This project focuses on archival research and personal interviews on the person and work of Pedro Albizu Campos (1891-1965), the “Apostle of Puerto Rican Independence.” While not well-known in the English-speaking world, he was an important, if not always fully understood, figure in Puerto Rican history. From the 1920s through the 1950s, Albizu Campos, a Black Puerto Rican, Harvard-trained lawyer, led the Nationalist Party in Puerto Rico that sought independence from the US, for which he was hailed as "the apostle of Puerto Rican independence.” Thus his work echoed for many in Latin America and Puerto the religious missionary work of the first century Christian figure, Paul of Tarsus. This research project, conducted by a Puerto Rican religion scholar, who has been studying the writings of and about Pedro Albizu Campos for several years, proposes to explore archival materials on Albizu Campos at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies in New York City, as well as materials on Albizu Campos at his alma mater, the Harvard Law School, and the Institute for Caribbean Studies at the University of Puerto Rico. In addition, the writings and speeches of Albizu Campos, originally written or delivered in Spanish, will be further mined in order to better understand in particular the religious dimensions of his efforts. Some have published on the influence of his Roman Catholic faith, but how has Albizu Campos been understood as an "apostle" and how, more specifically, did his religiosity and spirituality impact his political activity? The eventual goal of this research, beyond this proposed grant project, will be an extensive, scholarly, book-length study of these issues in the story of Pedro Albizu Campos, in English, which is very much needed in interdisciplinary studies of Puerto Rican history, politics, and religion, as understood from the perspective of this religion scholar, who is a product of the Puerto Rican diaspora and the Latinx church in the US.