “representative of a great American tradition heretofore largely unknown and untapped.” In addition to the sermons, Collier-Thomas gives readers a historical summary of the work of black women preachers, as well as a chapter on black women preachers for whom she was able to find no sermons. There are also brief biographies for each of the 14 women whose sermons are included.