John
Haynes Holmes was born in Philadelphia in 1879. After graduating from
Harvard (1902) and Harvard Divinity School
(1904) he became minister of the Unitarian Community Church in New
York.
In
1909 Holmes helped establish the National Association
for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP). Early members
included Mary White Ovington, Josephine
Ruffin, Mary Talbert, Mary
Church Terrell, Inez Milholland,
Jane Addams, Florence
Kelley, Sophonisba Breckinridge,
John Haynes Holmes, Mary
McLeod Bethune, George Henry White,
William Du Bois, Charles
Edward Russell, John Dewey, William
Dean Howells, Lillian Wald, Charles
Darrow, Lincoln Steffens, Ray
Stannard Baker, Fanny Garrison Villard,
Oswald Garrison Villard and Ida
Wells-Barnett.
A
socialist and pacifist,
Holmes was appalled by the way people were being persecuted for their
political and religious beliefs during the First
World War. In 1920 he joined with others to establish the American
Civil Rights Union (ACLU). Early members included Roger
Baldwin, Norman Thomas, Jane
Addams, Freda Kirchwey, Chrystal
Eastman, Florence Kelley, Lillian
Wald, Felix Frankfurter, Oswald
Garrison Villard, Paul Kellogg,
Clarence Darrow, John
Dewey, Charles Beard, Abraham
Muste, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Upton
Sinclair.
The ACTU's main concern was to defend the civil rights that were guaranteed
in state and federal constitutions. This included:
(1) First Amendment rights: These include freedom of speech, association
and assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, including
the strict separation between church and state.
(2) Equal protection of the law: The right to equal treatment regardless
of race, sex, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age,
physical handicap, or other such classification. These rights apply
to the voting booth, the classroom, the workplace and the courts.
(3) Due process of law: The right to be treated fairly when facing
criminal charges or other serious accusations that can result in such
penalties as loss of employment, exclusion from school, denial of
housing, or cut-off of benefits.
(4) The right of privacy and autonomy which cannot be penetrated by
the government or by other institutions, like employers, with substantial
influence over the individual's rights.
Holmes
was also involved in several other political campaigns. He helped
Margaret Sanger establish
the Planned Parenthood Movement. He was also a member of the Fellowship
of Reconciliation, The War Resisters League and the League for
Industrial Democracy.
Holmes
was the author of many books including A
Sensible Man's View of Religion (1932), The
Affirmation of Immortality (1947), My
Gandhi (1953) and I Speak for
Myself (1959). John Haynes
Holmes died
in
1964.
(1)
John Haynes Holmes, A Statement to my People on the Eve of the
War (3rd April, 1917)
When hostilities
begin, it is universally assumed that there is but a single service
which a loyal citizen can render to the state: that of bearing arms
and killing the enemy. Will you understand me if I say, humbly and
regretfully, that this I cannot, and will not, do. When, therefore,
there comes a call for volunteers, I shall have to refuse to heed.
When there is an enrollment of citizens for military purposes, I shall
have to refuse to register. When, or if, the system of conscription
is adopted, I shall have to decline to serve. If this means a fine,
I will pay my fine. If this means imprisonment, I will serve my term.
If this means persecution, I will carry my cross. No order of president
or governor, no law of nation or state, no loss of reputation, freedom
or life, will persuade me or force me to this business of killing.
On this issue, for me at least, there is no compromise. Mistaken,
foolish, fanatical, I may be; I will not deny the charge. But false
to my own soul I will not be. Therefore here I stand. God help me!
I cannot do other!
Therefore
would I make it plain that, so long as I am your minister, this Church
will answer no military summons. Other pulpits may preach recruiting
sermons; mine will not. Other parish houses may be turned into drill
halls and rifle ranges; ours will not. Other clergymen may pray to
God for victory for our arms; I will not. In this church, if nowhere
else in all America, the Germans will still be included in the family
of God's children. No word of hatred shall be spoken against them
and no evil fate shall be desired upon them. War may beat upon our
portals, like storm waves on the granite crags; rumors of war may
thrill the atmosphere of this sanctuary as lightning the still air
of a summer night. But so long as I am priest, this altar shall be
consecrated to human brotherhood, and before it shall be offered worship
only to that one God and Father of us all, 'Who hath made of one blood
all nations of men for to dwell together on the face of the earth.
(2)
John Haynes Holmes, quoted by George
Seldes in his book You
Can't Print That! (1929)
Fascism is without exception
the most dangerous and despicable power now existing in Europe. It
is the incarnation of force which has not in this case the excuse
of liberation and enlargement of life for the multitudes, as in Russia,
but represents a frank reversion to old ways of tyranny and death.
The megalomania of its
leader, Mussolini, is the perfect symbol of its essential character
of madness. At one stroke Fascism has robbed Italy of the glory bestowed
upon her by Mazzini and his compeers, and may at any moment plunge
Europe into the vast disaster of another war. While Fascism endures
there can be no freedom for Italy, no security for the world. To protest
against the Fascist despotism, to expose its injustice and horror,
to labour for its overthrow, is a first duty to the cause of human
liberty.
(3)
John Haynes Holmes, letter to Freda
Kirchwey (March, 1942)
I
would fight to the death to maintain their (fascists) liberties, not
for their own sake, but for the sake of a democracy which disappears
when such liberties are withdrawn. Indeed, it is no longer a democracy,
but to the extent at least that civil liberties are denied, has already
itself become a fascist state.
(4)
Donald Harrington, John Hayes Holmes: The Community Church of New
York (2001)
Holmes
served The Community Church as Jr. Colleague, Senior Minister and
Minister Emeritus for a total of fifty-seven years. This year, 2001,
I too will have served it in those same capacities for fifty-seven
years!
I have
said many times that I believe John Haynes Holmes was the greatest
all-around minister of religion of the 20th Century: pacifist, orator,
churchman, social service organizer, racial and social justice pioneer,
pastor, adult educator, political participant and leader, poet and
philosopher, all at once!
Holmes
may have been best known for his stalwart pacifism and early recognition
of the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi. It was in 1921, when Gandhi was
almost unknown, that Holmes preached a sermon entitled The Greatest
Man Alive in the World Today - not Wilson, Lloyd George, Lenin, Stalin,
not Trotsky; not Clemenceau, Churchill or Tolstoy, but Mohandas K.
Gandhi of India, the apostle of non-violence!
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