James Cone taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York over 4 decades.  He was the leader in Black Liberation Theology.  His first book was Black Theology and Black Power.  He has also written extensively about black spirituals and the blues.  In 2011, he published this painful yet hopeful book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree.  Painful, because the lynching tree symbolizes the violent racism that has terrorize the lives of African Americans in this country.  Hopeful, as the cross of Christian faith – the dominant faith of African Americans – is the symbol of violence transformed.