Guest Post

From Ferguson to Baltimore, black America's faith is tested

WASHINGTON (RNS) In the past week, Kelly Brown Douglas, a black Episcopal priest and religion professor at Baltimore’s Goucher College, joined students as they watched, analyzed and agonized about their city erupting in protest after the death of yet another black man, Freddie Gray, in police custody.

On Friday, the Baltimore state’s attorney criminally charged six officers involved in Gray’s death and declared his arrest was illegal.

Douglas, author of the new book Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, writes about the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, the acquittal of George Zimmerman in his killing, and the deaths of other unarmed black people that followed.