Renee K. Harrison, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of African American and U.S. Religious History at Howard University. She joined the School of Divinity faculty in the fall of 2010.
Before her appointment at Howard, Harrison was an Assistant Professor of African American Religious History, Practices, and Culture at Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio. She also served as the Visiting Assistant Professor and Interim Director of Black Church Studies at Candler School of Theology after completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Religious Practices and Practical Theology at Emory.
Harrison's research interests include an interdisciplinary and interfaith approach to African American religious history and culture, early American religious history, black feminist/womanist thought, aesthetic theory and the arts, phenomenology, and rituals of healing and resistance. Harrison is the recipient of awards, grants, and fellowships. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism (major) and African American Studies (minor) from California State University Northridge in Northridge, California; Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Religious Studies (with honors) from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia; and Ph.D. in Religion with an interdisciplinary concentration in history, philosophy, African American Studies, and feminist/womanist thought from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Her most recent publication, Black Hands, White House: Slave Labor and the Making of America (Fortress Press, Nov 2021), documents and appraises the role enslaved women and men played in building the U.S. and its physical and fiscal infrastructure. The manuscript highlights the material commodities produced by enslaved communities during the Transatlantic Slave Trade that enriched European and U.S. economies and contributed to the material and monetary wealth of the nation's founders, other early European immigrants, and their descendants. Given the enslaved community's contribution to the U.S., Black Hands questions the absence of memorials (e.g., stand-alone monuments) on the National Mall that honor enslaved Black-bodied people. Harrison calls for a particular kind of Enslaved Labor Memorial to redress the nation's historical disregard for Black people and America's role in their forced migration, violent subjugation, and free labor.
Harrison is currently working on a book project about Native Americans’ contributions, tentatively titled Smudging Our Way Through Broken Treaties: Native American Spirituality and American Genocide. Her other publications include Enslaved Women and the Art of Resistance in Antebellum America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Engaged Teaching in Theology and Religion, co-author with Dr. Jennie Knight, University of Virginia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
A native of Los Angeles, California, Dr. Harrison is a retired 11-year veteran of the LAPD and the former director of A Leap of Faith Productions, a non-profit community-based theatre group in Los Angeles. She is an artist, poet, and playwright who loves teaching! She also enjoys spending her spare time researching and writing, walking on the beach, playing and watching tennis, and traveling with her spouse Yolonda and pup Satchmo.
Religion (Interdisciplinary Focus - History, African American studies, Philosophy, Feminist Thought)
Emory University
2006
Religion
Interdenominational Theological Center
2000
Journalism (minor in African American Studies)
California State University - Northridge
1984
Survey of the Black Sacred Diaspora traditions in the United States
Focused on the Transatlantic slave Trade and pre-colonial West African traditions and religions "transplanted" to the American colonies
Focused on Ifa, Dog, Vodun, Santeria, Obeah, Lumina, Black Folk Tradition, Islam, Native American, Catholic, and Buddhist healing practices
Stones from the Jordan: The Dynamism of FTE From 1954 - 2024
The late historian Vincent Harding once said, in his seminal work, There Is a River, that in telling the story of the Black struggle for freedom in America, he vowed to honor “creators and the children of the river” and to remain “faithful to the truth of their experience” as he “saw it, read it, and felt it.” In this brief history of FTE, with a focus on Stephen Lewis’ leadership years, I hope you will feel proud of the children of the river and their work in gathering stones in preparation for today’s and tomorrow’s journeys.
The D.C. Compensation Act as Precedent for Reparations in Black Hands, White House: Slave Labor and the Making of America
Black Hands, White House documents and appraises the role enslaved women and men played in building the US, both its physical and its fiscal infrastructure. The book highlights the material commodities produced by enslaved communities during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. These commodities--namely tobacco, rice, sugar, and cotton, among others--enriched European and US economies; contributed to the material and monetary wealth of the nation's founding fathers, other early European immigrants, and their descendants; and bolstered the wealth of present-day companies founded during the American slave era. Critical to this study are also examples of enslaved laborers' role in building Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and George Washington's Mount Vernon. Subsequently, their labor also constructed the nation's capital city, Federal City (later renamed Washington, DC), its seats of governance--the White House and US Capitol--and other federal sites and memorials.
Reparations and the Theological Disciplines: Prophetic Voices for Remembrance, Reckoning, and Repair
Historically, many churches and theologians defended and supported race-based slavery and subsequent forms of racial hierarchy and violence. The essays in Reparations and the Theological Disciplines argue that it is urgent that the theological disciplines engage the issue of reparations by revisiting Scripture and our theological traditions. The time is now for remembrance, reckoning, and repair.
Among the Cloud of Witnesses: Rosemary Radford Ruether
Harrison offers a tribute to Rosemary Radford Ruether in the light of a host of womanist and feminist scholars who helped shape and inform the scholar and teacher she is today. Although Harrison has never met Ruether, the two women have something in common: Howard University. Ruether’s legacy lives on, and this pioneer, who has joined the cloud of witnesses, continues to influence Harrison’s vocational pathways.
Think your vote doesn’t count? Then why are people trying to suppress it?
Op-ed in The Washington Post, 2016
Dr. Renee K. Harrison discusses the need for a critical look at U.S. history and conversations on racial disparities.
As conflicts and controversies swirl around the ways in which historical narratives shape our individual and collective consciousness, Dr. Renee Harrison and Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss share stories of one UCC local church’s antiracist practice of historical excavation.
