Can we restore the Golden Rule to the American public conscience? It will probably take a renewed grass root movement of people who are stubbornly faithful to Jesus’ command to love the neighbor.

In today’s Deep Dive episode, Tim Tseng and Randi Walker continue last week’s conversation about Protestant advocacy for civil rights in Seattle, Washington in the 1940s and 1950s. Her 2012 book,  Religion and the Public Conscience, Ecumenical Civil Rights Work in Seattle, 1940-1960 show how the Seattle Council of Churches and the Christians and Friends for Racial Equality fought for racial justice in the years before the civil rights movement.

Today we talk about ecumenical Protestant efforts in Seattle to secure a peaceful and just community in an emerging city with a significant Filipino, Chinese, and Japanese American presence. We also learn how Asian American Christians played important roles in shaping a public moral conscience in Seattle.

This post is public so feel free to share it.

*This conversation was recorded on September 25, 2023.

This season of Pearl Dive was brought to you by the Asian American Christian History Institute (AACHI) at the Fuller Theological Seminary’s Asian American Center and with the support of the KT Foundation.

Thanks for reading Pearl Dive, AACHI's digital platform! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.

LINKS

* Joanna Phillips, “Christian Friends for Racial Equality, 1942-1970,” The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project (University of Washington).

* Anne M. Blankenship, Christianity, Social Justice, and the Japanese American incarceration during World War II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016).

* James F. Findlay, Jr., Church People in the Struggle: The National Council of Churches and the Black Freedom Movement, 1950-1970 (Oxford University Press, 1991)

* Video: A Church Stands Up With Its People. From Mitch Homma.

* Stephanie Hinnershitz. Race, Religion, and Civil Rights: Asian Students on the West Coast, 1900-1968. (Rutgers University Press, 2015).

* Sarah M. Griffith, The Fight for Asian American Civil Rights: Liberal Protestant Activism, 1900-1950 (University of Illinois, 2018).

* Jennifer C. Snow, Protestant Missionaries, Asian Immigrants, and Ideologies of Race in America, 1850-1924 (New York: Routledge, 2007)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fulleraachi.substack.com