Archive
Pentecostal Prayer Gangs: Documenting Religion in a Brazilian Prison
CRCC research associate Andrew Johnson is not a filmmaker, he insists: he conceived the documentary, “If I Give My Soul,” while he was doing research for his sociology dissertation at the University …
How Muslim Civic Activism Helped Pass California’s Prop 47
This post originally appeared on Religion Dispatches. California mostly defied the rightward national trend in this week’s midterm elections. The victory of Proposition 47, for example, makes California the first state in the …
LA Voice: Congregations and Communities Building Electoral Power
For many years in the United States, churches have been at the center of progressive political and social movements. From abolitionism to child welfare and of course the Civil Rights Movement, religious …
Lift Up, Wake Up, Grow Up: Religion and Civil Rights in Ferguson
Prompted by recent social unrest in Ferguson, MO, New York City and Southern California, the Rev. Dr. Cecil Murray, Tansey Chair of Christian Ethics at USC and Chairman of the Cecil Murray …
Addressing Issues of Justice and Race after Trayvon Martin Case
Rev. Mark Whitlock, executive director of the USC Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement, published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Sentinel on the George Zimmerman trial verdict. “How do people living …
20th anniversary of LA riots puts Rev. Murray in media spotlight
Rev. Dr. Cecil “Chip” Murray has appeared in national and local news stories regarding the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles civil unrest. Twenty years ago this month, over a thousand fires …
Opening the Gates: L.A. Congregations Confronting Gang Violence
Los Angeles has been regarded as the epicenter of the nation’s gang epidemic for decades. What began as relatively localized battles over turf and small-scale drug sales in L.A. has morphed into …
Touring with L.A. Gang Tours
Our ongoing project on the Los Angeles Dream Center has introduced us to many memorable people, among them, Alfred Lomas. Alfred is the director of the Food Truck ministry at the Dream …
Imprisoned by Short-sighted Politics
This post originally appeared at Trans/Missions, the USC Knight Chair in Media and Religion site. In his recent state of the state address, Gov. Arnold Shwarzenegger addressed the issue of California’s prison …
Faith, Health and Policy : Public Health Reentry in San Diego
In August 2006, a collaboration of African American clergy, community-based organizations and state and county representatives joined together to form a Public Health Reentry Task Force to address the health care needs …
Faith, Health, and Policy: Public Health Reentry in San Diego
Richard Flory, senior research associate and research associate professor of sociology, documents the Regional Congregations and Neighborhood Organizations (RCNO) Training Center’s public health reentry program in San Diego. The RCNO effort addresses …
Practicing the Faith: A Conversation with Rev. Eugene Williams
The Rev. Eugene Williams was executive director of Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches (LAM), a coalition of forty small and midsize congregations that worked in South Central Los Angeles. In 1997, LAM advocated …