Norm Allen is executive director of African Americans for Humanism, an educational organization primarily concerned with fostering critical thinking, ethical conduct, church-state separation, and skepticism toward untested claims to knowledge among African Americans.  He is the editor of the ground-breaking book African-American Humanism: An Anthology, AAH Examiner, and Deputy Editor of Free Inquiry magazine. He has traveled and lectured widely throughout North America, Europe, and Africa and his writings have been published in scores of newspapers throughout the US. He has spoken on numerous radio and television programs and his writings have appeared in such books as Culture Wars and the National Center for Science Education's Voices for Evolution.

In this talk with D.J. Grothe, Norm Allen explores the relationship between Christianity and American slavery, the history of freethought in the abolitionist and civil rights movements, the gullibility of the black community, the explosive growth of skepticism and humanism in Africa, the impact of religion and the paranormal on the working poor.