The Artists Forum Returns
AUGUST 13, 2025
Welcoming Dr. Daniel Black to McCormick
After a multi-year hiatus, The Artists Forum at McCormick Theological Seminary is back on September 13, 2025! We're thrilled to announce that our inaugural guest artist for 2025 will be the celebrated novelist, professor, and theologian, Dr. Daniel Black.
A Renewed Purpose: Art, Justice, and Theology
The Artists Forum is deeply rooted in McCormick’s enduring commitment to justice, faith, and public theology. It exists as a space for critical engagement with the arts — including film, literature, and performance — especially through the lenses of race, white supremacy, and their theological implications. In previous years, we’ve honored the transformative legacies of visionaries like James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry. This year, we carry that legacy forward by spotlighting a living voice of prophetic power: Dr. Black.
Meet Dr. Daniel Black: Griot, Scholar, and Activist
Dr. Black is an award-winning novelist and professor of African American Studies at Clark Atlanta University. A gifted storyteller and incisive cultural thinker, he is the author of several acclaimed novels, including They Tell Me of a Home, The Coming, Perfect Peace, Isaac’s Song, and his widely celebrated work Don’t Cry for Me.
A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Dr. Black earned his Ph.D. from Temple University and has gained national recognition for his liberative pedagogy, community-centered activism, and unapologetically Black, queer-affirming theological vision.
Centering Don’t Cry for Me: Art as Prophetic Witness
This year’s Forum will center conversation around Dr. Black’s poignant and provocative novel Don’t Cry for Me — a tender, epistolary work in which a Black father, nearing death, writes a final letter to his estranged gay son. Through this intimate act of reckoning and vulnerability, the novel explores generational trauma, forgiveness, Black masculinity, and the redemptive power of truth-telling.
Don’t Cry for Me is much more than a novel — it’s a theological reflection, a public reckoning, and a deeply spiritual meditation on what it means to love across time, pain, and silence. In its pages, we find echoes of McCormick’s own mission: to wrestle with complexity, to center the marginalized, and to engage art as a means of spiritual formation and prophetic transformation.
A Powerful New Chapter
Dr. Black’s presence marks a powerful new chapter for The Artists Forum — and a compelling reminder of the vital role that artists play in shaping theological education. Often described as a modern-day griot, his voice blends historical depth with poetic precision, inviting us to imagine new ways of being in the world.
Beyond his literary contributions, Dr. Black is a sought-after speaker and cultural commentator who addresses topics such as racial justice, Black queer identity, the role of the Black church, and collective healing. Whether on the page, in the classroom, or behind a podium, his work sparks courageous conversations and nurtures the kind of transformative imagination our world so urgently needs.
Join us on September 13th for a bold and beautiful return of The Artists Forum, and a renewed call to let art stir the spirit, confront injustice, and shape the future of faith.