Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian

by James H. Cone

"As Martin Luther King said, we must learn to live together as human beings, treating each other with dignity and respect, or we will perish together as fools. There is no other choice. I choose life."

James H. Cone is widely recognized as the founder of Black Liberation Theology-- a synthesis of the Gospel message embodied by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the spirit of Black pride embodied by Malcolm X. Prompted by the Detroit riots and the death of King, Cone, a young theology professor, was impelled to write his first book, Black Theology and Black Power, followed by A Black Theology of Liberation. With these works he established himself as one of the most prophetic and challenging voices of our time.

In this powerful and passionate memoir-- his final work-- Cone describes the obstacles he overcame to find his voice, to respond to the signs of the times, and to offer a voice for those-- like the parents who raised him in Bearden, Arkansas in the era of lynching and Jim Crow-- who had no voice. Recounting lessons learned both from critics and students, and the ongoing challenge of his models King, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, he describes his efforts to use theology as a tool in the struggle against oppression and for a better world.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Memoir, Biography, Race, Nonfiction, Christianity

186 pages, Hardcover

First published October 18, 2018

About the author

James Hal Cone was an advocate of Black liberation theology, a theology grounded in the experience of African Americans, and related to other Christian liberation theologies. In 1969, his book Black Theology and Black Power provided a new way to articulate the distinctiveness of theology in the black Church. James Cone’s work was influential and political from the time of his first publication, and remains so to this day. His work has been both utilized and critiqued inside and outside of the African American theological community.

Reviews

[Adam Shields · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second reading:
Summary: To understand Cone's theology, you need to understand Cone and his context.

James H Cone has been a frequent concern in many conservative white Christian circles over the past year. There are several causes for that, but one of the threads that has given rise to the discussion is that Walter Strickland, one of only a handful of Black professors at a Southern Baptist seminary, was quoted by Molly Worthen in an NYT article saying that he assigned James H Cone and found value in interacting with him. That gave rise to calls for Strickland to resign, which prompted this statement.

The controversy continued with the president of the seminary where Strickland works both defending Strickland and calling Cone a heretic and 'almost certainly not a Christian' on twitter.  Andre Henry wrote an article about the controversy. It was this background that a friend of a friend asked to discuss Cone. Over this past weekend, I picked up the audiobook and listened to it (having previously read it when it first came out.)

I am not a Cone scholar. I have not read all of his books, although I will probably read all of them eventually (there are not that many). In my lay opinion, I think that people tend to approach Cone wrong. Many people want to jump into early constructive theology, God of the Oppressed or A Black Theology of Liberation. I think that because of his theological method, heavily drawing on his personal and cultural experience, that you need to start with one or both of his memoirs.

Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody was posthumously published. The book was completed and ready for publication when Cone passed away in 2018. His earlier My Soul Looks Back was a mid-career memoir. There is a lot over overlapping material, but they are both worth reading. If you are looking for an order, I would recommend, Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Spirituals and the Blues, My Soul Looks Back, Martin & Malcolm & American and then you can move his earlier constructive theology.

I say all of this because Cone developed his theology in response to the culture of the US during the late civil rights era.

When the Detroit rebellion, also known as the “12th Street Riot,” broke out in July of 1967, the turmoil woke me out of my academic world. I could no longer continue quietly teaching white students at Adrian College (Michigan) about Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and other European theologians when black people were dying in the streets of Detroit, Newark, and the back roads of Mississippi and Alabama. I had to do something. But I wasn't a civil rights leader, like Martin Luther King Jr., or an artist, like James Baldwin, who was spurred in his writing when he saw the searing image of a black girl, Dorothy Counts, surrounded by hateful whites as she attempted to integrate a white high school in Charlotte, North Carolina (September 1957). I was a theologian, asking: What, if anything, is theology worth in the black struggle in America?

Cone trained as a theologian at Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary. His dissertation was on Barth. He studied all of the European theologians of note. He eventually determined that:

white supremacy is America's original sin and liberation is the Bible's central message. Any theology in America that fails to engage white supremacy and God's liberation of black people from that evil is not Christian theology but a theology of the Antichrist.

Cone had a response to this theology that was very similar to the response to Black Lives Matters over the past couple of years:

When I spoke of loving blackness and embracing Black Power, they heard hate toward white people. Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and James Baldwin confronted similar reactions. Any talk about the love and beauty of blackness seemed to arouse fear and hostility in whites.

Cone viewed his work not as opposing people that have white skin, either as individuals or as a group, but opposing a system of belief that valued white skin more than black skin. In other words, Cone was not asserting the superiority of black skin over white skin in response to the historical assertion of the superiority of white skin, but both metaphorically and actually asserting that the black historical culture was more authentically Christian because it was closer to the oppressed, which is where Jesus was.

“How can I, a white [person] become black?” was the most frequent question whites asked me. “Being black in America has very little to do with skin color,” I wrote. “To be black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are.”6 To become black is like what Jesus told Nicodemus, that he must be “born again,” that is, “born of water and Spirit” (John 3), the Black Spirit of liberation. Black religion scholars would push back hard on this theological claim. Among my fiercest critics, and at the same time a devoted friend, was Gayraud Wilmore, author of the important text Black Religion and Black Radicalism (1973). But I held firm to my claim, despite his objections, because I was speaking primarily symbolically, while Wilmore was speaking primarily historically. History significantly informs what theologians say, but it's not the final arbiter in theological matters. The Word of God, Jesus the Christ, as revealed in scripture and black experience, is the final judge. I didn't see how anyone could be a Christian and not understand that.

One of the disconnects between Cone and traditional white theology is the role of rationality in theology. Cone is speaking metaphorically frequently. He is often read as if he is always speaking literally. His own dissertation advisor accused Cone of "All you have done is try to justify black people killing me and other whites." An accusation which Cone says was absurd, he was trying to assert both the image of God in black bodies and the sin of oppressing them. But the disconnect is more than just that. Cone asserts that theology is ultimately non-rational.

Theology is not philosophy; it is not primarily rational language and thus cannot answer the question of theodicy, which philosophers have wrestled with for centuries. Theology is symbolic language, language about the imagination, which seeks to comprehend what is beyond comprehension. Theology is not antirational but it is nonrational, transcending the world of rational discourse and pointing to a realm of reality that can only be grasped by means of the imagination. That was why Reinhold Niebuhr said, “One should not talk about ultimate reality without imagination,” and why the poet Wallace Stevens said, “God and the imagination are one.” Black liberation theology strives to open a world in which black people's dignity is recognized.

Cone's understanding of theology as non-rational, I think, is why his writing is littered with musical (and poetic) references. The music of both the spirituals and the blues is attempting to use the imagination to understand God in a transrational way. (Willie James Jennings uses a similar type of language in his The Christain Imagination. )

I wasn't writing for rational reasons based on library research; I was writing out of my experience, speaking for the dignity of black people in a white supremacist world. I was on a mission to transform self-loathing Negro Christians into black-loving revolutionary disciples of the Black Christ.

And

The cross is a paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world's value system, proclaiming that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last. Secular intellectuals find this idea absurd, but it is profoundly real in the spiritual life of black folk.

And

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, Nobody knows my sorrow, Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, Glory Hallelujah! As I heard it, the “trouble” is white folks, and the “Hallelujah” is a faith expression that white folks don't have the last word about life's ultimate meaning.

I read Cone, not because I think he is the culmination of all Black theology or even particularly representative of the Black church as a whole, but because he is writing theology that is attempting to contextualize his experience of growing up in the Jim Crow south, coming of age in the civil rights era and continuing to speak to the reality of the world in what many white people think is a 'post-racial' society. The reality is that Cone is far more accurately describing theological reality than many that continue to insist that racism is not real, or those that recently were trying to say that slavery was not all that theologically bad.

_________
First reading
Short Review: I read Cone's 1985 memoir My Soul Looks Back almost exactly a year ago. Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody obviously still is a memoir and covers some similar material, but it surprisingly different. More than 40 years between the two memoirs does matter.

I could easily have a quote review, but I resisted. I did probably quote too much in my blog post about it, but Cone is quotable.

I think this is important as context to the rest of Cone's writing. It is not that Cone doesn't give context for why in his other books, but this extended reflection really is helpful for the broader context of Cone's whole career. I think this is probably even more important for people that want to reject his theology out of hand. There is much to grapple with here.

My longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/cone-memoir/

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Cone is brilliant and a beautiful storyteller. He was humble, yet unbending. Honest in a refreshing self-interrogative way, yet confidently impassioned to reflect the ray of light given to him and him only, at the time. He really changed the course of the church forever. And unequivocally for the better.

So many things to pull out. But his passion. His inspiration. His love for Jesus even as he wrestled like Malcolm earned him my utmost respect. One of the most honest theologians I know.

[Jeff Buddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Are you white, like I am? Well, perhaps you should read this one. The founder of Black Theology has a thing or two to say. Essentially, if you're white, you're not going to understand what's going on. I can respect that. I don't know what the hell is going on. All I know is that something is seriously messed up, but nothing about this messed-up-ness has impacted this white boy personally. That -in the end- is what's wrong.

It's Cone's assertion that any Christianity that doesn't condemn white supremacy is not Christian. It's the antichrist. His point is that Christ would have been on the side of the oppressed. So when you see Billy Graham's kid up there endorsing the racist Trump, you have to think... is this what Jesus would do?

Cone would have said no. And that's what I say. Christianity is not about rejecting others, it's about accepting them... no matter what.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! Powerful, powerful book about the black and white persons in America. Invaluable read. I will read more by Cone and also reread the Autobiography of Malcolm X plus books and stories by James Baldwin. Should be required reading for whites people in America.

12/18/23. Second read, even better than the first read if that is possible. Cone takes on the white church and white theology. His interpretation of the Gospel comports with my prison experience.

[Laura Fabrycky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A joy and heartache to read. Important life account, the making of a scholar, and a crucial voice to American life and to theology that faces our American plight and predicament.

[Chris Theule · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Cone is amazing and I am wondering why I have never read him before this year, coming from a Christian school, Christian college, and then Christian seminary. Never had him and that's a gigantic miss. Read one of his books today.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

When reflecting on attending Macedonia AME as a child, Cone writes, "I couldn't sing, but I could feel the Spirit moving in my flesh and bones" (97-98). If any one statement distills the heart of this remarkable book, it is this one. Deeply influenced by the Black musical and artistic tradition, Cone writes as an artist and his canvas is systematic theology. In doing so, Cone's book helps unlock what it means to be Black and a theologian.

[MG · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first book I have read by Cone and this, his memoir written just before he died, served as a wonderful introduction to this important theologian. Yes, Cone was an angry black man, but in a prophetic sense that gave voice to the heretical wrongs of racism and in service to an enabling vision of a new, whole, and just future. He is one of the few theologians I have read that actually helps us negotiate our present and future (since so many theologians remain stuck debating past and mostly dead issues).

[George Trudeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was great seeing Baldwin’s influence on Cone.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

read for god talk- really interesting

[Nick Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really helpful read for me, including the depressing experience of reading the critiques/resistance he received in 1968 and knowing I still hear the same (“too angry,” “too black,” “too political,” “too personal”) in 2019. For those familiar with feminist and womanist critiques of Cone, he also tries to make peace with some of his theological foes. It’s not clear that he totally hears and receives those critiques (and in fact he narrates disagreements with a gay student in the 1980s and with younger black seminarians late in his career, neither of which encounters portrays him in any wondrous light), but there is an effort that strikes me as greater than the average academic (or person) in their late 70s. A strong final book from an incredibly important theological and human figure.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Cone, a brilliant man who is considered to be one of the originators of black theology, was born in Arkansas and, as a young child, attended Macedonia AME Church in Bearden.

Years later, just before the cusp of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, he had earned a Ph.D. and was teaching.

But as he himself pointed out, during those six years of postgraduate work, he had never read a single book by a black theologian.

So after a mentor encouraged him to write, he started to form what became the foundation for Black Theology. Going home to Arkansas to begin working on his first book BLACK THEOLOGY AND BLACK POWER.

"I would walk around in the office of my brother's church, reading aloud what I had written, amazed at the clarity and power of the message and the beauty of the words coming out of me. I felt as though it wasn't me writing, but some spiritual force telling me what to write. I felt as if black folk in Bearden were talking to me, telling me to speak the truth... I even felt the spirits of my slave ancestors rising up inside me, whispering words of encouragement, telling me to be strong in black faith and not to be afraid as long as I knew I was writing God's truth."

He notes that "While Black Power is not the church, it is a profound experience of blackness that all black people are called to embrace. All this deconstruction and recovery prepared me for the task of construction: the making of a black theology defined by black suffering and struggle"

Cone explains that "Black theology's spirit did not come from Europe but from Africa, from American slavery and its auction blocks, from the spirituals and the blues. The Christocentric center of black theology was defined by the Black Christ who enabled black people to survive slavery, to overcome Jim Crow segregation, and to defeat the lynching tree."

As recent events in America and the Black Lives Matter movement have underscored, Cone makes crystal clear: "People cannot live without a sense of their own worth. It black liberation theology, I was expressing black self-worth, which was denied or ignored by white theology and its churches."

And Cone offers a spiritual dimension to the on-going struggle for justice. "The black church, despite its failures, gives black people a sense of worth. They know they are somebody because God loves them and Jesus died for them. No matter what white people do to them, they cannot take their worth away."

Garnered from an academic career that spanned over fifty years, Cone observes: "Whether theologians acknowledge it or not, all theologies begin with experience. Theologians from the Western theological tradition often regard their theology as universal, something that everyone must study. But no theology is universal... We are all particular human beings, finite creatures, and we create our understanding of God out of our experience. Hopefully, our own experience points to the universal, but it is never identical with it. For when we mistake our own talk about God with ultimate reality, we turn it into ideology."

Cone takes narrow-minded views of God to task. "How could white Christians, who also claim to believe that Jesus died on the cross to save them, turn around and put blacks on trees and kill them?... Part of the answer lay in the unfortunate fact, during the course of two thousands years of Christian history, that the cross as a symbol of salvation had been detached from the ongoing suffering and oppression of human beings, the crucified people of history."

"If we want to understand what the crucifixion means for Americans today, we must view it through the lens of mutilated black bodies whose lives are destroyed in the criminal justice system. Jesus continues to be lynched before our eyes. He is crucified wherever people are tormented. That is why I say Christ is black."

Of his own upbringing's influence on his theological outlook, Cone says "It was my parents' faith that gave them the inner resources to transcend the brutality and see the real beauty in the tragedy of their lives. It is a mystery, a profound and deep mystery, how many African-Americans, even after two and a half centuries of slavery and another century of lynching and Jim Crow segregation, still refuse to allow themselves to be infected with hatred."

"'Black Lives Matter' is a partial realization of my hope. It is also my hope that whites, too, will be redeemed from their blindness and open their eyes to the terror of their deeds so they will know that we are all of one blood, brothers and sisters, literally and symbolically, and that what they do to blacks, they do to themselves."

Cone devotes a chapter of SAID I WASN'T GONNA TELL NOBODY, discussing another of his books, THE CROSS AND THE LYNCHING TREE. Cone includes a prayer, that is powerful in its vision of the future. "Let us hope, through God's grace and our struggle together, that we will be able to overcome our prejudices and the hate that separates us, and thereby empower people of all races and faiths to become the one people God created us to be."

[Jarrel Oliveira · Rating 5 out of 5]

When theologians spend their academic lives discussing the benevolent grandiosity of God, his words, his qualities, his sovereign will, and nature, but the same thinkers fail to confront the realities of their times, namely, the plight of African Americans, we can safely assume these erudite thinkers are simply using theology to avoid the unfortunate circumstances of their anthropology.

I commend the late, great, Professor James H. Cone for being courageous enough to write The Cross and The Lynching Tree, for continuing his academic work, for being a scholar and paving the way for many others to follow in suit, further building upon black liberation theology and condemn white evangelical racism and racist theology for what it was - sin.

His understanding of Malcolm X's anger and appreciation for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s's led him to a developmental stalemate. He was unsure of how to better his theology without capitulating to one extreme or being accused of cowardice if he took the other. Professor Cone was enamored by King's distinguished drive in the path of non-violence and immediate change. He looked up to King's effort to hail the cross of Christ as the pinnacle of black endurance through suffering, pain, and terror. He read through King's speeches where the Civil Rights maverick condemned white supremacy, systemic racism, and white moderates who talked much and did little, and sustained the status quo and hegemony. Professor Cone was enraged when King was assassinated and his bend toward non-violence all but faded, temptation luring him toward X's rhetoric and the Nation of Islam's separatist invective.

Unsure of which path to take, he found refuge and solace in the works and life of the enigmatic and wordsmith author and speaker, James Baldwin.

Baldwin not only appreciated King's non-violence, but he also welcomed X's rage. Baldwin put to words and brought to life that which burned most in the black intellect and the black lived experience in America. He called whites evildoers and evil, he called for a distancing from Christianity because it no longer persisted of Christians but of men and women who lynched black bodies behind church buildings.

James H. Cone found in the author James Baldwin a quintessential hero. The perfect mix between the anger-filled X and the non-violence-focused King.

Professor Cone's theological, social, and moral formation involved the works of Christian thinkers but also non-Christian spiritual giants, namely, Howard Thurman who penned the inimitable book, Jesus and the Disinherited.

It was a relief to take in this professor's formation, knowing and understanding that theologians have to grapple not only with the beauty of who God is and what God has accomplished, but also, who God is doing all those things for.

I am now very suspicious of ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ who speak plainly and loudly about Jesus but are mute concerning Jesus's followers - those who suffer at the hands of other Christians.

Much appreciated book and I hope others make time for its content and the Holy Spirit that lived then is still working in us today, pushing us to further liberate our theology from ethnocentric patterns and arrogance.

I pray it's not too late.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10

“White theology cares more about new ideas coming from Europe then it does about the black bodies hanging from lynching trees.”

This is a stinging, and all to true rebuke of Western theology, and needs to be rectified. For this alone, Cone is certainly worth dwelling on more than I yet have. He has the ability to call out truth as he sees it, and seeks reconciliation and liberation at any cost. “Dr. Watson, you are a racist, you’ve been speaking out about violence from Catholics towards protestants in history but fail to mention the violence of white protestants towards blacks today!”

Seeing this issue, Cone opts to "I had to write a black theology that would kick white ass." At this point I think its fair to say I really like Cone, no one talks like this. Maybe more should. However, I differ with Cone on a vital point, perhaps several. “Black suffering then is the ultimate religious authority, the final authority on all theological statements.” So he sees all theology through this lens, or in his words "Liberation was the core of Christian theology, I knew this to be true because I felt it."

I may even agree that "Liberation is at the heart of the exodus," but not necessarily "and at the heart of Jesus’s liberation of the poor." Here I differ sharply with Cone. This was not Christs liberation, Christ liberated us from the power of sin and death, not first from earthly evils. These must be thrown out as well, but are secondary evils to the evil of disbelief. Christs main goal was not to overthrow earthly structures, it was free us from spiritual bondage so that we can enter into the kingdom of heaven. In so doing, we will overthrow all earthly systems of evil, and thereby liberate the marginalized, but Cone has this exactly backwards, and fails to read Christ for who he says he is, and instead thrusts his own interpretation on the Bible.

"People cannot live without a sense of their own self worth." This is incredibly true, and that worth comes only from knowing Jesus, and allowing him to reign in your life. I'm not sure Cone understands this.

[Axmed Bahjad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suggested that Helmet (my local library) should buy this book in 2019 because I had been following the teachings of James Cone. The book is about theology and liberation. As a professor of theology, he used his Christianity faith to free and give hope to millions of Afro-Americans. In some ways, it is autobiographical or memoir. It is a tiny book yet powerful. I love the language; sentences' structure, syntax and their meanings. It is my style! In it, Cone describes the obstacles he overcame to find his voice because he was worried about what white church may say about his theological liberation. In the end, he chose to voice his thoughts and lose his post. He turned to history and learned lessons from his role models King, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. For James, theology was a tool to use in the struggle against oppression and to create a better world. He used symbolic language which was familiar with Christians: “The Cross” and he reminded them about “the Lynching Tree” which resembled the cross. Said I wasn;t Gonna Tell, he quotes the bible: “Luke’s Gospel was clear: Jesus's ministry was essentially liberation on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. I didn't need a doctorate in theology to know that liberation defined the heart of Jesus's ministry. Black people had been preaching and singing about it for centuries.” And he went on to quote: “For most evangelicals, revelation was found in the inerrant scriptures, and one need not look elsewhere. I knew in my gut that God's revelation was found among poor black people.” For James, liberation was from the bottom and not the top. And he’d always reminded us that the common good was never from the top to the bottom. It is an excellent read. It’s historical. And it is worth our time to read it. Good book.

[Matt]

I can't say I like James Cone, but I'm glad I read this book. It is always better to understand what a person says from their mouth than from hearing from others. To truly get a grasp on what Cone believes about black power, Christ, and liberation, I would need to do a more thorough examination of his books than an audiobook. Cone says "black power is the gospel", but he doesn't mean from that what I would have originally thought. He also says "the white church is the antichrist", which also does not mean what I originally thought it did. I'm glad for the clarifications on what he believes.

I find many of Cone's concerns valid, though I can't say I agree with a lot of his solutions. As this memoir makes clear however, James Cone grew up in a world apart from my own. If he grew up in a different time his concerns would be different than they were.

I read memoirs to understand a person more than judge their theology. I will save my reservations about his theology for a review of one of his theology books, if I get around to reading one.

One of the more interesting aspects of this book was how Cone spent a lot of his life rebelling against the theological orthodoxies of the academy, and of Christianity, yet at the end of his life he found himself taking up his pen to defend the validity of the most central of all Christian doctrines, the cross, against those who rejected it. I found basically nothing to disagree with in his chapter on the cross and the lynching tree, and am glad he was able to culminate his life's work, learning, and passion, in a work defending the cross.

[Neal Spadafora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cone’s life and work might be best understood from the vantage point of his contemporaries. As Cone began to articulate a Black theology of liberation, the renowned Black scholar and historian of religion, Charles Long, was skeptical. Long pressed Cone to renounce his use of white theologians and to give up on a distinctly Black theology. “Theology is a Western concept, created by Europeans to dominate and denigrate non-Western peoples,” screamed Long at Cone (p. 85). Is Long correct to essentialize theology as a de facto Western concept, a discourse concerned with the hegemony of power (p. 87)? Or is Cone right to see Black theology as a God-talk that arose from the Civil Rights and Black Power movements?

Similarly, Cornel West helps situate Cone’s work. West insisted, in a manner like early Latin America liberation theology, that “class position contributes more than racial status to the basic form of powerlessness in America” (p. 119)? West holds that racial categories exist within capitalist property relations and that capitalist property relations have historically been racialized—such an insistence does not denigrate the category of race but contextualizes race within the framework of capital’s nature to accumulate wealth by dispossessing the masses. As such, is the category of race in America so prevalent that it exists autonomously from classed structures, as Cone might propound?

[Rick Eckhardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I challenged myself to read a book I normally would not read. Mr. Cone is a black theologian who was one of the first to interpret the Bible in light of the turbulent 1960s. He passed about 2 years ago.  Mr. Cone emphasizes over and over that the story of the Bible is a story of liberation (slavery) and that the story of the cross is the story of the lynching tree, and that Jesus was black.  He strongly states that Christianity in the United States has been hijacked by white Christians leaving little room for the story of black Christians.  He talks a great deal about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. His entire final chapter is on James Baldwin who he views as a powerful theological voice for Black folk.  Baldwin had no use for White Christianity because he witnessed that Christians did not follow the teachings of Jesus. This book is a powerful statement of what it means to be black in the United States and to view that situation with a theological perspective.  

[Travious Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir was a fitting end to a stellar, timeless, and enduring career of a man who once questioned how he could contribute to the Black pursuit for liberation in the land of oppression. Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody is a collective summary of the inspirations, highs and lows and in between of what inspired Dr. Cone. It is a must read for both critics and supporters alike to understand the true meaning of Black liberation theology.

He is honest in his reflections and his memories of his Christian upbringing in Bearden, AR are palpable and relatable to anyone familiar with the Black Christian experience. I was shocked to learn tidbits I was previously unaware of and served reminders of what makes Black liberation theology still relevant to this day.

[Joseph Sverker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was awestruck by Cone's The Cross and the Lynching Tree and wanted to know more about him. This book is written in a similar vein to The Croos and the Lynching Tree, but with an explicit focus on why he has come to write theology and do theology as he does. Biography matters for Cone and it is his particular background that makes him do the theology that he does. The connection to the blues and the spirituals is made even clearer here. It is very interesting to follow his journey and how important some people have been for his development, and even the fact that he published in the first place. Also very interesting to read how he relates to his critics.

[Cyndia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I haven’t read any of Cone’s works yet, but I believe that this book put him into context enough that I can hear what he is saying while thinking critically about it. I would put this up near Malcolm X’s autobiography as an important read to understand how we often listen to the slander more than the men. I’m never going to fully agree with Cone, but I can filter what he says through the Bible, listening with discerning ears, and determine what the Holy Spirit is teaching me through him. I can respect a man who readily admits his theology comes from his cultural lens since all theology does, some just aren’t humble (or brave?) enough to admit it.

[James Klagge · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, even if not an essential, read. It covers two things in detail--the period in the late 1960's when he was getting started in academia and writing his first books of Black theology. It emphasizes the sources of his passion in his small Black community growing up, his church, and music--spirituals and blues--about which he later wrote a book. And the the period in the 2000's when he was writing the Cross and the Lynching Tree. In the last chapter he discusses the tremendous influence of James Baldwin on his thinking.

[Dustin Bagby · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Cone is a fascinating theologian and the pioneer of black theology. I always enjoy the challenge of reading Cone and this was no exception. His perspective is important and though he writes specifically TO the black community, his works should be read widely by white folks as well. To hear his theological and personal journey through this short autobiography really helps to trace his development which really happened through the criticism he faced with colleagues and students. A worthy read about an inspirational man.

[Keith Pinckney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gained even more empathy for Cone’s life and work, and I’m still listening and learning. To be fair the historical backdrop is always what shapes and forms a persons theology and thought. There was absolutely NOBODY in his time period speaking to ills of white supremacy, racism, and the black struggle in a crucial period in our nations history on theologically academic level. None. Hence the formation of black liberation theology. Though there is much that I disagree with, I completely understand and am challenged by the sentiment.

[Mitchell Atencio · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not recommend this more. It may be the best autobiography I've read. Besides being a clear storyteller, Cone brilliantly and honestly outlines his life work, the reasons and experiences behind it, and gives a brief look at the work itself. While this work is far from a theological book or essay, it will set afire the desire to be an anti-racist, while illuminating and seriously challenging any audience who has not shared in Cone or other Black American's experiences. Cone pulls no punches, for which all readers should be grateful.

[Jason Scoggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

"All theologies begin with experience... No theology is universal... We create our understanding of God out of our own experience." Hopefully that experience is universal, but it is never identical with the universal. "When we mistake our own talk about God for ultimate Reality, we turn it into ideology."

While keeping in mind "life is not possible without an opening toward the transcendent," be humble and open to ideas. Remain imaginative, faithful. Imagination equals faith for the existentialist and the true believer.

"Imagination is the only way to talk about Ultimate Reality."

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to truly try to understand James Cone, you should read this book. This memoir tells the story of his life and work, including the stories behind all of his significant books. It tells about the other scholars who interacted with him along the way: Benjamin Mays, Howard Thurman, Eric Lincoln, and the figures who inspired him the most--Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. Cone was a powerful and important thinker and writer, and anyone hoping to engage with Black theology needs to grapple with his work.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised how this text culminated all of the prior work of the author. Seeing their journey, why they saw things the way they did, and sensing the vulnerability of the sharing was good. They even sprinkled in pieces of modern history such as Obama becoming the first black president and their relationships with professors at PWIs that helped him on his journey. Those are complex topics that made him more human to me as a reader. As a black male, I could empathize with some of those situations, which made the accounts seem more authentic.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you care about theology, church, and/or people of color; you need to read this book. It is powerful and eye-opening — especially for white people.
In matters of theology and God, we (White people) assume that our experience is the norm and really, the only experience. This book will broadened that understanding.

This is a great book if you have never read any of James Cone’s books before. It will introduce you to him and his theology. It will whet your appetite to read more!

[Grace Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Cone's memoir was such a good read. He takes you on the journey of him learning how to find his passion and voice in seminary and then going on to teach in higher education. His story is complex and powerful as he is determined to challenge white supremacy with black theology. He pushes for social change and for churches to view Jesus differently as Christianity, for him, is liberation for the oppressed.