Concluding Panel Discussion

Extract

Welcome back to the afternoon session. We would now like to entertain questions from the audience, as well as questions from our scholars.

Mr. Neuhaus referred to Dr. King in his remarks, but in a sense the question is to the whole panel. I wonder, since the emphasis was on civil rights, why there was not a bit more inquiry into the black religious experience as a foundation for civil rights. And, specifically, I wonder why there was not more inquiry into the role of 19th century black clergy, both antebellum and post-civil-war, in forming a moral consensus that led to such things as the passage of the civil rights act of 1975 and subsequent concern for civil rights legislation and some of the decisions of the Supreme Court which addressed those concerns. It seems to me that Martin Luther King is a relatively late figure to cite as someone who articulates the black perspective on religion and civil rights. He is, in some ways, the culmination of a long tradition, and I find that a singular omission, frankly, given the focus of the symposium.