"Upon This Rock"

Paper Summary:

"Upon This Rock" is a biography of St Paul's community, with a special focus on its high-spirited, charismatic, politically aware leader, the Reverend Youngblood. This paper provides a chapter by chapter analysis of the book, its contents, and the social message that it is trying to instill.

From the Paper:

"Samuel G. Freedman's Upon this Rock reads like a Spike Lee film, full of tragic humor, impressionistic realism, and wise social commentary. Weaving flashbacks, historical context, and current narratives into the tome, Freedman paints a colorful, emotionally-charged portrait of the "miracles of a black church" in East Brooklyn. St. Paul has had a long history since the early days of New York City; the neighborhood has also seen multitudes of ethnicities ebb and flow from its streets, from Italians to Jews to Asians to Blacks. In the 1980s, St. Paul's Baptist Church moved to Hendrix Street and Stanley Avenue and a new era in New York black spirituality was born. With the Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood as the church's new backbone and spiritual leader, St. Paul evolved from an economically, spiritually, and socially defunct edifice into a very real sanctuary for the black community in East Brooklyn. Not simply an on-Sundays-only religious congregation, the community supporting St. Paul runs a plethora of support groups and community resources including a school and affordable housing."

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