Abstract

Religious humanism sprung up across the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Unitarian congregations and leaders birthed many of these early religious humanist groups. However, among Unitarians, these groups were predominantly white and led by men until the late 1940s. In 1947, African Americans Lewis and Marcella McGee started the Free Religious Fellowship, a Unitarian congregation on the South Side of Chicago. Central to the fellowship’s mission was creating an interracial congregation that provided a religious home for middle-class black humanists and religious education for their children. This chapter briefly explores some of the internal and external challenges the fellowship faced and what ultimately prompted the McGees to leave for other opportunities.