For the past two years, the Little Rock Congregations Study, a community-based research project at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been studying race and faith. While our research team has always included some questions about race on our surveys, when we held a Religious Leaders Summit in 2019, we heard from clergy just how important the issue of race relations is to our city and we expanded our efforts. After the murder of George Floyd and other Black men and women in 2020, we further directed our research resources to studying faith-based racial justice and reconciliation.
And today we shared our findings with over 50 religious leaders at the Little Rock Race and Faith Summit. In the coming days, we will share some posts about our key findings, but one of the biggest things we wanted to share at the Summit was a collection of resources for clergy who may want to start engaging their congregations in racial justice and reconciliation work.
The LRCS Research Team at the Summit
This Summit Packet is available for download and includes three models for faith-based racial justice, questions to ask before beginning, resources to dig deeper, and faith-based responses to criticism. These resources were compiled by the Little Rock Congregations Study research team, including a practicum team from Clinton School of Public Service, and using feedback from focus groups and clergy groups throughout Little Rock. Please direct questions or feedback to the Little Rock Congregations Study Project Director, Dr. Rebecca Glazier, raglazier@ualr.edu.