In the late 1960s, the American city found itself in steep decline.
An urban crisis fueled by federal policy wreaked destruction and
displacement on poor and working-class families. The urban drama
included religious institutions, themselves undergoing fundamental
change, that debated whether to stay in the city or move to the
suburbs. Against the backdrop of the Black and Brown Power movements,
which challenged economic inequality and white supremacy, young
Latino radicals began occupying churches and disrupting services to
compel church communities to join their protests against urban
renewal, poverty, police brutality, and racism.
Apostles of
Change tells the story of these occupations and establishes their
context within the urban crisis; relates the tensions they created;
and articulates the activists' bold, new vision for the church and
the world. Through case studies from Chicago, Los Angeles, New York
City, and Houston, Felipe Hinojosa reveals how Latino freedom
movements frequently crossed boundaries between faith and politics
and argues that understanding the history of these radical politics
is essential to understanding the dynamic changes in Latino religious
groups from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.