This book looks at a United States that continues to be driven by racial and cultural divisions, from the disproportionately high number of incarcerated African Americans to heartfelt disagreements over the true nature of marriage and the proper role of faith in public policy.

Bernadette J. Brooten is Kraft-Hiatt Professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University.

Introduction; B.J.Brooten PART I: A PRAYER Prayer for my Daughter (Poem); N.Rawles PART II: OVERCOMING SLAVERY'S LEGACIES IN THE UNITED STATES The Paradox of Silence and Display: Sexual Violation of Enslaved Women, and Contemporary Contradictions in Black Female Sexuality; D.Roberts From Mammy to Welfare Queen: Images of Black Women in Public-Policy Formation; E.M.Townes From Plantations to Prisons: African American Women Prisoners in the United States; E.Barry PART III: OVERCOMING SLAVERY'S LEGACIES IN RELIGIOUS LAW The Purchase of His Money: Slavery and the Ethics of Jewish Marriage; G.Labovitz Slavery and Sexual Ethics in Islam; K.Ali PART IV: ANCIENT ORIGINS OF THE PROBLEM 'She Shall Not Go Free as Male Slaves Do': Developing Views about Slavery and Gender in the Laws of the Hebrew Bible; D.P.Wright Early Christianity, Slavery, and Women's Bodies; J.A.Glancy Gender, Slavery, and Technology: The Shaping of the Early Christian Moral Imagination; S.Briggs PART V: WHY SEXUAL ETHICS NEEDS HISTORY 'As If She Were His Wife': Slavery and Sexual Ethics in Late Medieval Spain; D.Blumenthal Love, Sex, Slavery, and Sally Hemings; M.Bay Breaking the Silence: Sexual Hypocrisies from Thomas Jefferson to Strom Thurmond; C.Clinton PART VI: SHOULD THE BIBLE FORM THE BASIS OF PUBLIC POLICY The Bible, Slavery, and the Problem of Authority; S.A.Johnson The 'Purity of the White Woman, Not the Purity of the Negro Woman': The Contemporary Legacies of Historical Laws Against Interracial Marriage; F.Botham PART VII: THE STORIES WE TELL Mammy's Daughters; Or, the DNA of a Feminist Sexual Ethics; F.Smith Foster PART VIII: RESTORATIVE JUSTICE Enslaved Black Women: A Theology of Justice and Reparations; D.N.Hopkins PART IX: A MEDITATION A Visit from the Old Mistress (Poem); F.Ladd Epilogue; M.Nazer with B.J.Brooten