Former NCC staff Lucius Walker dead at 80

["Philip Jenks" <pjenks@ncccusa.org>]

Lucius Walker, 80, American Baptist minister,

former NCC staff, and international peacemaker

See www.ncccusa.org/news/100913luciuswalker.html

New York, September 14, 2010 -- The Rev. Dr. Lucius Walker, 80, a 
former me mber of the National Council of Churches staff who became a 
controversial a nd beloved activist for human rights in the 1960s and 
70s and later founded  an organization that sent hundreds of tons of 
humanitarian aid to Latin Am erica, including Cuba, died September 7 
in his home in Demarest, N.J.

"Lucius is one of several NCC staff members whose contributions to 
justice  and faith we honor with pride," said the Rev. Dr. Michael 
Kinnamon, NCC gen eral secretary. "He did not leave the council in 
1978 on a happy note, but  today we freely acknowledge that he 
exemplified the highest standards of th e council and we are proud of 
him."

Walker was NCC associate general secretary for Church and Society in 
1978 w hen he was fired by General Secretary Claire Randall. The New 
York Times re ported Monday that Walker was fired "for giving too 
much money to community  organizers."

Randall's decision to fire Walker was bitterly opposed by some NCC 
member c ommunions, especially Walker's own American Baptist Churches 
USA. "Lu has p aid his dues in the trenches of the Civil Rights 
movement, and it's wrong t o dismiss him so lightly," said the late 
Rev. William K. Cober, head of Ame rican Baptist Home Missions and an 
NCC governing board member at the time.

But Randall held firm to her decision, despite a noisy rally 
supporting Wal ker in Riverside Church, across the street from the 
NCC offices in The Inte rchurch Center.

After he left the Council, Walker returned to the Interreligious 
Foundation  for Community Organizations (IFCO), which he directed 
from the time of its  founding in 1967 by a coalition of Protestant, 
Roman Catholic, Jewish and  civic groups.

Since 1988, Walker had been active in organizing shipments of food, 
medicin e and other humanitarian supplied to Latin America, including 
Cuba, where h is visits violated the U.S. travel embargo countless 
times. To carry out hi s mission, he founded an organization of 
clergy called Pastors for Peace. M ore than half the organization's 
40 missions have been to Cuba, which has b een off-limits to U.S. 
visitors and businesses since the Kennedy Administra tion.

"Lucius' rhetoric was often radical and I don't suppose all our 
member comm unions would approve of it," Kinnamon said. "He frankly 
regarded U.S. polic y in Latin America and Cuba as imperialistic, and 
he openly violated the em bargo rules because he regarded them as 
unjust and immoral.

"But his credo always was that God anointed Christians to bring good 
news t o the poor, release to captives, recovery of sight to the 
blind, and freedo m to the oppressed. He believed we are called to 
feed the hungry. And these  words of Jesus certainly unite the 45 
million who relate to NCC member com munions."
"It's a travesty how much churches have said about social justice and 
how l ittle they have done," Mr. Walker told The New York Times in 
1969. Walker's  harsh words were often uttered in a calm, gentle 
voice.

Like Walker, Kinnamon said, the NCC favors lifting the U.S. embargo 
against  Cuba. Walker and the NCC also pursued the similar goal of 
arranging for El ian Gonzales to be returned to his family in Cuba in 
2000.

Born in Roselle, N.J., in 1930, Walker was a graduate of Shaw 
University an d Andover Newton Theological School. He was ordained in 
1958 at Beth Eden B aptist Church, Waltham, Mass, where he served as 
youth minister.

Under Walker, IFCO became a successful working partnership of 
national reli gious agencies and indigenous community groups involved 
with funding, field  services and leadership training. Represented in 
its membership were Afric an American, Latino and American Indian 
interests.

Before assuming leadership at IFCO, he was for seven years director 
of Nort hcott Neighborhood House in Milwaukee, Wis., an agency 
established in 1961  by the Methodist Women's Society for Christian 
Service.

Walker's wife, the former Mary Johnson, died in 2008. In addition to 
his da ughter Gail, he is survived by two other daughters, Donna and 
Edith; two so ns, Lucius III and Richard; a brother, William; a 
sister, Lottie Bethea; an d three grandchildren.

Mr. Walker last visited Cuba in July, when, as he had done on many 
occasion s, he met with Mr. Castro. In announcing his death, Granma, 
the Communist P arty newspaper in Cuba, said Cubans "don't want to 
even think of a world wi thout Lucius Walker."

See the Baptist Press story at 
http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5693/53/              

Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of the Churches of 
Christ  in the USA has been the leading force for ecumenical 
cooperation among Chri stians in the United States. The NCC's 36 
member faith groups -- from a wid e spectrum of Protestant, Anglican, 
Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African  American and Living Peace 
churches -- include 45 million persons in more t han 100,000 local 
congregations in communities across the nation.

NCC News contact:  Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office), 
646-853-4212 ( cell), pjenks@ncccusa.org