World War II Incarceration of Japanese Americans:  Intersections of Religious Freedom, Participatory Citizenship and Democracy

Diane C. Freedman Memorial Lecture 

Dr. Beth Hessel, Executive Director, Presbyterian Historical Society Philadelphia 

Drawing upon her research with the extensive Presbyterian Historical Society Archives on this topic, Dr. Hessel will speak on how belief in the primacy of Christianity and "whiteness” lay underneath the mass incarceration without due process of all West Coast Japanese American citizens and residents during WW II. Resistance to these beliefs of “primacy” helped to lead to later Civil Rights movements.