This Far By Faith brings together a collection of essays on the religious identities and experiences of African-American women. Spanning from the period of slavery to the present, the essays profile American figures such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Willie Mae Ford Smith, exploring the role that religious institutions and impulses played in their lives.

Introduction We Have Been Believers: Patterns of African-American Women's Religiosity, Judith Weisenfeld; Part 1 African-American Women's Religious Arts; Chapter 1 The Harriet Powers Pictorial Quilts, Marie Jeanne Adams; Chapter 2 Willie Mae Ford Smith of St. Louis: A Shaping Influence upon Black Gospel Singing Style, William Thomas Dargan, Kathy White Bullock; Chapter 3 Lucie E. Campbell Williams a Cultural Biography, Reverend Charles Walker; Part 2 African-American Women and Church Institutions; Chapter 4 Praying in the Shadows: The Oblate Sisters of Providence, a Look at Nineteenth-Century Black Catholic Spirituality, Thaddeus J. Posey, O.F.M. Cap; Chapter 5 ::, Stephen Ward Angell; Chapter 6 ::, Richard Newman; Chapter 7 Mary McLeod Bethune and the Methodist Episcopal Church North: In But Out, Clarence G. Newsome; Chapter 8 Religion, Politics, and Gender: The Leadership of Nannie Helen Burroughs, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham; Chapter 9 A Black Woman in a White Man's Church: Amy E. Robbins and the Reorganization, Roger D. Launius; Chapter 10 Minister and Feminist Reformer: The Life of Florence Spearing Randolph, Bettye Collier-Thomas; Part 3 African-American Women and Christian Missions; Chapter 11 Elizabeth Mars Johnson Thomson (1807-1864): A Research Note, Randall K. Burkett; Chapter 12 "Who is Sufficient for These Things?" Sara G. Stanley and the American Missionary Association, 1864-1868, Judith Weisenfeld; Chapter 13 Spelman's Emma B. Delaney and the African Mission, Sandy D. Martin; Part 4 African-American Women, Religion, and Activism; Chapter 14 In Search of Harriet Tubman's Spiritual Autobiography, Jean M. Humez; Chapter 15 Representing Truth: Sojourner Truth's Knowing And Becoming Known, Nell Irvin Painter; Chapter 16 Septima P. Clark and the Struggle for Human Rights, Grace Jordan Mcfadden;