Prathia Hall

Brief

     Hall (1940-2002) was a pastor, educator, and dynamic speaker who served on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement. She challenged misogyny in the movement and was one of the first women field leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). While working with SNCC, she was shot at and jailed multiple times.

     On September 9, 1962, Hall led a prayer at Mt. Olive Baptist Church in 'Terrible Terrell' County, Georgia, where Martin Luther King Jr. was present. Her rhythmic repetition of 'I Have a Dream' during this prayer influenced King's famous 'I Have a Dream' speech at the March on Washington.

     After witnessing the traumatizing aftermath of Bloody Sunday she left SNCC in 1966. She eventually earned her Master of Divinity, Master of Theology, and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, becoming a prominent womanist theologian who advocated for the intersection of race, gender, and faith in religious practice.

‍

There is so much rage in our culture and much of it is legitimate rage and it's got to have somewhere to go. _{Prathia Hall. Veterans of Hope Interview 1997.}

‍

Collections & Letters

1. Boston University School of Theology Archives & Special Collections, Prathia Wynn Hall

The Collection contains two items including the Sermon: Encounters with Jesus from drying to life

2.  Oral Interviews with Prathia Hall, Veterans of Hope Project Interviews, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.

Video 1 - Audience members introduce themselves and discuss their experiences with the Civil Rights/Freedom movement, if any.

Video 2 - Dr. Hall gives information on her upbringing; the Black community was communal; Inspired by Nannie Hellen Burroughs; College aspirations; The many forms of racism; The Fellowship House

Video 3 - Greensboro, NC, 1960; Joining the Movement; Atlanta off of SNCC, 1962; Living with Julia Agnes Bond (Julian Bond's mother); building discipline for non-violence

Video 4 - Women in Ministry; separation between the spiritual, social, and political concerns in the Movement; Dr. Hall's advice to the youth

Video 5 - The power of song; "Music and humor are a part of the survival kit of oppression"

Video 6 - Traumatic Period - the Selma Movement.

Video 7 - James Baldwin, Dick Gregory, and the protection of the press; Living with Amelia Boynton; Bloody Sunday; Realization that there must be space for "the expression of legitimate rage"; Religious crisis and reassessment in belief of non-violence; Living with members of the community (e.g. Carolyn Daniels The Freedom House and Mama Dolly Raines); Hospitality and Friendships.

Video 8 - Challenging the sexism in SNCC and the larger Civil Rights movement; The roles of and tensions between White Southern Women and Black women, and the Press in the movement; The 1964 SNCC retreat and the infamous anonymous Waveland memorandum; work-related stress and health; the beating of Fannie Lou Hamer.

Video 9 - Expressions of anger; Misogyny in the Christian church; Forgiveness; Disconnect; "legitimate rage" of the "children"

Video 10 - Addressing "legitimate rage" within the church; Dr. Hall's spirtual growth and death of her daughter at the age of 25.

‍

Books

‍