BookTALK with Danjuma Gibson: Through the Eyes of Titans

Human beings tend to romanticize history or idealize historical figures. This is nowhere more apparent than the civil rights era of the 20th century. The problem is that when we idealize history, we fail to learn from it. The result is that history repeats itself along with its sins and atrocities. The January 6 Capitol insurrection and the current racial reckoning we are experiencing is unoriginal to the American experience. We have been here before.

Through the Eyes of Titans (Wipf & Stock, 2024) seeks to humanize people we have idealized. Readers are invited to challenge racial hatred and injustice in their own context by looking to the lives of historical figures who have faced the challenges we currently face. By examining the self-care practices of personalities like Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, Benjamin Elijah Mays, and Martin Luther King Jr., this book examines the practices of introspection and self-work these historical figures engaged in that enabled them to fulfill the body of work they are celebrated for today. By humanizing these historical titans, we can emulate similar practices of self-care and introspection in our own lives that can equip us in continuing the ongoing work of dismantling structures of racial hatred and oppression, and promoting freedom, love, equity, and justice to redeem the soul of a nation.

The Rev. Dr. Danjuma Gibson is professor of practical theology and psychology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.