Press Releases

25 June, 2026

Book Presentation: “Rediscovering James W.C. Pennington”

The life and work of the American pastor and former slave James W.C. Pennington (1807 to 1870) is the focus of a public event at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) of Heidelberg University. In a book launch entitled “Rediscovering James W.C. Pennington”, Prof. Dr Jan Stievermann from the HCA and two colleagues from the United States will present the latest research on Pennington, who, as a theologian and reformer, is one of the “forgotten architects of the American anti-slavery movement”, in the words of the organizers. The English-language event is taking place on 30 June 2026 in the HCA atrium, Hauptstraße 120, beginning at 6.15pm.

During the book launch, two volumes published last autumn will be presented. The Fugitive Blacksmith and Other Essential Writings by James W.C. Pennington is a collection of his own writings. This volume encompasses the first modern edition of Pennington’s autobiography, as well as “A Text Book of the Origin and History of the Colored People” (1841), which inspired a new kind of Afro-American history writing. It also includes a selection of − in some cases unpublished − letters, sermons, speeches and journalistic articles. Pennington’s commitment as a reformer, his activism and theology are explored in the contributions to the volume James W.C. Pennington. Essays Toward Rediscovering a Great African American Intellectual and Reformer. The authors here pay tribute to Pennington as a thinker whose work also sheds light on present-day debates about the entanglements of race and religion or questions of U.S. democracy.

“The two volumes bring together Pennington’s writings which have so far been scattered over various archives, make them accessible to a wider public for the first time in a critical edition, and open up new perspectives on the life and work of this important Afro-American intellectual,” underlines Prof. Stievermann, who conducts research at the HCA and the Faculty of Theology on the history of Christianity in the United States and is one of the editors of both volumes.

Prof. Stievermann will present the publications together with co-editor Dr Caitlin Smith from St Bonaventure University (USA). Likewise a guest at the book presentation is historian Prof. Dr Manisha Sinha from the University of Connecticut, who received the James W.C. Pennington Award in 2022. Granted by the HCA and Ruperto Carola’s Faculty of Theology, the award financed by the Manfred Lautenschläger Foundation recognizes groundbreaking studies on Afro-American religious history. The recently published volumes are the result of fifteen years of research undertaken in connection with the Pennington Award, Jan Stievermann emphasizes.

Born in 1807, James W.C. Pennington escaped bondage at the age of 18, learned to read and write, and from 1834 was the first Black American to attend classes at Yale University. In 1838 he was ordained a pastor of the Presbyterian Church. At the World Peace Congress in Paris in 1849, Pennington made the acquaintance of the Heidelberg scholar Friedrich Carové, who was so impressed by the American that, the very same year, he persuaded his university to grant Pennington an honorary doctorate in theology.

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