The 2023 Black Theology and Leadership Initiative convened around the theme, “Searching for the Soul of Black Preaching.” Rather than focusing on the performative aspects of Black preaching, as an art form, the convening looked substantively at the soul of Black preaching, that is, its very essence. What does it mean to provide hope to a people who have historically been marginalized, as part of the Black experience in America? In relying on some of America's most respected scholars, as well as some of my own previously published works, I argue that the soul of Black preaching includes four fundamental elements. First, with the centrality of Scripture, Black preaching is based on a fundamental belief that God's providence meets the Black lived experience. Second, as a natural extension of the first element, I argue there is a biblical hermeneutic that sees Scripture as “biased,” because God is not neutral. Instead, God is on the side of the oppressed. Third, in recognizing that the Black preacher's work is incomplete without divine intervention, I discuss the transcendence of the Holy Spirit for “participant proclamation” as part of the Black worship experience. Finally, in looking at the social justice nature of Black preaching, in speaking to a marginalized class, I argue that in addition to focusing on piety, Black preaching is often prophetic and/or political. In answering the rhetorical question of who is searching for the “soul” of Black preaching, I therefore argue that based on the four elements listed above, and the way Black preaching has been a rallying call for the Black community from the period of enslavement onward, the soul of Black preaching has never been lost.

The November 2018 midterm elections engaged more voters than any midterm election since World War I. Moreover, from a Black Church perspective, the midterm elections arguably engaged more constituent members in secular politics than any time since the Civil Rights Movement and the historic passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If the axiom is true that, “For every action there is a reaction,” the series of actions that have been part of Donald J. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” narrative have been met with a reaction that is “Making the Black Church Great Again!” This interdisciplinary Article, juxtaposing aspects of law and theology, as well as history and sociology, asks the focal question, “And When Does the Black Church Get Political?” It uses an interdisciplinary approach to respond around a central thesis that Black Church politicization, as a fight for social justice, is responsive to certain sociopolitical and cultural events. In illustratively drawing a parallel between sociopolitical conditions during the Civil Rights Movement and those during the Era of Trump, this Article uses the African Methodist Episcopal Church as a quasi-case study in arguing the Black Church “gets political” when it responds to the needs of marginalized and oppressed people. In addition to an extended literature review, this Article engages ethnographic research by using a set of fixed questions addressed to five members of the Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in outlining a theology of resistance that is an intricate part of the Black Church experience. In response to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” narrative, I argue the time is now to also “Make the Black Church Great Again!”

This essay was written in observance of the 50th anniversary of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s untimely assassination in April 1968. It highlights some of King’s most important work during the American Civil Rights Movement in terms of its contemporary influence. As a focal thesis, this essay argues that King’s famed Letter From Birmingham Jail — written during his April 1963 incarceration in Birmingham, Alabama, for deliberately refusing to follow what he morally deemed to be an “unjust law” — was predicated on the biblical foundation of civil disobedience exemplified in the famed story of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego, the three Hebrew boys who refused to obey King Nebuchadnezzar’s order to bow down to a deity made of gold. This essay argues that the Hebrew boys’ faith-based willingness to suffer the potentially fatal consequence for their civil disobedience instead of complying with immoral governmental dictates exemplifies the Judeo-Christian suffering servant theology that influenced King and permeated the Civil Rights Movement. King’s work was fueled by a suffering servant theology that regards suffering as redemptive provided it is for a moral cause. In arguing the Hebrews’ civil disobedience set a foundation for King’s leadership in the Movement, this essay pays tribute to King’s legacy by also connecting his example of selfless sacrifice in the form of civil disobedience in Birmingham to recent contemporary social movements, like Black Lives Matter, a successor to the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, that also seeks egalitarianism and inclusion.

In the spring of 2015, Paramount Motion Pictures released Selma, a movie based on the historical occurrences that led to the infamous day in American history known as “Bloody Sunday,” and President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the subsequently passed Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“the Act”). Selma popularized, for a new generation, the clergy-led struggle for an egalitarian society, especially in the Jim Crown Deep South, where legislation was needed to ensure well-documented patterns of invidious discrimination in the polling place would end. This Article, written in the same vein as Selma, shows how faith and faith-based leaders worked through life-threatening and often life-ending struggles, to ensure the Fifteenth Amendment guarantee would no longer be usurped by the institution of racism, and Blacks would have the ability to elect candidates of their own choosing.With the biblically-based “suffering servant” theology detailed by the messianic writers in Isaiah 53 as an undergirding theme, this interdisciplinary Article brings together law, history, and theology to explore the Judeo-Christian concept of suffering being redemptive — a concept the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made extremely popular during the Civil Rights Movement. Further, as its central thesis, this Article agues, in paraphrasing the writer of Hebrews, that faith brings to fruition things that might otherwise seem impossible, when faith is the precedent to social action. Indeed, just as prior to the faith-motivated and dissident demonstrations that resulted in Bloody Sunday, the Act seemed like an impossibility. When faith leads to social action, however, otherwise impossible results can include the election of Blacks to local, state, and federal office, with the most significant being the election and reelection of Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States of America. In supporting the central thesis that faith-based actions led to passage of the Act, this Article is divided into five parts. Part I serves as an introduction, providing an overview of sociopolitical conditions that necessitated the Act’s enactment. Part II builds upon Part I by overviewing the evolution of the Act’s Sections 2 and 5, arguably its most important parts, while also detailing why the two sections were and remain very important. Part III explores how a theology of civil disobedience, motivated by faith and the Judeo-Christian concept of suffering being redemptive, shaped a climate for the Freedom Rides and lunch counter sit-ins of 1961, events that served as a natural preference to Bloody Sunday in 1965, a watershed sociopolitical occurrence that forced President Johnson’s Great Society Initiative to include voting rights along with education reform and poverty eradication. By setting a theological foundation of where faith and social action meet, Part III details some of the chronological events that led to the Act becoming law.The Article’s Part IV looks at the political reality of how the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder undermines and essentially guts the Act’s practical reach, while somehow leaving it constitutionality intact, with Part V looking at the Act’s future and limited practical application, serving as this Article’s conclusion. Unless those in the post-modern era replicate the actions of the Movement’s faith leaders and demand that the Republican-controlled Congress act in response to the Court’s decision in Shelby County and enact a new and improved Act, its future is arguably very bleak.

The [C]ivil [R]ights [M]ovement, like the Reconstruction governments, sought to overturn a deep-seated system of racial subordination, and as it had during Reconstruction, schooling would figure prominently in the struggle. Of particular importance were the Mississippi freedom schools of 1964. In these schools, civil rights workers . . . worked with volunteers to set up an alternative school system. The summer volunteers, many white and from elite northern universities, tried to educate Mississippi blacks about history, civics, politics, and the means by which they could change society. Beyond the freedom schools’ well known contribution to the racial justice struggle, I would suggest that they are important in another, less often recognized way. Just as blacks during Reconstruction refused to accept the absence of schools, the freedom schools movement refused to accept the inadequacy of schools. By building separate schools and openly repudiating the establishment system, the freedom schools movement laid a foundation for later progressive school choice proposals.

2013 marks the 50th anniversary of Letter From Birmingham Jail written by the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (\"King\"). After being arrested on Good Friday in Birmingham, Alabama, King wrote the famous letter as an indictment against the state of racial injustice in the Deep South. Indeed, for King, the American Civil Rights Movement (\"the Movement\") was born in response to the legal system’s contradiction between ideals of law and justice and the reality of racial discrimination. In the fifty years since King wrote Letter From Birmingham Jail, much has changed in America. In addition to the Movement giving rise to an \"environmental justice\" movement, America also elected its first Black president, Barack Obama. Moreover, in the wake of devastation and destruction in Louisiana, a southern state struck by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion, the Deep South is leading a \"new\" environmental justice movement wherein the Louisiana Workforce Commission heads collaborative efforts in growing “green jobs” as a means of ecological sustainment. These efforts are partially possible because of fiscal appropriations through the Obama Administration.This Article commemorates the 50th anniversary of Letter From Birmingham Jail by contrasting how conditions have changed in the Deep South in the last fifty years. Specifically, this Article argues that Louisiana — a southern state with a history of racial issues — is leading a new environmental justice movement by implementing ecologically-friendly reforms and growing green jobs. To support its thesis, this Article is structured in six interconnected parts. Part I provides an introductory overview. Part II develops a historical foundation by providing an analysis of King’s theology and the South’s racially divisive conditions in 1963. Part III builds upon Part II by detailing how the theology that undergirded the Movement naturally progressed into an environmental justice movement, with clergy accepting significant leadership roles. Part IV transitions to examine Louisiana as a case study, outlining some of its devastation resulting from the hurricanes and oil spill, while Part V highlights the state’s cutting-edge environmental operations, proving this Article’s thesis as true. Finally, Part VI concludes by positing what King might think of Louisiana and the new South in a new environmental justice movement.

In 2011, usage of the term “civil disobedience” resurged in the American lexicon for at least two reasons: (1) there was widespread civil  This Article is dedicated to the late Rev. Robert H. Grant, former principal of St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, an institution founded by St. Joseph’s Society of the Sacred Heart (a/k/a The Josephite Fathers and Brothers), of which Fr. Grant was a member, and named for the great church doctor and teacher, Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustine High School was established in 1951 as a place of excellence where African American young men could receive a quality Catholic education. See generally, MATTHEW J. O’ROUKE, SSJ, BETWEEN LAW AND HOPE: ST. AUGUSTINE HIGH SCHOOL NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA (2003). See also ST. AUGUSTINE HIGH SCHOOL, http://purpleknights.com/cms /?page_id=82 (last visited Jan. 24, 2012). Upon information and belief, during the latter part of his tenure at St. Augustine, 1960–1969, Fr. Grant challenged the leadership of Archbishop Phillip M. Hannan regarding discriminatory archdiocesan fiscal appropriations to St. Augustine, in comparison with other Catholic high schools in New Orleans. Shortly thereafter, Fr. Grant was transferred. He will long be remembered as a member of the clergy who advanced human equality through social advocacy and education, with an informed willingness to accept the consequences of his actions. The author extends special thanks to David M. Whitford, professor of the History of Christianity at United Theological Seminary; Raymond T. Diamond, Jules F. and Frances L. Landry Distinguished Professor of Law at the Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center; Antoine L. Joseph, professor of Historical Sociology at Bryant University; and Keriann P. Langley of the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, for their review and comments on earlier drafts of this Article. * Herbert S. and Mary L. Beane Fellow and National Rainbow-PUSH Coalition Foundation Scholar at United Theological Seminary; B.A., 1994, Howard University; J.D., 2001, Tulane University School of Law. The author is an ordained member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a former law clerk to Louisiana Supreme Court Associate Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson. The author gratefully acknowledges the generous financial support of the Harmon O. DeGraff Memorial Scholarship Fund that made the research and writing of this Article possible. 256 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal [Vol. 21:255 protest in Egypt; and (2) America observed the fiftieth anniversary of the now-celebrated Freedom Rides. Both reasons demonstrate the continued relevance of the twentieth century American Civil Rights Movement (“the

In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court placed access to educational opportunities at the heart of the twentieth century Civil Rights Movement. Moreover, in Grutter v. Bollinger, a case decided almost 50-years after Brown, the Court affirmed this time-honored philosophical position. While the concept of education reform is not new, the socioeconomic realities of recent years beg the question of whether the Court’s philosophical position has been compromised by so-called failing public schools. Indeed, from an African-American perspective, education reform has become America’s new civil rights movement. As January 2012 marked the 10-year anniversary of the No Child Left Behind Act becoming federal law, this Article was written to explore the concept of education reform, in light of the civil rights history surrounding education, and argue Congress should strengthen NCLB to truly give contemporary meaning to Brown’s philosophical position. To illustrate the author’s argument’s this Article explores the real-life issues affecting public education in Louisiana (e.g., poverty, race, and an antiquated teacher tenure law), the state with America’s first majority charter school city. Ultimately, the author argues Congress should strengthen NCLB with at least two recommended reforms that will improve the quality of educational opportunities for public school students.

September 11, 2011 marked the tenth anniversary of the most horrific attacks in the United States. In the decade after the September 11, 2001 attacks (9/11), matters of race and religion maintained an awkwardly prominent role in American culture, with the media arguably fueling perceptions. This interdisciplinary Article’s thesis is that media elites, most of which are large corporations, threaten American democracy with xenophobic influence in an age of unmediated communication. Thus, the frequent imagery of “us” versus “them” has exasperated religious tensions between Judeo-Christian faith groups and religious minorities. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, corporate media entities are now able to control the news and the newsmaker, with free speech that has become very costly. Indeed, empirical studies and research show that media has misused its trusted status as the proverbial “fourth branch of government,” because of capitalism and consumerism. Moreover, in an effort to increase ratings and associated advertising dollars, media has reinforced stereotypes by marketing and essentially selling fear as part of the War on Terror. The authors seek to prove their thesis by emphasizing the historical significance of the First Amendment’s individual protections, examining deregulation and the media’s profit-making interests, and criticizing the Citizens United decision as creating an inherent conflict of interest for media corporations, considering their proven interest in “selling” news for pecuniary gain.

President Barack Obama challenged the American people in his January 2011 State of the Union Address to become less dependent on the oil and gas industry and move toward growing energy-efficient jobs. In addition to his challenge, President Obama also gave significant financial support by allocating funds to various states and/or state agencies charged with assisting in job training and development as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). While the president’s State of the Union charge drew loud applause from some, others had pause. In states like Louisiana and Texas, for example, “Crude is King” and the economy remains largely dependent on offshore drilling and refining. In fact, both political and litigious firestorms erupted in Louisiana in the wake of the July 2010 Deepwater Horizon/British Petroleum oil spill (BP Disaster) in the Gulf of Mexico, when the Obama Administration issued a moratorium on offshore drilling. Regardless of the past, however, growth toward green industries and green jobs is arguably poised to do extremely well in years to come. This Article, part of the 2012 Thurgood Marshall Law Review symposium on energy efficiency and energy-efficient job growth, chronicles the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC)’s administration of a $2.3 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) in helping to effectuate President Obama’s challenge by growing green jobs. The Article also shows how LWC sets the benchmark as a public sector agency by collaboratively working with sister agencies in state government and private sector businesses to help train an environmentally friendly job corps as a model for other states to follow. Further, this Article also chronicles LWC’s pro-active public sector steps toward “growing green” in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as the BP Disaster, and provides insight into ongoing green growth operations, with a forecast of things to come, as Louisiana sets the national model for green growth after disaster recovery.

The concept of environmental justice is not new. While some scholars and activists trace its origins as part of the ongoing American Civil Rights Movement — a movement which emerged within the interdisciplinary connection of law and religion — this essay argues that the concept of environmental justice has deep origins in the Holy Bible. With a foundation in the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures, this essay combines the disciplines of law and religion by arguing that the Book of Revelation should be read ecologically as a clarion call to protect the environment in anticipation of the time the triune God will return to live on the planet earth, which will exist as a new heaven. To support the thesis that the Book of Revelation calls members of Judeo-Christian faith traditions to be protective stewards of planet earth, this Essay is organized into five interconnected parts, undergirded by religious views on the environment and the concept of environmental justice. Part I is an introductory overview, which lays a foundation for the matters related to law, religion, and ecological eschatology detailed herein. Part II builds upon Part I by transitioning into a substantive analysis of environmental justice as detailed by John in Revelation. Part III then moves in chronology from a time when Judeo-Christian morals influenced ecological eschatology, millennia before antiquity, by exploring the same influences on environmental justice in the post-modern era. Part IV outlines policy considerations related to the continuing environmental justice movement from a Judeo-Christian thought perspective. Finally, Part V of this essay is a synthesis and conclusion, where the author attempts to harmonize the themes and theories detailed herein, all at the proverbial intersection of law and religion.

180 INTRODUCTION 181 I. LOUISIANA’S ECONOMY: A SNAPSHOT PRIOR TO DEEPWATER HORIZON, THE EXPLOSION AND SUBSEQUENT MORATORIUM 187 A. A Look at the Past: From Where Have We Come? 187 1. 1975 to 1981 188 2. 1982 to 1987 188 3. 1988 to 1998 188 4. 1999 to 2002 189 5. 2003 to mid-2005 189 6. Post-Katrina Recovery 190 B. Other Sector Economic Stability 191 C. A Look at the Present: Where Are We Now? 191 D. Color Me Green for Years to Come: the Future of Green Job Growth in Louisiana 197 II. DEFINING GREEN JOBS IN LOUISIANA: THE PRESENT AND FUTURE .. 199 A. Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation 201 1. Green Goods and Services 202 2. Green Business Practices 203 B. The Construction Sector 204 C. The Professional, Scientific and Technical Services Sector ........ 207 + The author extends special thanks to Curt Eysink, Executive Director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, for his advisory assistance and support in connection with this Article and for promoting a regionalized “green economy” in collaboratively moving the Gulf South forward. The author also thanks Carey E. Foy, Deputy Executive Director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, for his comments on an earlier draft of this Article, as well as Candace Carpenter, Whitney White, and the editors of the Thurgood Marshall Law Review, for their excellent editorial work and professionalism in connection with this Article’s publication and the associated 2012 Energy Law Symposium. * Executive Counsel, Louisiana Workforce Commission; Adjunct Professor of Law, Southern University Law Center. B.A., Howard University; J.D., Tulane University. The author is a former law clerk to Louisiana Supreme Court Associate Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson. jayaugustine9@gmail.com. 180 THURGOOD MARSHALL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 37:179 III. COLLABORATIVE WORKFORCE TRAINING EFFORTS SUPPORTED BY OCCUPATIONAL FORECASTING 210 IV. CONCLUSION 212

Because of the public perception that schools hold the major obligation for educating children, schools tend to get the lion’s share of the blame for the achievement gap. It is not surprising then that when the nation looks to ways to reduce or close the gap, the major attention tends to be aimed at improving schools. Recent research has yielded a much clearer understanding of the extent to which and the ways in which school variables influence the achievement gap. The belief that good schools have a powerful impact on student achievement was the driving force behind the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. In 2001, for the first time in our nation’s history, closing the black-white achievement gap was determined to be of such importance to our national interest that it became a matter of federal policy. The purpose of the bill was clearly stated right up front on the title page: “To close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and