Religion and the Public Conscience: Ecumenical Civil Rights Work Seattle, 1940-1960 in Bloomington, MN

Because of the historical context of Seattle, the racial issues were particularly complex. The Seattle Council of Churches and the more informal group Christians and Friends for Racial Equality allow us to understand and assess the effectiveness of religious social reform efforts, particularly the effort to shape a public conscience, in a highly secularized urban area. Understanding of the role of these religious people in the development of race relations in the diverse society of the urban West deepens our understanding of the larger American society. The book explores the nature of public conscience, the influence of the generation that came of age in the Progressive Era on the modern civil rights movements, the nature of women's leadership, the dynamics of civil rights in a multi-racial context, and the way in which religion plays a role in broader social movements. These two ecumenical groups can be credited with contributing to Seattle's relatively peaceful engagement with the civil rights movement compared to other cities in the United States during the 1960s.