The International Commission to Combat Religious Racism (ICCRR) is a non-profit organization founded to study and combat “religious racism.”
Executive Board
Dr. Danielle N. Boaz
President, ICCRR
Professor of Africana Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Dr. Gustavo Melo Cerqueira
Vice President, ICCRR
Babalorixá of Ilê Axé Omi Ogun siwajú
Commission Goals
1) Raise awareness about religious racism
- Hold events focused on religious racism and religious freedom
- Produce and publish reports about religious racism
2) Promote the right and freedom to practice all religions through international collaboration
- Create transnational working groups to address important barriers to religious freedom
- Partner with national and international organizations to combat religious intolerance
3) Develop networks of researchers, activists, lawyers, and legislators who are working to understand and combat religious racism
Our Projects
Religious Racism in Brazil
A data set, map visualization, and report on 500 cases of religious racism against Afro-Brazilian faiths in Brazil since 2000.
Religious Racism in North America
A report analyzing 50 cases of racially motivated attacks on places of worship and religious community centers in the United States and Canada. The report is designed to provide some insights about the patterns and statistics that can be observed from these cases.
Special Issue on Race, Religion and Nationalism
Dr. Boaz and Dr. Cerqueira are guest editors of a special issue of the journal Religions on “Race, Religion, and Nationalism in the 21st Century.” This issue will feature ten articles exploring the relationship between race, religion and nationalism in the United States, Brazil, Sri Lanka, and India, among other places. Dr. Boaz and Dr. Cerqueira are writing an introduction to the special issue that will explore the definition of “religious racism” and its relationship to religious nationalism. All the articles published in the special issue are open access (available to read free of charge).
