Firmly rooted in the black church tradition, James H. Cone relates the formative features of his faith journey, from his childhood experience in Bearden, Arkansas, and his father's steadfast resistance to racism, through racial discrimination in graduate school, to his controversial articulation of a faith that seeks to break the shackles of racial oppression in America.

In describing his more recent encounters with feminist, Marxist, and Third World thinkers, James Cone provides a compelling description of the theology of liberation and a vivid portrayal of what it means to profess "a faith that does justice."