Janet Allured, adjunct professor of history and women's studies, is pleased to announce the publication of her latest book, Southern Methodist Women and Social Justice: Interracial Activism in the Long Twentieth Century, co-edited with M. Kathryn Armistead and available from the University Press of Florida.

This book was awarded a U of A Humanities Center subvention grant in 2024.

The book tells the stories of nine Southern Methodist women, who, inspired by their faith, fought for progressive reform measures at the state and federal level long past the supposed end of the Progressive Era. The white and Black women featured in this book responded to local human rights violations with compassion and direct services but also with political activism as they agitated for expanded and more diverse private and public services in the United States.

The first part of the book features leading Methodist laywomen such as Mary McCleod Bethune, while the second part features trailblazing clergywomen, beginning with Leontine Kelly, the first African American Woman Bishop in any denomination in the United States.

The chapter about Bertha Payne Newell, a champion of workers' rights and an ardent supporter of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, is written by Chelsea Elizabeth Hodge, a graduate of the U of A's History Department Ph.D. program.

One of the chapters is about Theressa Hoover, an African American native of Fayetteville. From 1968 to 1990, Hoover served as associate general secretary of the Women's Division of the United Methodist Church, the highest-ranking Black female executive in any mainline U.S. denomination.

With Methodism as a case in point, this book expands the historical narrative of 20th-century reform movements to include the South's progressive religious traditions.