Gaston Espinosa, the Arthur V. Stoughton Professor of Religious Studies, was awarded a Faculty Grant from the Louisville Institute for his book project, The Spiritual Impulse of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. In the book, Espinosa will explore the various ways religious traditions, beliefs, rhetoric, justice, symbols, art, and music influenced the Chicano/a civil rights struggles and the often-combinative political spirituality that its leaders, like César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, and others, used in socially and politically disruptive ways. In doing so, he shows how they contributed to major social change in the Southwest from 1965-1975, and to the broader civil rights movement and U.S. history writ large.