As our nation commemorates the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, recent events like the shooting of Trayvon Martin remind us that despite the progress from the Jim Crow south we have yet to reach Dr. King’s Beloved Community. As President Obama noted at the celebration of King’s speech, we have to “reignite the embers of empathy and the coalition of conscience born in this place.” Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour of the week as Dr. King once lamented. Even in integrated churches, racial issues are often avoided limiting the church’s contribution to racial justice. Yet the body of literature on this subject insists the church should be the answer to the problem of race. Thus, if the church is going to move pass the acknowledgement that racial division is anti-biblical to seeking racial justice the following question needs to be answered: How can the church provide a safe place to have a productive conversation about race, develop authentic interracial relationships, and collectively combat racial injustice? Since black remains the antithesis of white on the racial spectrum (Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists) I will focus on cities and churches with a significant population of both, in hopes that what can work in the most tenuous racial relationships will generalize to the church at large. I propose to conduct surveys and interviews with pastors and laity in multiracial churches in Baltimore, MD, Cincinnati, OH and Atlanta, GA. I will identify current approaches to discussing race, evaluate the frequency and depth of interracial relationships, and examine the role of these churches in combating racial injustice. With this research, I will then create resources for the church at large to effectively facilitate interracial discussion, cultivate cross racial relationships, and a form coalitions for racial justice. Through these advances, the church can better model the Beloved Community for society.