Hello again! We’re still busy working on the fourteen collections of the Spreading the Word project. As promised we’re back to share with you some of our findings! This time we are featuring the C. Eric Lincoln Lecture Series collection. Lincoln was a distinguished scholar, writer and lecturer on the Sociology of Black Religion, and Race and Ethnic Relations in the United States. He authored the seminal text, The Black Church in the African-American Experience, and was one of the first to research and publish on Black Muslims. The lecture series is hosted by Clark Atlanta University’s Department of Religion and Philosophy and features speakers who are prominent in the fields of religion and sociology.  Within the collection are correspondences, descriptions of lecture events, and the biographies and lecture manuscripts of C. Eric Lincoln and other notable lecturers and panelists including John Hope Franklin and Asa Hilliard. Corresponding with the printed materials are photographs and several video and audio recordings that we are proud to make available to you via the AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library’s DigitalCommons platform.

One C. Eric Lincoln Lecture Series video from 1983 highlights the inaugural ceremony. It illustrates an illustrious ceremony including former CAU president Elias Blake, former Howard University School of Divinity president Lawrence N. Jones, author of Roots, Alex Haley and of course, C. Eric Lincoln. As the audience listens, Lincoln delivers the first ever lecture at CAU in his honor titled “Human Values and Human Systems” where he tackles moral crisis’s arising out of value conflicts within societies – a rich source for ethical thought.  A physical transcript of this lecture is located within the collection, as well as Asa Hilliard’s lecture on the African origins of civilization and scholar John Hope Franklin’s lecture on George Washington Williams – an American Civil War soldier and writer on African American history. In Franklin’s lecture, he also references Belgium King Leopold’s relationship to the African Congo and makes mention of the Indianapolis Freemans newspaper. Videos of both Hilliard and Franklin are available in this collection, and you can also find audio-visual materials from the Asa J. Hilliard, III Collection here.

The collection also features correspondences where John Hope Franklin, American
historian and author, dialogues with Dr. Love Henry Whelchel, pastor and professor of Church History at the Interdenominational Theological Center. Other letters include those between Dr. Whelchel and C. Eric Lincoln, prominent preacher, Gardner Taylor, and Civil Rights activist and preacher, Rev. Hosea Williams. These correspondences discuss donations to the series and also its events.

Finally, biographical sketches of lecture series participants are in the collection, including Asa Hilliard and Jacquelyn Grant, a theologian, author, ITC professor, and one of the developers of womanist theology. The most notable sketch is that of C. Eric Lincoln, which reveals his birthplace as Athens, Alabama. It further highlights Lincoln’s high school, undergraduate, and graduate education. His biography also outlines his professional career including the 9 books and over one hundred journals he authored, among them “Black Muslims in America”, and “The Black Church in the African American Experience’.

The C. Eric Lincoln Lecture series has become a staple at Clark Atlanta University and is held every year on the CAU campus. For an understanding of this event, the man it honors, and for the wealth of knowledge it contains on ethics, society and the African American Church, it is highly recommended that interested patrons take a look at this collection!  Additionally, the AUC Woodruff Library is the proud repository of the rich C. Eric Lincoln Collection documenting his life, career, and research.

The finding aid is available for you to view here.  View the photographs, and watch and listen to the lectures through DigitalCommons here.

Well that’s all for now. See you next time!