Clawing Through Bits of Glass and Bricks: James Baldwin and Reinhold Niebuhr on the Birmingham Church Bombing

Abstract

This article analyzes the unpublished dialogue between James Baldwin and Reinhold Niebuhr where they discussed the role of the Christian church in the wake of six child murders in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. On that catastrophic day—one that is impossible to forget—the Ku Klux Klan bombed The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and two black boys were subsequently shot and killed. In the wake of that violence, this article will show that for Baldwin, the dynamite that exploded the face of the “alabaster Christ” from the stained-glass window presents an opportunity for not only a new depiction of Jesus in terms of presentation—but more significantly—a brand-new Christology rooted in black liberation. Such a reading provides us with an unusual constructive theological position offered by Baldwin, especially once it is read alongside a public essay written by the Association of Artists for Freedom advocating for Black Christmas.