Life Cycles of the CRC
Celebrating Eight Years of Collaborative Work
with the Center for Religion & Cities
April 18, 2026 Symposium at Morgan State University
Saturday, April 18, 2026 from 9:30 AM - 4:30 PM ET at Morgan State University Memorial Chapel 4307 Hillen Road, Baltimore, MD
The Center for Religion and Cities (CRC) was founded in 2018 as a group of researchers, students, community leaders, and other partners dedicated to cultivating an ecological understanding of pressing issues related to religion and cities. After eight years of collaborative inquiry, we invite all who have been involved in CRC activities over the years to join us this coming spring. Guided by lessons learned, this symposium provides a space to collectively explore how the quality of our lives and labor improve through the relational and iterative ways we move through change. In this spirit, we will reflect upon how the CRC has impacted the ways we understand our vital endeavors– the work of critiquing inequities, imagining better futures, and bringing to life visions for a beloved community– for a more just city. Rather than anticipating any sense of completion, this gathering aims to sustain an ongoing flow between: [1] reflective stillness, [2] hopeful dreaming, [3] intentional sharing+listening, and [4] visions for future collaborative action.
Suggested Resources on Baltimore
Baltimore American Indian Center
https://www.baltimoreamericanindiancenter.org/
The Baltimore American Indian Center (BAIC) is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1968 with a mission to “assist and support American Indian and Alaskan Native families moving into an urban environment and adjusting to the culture change they will experience.” While the BAIC was founded by Lumbee Tribal Members, the Center is open to Native community members from all tribes and nations. The BAIC is one of two resources in the greater Baltimore area where Natives can learn what it means to be American Indian and that educates non-Native people about the myriad cultures and legacies of American Indian and Alaskan Native peoples. BAIC provides a safe space for the Native community to gather and where cultural practices are kept alive.
Center for Religion and Cities’ Good Life Project: Baltimore
https://ourgood.life/baltimore
Baltimore’s residential racial segregation created a lack of access to healthy foods, pre-existing health disparities, and higher rates of COVID-19 for its communities of color. Spiritually and morally inspired organizations stepped up to provide food and supplies and workshops on gardening as meditative practice. In partnership with Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm and others, we asked: what role does food play in our visions of what the “good life” can be after the pandemic? Our GoodLife Project in Baltimore helped to support gardening, free food distribution, and food art by Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm and others.
Center for Religion and Cities’ Walking in the City Guide
https://www.religionandcities.org/walking
The CRCs Walking Fellowships explore and grow “walking in the city” as a methodology for engaging religion and cities by reading about walking practices then facilitating a discussion of these while walking in the city. Through walking fellowships, tours, and other learning experiences, the CRC offers ongoing opportunities to reflect on our values and relationships to land and communities, to intentionally plan our next steps, and to grow to become who we want to be.
The Walters Art Museum
Douriean Fletcher: Jewelry of the Afrofuture
https://thewalters.org/news/jewelry-of-the-afrofuture/
On April 18, the Walters Art Museum opened Douriean Fletcher: Jewelry of the Afrofuture, a major museum show dedicated to this self-taught jewelry artist, whose work spans costume, film, and independent design. Douriean Fletcher explores the artist’s jewelry as a powerful narrative tool in art, Black identity, and visual storytelling through over 100 works.
The Walters Art Museum
https://thewalters.org/exhibitions/latinoamericano/
Latin American Art / Arte Latinoamericano presents more than 200 artworks from the museum’s expansive collection of art from South, Central, and North America and the Caribbean in one contiguous space for the first time in the museum’s history.
