This year, America celebrates its 250th Anniversary. It’s a moment of reflection for many historians, looking back the many figures throughout our founding who helped to shape this country. One such figure that many haven’t heard is Public Universal Friend, a nonbinary preacher from Rhode Island.
In her latest book, Not Your Founding Father: How A Nonbinary Minister Became America’s Most Radical Revolutionary, author and historian Nina Sankovitch focuses on Universal Friend’s beginnings in Rhode Island during the backdrop of the American Revolution and the religious awakening that led them to strive for the ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence.
