Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-275) and index.

Part I. Growing the garden -- ch. 1. Racism and economics : the perspective of Oliver C. Cox / Katie Geneva Cannon -- ch. 2. What do nineteenth-century reformers have to say to twentieth-century liberationists? / Marcia Riggs -- ch. 3. Ethics as an art of doing the work our souls must have / Emilie M. Townes -- ch. 4. Re-reading for liberation : African American women and the Bible / Renita J. Weems -- ch. 5. How women relate to the evils of nature / Karen Baker-Fletcher -- Part II. Emboyding black womanhood -- ch. 6. The "loves" and "troubles" of African-American women's bodies : the womanist challenge to cultural humiliation and community ambivalence / Cheryl Townsend Gilkes -- ch. 7. Body, representation, and Black religious dialogue / M. Shawn Copeland -- ch. 8. Black and blues : God-talk/body-talk for the Black church / Kelly Brown Douglas -- Part III. Suffering beyond the hush harbors -- ch. 9. "Wading through many sorrow" : toward a theology of suffering in a womanist perspective / M. Shawn Copeland -- ch. 10. More than suffering : the healing and resurrecting Spirit of God / Karen Baker-Fletcher -- Part IV. Unnoosing our necks -- ch. 11. To be called beloved : womanist ontology in postmodern refraction / Emilie M. Townes -- ch. 12. The issue of race and lynching / Angela D. Sims -- Part V. Moving with the Spirit -- ch. 13. "Go and tell Mary and Martha" : the spirituals, biblical options for women, and cultural tensions in the African American religious experience / Cheryl Townsend Gilkes -- ch. 14. Unearthing ethical treasures : the intrusive markers of social class / Katie Geneva Cannon -- ch. 15. Living as religious ethical mediators : a vocation for people of faith in the twenty-first century / Marcia Riggs -- ch. 16. Re-orientation : viewing justice in a racially violent world / Angela D. Sims.