Interfaith

Philadelphia’s long-standing encouragement of religious freedom is rooted in the religious commitment of William Penn, Pennsylvania’s founder. In 1681 Penn, a Quaker, founded Pennsylvania as a haven for religious diversity in the colonies. “The king of...

Omaha is a small city in the center of the Great Plains, the largest metropolitan area in the state of Nebraska. A city of 419,000 in a state of less than two million, Omaha is notable not only for its size but also for its diversity. While African...

New York City is perhaps the only city in the world where one can find a kosher Indian vegetarian restaurant run by Hindus and a halal Chinese restaurant run by Buddhists. The religious and ethnic diversity of the city’s five boroughs is a far cry from...

Milwaukee, Wisconsin is a city marked by the flourishing of diversity and by the challenge of persistent segregation. From a French trading post beginning in the 1670s to the city’s founding in the 1830s, Milwaukee’s early decades were dominated by German...

When heavyweight boxing champion and Louisville native Muhammad Ali became a Muslim in 1964 there was not a single mosque in his hometown. Located at the northern cusp of the Bible Belt, the city is known for Louisville Slugger baseball bats and its large...

Los Angeles is truly a cosmopolis—a world city. Its many ethnic and religious communities are so large that each one has a vibrant life of its own. Sprawling today over nearly five hundred square miles, Los Angeles got its start in 1771 as a small Spanish...

The lights of Las Vegas glitter for miles along a stretch of highway, an oasis in the vast Mojave Desert, just east of Death Valley. In the nineteenth century, the city—its name Spanish for “the meadows”—became a beacon for Mormon settlers headed west...

From early on, Kansas City signaled a “land of opportunity” for travelers in search of a fresh start. Beginning in the 1830s, the growing settlement at the convergence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers became the first stop for many Mormons trekking along...

In Jacksonville, Florida, one interfaith leader explains, religion is like the sugar in sweet tea: “It permeates every aspect of life. … I can’t think of much that isn’t touched by religion in one way or another.” The city is predominantly, often...

Houston, once a small oil and rail yard town, is America’s second fastest growing city, covering an area slightly smaller than Massachusetts but bigger than New Jersey. The city is also one where no single ethnic group claims more than 33 percent of the...