Remnants: A Memoir of Spirit, Activism, and Mothering - Tapa dura

"Remnants will appeal to those who are interested in religion and social transformation. Social change advocates, justice seekers, grassroots organizers, nonviolent revolutionaries, race critical theorists, theologians, clergy, historians, womanists, ethicists, ancl educators will all find gems within Remnants.... Remnants provides hope for a better humanity." -- Dean J. Johnson * The Mennonite Quarterly Review * "Co-authored by Rachel and her late mother, [Remnants] is in its very composition both intimate and collaborative. ...It is a book of returning to the source as a resource for the future and present. There are lessons about human connection and resilience, and our capacities to be better to one another. Out of the particulars of these two lives, a window opens into Black life more broadly, in all of its complexity and interconnectedness with the vast networks of humanity." -- Imani Perry * Public Books * "[A] spirited compilation of ecumenical history, folk wisdom, fiction, memoir, and poetry. . . . The central message of Harding's life is abiding love, passed down through generations, strengthened in the aftermath of grief, racial terrorism, and trauma. The book also tells the unusual story of Mennonite House, a pioneering center of interracial activism in Atlanta co-founded by Harding and her husband, and offers other insights that shape its powerful narrative." * Publishers Weekly *

An activist influential in the civil rights movement, Rosemarie Freeney Harding's spirituality blended many traditions, including southern African American mysticism, Anabaptist Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism, and Afro-Brazilian Candomble. Remnants, a multigenre memoir, demonstrates how Freeney Harding's spiritual life and social justice activism were integral to the instincts of mothering, healing, and community-building. Following Freeney Harding's death in 2004, her daughter Rachel finished this decade-long collaboration, using recorded interviews, memories of her mother, and her mother's journal entries, fiction, and previously published essays.