Madalyn Murray O'Hair founds American Atheists in 1963, the year the Supreme Court's decision in the case she brought ends state-sponsored Bible reading in public schools. Her organization's uncompromising brief for unbelief defines organized atheism's public face for a generation.
Tagged: Atheism Secular and Non-Theistic
The Event
- Date
- 1963 (exact)
- Era
- Secular Modernity; Standard periodization of secular and non-religious history
- Location
- Austin, Texas; today United States
- Traditions
- Secular
- Streams
- Atheism
- Key figures
- Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Primary Sources
- The tradition's own record of the event.
Secondary Sources
- Gottlieb, Anthony. The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy. New York: Liveright, 2016.
- Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004.
- Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
- Zuckerman, Phil, ed. Atheism and Secularity. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.
Provenance: HIST-1324; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-28.
Related on This Site
No image; the post explains why
Art Entry
AI-Generated Religious Art
Image generators now produce Christs, Buddhas, and temple scenes on demand. The traditions are answering; some with welcome, some with prohibitions that reach the new medium directly. This page shows no generated image, because any single example would misrepresent the argument.
Art Tradition
Non-Theistic and Secular
Art without transcendence: humanist meaning-making, museums as secular temples, and protest art.
Artist
Doris Salcedo
The Colombian sculptor of political violence's traces; her Fragmentos floor in Bogotá is a counter-monument hammered from surrendered weapons by women victims of the conflict.
Artist
Käthe Kollwitz
The German artist of grief: her Pietà, enlarged in Berlin's Neue Wache, is Germany's central memorial to the victims of war; a mother holding her dead son, made by a mother who lost hers.
History Event
Communist Manifesto
1848
History Event
Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity
1841
History Event
New Atheism
2004-2006
History Event
Nietzsche's Gay Science
1882
Art Tradition
Non-Theistic and Secular
Art without transcendence: humanist meaning-making, museums as secular temples, and protest art.
Artist
Doris Salcedo
The Colombian sculptor of political violence's traces; her Fragmentos floor in Bogotá is a counter-monument hammered from surrendered weapons by women victims of the conflict.
Artist
Käthe Kollwitz
The German artist of grief: her Pietà, enlarged in Berlin's Neue Wache, is Germany's central memorial to the victims of war; a mother holding her dead son, made by a mother who lost hers.
History Event
Communist Manifesto
1848
History Event
Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity
1841
History Event
New Atheism
2004-2006
History Event
Nietzsche's Gay Science
1882