Colleen Wessel-McCoy, Ph.D.

Wessel-McCoy specializes in Christian social ethics with particular attention to the role of religion in US social movements. She is author of Freedom Church of the Poor: Martin Luther King Jr’s Poor People’s Campaign (Lexington, 2021), an examination of King’s theo-ethical and political vision for his last campaign. Before coming to Earlham School of Religion, she was Neely Visiting Professor of Religion and Public Policy at Arizona State and a lecturer at Union Theological Seminary in theology and field education. She has been part of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice, was a national educator with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, and is an interim co-chair of the National Welfare Rights Union. Her current research focuses on the leadership of the National Welfare Rights Organization of the 1960s and 70s.

• Ph.D., Christian Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary
• M.Div., Unition Theological Seminary
• B.A., Religion and Social Justice, Agnes Scott College