This landmark work first published twenty years ago helped establish the field of African-American womanist theology. It is widely regarded as a classic text in the field.

In this landmark work of emerging African American womanist theology, Delores Williams finds in the biblical figure of Hagar—mother of Ishmael, cast into the desert by Abraham and Sarah, but protected by God—a prototype for the struggle of African-American women. African slave, homeless exile, surrogate mother, Hagar's story provides an image of survival and defiance appropriate to black women today.

Exploring all the themes inherent in Hagar's story—poverty and slavery, ethnicity and sexual exploitation, exile and encounters with God—Sisters in the Wilderness traces parallels in the history of African-American women from slavery to the present. A particular theology—a womanist theology—emerges from this shared experience; specifically, from the interplay of oppressions on account of race, sex, and class.