Proclaim Liberty

This is the story how the First Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia in 1774. It shows how colonial clergy, their pulpits, and pamphlets were key to building solidarity with Boston after the British closed Boston harbor, strangulating the economy of New England. It traces how clergy alerted their congregations to the impending loss of civil, economic and religious liberty. Philadelphia is featured as the most religiously diverse and open city of colonial America. It contains a rich debate among the Founding Fathers on politics and religion, and early concepts for the separation of Church and State. It reveals complexities around the role of religion in pre-Revolutionary Colonial America.