Something in the Water: A 21st Century Civil Rights Odyssey

Pastor, award-winning author, and rising civil rights leader Michael W. Waters (Stakes Is High, For Beautiful Black Boys Who Believe in a Better World) ruminates on the sacred places and spaces he visited as part of a cross-country trek in the summer of 2016 through America’s racial history. From reflections on the river’s edge where Emmit Till’s body was recovered in the 1950s, to the spot of Malcolm X’s assassination, to the author’s prayer before the U.S. House of Representatives and his speech before the Dallas City Council to remove Confederate statues, Waters connects our racist past with the current sociological and political climate, offering challenges and hope. The book includes poems and petitions, laments and public liturgies, and prophetic proclamations composed and delivered during his pilgrimage to some of America’s most haunted sites.