Major funding for Backstories provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

From Virginia Humanities, this is Backstory.

Welcome to Backstory, the show that explains the history behind the headlines. I'm Joanne Freeman.

Each week, my colleagues Nathan Connelly, Brian Ballot, Ed Ayers, and I explore a different aspect of American history.

The free exercise clause of the First Amendment forms the basis for the separation of church and state, and you probably know the line.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote that he contemplated this principle of separation with, quote, sovereign reverence and sincere satisfaction.

And yet, throughout American history, this principle hasn't stopped Americans from using religious differences to draw boundaries around who is and isn't American.

For instance, Fox News host Jeanine Piro recently suggested that Congresswoman Ilan Omar supports Sharia law and opposes the Constitution because she wears a hijab.

Piro isn't alone in seeing Muslim Americans as somehow un-American.

A 2018 Democracy Fund study found that, quote, on average, Americans believe that only 51% of Muslim Americans respect American ideals and laws.

So today on the show, we're digging into the backstory archives to bring you a selection of segments that look at religious identity in America, how faiths, cultures, and rituals adapted to American life.

We start today's show at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

The Fair put American progress on view, and alongside the cultural pavilions and technological feats on display, stood a meeting hall for a series of intellectual events.

And the event's called Congresses.

Last year, Ed spoke to scholar Matt Headstrom about the Congress dedicated to faith, the Parliament of the World's Religions.

Most attendees were English-speaking Protestants, but Catholic and Jewish representatives made the trip as well.

But there were a significant number of Buddhists and Hindus, smaller numbers of Muslims, Jains, representatives of Shinto from Japan.

Sometimes they were called the Enlightened Heathens, those who were not Christians, but who had civilization, who had great ideas to contribute.

The Congress was the fulfillment of a dream articulated a year before by Chicago minister John Henry Barros, president of the Parliament.

In front of a huge crowd at New York's Madison Square Garden, he had outlined his vision.

For the first time in history, the representatives of the leading historic faiths will meet in fraternal conference over the great things of human life and destiny.

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