1930

• Charles E. Fuller, perhaps the most popular evangelist to appear on the scene between Billy Sunday and Billy Graham, begins his long-lived radio program The Radio Revival Hour, later called The Old Fashioned Revival Hour. On October 3, 1937, he moves to the Mutual Broadcasting Network, where he developed one of the largest audiences ever for religious programs.
• On February 26, The Green Pastures, a controversial depiction of African American religiosity by white playwright Marc Connelly, opens in New York. The play, written in 1929 and based on Roark Bradford's sketches Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun (1928), wins the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
• On July 4, in a speech to supporters in Detroit, W.D. Fard (later known as Wallace Fard Muhammad) announces that he is the Mahdi, the chosen messenger to Muslims, and institutes the Nation of Islam. During his short ministry, Fard would...