About the Garden Initiative

The Garden Initiative for Black Women’s Religious Activism is a three-year project to create a historical and contemporary repository of black women’s religious leadership in America.

To date, there is no archive that holistically documents black women religious leaders. There is also no clearinghouse with an analysis of black women’s contributions to religious communities or religious activism in society.

The Garden aims to broaden our historical knowledge and equip contemporary religious institutions, the academy, and social justice activists with resources to sustain social change.

Led by Dr. Monique Moultrie, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, GSU; Dr. Rosetta Ross, Professor of Religion, Spelman College; and Dr. Alexandria Russell, Postdoctoral Research Associate, the Garden’s four key goals are to:

document and archive black women religious leadership and historic collaborations between African and African American women leaders;
create a hub for mentoring leaders through multi-religious, intergenerational, and peer research conversations;
expand scholarship on black women religious leaders beyond Christianity;
advance public knowledge about the gendered role of black religious participation in social justice movements.

Through engaging community members and scholars from across America and the globe, the project will establish a conference and a mentorship program to enhance the impact of The Garden’s findings.

This interdisciplinary approach will also promote a broad examination of diverse religious traditions and varieties of religious leadership in America, and highlight historical and contemporary black women’s voices that have been unrecognized for far too long.

The Garden Initiative for Black Women’s Religious Activism is grateful for the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation, the Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, the Spelman College Office of the Provost, and the United Negro College Fund/Andrew W. Mellon Programs.