#bms 1446

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Veterans Day: Arthur Buckminster Fuller

A graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Divinity School, Arthur Buckminster Fuller served as a Unitarian chaplain with the 16th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry during the American Civil War. On December 10, 1862, he was honorably discharged due to poor health. The following day his regiment continued to Fredericksburg, and though no longer part of the Army, Fuller volunteered with the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment to cross the Rappahannock River. He was shot and killed by Confederate soldiers in Fredericksburg.

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C.T. Vivian, July 30, 1924-July 17, 2020

C.T. Vivian passed away today at 95 years old. A Baptist minister, civil rights leader, and part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s core circle, Vivian took part in Freedom Rides, marched in Selma for equal voting rights, and remained an advocate for racial equality his entire life. In 2013, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. 

These photos are from Selma in 1965, as he marched alongside other clergy, including president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Dana McLean Greeley

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John Murray Makes His Stamp on American Religion

Though John Murray was raised in a strict Calvinist home, he gravitated towards the Universalist ideas (particularly the idea that all humans will receive salvation) preached by James Relly. Murray was excommunicated and following the death of his wife and infant son, left England and arrived in Good Luck, New Jersey in 1770. Upon his arrival he met farmer, Thomas Potter, who had built a chapel in the hopes of finding a preacher. Potter urged Murray to preach the coming Sunday if he was still in town, and after preaching that first sermon on September 30, 1770, Murray went on to preach Universalism throughout New England.

This year is the 250th anniversary of Universalism in America and John Murray is remembered on September 30th as its ambassador. (And yes, we even have John Murray stamps in our collections!)

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Black History Month: Lewis Allen McGee

The son of a former slave and Methodist Episcopal minister, Lewis Allen McGee was born in 1893 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and served as an Army chaplain during World War I and later, during World War II, ministering as chaplain at the Battle of the Bulge. After his time in the military, McGee enrolled at Meadville Theological Seminary and received his doctoral degree in 1949, becoming one of the first African American ministers in the Unitarian church. 

His experience in an integrated Army led to his interest in creating an interracial congregation, and he founded the Free Religious Fellowship in Chicago in 1947, where he served as minister from 1948 to 1953. More than 60 years later, the All Souls Free Religious Fellowship in Chicago remains an active Unitarian Universalist congregation of color. 

McGee would go on to serve congregations in Springfield, Ohio, as well as congregations in Los Angeles, Chico, Anaheim, and Pasadena, California. He died in 1979 at the age of 85.