Christopher Gurley Jr

• M.A. in American History, Stanford University
• M.A.R. in the History of Christianity, Yale University Divinity School 
• M.T.S., Vanderbilt University Divinity School 
• B.S., Tennessee State University  

Christopher S. Gurley Jr. is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Religious Studies Department at Stanford University. His research investigates the intersections of African American history and U.S. Catholicism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Currently, his research explores Black Religion and historical memory, the role of class and the politics of belonging in the shaping of Black identity, and the dynamics of race and racialization within U.S. Catholic history. His research has been supported by the Center for the Study of Global Catholicism at Saint Louis University, the Louisville Institute, and the Center for Comparative Study in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. 

He is a proud alumnus of Tennessee State University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science. He later pursued graduate studies in theological studies, religion, and American history, earning degrees from Vanderbilt Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, and the History Department at Stanford University.