Standing in the Need of Prayer: A Celebration of Black Prayer

This well-designed gift book pairs photographs and prayers to help readers understand the richness and diversity of African-American spirituality, including Muslim, Rastafarian, Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Voudou and Yoruba traditions. As Coretta Scott King points out in the foreword, the book's dedication to a wide range of faiths seems encapsulated by a 1964 photograph of her husband leading a prayer at their dinner table under an irenic portrait of his Hindu mentor, Gandhi. A helpful appendix provides information about the setting of many of the photographs: a Promise Keepers rally, a prison service, a Buddhist meditation gathering, a prayerful university protest from 1960. Most of the photos are memorable, and often cleverly parallel the quote chosen for the facing page. These short quotes are taken from prayers, novels, speeches, hymns, spirituals and sacred texts like the Bible and the Qur'an.