The Founders Wall
As we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, we are reminded that America is not a finished story—it’s being written every day. The people who show up and fight for positive change in their schools, churches, communities, and neighborhoods are the ones who continually found our country, shaping it into a place that lives up to Constitutional ideals of liberty and justice. Scroll through to read the stories of people and organizations across time and geography who truly make up the founding generation!
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Dr. Kylan Pew
Kylan promotes positivity and accessibility as a “Black Theological Creative.” In 2019, he created The Black Seminarians Table, an incubator of black theological imagination and expression to support the voice and experiences of black seminarians. His social media content serves as a gentle reminder to be kind to ourselves in a world that seems determined to break us.
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Isaac Backus
A Baptist minister who wrote An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty in 1773, he made the case that taxing citizens to support an established church was a violation of conscience. Backus brought the Baptist argument directly to the Continental Congress. He also was a founder of Brown University, which — in a first for its time — accepted students from all religious affiliations.
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Matthew Best
A Lutheran pastor, Matthew is a co-founder of the Memorial Blanket Project, a homelessness awareness initiative that is going into its 6th year. The Project asks people to make and send in blankets, and they are made into a large display to highlight the issue of homelessness and what can be done about it. All the blankets are given out at the end of the night to those who need them.
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Lorraine and Chris Harry
Lorraine and Chris lead Claremont Christian Fellowship: a queer-affirming, justice-seeking, question-loving community at The Claremont Colleges in Southern California. Their organization strives to make space for students to wrestle with and live out their faith in tangible ways. “That can look like building community, fostering dialogue, volunteering together at food banks, participating in protests, or simply resting together,” Lorraine says.
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Martin Luther King Jr.
A Baptist minister who became the moral conscience of America, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. drew on Scripture, Baptist theology, and the Declaration of Independence as he argued that segregation was a violation of the God-given dignity of every person. His campaigns in Birmingham and Selma demonstrated that faith is not a private matter — it is a public obligation.
We Want to Hear From You
Who is a founder in your view? Is it you? Someone you know? Someone from history? We want to hear from you!
