This is Not the Story of An Exceptional Kid
Rev. Esau McCaulley uses the memoir to write a story about the family and community that shaped him, not his journey or success. In each chapter, he introduces readers to a new person who he sees as shaping and forming the world that raised him. In interviews with family elders, McCaulley details one Black family’s experience and hopes in sharing their story, which challenges the dominant myths in America of Black success.
...I Didn’t Think To Dream of It
The journey to becoming a public theologian with best-selling books and a regular column in the New York Times was not something Esau McCaulley dreamed of growing up in Huntsville, Alabama. Demystifying his success as a writer, he explains how for many years he had no idea where it would lead and that fame was not the goal. The urge to write for others he describes as a nagging calling, an urge that would not let him go.
The Lost Cause Persists
In the present-day battles over Black History lessons in textbooks, McCauley sees the stubborn persistence of the belief in the Lost Cause in the Confederacy at its core. He talks about the pseudo-historical narrative that the Civil War persists in today’s battles over teaching race and systemic racism in America’s public schools. At its root - an inherent disconnect between Black Christians and White Christians on how faith was used to defend an economic and political system that enslaved humans.
Rev. Esau McCaulley, Ph.D. Author and associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. His writing and speaking focus on New Testament theology, African-American Biblical interpretation, and Christian public theology. His new memoir How far to the Promised Land, questions the narrative of exceptionalism that he, and other Black survivors, are conditioned to give when they “make it” in America.
Our closing music, New Hope, is by Audiobinger and is used under a Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 license.
Other music by Blue Dot Session.
Remixes, beats, and sound design by Dissimilation Heavy Industries.
