Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity School

1. Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity School An Exhibit of Manuscripts and Special Collections at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

2. Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity SchoolCivil Rights Selma to Montgomery Violence in Jackson Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ware Lecture, 1966

3. Selma to Montgomery, 1965 Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

4. Selma to Montgomery Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

5. Violence in Jackson • Donald Thompson, minister of the First Unitarian Church of Jackson, Mississippi, was shot and gravely injured outside of his home on August 22nd, 1965. The attack followed telephone threats on his life, threats stemming from his efforts to integrate his congregation in Jackson. • Thompson moved to Jackson to establish a civil rights ministry. In addition to his congregational work, he also was one of the founders of Jackson’s coffee fellowship, a weekly discussion group that brought together both white and black ministers and lay people. Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

6. The Ware Lecture, 1966 • Martin Luther King, Jr., Dana McLean Greeley, and Homer Jack, director of the UUA Department of Social Concerns, at the 1966 UUA General Assembly in Hollywood, Florida. Dr. King delivered the Ware Lecture to this annual denominational assembly. • King, Greeley, and Jack had walked together in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery civil rights march. Dr. Greeley’s tenure as UUA President included a major -and controversial- civil rights focus throughout the 1960s. Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

7. Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity SchoolAbolition Fugitive Slave Act, 1850

8. New England Ministers Resolve to Oppose the Fugitive Slave Act, 1850. • An 1850 amendment to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 included a provision mandating the return of fugitive slaves. About nine hundred fugitive slaves, of an estimated ten thousand, were returned under the 1850 act. • This resolution of the Barnstable County Association of Universalists was signed by several prominent New England area abolitionist ministers. The ministers resolved that the 1850 amendment was “directly opposed to the spirit of our holy religion” and that they would “use all honorable means to effect its repeal.” Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

9. Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity SchoolPeace Ministries William Ellery Channing, 1816 Paul Tillich, 1942-45 Draft Resistance, 1940

10. Channing’s Sermon on War, 1816 • William Ellery Channing, minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston, formed the Peace Society of Massachusetts on December 28th, 1815. The foundation of this organization emanated from Channing’s earlier work with a group of Congregational ministers to better inform public perception of the brutality of war. • Channing often used his sermons to express his opposition to the War of 1812. Here, he details typical horrors and miseries of war and notes a contradiction between public damnation of isolated violence and public acceptance of the “idea of human beings employing every power and faculty in the work of mutual destruction.” Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

11. Paul Tillich’s Voice of America in Germany, 1942-1945 • Paul Tillich, German theologian and chaplain to the German army in World War I, emigrated from Germany in 1933, as Nazi ideologies became prominent. • Shortly after the United States joined the Allied effort in 1941, the U.S. Office of War Information asked Tillich to write Voice of America addresses to the German People. More than one hundred of Tillich’s drafted addresses were broadcast to the German people between 1942 and 1945 urging Germans to recognize the injustice and cruelty of Hitler's regime and the need for the “True Germany” to resist him. Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

12. Draft Resistance, 1940 • On October 16th, 1940, Howard Schomer, a minister of the United Church of Christ, reported to his draft board in Oak Park, Illinois, to declare his conscientious objection. The draft automatically exempted ministers and divinity students from service upon registration but did not give them the opportunity to enlist as conscientious objectors. Schomer was arrested by U.S. Marshals one month later for his protest action. The Illinois Selective Service Board changed their policies soon after, however, and Schomer enlisted as a conscientious objector. He performed alternative service through the American Friends Service Committee. Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

13. Congregational Petitions for Amnesty • Throughout the twentieth century, many American denominations have operated educational and support programs for conscientious objectors to help frame the argument that objection is a moral alternative to the selective service. • The petitions shown here were signed at numerous congregations to supplement a 1973 UUA General Assembly resolution and to call on the U.S. congress to provide universal amnesty “in the spirit of pride in the moral conscience of its [members]…” Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

14. Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity SchoolSuffrage and Equal Rights Preaching on the Biblical Place of Women and Men Reverend Olympia Brown

15. Preaching on the Biblical Place of Women and Men • Ezra Stiles Gannett, Channing’s assistant and eventual successor at Federal Street Church, continued Channing’s explorations of theological positions about social equality among races and among men and women. • In this 1857 sermon, Gannett stated, “While the true ground of equality between the sexes lies in those doctrines…which Christ has established, the rightful position of women is asserted throughout the the whole history of the Jewish people, from Miriam (Moses’ sister) …to the books of the Prophets.” Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

16. The Reverend Olympia Brown • In June 1863 at the St. Lawrence Association of Universalists (New York), Olympia Brown became the first woman fully ordained by any denomination in America. Brown would serve in Universalist congregations throughout the nation, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Wisconsin. • A staunch advocate of women’s rights, Brown co-founded the New England Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1868. While in Wisconsin, she served as president of the state Woman Suffrage Association for twenty-eight years. She was also vice-president of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

17. Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity SchoolTemperance The Temperance Movement Type Talks on Alcohol

18. The Temperance Movement • Temperance has been a consistent tenet of American religions since the colonial period. Numerous ministers in numerous denominations regularly have addressed the theme in sermons and writings. • The Unitarian Temperance Society published hundreds of pamphlets and informational brochures to inform public opinion about the place of alcohol in society. The cards in this photograph were printed probably just as American Prohibition was repealed. Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

19. Type Talks on Alcohol-No. 4 Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

20. Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity SchoolCommunity Action and Influence George LaPiana and Felix Frankfurter Jordan Neighborhood House

21. George La Piana and Felix Frankfurter • Professor George La Piana, Morison Professor of Church History at Harvard Divinity School from 1926-1948, was born in Italy and ordained a Catholic priest in 1900. He came to the United States in 1913 and began teaching at Harvard in 1916. La Piana was a leading figure in the modernist controversy in the Roman Catholic Church in the early 20th century. • This correspondence to La Piana from Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter reveals the informal role of counseling between the friends and the intellectual connections between theology and jurisprudence. In the letter, Frankfurter asks La Piana for a summary of the historical progression of the social understanding of the word “sacrilege.” Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

22. Jordan Neighborhood House, Suffolk Virginia • Founded in 1896 in Suffolk, Virginia by the Reverend Dr. Joseph Dexter Jordan, an African American Universalist minister, the Jordan Neighborhood House was an elementary school for black children. Later, as public schools began to take on these educational responsibilities, the center became a kindergarten and nursery school. • With the support of the Universalist Church of America and the Association of Universalist Women, Jordan Neighborhood House later offered counseling for mothers, pre-natal and infant health clinics, and music programs for teenagers. Selected items from the current exhibit at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

23. Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity SchoolAn Exhibit of Manuscripts and Special Collections at Andover-Harvard Theological LibraryMarch 11, 1999 Compiled by Tim Driscoll and Molly Ruggles, with assistance from Mark Russell, Wolfgang Freitag, Tom Jenkins, Charles Willard, Gloria Korsman, Drew Daley, Ben Rota, Jon Stokes, Jian-Tong Xia, Heather Reid and Sara Smolik.