African American preaching has been esteemed for its rhetorical finesse, but its traditional prophetic edge has been dulled. For years the prophetic Word has been decisive speech in America's black pulpits in crisis times, amid a range of congregational and secular community expectations, and virtually institutionalized in African American churches due to racism. Ironically, the prophetic message today, in large part, is blunted due to (1) the encroachment of the “prosperity gospel” and (2)the conspicuous failure of many black preachers to reclaim preaching as public theology about God’s self-disclosure in Scripture and concern for human life. This interdisciplinary research raises concern about the health of African American churches and communities when prophetic preaching is cloaked. I will survey sermons of representative black preachers in key periods of social unrest, and will demonstrate how critical consideration of the interrelated dynamics of basic criteria of biblical prophetic speech, cultural aesthetics (artistic beauty and power of black oral expression), and pedagogy (communal praxis) reveal a composite picture of the nature and function of African American prophetic preaching, and make evident the need for a roadmap to rehabilitate the prophetic voice in America's black pulpits.