AAR focus group hears Freedom’s Hill story
One of the programming options for the teachers of religion from colleges and universities across the Southeast was an interest group session on teaching for social change. Bob Black, professor of religion at Southern Wesleyan University, represented the Division of Religion as one of four panelists at that session and presented a paper entitled, “Bullet Holes in the Door: Making Room in the Academy for the Role of Faith in Pursuit of Social Justice.” Black recounted the abolitionist roots of the historic old church as background for a description of the ways in which Freedom’s Hill serves as a witness to and a laboratory for social justice on the campus of Southern Wesleyan.
He argued that faith has always been a powerful catalyst for social change, and while religion professors in secular schools may not be able to advocate faith in the classroom, they can recognize and appreciate its role in changing our world for the better.
The panel was chaired by Dr. Derrick Lemons, a 1994 graduate of Southern Wesleyan University and a member of the religion faculty of the University of Georgia.
The historic church was originally built in the Snow Camp community of what is now Alamance County, N.C. and dedicated in March 1848. It was moved to Southern Wesleyan’s campus in Central in 2000.