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Religious Leaders

The preachers, prophets, dissenters, and founders who shaped American faith, from Puritan heretics to the revivalists of the television age.

A stark Puritan meetinghouse arranged as a courtroom with a single empty stool
Anne Hutchinson
The Puritan dissenter tried and banished from Massachusetts Bay, 1638
An empty stadium at dusk with a pulpit on a platform and rows of folding chairs on the field
Billy Graham
The evangelist who preached to more people than anyone in history and counseled presidents
A small brick jail at dusk with an open book on the step and a distant temple on a bluff
Joseph Smith
The prophet who founded the Latter-day Saint movement and was killed by a mob
A modest brick church at sunrise with an open door, a plain pulpit, and an anvil by the wall
Richard Allen
The formerly enslaved preacher who founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church