Protestant theologian, born in Fordyce, Arkansas, USA. He studied at Philander Smith College (1958), received a PhD from Northwestern, and taught at two small colleges before becoming a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1976). His A Black Theology of Liberation (1970) contained an angry critique of the presuppositions of white theologians. and a more measured statement of his views, God of the Oppressed followed in 1975. In 1987 appeared his autobiographical My Soul Looks Back.
He is one of America's best known architects of Black theology, a form of Liberation theology. He taught theology and religion at Philander Smith College, Adrian College in Michigan, and beginning in 1970 at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he was awarded the distinguished Charles A. James Cone was the first person to create a systematic Black theology. Though this theme runs throughout Cone's work, his early books (Black Theology and Black Power and A Black Theology of Liberation) draw heavily on mainstream white theologians like Karl Barth (on whom Cone had written his doctoral thesis) and Paul Tillich. In response to criticism from other black theologians (including his brother, Cecil), Cone began to make greater use of resources native to the African American Christian community for his theological work, including slave spirituals, the blues, and the writings of prominent African American thinkers like David Walker, Henry McNeal Turner, and W. Critiques by black women also led Cone to make consideration of gender issues more prominent in his later writings, thus paving the way for Womanist theology.
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