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News, events, updates, and tidbits from the Presbyterian Historical Society. Use tags to read related articles or sort by author for similar posts written by PHS staff members and volunteers.

August 14, 2023

Sixty years ago this month, over 200,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the endpoint of a massive protest march organized to draw attention to the Civil Rights Movement. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom may be most famous for serving as the backdrop of Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic speech, best...

August 1, 2023

Bruce Klunder (July 12, 1937-April 7, 1964) became aware of the civil rights movement when he was 18 years old. At the young age of 26, he lost his life fighting for that same cause.

The Reverend Bruce Klunder died protesting the construction of a segregated school in Cleveland, Ohio, in April of 1964. During the protest, several other activists used their bodies as blockades, throwing themselves on the ground to block a bulldozer’s path. As the driver backed away from them, he drove over Klunder, who had laid down behind the machine. Klunder’s death was ultimately ruled...

February 24, 2022

-- By James S. Currie, Executive Secretary, Presbyterian Historical Society of the Southwest

The Presbyterian Historical Society of the Southwest exists to “stimulate and encourage interest in the collection, preservation, and presentation of the Presbyterian and Reformed heritage in the four state area” of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. The Presbyterian Historical Society (Philadelphia) is thrilled to partner with PHS of the Southwest to share stories of Presbyterian figures occluded from memory. This column will try to highlight the life of one Cumberland...

February 15, 2022

In the wake of Brown v. Board ending legal segregation, and contending with the decades-long flight of white families from city centers, Presbyterians undertook efforts to merge city congregations, both as a practical and a moral matter. Second Presbyterian Church in Maryville Tennessee was merged into New Providence. Berea in St. Louis ministered to new white congregants as its Black...

January 31, 2022
"Etta June Johnson comes from Edisto Island, S.C., to the Robert Davis home in Pulaski, N.Y. - 1966. Dr. Patton goes over tests with Etta June alone." RG 303, Box 6, Folder 76

In the 1960s, the UPCUSA Board of National Missions (BNM) established a program that extracted Black students "of promise" from the South and set them up with host...

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