Theodore Parker, a graduate of Harvard and clergyman, was another abolitionist. For him, the freedom of America was directly related to its foundation on Christianity as he states in The American Idea, “A democracy-that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness’ sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.”[54] If it were not for these men as well as others, would slavery
have ended when it did? The abolitionist movement and the
civil rights movement were largely inspired by religious
communities and both changed America for the better.[55] Many of the mass protests
during the Civil Rights movement were organized by the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization of
black churches and ministers headed by the Reverend Martin
Luther King Jr.[56] These social movements “were both nurtured in
churches, publicly justified in religious language, and
unapologetically inspired by the Word of God.”[57]