Where religious diversity becomes a civic asset
Justice Leaders Fellowship
The ICJS Justice Leaders Fellowship is a 10-month intensive program for local community, nonprofit, and civic leaders to study and dialogue together. The fellowship draws on the rich resources of diverse religious traditions to inform and inspire a more just Baltimore and to discover how religious pluralism is key to a democratic society.
Fellows come from diverse religious backgrounds and demonstrate success and leadership in a wide variety of fields, including advocacy, arts, public and mental health, nonprofit leadership, government, and entrepreneurship. The Fellowship meets once a month from September through June.
Justice Leader Fellows are committed to increasing interreligious understanding and cooperation to consider contemporary issues of justice through the lenses of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish teachings and traditions. For the 2022-2023 cohort, Fellows will work with each other and ICJS scholars to investigate economic justice.
The program is directed by Fatimah Fanusie, Ph.D., Program Director, Justice Leaders.
The Justice Leaders Fellowship is supported in part by the Center for the Study of Religion and the City at Morgan State University with support from the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional funding is from the David and Barbara B. Hirschhorn Foundation.
Benefits
- Exploration of how interreligious tools can be applied to your own justice work
- Relationship-building among cohort of community leaders
- Access to a rich network of Justice Leaders alumni
- Increased interreligious literacy
- Stipend
Commitments
- 10 monthly meetings (Sept. 2022 to June 2023)
- 1 reflection essay or video (published at icjs.org)
- Small group project
Justice Leader Fellowship Rosters
Coming Together as a Community of Believers
“If we could somehow invigorate a whole community of believers in this city to understand that the destiny of Baltimore is waiting for us all to come together…we could make some great changes in this city.“
—Leon F. Pinkett III, ICJS 2021 Justice Leader Fellow
Justice Leader Voices
Baltimore Youth Experience Dignity Through First Jobs
I came to Baltimore for my first job, as the first full-time employee at Dent Education, a youth-centered social enterprise empowering Baltimore youth to be social innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs. There are many ICJS Justice Leaders Fellowship (JLF) concepts that have evolved my understanding of economic justice through a religious lens and informed how I…
Finding Our Spiritual Truth
The human experience is a complex and often disorienting ride. Collectively, we encounter common questions over and over again through the chapters of our lives and the long arc of human history. We ask: “What’s it all for? What is my purpose in this life? How can we be good to one another?” These questions…
The Building Blocks to Economic Justice
Interacting and engaging with peers and colleagues from other faiths has opened my eyes to a few issues. I realized that prejudice and bias exist not only towards Muslims, but also other groups. In many situations it manifests its ugly face as an outcome of unintentional ignorance and cultural baggage, influenced by media and societal…
Faith, Wealth, and Social Justice
I lead a Baltimore nonprofit that operates from a foundation of faith and explicit values that acknowledges the following: Work is fundamental to the dignity of the person; Work is God’s invitation to be co-creators and co-laborers in creation’s unfinished work; every person is created in God’s image; and that through our own lived experiences,…