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The Origins of Religious Liberty in Modern America
April 3, 2023 at 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Free“The Origins of Religious Liberty in Modern America”
Dr. Linda Przybyszewski
Associate Professor of History, University of Notre Dame
Monday, April 3 at 6:00 PM
Stella Boyle Smith Hall, in the Fine Arts Building on the UA Little Rock Campus
In the fall of 1869, the Cincinnati school board took a vote to end Bible reading in public schools, sparking mass protests, angry newspaper editorials across the nation, and a lawsuit that dragged on for four years. The Bible War, as it came to be called, sweeps us back to a time when Protestants and Catholics often saw one another as enemies and schooling as their weapon. It reminds us that arguments over the meaning of religious liberty and the value of religious pluralism are not new. And the argument that won for the school board reveals something surprising: that religious faith was often essential to the defense of religious liberty.
This lecture is sponsored by the Notre Dame Club of Arkansas and the University History Institute.