John W. Fountain

John Fountain speaks with host Perri Small on WVON's Talk of Chicago on the Impact of COVID!-19 on the Church and his recent column on prayer.

New Book: Soul Cries Now Available!

To buy Soul Cries, click in left-hand column

or at bottom

John Fountain's latest book

here is an American tragedy. A tale of two cities. One ugly. One pretty. It is the story of life and also loss on the other side of the tracks. An American story. One being written daily by news media but often only cursorily as stories of murder, poverty and social decay. But it is more complex story for those who dwell behind the invisible walls of the American Mainstream in neighborhoods where life is fragile and violence an intractable squatter. A place where life can be hard and plain. Where bullets too often rain but where life, love and hope form a wellspring.

Theirs is a story of joy and pain. It is a soul’s song—told in this book through the lens of John W. Fountain, a Chicago native son and veteran journalist who grew up on the West Side, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his family once lived during his campaign to help the poor.

"My soul cries. It quivers, sometimes like the human body too long exposed to the cold..."

Now Available - New Book: The Lord Will Provide: The Life & Times of Rev. William H. Copeland

“The Lord Will Provide: The Life & Times of William H. Copeland Jr.” is one pastor’s story. A personal human journey about the sacrifices, struggles, triumphs and what it truly means to be a pastor, to love the people of God. It is an American story of a do-something faith rooted in tenacity and in the audacity of hope that reminds of a time when being a pastor was not a vocation but a calling.

PASTOR. THERE ONCE WAS A TIME when that word alone was held sacred. A time when being a pastor was not a vocation but a calling. Not so much a profession as a confession of the faith and purpose held by those divinely called to the ministry of servant leadership.

“The Lord Will Provide: The Life & Times of William H. Copeland Jr.” is a reminder of those times. A reminder of the men—and women—who embraced that sacred calling at a time in America when the role of pastor, particularly in the African-American community, entailed wearing the hat of community leader, public servant, spiritual counselor, social advocate and being the unflinching face and voice that spoke truth to power. It was a weighty and perhaps unenviable mission—regarded as both sacred and monumental.