New book documents a decade of Sam Sharpe Lectures
 

The Sam Sharpe Lectures: History, Rebellion and Reform, published by SCM Press, is a collection of a decade's contribution from scholars, thinkers, activists, and ministers responding to the legacy of Sam Sharpe, a Baptist and a Jamaican national hero

The Baptist Times asked Rosemarie Davidson, Sam Sharpe Lecture founder and one of the book's editors, about the new collection
 

Why is it important to gather all the Sam Sharpe Lectures together in this way? 

The Sam Sharpe Lectures are a platform for thinkers, activists and theologians of the African-Caribbean diaspora to speak into our shared reality through the lens of the legacy of Sam Sharpe. Over the past decade we have been blessed, challenged, uplifted and informed.

Within our western culture and in this country particularly, if something is not written down, it does not count or exist. Our society and the Baptist denomination has not been intentional about capturing the voices of people of colour until recently.

Our stories, thoughts and experiences have usually been left to the mercy of white scholars who generally tend only to engage with Black voices and experiences to promote their own profiles. This amounts to virtue signalling while giving little to no space for those voices to deconstruct and transform their own lives. It amounts to an extension of colonialism.

I felt that it was important to have something tangible that can be distributed, referred to and engaged with.

It is also true that there are people who have not attended all the lectures to date. The hope is that those people will want to catch up with or revisit what has been a decade of Black led, stimulating conversation.

 
What do they say about the enduring legacy of Sam Sharpe?

The lectures are not all about Sam Sharpe specifically but around how his Christian inspired revolutionary spirit has been and continues to be transformational on a personal, spiritual, national and international basis.

 
What are your hopes for the book?

Obviously, I want people to buy it for their homes where they and their young people can revisit a favourite lecture and read the ones that they missed.

I expect that, given Sam Sharpe was a Baptist leader, that the Baptist colleges purchase at least half a dozen each so that future leaders can read for themselves how this young, self-educated man has inspired others to engage with and change their condition and that of those around them.

We need more bold leaders with the dynamism and integrity of Sam Sharpe.

I also hope that for the wider diaspora that this collection of lectures highlights anew that in the paraphrased words of Dr Maya Angelou from one of my favourite poems by her, Still I Rise:

“Bearing the gifts [our] ancestors gave, [we] are the hope and the dream of the [enslaved].” 
 

The Sam Sharpe Lectures: History, Rebellion and Reform, edited by Rosemarie Davidson and Eleasah P Louis, is published by SCM Press.

An online lunchtime seminar to launch this publication takes place at 1pm on 22 February.

The seminar will include responses from Gale Richards, Tim Judson and Anthony Reddie

The seminar is hosted by the Centre for Baptist Studies at Regent's Park College, Oxford.

Register for free to obtain online Zoom access details

The Sam Sharpe Project launched in 2012 to explore and promote the story and legacy of the Jamaican national hero and Baptist Sam Sharpe.

Since its inauguration, the Sam Sharpe partners have hosted annual lectures which have become an important fixture in the calendar of community events marking Black History Month