James H. Cone

The Reverend James H. Cone
Cone in 2009
Born	James Hal Cone (1938-08-05)August 5, 1938 Fordyce, Arkansas, U.S.
Died	April 28, 2018(2018-04-28) (aged 79) New York City, New York, U.S.
Spouses	Rose H. Cone (m. 1958; div. c. 1978) Sondra Gibson ​ ​ (m. 1979; died 1983)​
Awards	Grawemeyer Award (2018)
Ecclesiastical career
Religion	Christianity (Methodist)
Church	African Methodist Episcopal Church
Academic background
Education	Philander Smith College Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary Northwestern University
Thesis	The Doctrine of Man in the Theology of Karl Barth[1] (1965)
Influences	Karl Barth[2] William Hordern[3] Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X[4] James Baldwin Paul Tillich
Academic work
Discipline	Theology
Sub-discipline	Systematic theology
School or tradition	Black liberation theology
Institutions	Philander Smith College Adrian College Union Theological Seminary
Doctoral students	Jacquelyn Grant[5]
Notable students	Kelly Brown Douglas[6] Dwight Hopkins Raphael Warnock
Notable works	A Black Theology of Liberation (1970)
Notable ideas	Black liberation theology
Influenced	Steve Biko[7] Manas Buthelezi[7] Allan Boesak[8] Cain Hope Felder[9] Obery M. Hendricks Jr.[10] James D. Kirylo[11] Basil Moore[12] Conrad Tillard[13] Desmond Tutu[14] Preston Washington[15] Jeremiah Wright[16]

James Hal Cone (August 5, 1938 – April 28, 2018) was an American Methodist minister and theologian. He is best known for his advocacy of black theology and black liberation theology. His 1969 book Black Theology and Black Power provided a new way to comprehensively define the distinctiveness of theology in the black church.^[17] His message was that Black Power, defined as black people asserting the humanity that white supremacy denied, was the gospel in America. Jesus came to liberate the oppressed, advocating the same thing as Black Power. He argued that white American churches preached a gospel based on white supremacy, antithetical to the gospel of Jesus.

Cone's work was influential from the time of the book's publication and his work remains so today. His work has been both used and critiqued inside and outside the African-American theological community. He was the Charles Augustus Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Columbia University-affiliated Union Theological Seminary until his death.^[18]