Say Amen, Brother!: Old-Time Negro Preaching: A Study in American Frustration

The original, unique type of black preaching in American existed during slavery. Although it has undergone changes, some of the original characteristics and manifestations are to be found, in varying degrees, today. Pipes explores the practices of individual preachers, including their training and preparation for particular sermons, and the ritual indigenous to black preaching in the form of structural intonations, rhythmic syntax, metrical units, and bodily motions.

On another level, Say Amen Brother! is a critical history of black cultural practices and the black struggle for equality. In addressing what he sees as a crisis of black leadership from World War II to the present, Pipes provides a critique of the preacher as leader, politician, orator, the center of the black community, and head of its most vital institution. He discusses black sermonic practices as integral to black cultural, social, and political quests for empowerment and emancipation.