In your book Dominion you seem to be able to clearly depict the black point of view, but you are white. How did you accomplish this?

I spent a lot of time with black men and women in the background research for Dominion, relying heavily on their personal accounts and paying particular attention to the recurring stories—e.g. nearly every black man would independently tell me stories about elevators, stop lights, being followed by mall security and so on. So I integrated such stories into the book. I also read a large number of books, at least sixty, by and about African Americans. I asked God to give me insight, as it was way beyond me as a suburban white to write with a black viewpoint character. Very difficult, but very rewarding—hope I never forget what I learned.

I Have a Dream

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on ...

Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Brothers

This is a short story in which I weave together various parts of my novel Dominion. It was published in The Story Tellers’ Collection II.

The gray sky pressed down on two men, huddled close in the faint twilight.

Stoop-shouldered, leaning forward, Obadiah Abernathy stared off into empty space. He was ninety-two, son of a sharecropper, grandson of a Mississippi slave. His son Clarence, a 260-pound former college lineman, leaned over and looked into his father’s eyes. They were moist and deep-welled, eyes that had seen more than any man should have to.

Obadiah shuffled toward the front porch ...

Race and Interracial Marriage

If we think that issues of race and racism in America were settled with the civil rights movement in the sixties, we are not awake to the real world.

Where Redemption and Justice Meet

From Randy:

John Perkins is a sharecropper’s son who grew up poverty-stricken in Mississippi. Fleeing to California at age 17 after his older brother’s murder at the hands of a town marshal, he vowed never to return. But after coming to Christ in 1960, he did return to Mendenhall, Mississippi, to share the gospel of Christ.

John’s leadership in civil rights demonstrations resulted in repeated harassment, beatings, and imprisonment. He’s the author of many good books, but his book Let Justice Roll Down, first released 30 years ago, tells about the shaping events of his life ...

Who qualifies to be called human?

Note from Randy Alcorn: My sixteen-year-old daughter Angela wrote this story for a high school class. I asked her if I could print it here because it captures the heart of our faith.

Folks back then said it all started when I moved away from my parents at eighteen. They said I was young and stupid, and was pushed into crazy beliefs because I had no one to guide me. But I knew there was something different inside me ever since I was ten, when Maddie died.

Are Black People Cursed? The Curse of Ham

I knew that something did not sound right about the curse of Ham theory when I first heard it as a teenager.

Agent of Change

Unknown to many, before Rosa Parks was a civil-rights catalyst, she was a devoted Christian who memorized Scripture and taught Sunday school.