Homer Jack

Homer A. Jack
Born	May 19, 1916 Rochester, New York
Died	August 5, 1993 Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
Nationality	United States
Education	Meadville Theological School, Cornell University
Occupation	political activist, Unitarian minister, committee chairmen
Known for	social activism, helped found Congress of Racial Equality and National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE)
Spouse(s)	Esther Rhys Williams, Ingebord Belk

Homer A. Jack (May 19, 1916 – August 5, 1993) was an American Unitarian Universalist clergyman pacifist and social activist who helped found the Congress of Racial Equality and National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE).

Jack was an only child to active socialist and freethinker parents. His grandparents had immigrated from central and eastern Europe to escape oppression and poverty. Like his parents, the child Jack was a radicalist nature-worshiper who distrusted organized religion. 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. in biology from Cornell University, he decided to enter the Unitarian ministry. In 1944, he graduated from Meadville Theological School in Chicago.

While in Chicago, Jack led efforts and rallies to prevent the United States' entry into World War II and fought racial segregation. He was active in the publication of Rochester's No-War News and the Fellowship of Reconciliation and helped organize the anti-war 1942 Chicago sit-in and the anti-segregation Journey of Reconciliation.

From 1942 to 1943, he served as a Unitarian minister in Lawrence, Kansas, where he spoke out against Lawrence's "violently anti-Negro and anti-labor" stance. 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.

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