Of Kings and Queens – Prathia Hall, MLK, and the Cultural Memory of Black Religious Leadership

This paper reconsiders the cultural memory of black religious leadership during the civil rights movement in light of the work and influence of the Rev. Dr. Prathia Hall, the renowned civil rights leader, pastor, professor, and womanist theologian. This paper will consider her own rhetorical presence and performances in relation and contrast to the reproductive logics that produced a particular succession of representative race men in the wake of King’s assassination. Hall embodies the intimately engaged yet frequently overlooked modes of leadership taken up by women in the long civil rights movement and beyond. I interrogate how her commitments to womanist theology and praxis shape both her public speech and her communal investments, offering an alternative account of black leadership that harmonizes more thoroughly with the collective charisma suggested by Cedric J. Robinson in his classic text Terms of Order: Political Science and the Myth of Leadership.