Margaret Laurence (July 18, 1926-January 5, 1987), a much-loved Canadian author, was one of the great novelists of the twentieth century. Her stories feature strong women and their struggles for self-understanding and acceptance. She was known for her outspoken support of peace, women’s rights, and other progressive causes.…
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Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo (April 11, 1925-March 25, 1965), a Unitarian Universalist committed to work for education and economic justice, gave her life for the cause of civil rights. The 39-year-old mother of five was murdered by white supremacists after her participation in the protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.…
Richard Donald Pierce (February 5, 1915-August 1, 1973) was a minister, librarian, scholar, editor, Professor of History and Religion, and Dean of Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts.
Richard was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, the only son of Lewis Herbert, a bookbinder, and Eliza Ann Bradley.…
Samuel Joseph May (September 12, 1797-July 1, 1871), a Unitarian minister, was one of the greatest social and educational reformers of the nineteenth century. He advocated and organized on behalf of freedom and civil rights for blacks, emancipation and voting rights for women, and just rights for workers.…
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Henry Trevett Channing (January 17, 1760-August 27, 1840) was the uncle and mentor of the leading exponent of American Unitarian Christianity, William Ellery Channing. He played a role in the earliest days of the Unitarian controversy.
The youngest of seven children of Mary Chaloner and merchant John Channing, Henry was born in Newport, Rhode Island.
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A. Powell Davies (June 5, 1902-September 26, 1957), a Unitarian minister, was a renowned orator and a prominent social activist for civil liberties, government accountability, civilian control of atomic energy, family planning, and desegregation. As a denominational leader, he helped push for the formulation of a more visionary and explicit statement of Unitarian faith that contributed to congregational extension.
Thomas E. Wise (b.July 25, 1868) was the second African American Universalist minister. After serving with the first African American Universalist minister, Joseph Jordan, at the First Universalist Church and school of Norfolk, Virginia, he founded two other Universalist missions in southeastern Virginia.…
Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova (November 28, 1909-August 1, 1990), a Czech immigrant to Canada from war-ravaged Europe, was the founder of the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada (USC). She directed the USC for forty years, making yearly trips around the world, searching out villages and towns in need of Canadian aid to recover from war, drought, disease, and poverty.…
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Moncure Daniel Conway (March 17, 1832-November 15, 1907) was a clergyman, abolitionist, scholar, and author, best known for his outspoken opposition to slavery in the decade prior to and during the Civil War, his freethinking ministry to South Place Chapel in London, and his biography of Thomas Paine.…
Alexander Gordon (June 9, 1841-February 21, 1931), a Unitarian minister and educator, was a prominent historian of religion, particularly of religious dissent. Describing himself as “an Englishman by birth, a Scotsman by education and an Irishman by inclination”, he assisted in consolidating the strands of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland into a unified denomination.
Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810-April 7, 1891), known as P. T. Barnum, a prominent Universalist, the most influential American showman of the nineteenth century, was the founder of the first financially successful museum in America to gain wide public support and creator of the modern three-ring circus.…
Edwin Burdette Backus (December 27, 1888-July 7, 1955), a Unitarian minister and proponent of humanism, had a popular radio ministry. He was a notable supporter of civil rights, civil liberties, world peace, and mental health. His successor, Jack Mendelsohn, called him “a shining example of a broad-gauged liberal minister, rich in compassion, gentleness, courage, personal dignity, scholarly grounding, equally appreciative of scientific method and democratic values—a good person, a good parson, a good world citizen.”
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