Enter to win From Infinite World: The Sound of the Hammond Organ and the Tragedy of AIDS in the Black Church!

Enter to win From Infinite World: The Sound of the Hammond Organ and the Tragedy of AIDS in the Black Church! To enter the contest, fill out the form below between Tuesday, December 1 and Tuesday, December 22. Entrants are limited to US residents only and must be at least 18 years old.

An innovative work that explores the relationship between the Black church, the Hammond organ, and the musicians that bring it to life.

The Hammond organ has long distinguished the Black church. Masters of the instrument, often Blackqueer men, invented and advanced gospel music, pioneered new modes of worship, and helped define Black life in the twentieth century. But when AIDS crisis struck, churches vociferously rejected all forms of queerness, even as musicians grew ill and hushed rumors spread. Drawing on years of experience as a preacher, choir director, and organist, award-winning visual artist and scholar Ashon Crawley combines personal history and cultural analysis to tell an urgent story about how AIDS fundamentally changed gospel music and the sound of the church. Profiling foundational figures in the church and Black life, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Rev. Clarence Cobbs of Chicago's First Church of Deliverance, as well as the inventor of the organ, Laurens Hammond, Crawley's lyrical work offers a captivating new portrait of the Black church as a site of refuge and rejection for Blackqueer genius.

Ashon Thomas Crawley

Ashon Thomas Crawley is a professor of religious studies and African American and African studies at the University of Virginia. He is also a visual and sound artist, and an award-winning writer. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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