Books-Shaking the Gates of Hell

As a boy growing up in Alabama, Pulitzer-prizewinning columnist and Birmingham News journalist John Archibald admired his Methodist minister father. The Rev. Robert L. Archibald, Jr., was the son and grandson of Methodist preachers. He was a good man, a good father and a good and well-liked minister, admired by many. He preached Biblical principles and offered words of inspiration to his flock. But during the civil rights era in the 1960s, as blacks protested racial segregation, fought for the right to vote, and endured violent attacks from white supremacists, the Rev. Archibald was silent. Others had warned Rev. Archibald against preaching about Martin Luther King Jr., and the civil rights movement. Doing so would have angered his congregation and led to ostracism, threats or even worse. And with a family to support, much was at stake. In Shaking the Gates of Hell, John Archibald comes to grips with his father’s silence and the complicity many Christian churches had in the systemic racism that civil rights activists fought to end. (Knopf)