Project

Liberal Religion and Race in America

Program

ACLS Fellowship Program

Department

History

Named Award

ACLS Oscar Handlin Fellow named award

Abstract

Liberal Religion and Race in America explores the history of African Americans’ engagement with religious liberalism from the First Great Awakening of the 1740s to the founding of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism in 2015. African Americans were among the founders of the first Universalist churches in the eighteenth century, created their own liberal congregations beginning in the nineteenth century, and have continually pushed Unitarians and Universalists to be more attuned to social injustices. While their numbers have been few, African Americans have been profoundly affected by and made significant contributions to American religious liberalism.