Between Gandhi and Black Lives Matter: The Interreligious Roots of Civil Rights Activism

Azaransky's work highlights the theological contributions of Howard Thurman, Benjamin Mays, William Stuart Nelson, Pauli Murray and Bayard Rustin. She makes a compelling case that each of these thinker-activists needs to be better appreciated for their cutting-edge theological insights based on their thought and life experience with Mohandas Gandhi and his spiritual activism. Each reinterprets their own Christian views based on this larger worldwide experience that they have gained through study and/or travel. In this way they prefigure or lay the groundwork for more recent approaches to spirituality such as those held by the Black Lives Matter movement's leaders, which draws upon multiple religious traditions to find the spiritual guidance and sustenance needed to confront our world's current injustices.