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The book launch was hosted by the Pan African Women of Faith Ecumenical Empowerment Network/Pan African Women of Faith in partnership with Bread for the World, World Council of Churches, National Council of Churches in the USA, All Africa Conference of Churches-CETA, African Union-USA Mission, Advocacy for Africa Network, Christian Churches Together, and Beulah Baptist Church (Alexandria, Virginia, USA). The book features the colonial and Jim Crow times as well as the parables of pan-African Women of Faith.
Among many speakers thanking Walker-Smith for her work was Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, vice moderator of the WCC central committee. “I want to thank Angelique for what she is doing and I hope and I pray that she continues this journey,” he said.
Walker-Smith offered an overview of the book, explaining its focus and summarizing its purpose as lineage, legacy, and chronology of pan-African Women of Faith in the ecumenical movement from the earliest ancient days to the formation of the modern ecumenical movement. Walker-Smith said, “Their stories are meant to illustrate the extraordinary leadership of pan-African women of faith globally who have not been given the attention and visibility they should have in church history and the ecumenical narrative.
The women included in the book met some qualifications. “First and foremost, pan-African women of faith and ecumenical leadership who were born by 1939—that was the first one,” said Walker-Smith. A second requirement for inclusion was women who represented the various places geographically within the diversity of pan-African regions.
“Three, did she have a kind of heightened visibility on the global ecumenical scene?” asked Walker-Smith. “Four, was she accountable to her country home and her people(s) while she was doing the work?”
With a foreword by the late Dr Agnes Abuom, former WCC moderator, the book is available online.
