THE HIDDEN ROOTS OF WHITE SUPREMACYAND THE PATH TO A SHARED AMERICAN FUTURE

THE HIDDEN ROOTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY

AND THE PATH TO A SHARED AMERICAN FUTURE

by Robert P. Jones RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 2023

A searing, stirring outline of the historical and contemporary significance of white Christian nationalism.

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A historian reframes the nation’s legacy of racial prejudice.

In his latest, Jones, the author of White Too Long and The End of White Christian America, argues persuasively that the ideological origins of American racism are best understood in relation to religious edicts dating back to the late 15th century. The Catholic Church’s Doctrine of Discovery gave divine sanction to the imperialist ambitions of white Christians and provided rationalizations for centuries of violence directed against nonwhite peoples. In tracing out this history of toxic ideas and their real-world consequences, the author focuses on three representative outrages from the 20th century: the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955, the lynching of three Black circus workers in Minnesota in 1920, and the murders of hundreds of African Americans during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. As Jones shows, rather than isolated events, these explosions of racist aggression and justifications invoking white supremacy form a consistent pattern in each region’s history, beginning with the targeting of Indigenous peoples. Through its linking of narratives typically considered separately, the book provides a revelatory view of U.S. history and its guiding assumptions. “If we do the hard work of pushing upriver, we find that the same waters that produced the Negro problem also spawned the Indian problem,” writes Jones. “If we dare to go further, at the headwaters is the white Christian problem.” In the final sections, the author emphasizes the relevance of ongoing political battles over the interpretation of history and acknowledgements of culpability. “Across the spectrum of issues, and from national presidential elections to local school board meetings,” he writes, “the most vehement and visceral fights to come will likely center not on policy but on historical narratives, public rituals, and civic spaces.” Jones makes the value of carrying out this conceptual reframing urgently apparent.

A searing, stirring outline of the historical and contemporary significance of white Christian nationalism.