The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will host the 14th annual Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Conference on Thursday, April 13. 

The conference will feature the results of the 14th annual Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Survey, which focuses on attitudes toward race, ethnicity, and religion, as well as the results on the Little Rock Congregations Study, which reviewed how religious organizations in Little Rock affected community and political engagement in their congregants.

“The theme of race, ethnicity, and religion is one that has not been covered in the past, and in particular reflects our founder Dr. Joel Anderson’s desire to engage the city’s religious communities in efforts to address issues of race and ethnicity,” said John Kirk, director of the UA Little Rock Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity. “He believes that religious communities can play an important leadership role in influencing attitudes and opinions on the subject.”

The event will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the UA Little Rock Fine Arts Building with a panel discussion on the results of the Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Survey, followed by a free lunch at noon. The panel on the results of the Little Rock Congregations Study will be held from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

The Racial Attitudes panel will include religious leaders discussing race and religion in Pulaski County. Scheduled participants include Pastor Alex Diaz of Mosaic Church, Pastor Wendell Griffen of New Millennium Church, the Rev. Marie Mainard O’Connell of First Presbyterian Church, and Bishop Anthony Taylor of the Diocese of Little Rock.

The results of the racial attitudes survey indicate members of the black community tend to identify themselves as being more religious than do white and Latino people, Kirk said.

Little Rock Congregations Study

Dr. Rebecca Glazier, UA Little Rock associate professor in the School of Public Affairs, and Dr. Warigia Bowman, assistant professor at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, led the Little Rock Congregations Study to determine how religious organizations affected community and political engagement in their congregants.

The professors and their students surveyed nearly 1,500 people at 17 houses of worship in Little Rock. The congregations included four black Protestant churches, four Evangelical Protestant churches, three mainline Protestant churches, two Catholic churches, one Mormon church, one mosque, one Jewish temple, and one nondenominational Unitarian Universalist church.

Some of the results of the Little Rock Congregations Study include:

•      86 percent say they are aware of the important needs in their community
•      81 percent say they can make a difference in their community
•      76 percent volunteered at their place of worship in the past month
•      72 percent volunteered outside their place of worship in the past month

The Little Rock Congregations Panel includes local religious leaders who will discuss community involvement and religion in Little Rock. Panel members include Pastor Brodes Perry from Saint Mark Baptist Church, Pastor Carissa Rogers from Quapaw United Methodist Church, the Rev. Danny Schieffler from St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Brother John Tait of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Dr. Mahmood Hassan E. Hassanein from the Islamic Center of Little Rock.

The event is free and open to the public. Register by filling out the online form.

The conference is sponsored by the Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity, the UA Little Rock School of Public Affairs, and the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

For more information on the Racial Attitudes in Pulaski County Survey, contact Tamisha Cheatham at 501.569.8932 or tmcheatham@ualr.edu.

For more information on the Little Rock Congregations Study, contact Rebecca Glazier at 501.569.3331 or raglazier@ualr.edu.

In the upper right photo, Rebecca Glazier leads a training session for her students participating in the Little Rock Congregations Study. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III/UA Little Rock Communications.