Here in the U.S., a diverse coalition of Christians, Jews, and Muslims has been mobilizing on Sudan. Many African Americans were slow to join that coalition, but as Kim Lawton reports, black churches are now providing a new grassroots momentum for the cause.
KIM LAWTON: Sunday morning worship at St. Sabina Catholic Church in Chicago. There's the usual emphasis on sin and salvation, but these days you're also likely to hear about Sudan.UNIDENTIFIED PRIEST: Come on, let's do a dance for victory in the Sudan.
LAWTON: The predominantly African-American congregation has made Sudan -- and especially the western region of Darfur -- a major priority. And church members are focusing their considerable energies to end the crisis there. They've launched a new petition drive, calling on President Bush to take "strong and decisive action" to stop the violence and genocide.
The drive comes on the heels of a successful campaign to ban Illinois from investing state money in companies doing business in Sudan. The bill was introduced by St. Sabina member and State Senator Jacqueline Collins. In June, with strong lobbying from churches, Illinois became the first state to pass such legislation.
JACQUELINE COLLINS (Illinois State Senator): If we call ourselves "church," we have to reclaim what our mission is in society as church. I think we are just living out the gospel.LAWTON: The efforts are part of a national interfaith coalition raising awareness about Sudan. The coalition is religiously diverse and has been active for several years. Initially, African-American leaders were slow to join in. But now, black churches are increasingly moving to the forefront of grassroots activism on Sudan.
Reverend SEAN MCMILLAN (Pastor, Shekinah Chapel): What we've been able to do is to mobilize our numbers and to say that we're willing, so to speak, to lay our bodies on the line, because there are certain things which all of our faiths, all of our deep religious understandings compel us to do.
LAWTON: The United Nations has called Sudan the world's worst humanitarian crisis. An estimated two million people were killed during 20 years of civil war between the Arab Muslim north and the predominantly Christian and animist south. Famine, rape, abduction, and slavery all became weapons of the war. Nearly a decade ago, American evangelicals made Sudan a centerpiece in their growing campaign against religious persecution.Dr. ALLEN HERTZKE (Professor, University of Oklahoma and Author, FREEING GOD'S CHILDREN): While it was a high priority among conservative evangelicals, it originally was just not on the radar screen of many black leaders.
LAWTON: University of Oklahoma professor Allen Hertzke has written a book about faith-based advocacy for human rights.
Dr. HERTZKE: The black churches were drawn into the struggle eventually -- primarily because of the concern about slavery and the awareness that Africans were being abducted into slavery, thousands of them, by this regime in Khartoum.
JOE MADISON (Radio Talk-Show Host, DEMOCRACY NOW) (On Air): Madison with you here, it's 28 after the hour on "The Power."
LAWTON: National radio talk-show host Joe Madison played an important role enlisting black support. He says he got involved because he initially couldn't believe the allegations of slavery. In April 2001, he and civil rights leader Reverend Walter Fauntroy traveled to southern Sudan.
Mr. MADISON: I literally broke down in tears in the middle of this barren area, under a mahogany tree. As an African American, seeing these Africans in this condition, [there] was just no way I was going to allow this to happen and not use whatever resources I had to change it.LAWTON: Madison and Fauntroy returned and began high-profile advocacy, including getting arrested in front of the Sudanese embassy. They combined efforts with conservatives and urged their extensive contacts in the civil rights community to do so as well.
Rev. MCMILLAN: We know that we are rooted in Africa, but our sensibilities, our cultural and moral sensibilities, tend not to drive us to appeal for their liberation the same way that we have been driven to appeal for our own.
Dr. HERTZKE: The grassroots energy on Darfur is now coming more from the black churches in many respects than from the white evangelical churches, which were so heavily invested in southern Sudan that they haven't, in some cases, shifted course.
Reverend ROMAL TUNE (Social Justice Organizer): It was based on the power of the communities -- people who were tired of a given condition and wanted to bring about change. And if we cast a vision of a new Darfur for communities and provide them with a road map on how they can be a part of that, then we can really bring about some change.
Rev. MCMILLAN (Preaching): In all of the churches, all of the black churches across America this morning, how many of those churches talked about Darfur today? Wake up! You are dying, but nobody will stand up to a nation and say, "Let my people go."
Read more of Kim Lawton's interviews about Darfur with 
