Homer A. Jack | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1916-05-19)May 19, 1916 Rochester, New York, U.S. |
| Died | August 5, 1993(1993-08-05) (aged 77) Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Education | Meadville Theological School,Cornell University |
| Occupation(s) | political activist,Unitarian minister, committee chairmen |
| Known for | social activism, helped foundCongress of Racial Equality andNational Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) |
| Spouse(s) | Esther Rhys Williams, Ingebord Belk |
Homer A. Jack (May 19, 1916 – August 5, 1993) was anAmericanUnitarian Universalist clergyman pacifist and social activist who helped found theCongress of Racial Equality andNational Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE).
Jack was an only child to activesocialist andfreethinker parents. His grandparents had immigrated from central and easternEurope to escape oppression and poverty. Like his parents, the child Jack was a radical nature-worshiper who distrusted organized religion.[1] He met Esther Rhys Williams at Munroe High School, in the early 1930s, and the two married in 1939. The marriage would produce two children and end in divorce in the early 1970s.
Though in 1940 Jack received a Ph.D. inbiology fromCornell University, he decided to enter theUnitarian ministry. In 1944, he graduated fromMeadville Theological School inChicago.
While in Chicago, Jack led efforts and rallies to prevent the United States' entry intoWorld War II and foughtracial segregation. He was active in the publication of Rochester'sNo-War News and theFellowship of Reconciliation and helped organize the anti-war 1942 Chicago sit-in and the anti-segregationJourney of Reconciliation.
From 1942 to 1943, he served as aUnitarian minister inLawrence,Kansas, where he spoke out against Lawrence's "violently anti-Negro and anti-labor" stance.[1] He was the executive secretary of Chicago Council Against Racial and Religious Discrimination from 1943 to 1948, and from 1948 to 1959 served as the minister of the Unitarian Church of Evanston, Illinois.
Jack co-founded and was the associate director of the American Committee on Africa from 1959 to 1960, co-founded and served as executive director to theCongress of Racial Equality andNational Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) from 1960 to 1964, and directed the Social Responsibility Department of theUnitarian Universalist Association in Boston from 1964 to 1970. In that role, Jack convened the "Emergency Conference on Unitarian Universalist Response to the Black Rebellion" as an effort toward Black Empowerment in the UUA.[2] From 1970 to 1983, he was the secretary general of theWorld Conference of Religions for Peace in New York. Simultaneously, from 1973 to 1984, he chaired the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security at theUnited Nations Headquarters.[3]
In 1984, he served as a minister once again inWinnetka,Illinois, a position he would hold until 1989. That same year, he was awarded theNiwano Peace Prize.[1]
In the late 1980s, Jack retired from official positions and moved toSwarthmore,Pennsylvania, where he authored two books and continued to be active in various peace and human rights organizations.[3] He was awarded theJamnalal Bajaj Award in 1992.[4] He also remarried, to German Quaker Ingeborg Belck.[1] He died of cancer in Swarthmore in 1993. Jack's autobiography was published posthumously in 1996 asHomer's Odyssey: My Quest for Peace and Justice.[3][5]
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