UCCS history professor featured in new PBS documentary, 'The Black Church'
By Debbie Kelley
The Gazette
Near the end of a new, four-hour PBS documentary called “The Black Church,” comes this succinct summation:
“The Black church is fundamental to the African-American experience. The African-American experience is fundamental to American history. Therefore, Black churches are fundamental to American history.”
Speaking those words is Paul Harvey, who has been teaching history courses at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs for a quarter of a century.
He's among a host of experts featured in the two-part documentary, which debuted earlier this month on PBS and will air again Sunday at 1:30 and 4:30 p.m.
Harvey joins the likes of mega-star Oprah Winfrey, philosopher Cornel West, musician John Legend, activist Al Sharpton, singer Pharrell Williams, Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter’s House Church in Dallas and other famous personalities who were interviewed for the deep dive into how, over the decades, the church has helped Black people counter social injustices.
The film explores church expansion beyond religiosity and into the fight for equity, from the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the Jim Crow South, throughout the Civil Rights movement and into present-day struggles.
For Harvey, who in 2017 was named a CU “distinguished professor” and has authored 13 books, being invited to participate signifies a pinnacle as an academician.
“This experience ranks very high over my career,” he said, “because it’s a way to take material out of my books and reach a bigger audience than normal, with the points I’d like to see communicated.”
While not everyone enjoys reading history books, anyone who watches the documentary can be educated, entertained and enlightened.
Written and narrated by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the documentary provides a serious, emotional and upbeat look at the Black church.
How the church aided Blacks in surviving slavery and its involvement in calling for civil rights, the power of gospel music and the controversy over its adoption in the secular industry, and Black prosperity and the integration of politics are a few focuses.
As the documentary illustrates, the Black church became a place where “people made a way out of no way” and where during the long, tiring journey people could “return and always call home.”