TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - An archivist at the University of Kansas plans to launch a four-part podcast next year focused on telling the current stories of Black churches in northeast Kansas.
Patricia Cecil, an archivist associate in the university’s Department of Religious Studies, developed the “Faith in the Free State” project and recently received a $10,000 grant from the nonprofit Humanities Kansas, The Topeka Capital-Journal reports.
Cecil has studied and archived much of Kansas’ history related to religion and religious faiths. She decided to focus on Black churches in the region after witnessing renewed racial justice activism over the summer and knowing how churches adapted to new ways of gathering because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a way to kind of document this living history that is actively happening now,” Cecil said. “So we just thought that would be a really timely and interesting part of Kansas religious history to be able to document right now.”
Cecil plans to begin looking in January for interns in January who will do background research and interview Black church leaders in northeast Kansas.
The project’s timeline has the first two podcast episodes debuting in early summer 2021 and the second two in late summer or early fall 2021.
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