wfn.org | Filmmaker Al Cox dies at 74

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Nov. 29, 1999  News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212)870-3803·New York
10-21-71B{638}

By United Methodist News Service

Alva (Al) Irwin Cox, Jr., 74, an independent filmmaker whose work chronicled
the civil rights movement, human rights struggles and ecumenical
Christianity both nationally and globally, died Nov. 19 at his home in Cos
Cob, Conn., of natural causes.

Over the decades, Cox - who once served as a Methodist pastor -- produced a
stream of films about social problems and the churches' response. The more
than 50 historical, cultural, theological and documentary programs included
"Kent State: May 1970," on the shooting of student protestors by the U.S.
National Guard, and "Weeping in the Playtime of Others," which exposed the
problems of child labor in the U.S. coal mining industry.  

Many of his films, videos and other audiovisual resources were made on
contract with organizations such as the United Methodist Church and National
Council of Churches (NCC). He had worked recently with the United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries and, at the time of his death, he and filmmaker
Larry Hollon were making a film on newly emerging Protestant churches in
Honduras, Nepal and other countries. The film is to be shown at the United
Methodist General Conference next May in Cleveland.  

Active in the student Christian movement in the 1940s, Cox was one of the
youngest participants in attendance at the founding meeting of the World
Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948 and was present at the WCC's 50th
anniversary Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1998. He joined the Christian
education staff of the NCC in 1951, and served on the council's staff until
1967 in the areas of evangelism, audiovisual and broadcast production, and
education.  

Born in Maysfield, Ohio, on April 27, 1925, he was the son of the Rev. Alva
I. Cox, a Methodist pastor who was a delegate to the NCC's founding
convention in Cleveland in 1950. He graduated from Baldwin Wallace College,
Berea, Ohio, in 1945; and earned his master of divinity degree from Garrett
Theological Seminary, Evanston, Ill., in 1948, and his master of sacred
theology from Yale Divinity School in 1957.

A public memorial service is planned at 2 p.m. Dec. 14 at Riverside Church
in New York.
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United Methodist News Service
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