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W.D. Mohammed

W.D. Mohammed

He risked his life by leading tens of thousands of African Americans toward mainstream Islam One of the least appreciated figures in American religious history is Wallace Deen Mohammed. He was the son of Elijah Muhammed, the longtime leader of the Nation of Islam (which wasn’t really Islamic)  When Elijah died W.D., the designated successor, shocked the followers by declaring that it was time to follow actual Islam. Adapted from Sacred Liberty In the early twentieth century, religious entrepreneurs attempted…

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Four Chaplains

Four Chaplains

In a White House ceremony celebrating this stamp, President Harry Truman declared, “The greatest sermon that ever was preached is right here on this stamp.” It refers to an incident in which two ministers, a priest and rabbi gave up their life preservers as the U.S. Dorchester sank after being hit by a German torpedo in 1942.  The story of their heroism hit a nerve in part because it fit a new message from the U.S. government – that one…

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The Fourth Freedom

The Fourth Freedom

Eleven months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt became convinced that Europe would be overrun if we didn’t help Britain right away. Many Americans opposed getting involved in the European war, so to mobilize support for aiding Britain, Roosevelt explained that the efforts were needed to preserve four essential freedoms. Rather than reciting the Bill of Rights, Roosevelt came up with his own list: freedom of speech and expression; freedom from want; freedom from fear—and the “freedom of every…

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Excluding Asians (and Hindus and Buddhists)

Excluding Asians (and Hindus and Buddhists)

The makers of a dishwashing fluid in 1886 capitalized on anti-Asian sentiment. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was driven by racist theories of ethnic superiority and some concerns about Chinese competing for American jobs. Eugenics was on the rise and taken quite seriously. A report from a congressional committee explained that there was “not sufficient brain capacity in the Chinese race to furnish motive power for self-government” and that “there is no Aryan or European race which is not…

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The Crime of Being Quaker

The Crime of Being Quaker

In Massachusetts, being a Quaker was not just frowned upon—it was illegal. Puritans despised Quakers for reasons of theology (they heretically believed they could have a direct relationship with God), power (they refused to pay taxes to support Congregational Church), and man- ners (the zealous Quakers sometimes interrupted church services and banged pots and pans in the streets). The punishment for being a Quaker was whipping on the first offense, having an ear cut off after the second, and execution…

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War on Christmas

War on Christmas

The effort to find, fight, and win a “war on Christmas” illustrates how a charge can have a grain of truth while also being mischievously exaggerated to stir rage, mobilize votes, or boost ratings. There have indeed been absurd instances of cities or individuals who, in their hyper attentiveness to the sensitivities of nonbelievers, have purged innocuous Christmas symbols. For instance, a member of the Parent-Teacher Association at an elementary school in Frisco, Texas, advised parents not to have Christmas…

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The Martyrdom of Mary Dyer

The Martyrdom of Mary Dyer

Mary Dyer is a name that all American school children should know — one of the true heroes of religious liberty.  By modern standards, Dyer was no groovy freethinker. Like many of the other Puritans who came to America seeking religious sustenance, she was a serious Bible- following Christian (hey, she named her son Mahershalalhashbaz!). At twenty-five, she attended meetings at Anne Hutchinson’s house in Boston, where the women had the audacity to critique the weekly sermons of the local…

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Katholic Killers

Katholic Killers

Note that this cheerful Klansman, sitting on a Catholic clergyman,  is holding both a Holy Bible. That’s because in the 19th and early 20th century, many Protestants claimed that Catholics were anti-Bible. This stemmed in part from Catholic efforts to stop the Protestants from forcing public school children to read from the King James translation of the Bible.   Ironically, Catholics actually did want the Bible to be taught but wanted their children to work off of a Catholic translation. Protestants…

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The Ugly History of Dual-Loyalty Charges

The Ugly History of Dual-Loyalty Charges

Ilhan Omar recently deployed an accusation that’s been used against religious minorities for years. Reprinted from The Atlantic When Representative Ilhan Omar recently complained about “the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” many noted accurately that she had deployed a trope—dual loyalty—that had been used against Jews for years. But this accusation has a broader history in the United States, having been used against several religious minorities—including Muslims…

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The Bible Riots

The Bible Riots

This is the image used on the cover of Sacred Liberty. This illustration depicts what were called “the Bible Riots,” which took place in 1834 in Philadelphia and killed 30 people. These days we tend to think of religion-in-schools fights being about believers vs. secularists. But for most of our history it was a fight between Protestants and Catholics. In Philadelphia, Protestants insisted that school children read from the King James Version – which Catholic families viewed as the wrong…

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