All Souls Church, Unitarian
Encyclopedia
All Souls Church, Unitarian is a Unitarian Universalist church located at 1500 Harvard Street NW at the intersection of 16th Street, Washington, D.C.
, roughly where the Mt. Pleasant
-Columbia Heights
-Adams Morgan
neighborhoods of the city meet. The design of its current building, completed in 1924, is based on St. Martin's-in-the-Fields in London. All Souls, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association
of Congregations, describes its theology
as having evolved from a liberal Christian tradition into a "rich pluralism."
, Vice President John C. Calhoun
, and Charles Bulfinch
(who designed the original church building at 6th and D Streets NW and more famously the United States Capitol
). The All Souls bell was cast in 1822 by Joseph Revere, the son of Paul
; this bell, paid for with contributions by, among others, President James Monroe
, originally served as a quasi-official town bell for Washington, DC.
The church has a long tradition of promoting liberal religious views and social justice issues. In the first half of the 1800s it was known for its opposition to slavery, and counts among its past ministers the prominent abolitionist William Henry Channing
. The Revere Bell was stripped of its status as Washington's "town bell" after the congregation tolled it to commemorate the death of John Brown
; it was thereafter often called the "Abolition Bell."
In 1877 the congregation changed its name to All Souls Church, a reflection of the words of William Ellery Channing
, founding father of Unitarian Universalism (and uncle of Willam Henry Channing): "I am a member of the living family of all souls."
In 1943 All Souls called A. Powell Davies to be its minister. Davies became nationally prominent for his progressive views, advocating civil rights for African-Americans and women, desegregation, and for keeping control of nuclear weapons in civilian hands. It was during Davies' tenure that All Souls organized a large shipment of school supplies for the children survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. During this period, All Souls also founded the first desegregated boys' club in the city, in response to the Police Boys' Club's reluctance to desegregate. Davies' popular ministry caused explosive growth both at All Souls and also in the formation of new Unitarian
churches in the Washington, D.C. area.
James Reeb
, a civil rights martyr, was Assistant Minister at All Souls prior to his murder at Selma, Alabama
in 1965. All Souls' progressive vision continued through the 1970s and 1980s as well, under the Rev. David Eaton, the church's first African-American senior minister. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act revealed that J. Edgar Hoover
was so deeply distrustful of the direction in which Eaton was leading All Souls that he planted an undercover FBI agent in the church to monitor the congregation and undermine Eaton's ministry.
All Souls has been performing interracial and same-sex weddings for decades.
On the evening of September 11, 2001, All Souls and its newly-called senior minister, Robert M. Hardies, held a memorial service which was covered by National Public Radio. Soon thereafter, All Souls hosted a public memorial service for Joseph Curseen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr., two local postal workers who died from anthrax
exposure. It was recently the site of a large conference of religious liberals and progressives, and on June 5, 2006, Rev. Hardies was shown speaking against the Federal Marriage Amendment
in a clip from a National Press Club news conference on CNN
's The Situation Room
. On December 18, 2009, mayor Adrian Fenty
signed into law the "Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009" at All Souls, which made same-sex marriage legal in Washington, D.C.
Prominent members of All Souls have included William Howard Taft
, the Hon. Hilda Mason
, former D.C. mayor Marion Barry
, mezzosoprano Denyce Graves
, and Sweet Honey in the Rock
member Ysaye Maria Barnwell
.
16th Street Northwest (Washington, D.C.)
16th Street Northwest is a prominent north-south thoroughfare in the northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C.Part of Pierre L'Enfant's design for the city, 16th Street begins just north of the White House across Lafayette Park at H Street and continues due north in a straight line passing K Street,...
, roughly where the Mt. Pleasant
Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.
Mount Pleasant is a neighborhood in the northwestern quadrant of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The neighborhood is bounded by Rock Creek Park to the north and west; and Harvard Street, NW and the Adams Morgan neighborhood to the south; and Sixteenth Street, NW and the Columbia...
-Columbia Heights
Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C.
Columbia Heights is a neighborhood in central Washington, D.C.-Geography:Located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., Columbia Heights borders the neighborhoods of Shaw, Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Park View, Pleasant Plains, and Petworth. On the eastern side is Howard University...
-Adams Morgan
Adams Morgan
Adams Morgan is a culturally diverse neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., centered at the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road. Adams Morgan is considered the center of Washington's Hispanic immigrant community, and is a major night life area with many bars and restaurants,...
neighborhoods of the city meet. The design of its current building, completed in 1924, is based on St. Martin's-in-the-Fields in London. All Souls, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association
Unitarian Universalist Association
Unitarian Universalist Association , in full the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in North America, is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalist congregations formed by the consolidation in 1961 of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of...
of Congregations, describes its theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
as having evolved from a liberal Christian tradition into a "rich pluralism."
History
All Souls was founded in 1821 as the First Unitarian Church of Washington; among the church's founding members were President John Quincy AdamsJohn Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
, Vice President John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...
, and Charles Bulfinch
Charles Bulfinch
Charles Bulfinch was an early American architect, and has been regarded by many as the first native-born American to practice architecture as a profession....
(who designed the original church building at 6th and D Streets NW and more famously the United States Capitol
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
). The All Souls bell was cast in 1822 by Joseph Revere, the son of Paul
Paul Revere
Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...
; this bell, paid for with contributions by, among others, President James Monroe
James Monroe
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...
, originally served as a quasi-official town bell for Washington, DC.
The church has a long tradition of promoting liberal religious views and social justice issues. In the first half of the 1800s it was known for its opposition to slavery, and counts among its past ministers the prominent abolitionist William Henry Channing
William Henry Channing
William Henry Channing was an American Unitarian clergyman, writer and philosopher.-Biography:William Henry Channing was born in Boston, Massachusetts...
. The Revere Bell was stripped of its status as Washington's "town bell" after the congregation tolled it to commemorate the death of John Brown
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
; it was thereafter often called the "Abolition Bell."
In 1877 the congregation changed its name to All Souls Church, a reflection of the words of William Ellery Channing
William Ellery Channing
Dr. William Ellery Channing was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton, one of Unitarianism's leading theologians. He was known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker...
, founding father of Unitarian Universalism (and uncle of Willam Henry Channing): "I am a member of the living family of all souls."
In 1943 All Souls called A. Powell Davies to be its minister. Davies became nationally prominent for his progressive views, advocating civil rights for African-Americans and women, desegregation, and for keeping control of nuclear weapons in civilian hands. It was during Davies' tenure that All Souls organized a large shipment of school supplies for the children survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
and Nagasaki. During this period, All Souls also founded the first desegregated boys' club in the city, in response to the Police Boys' Club's reluctance to desegregate. Davies' popular ministry caused explosive growth both at All Souls and also in the formation of new Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
churches in the Washington, D.C. area.
James Reeb
James Reeb
James Reeb was a white American Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston, Massachusetts and pastor and civil rights activist in Washington, DC. While marching for civil rights in Selma, Alabama in 1965, he was beaten severely by segregationists and died of head injuries two days later in the...
, a civil rights martyr, was Assistant Minister at All Souls prior to his murder at Selma, Alabama
Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama, United States, located on the banks of the Alabama River. The population was 20,512 at the 2000 census....
in 1965. All Souls' progressive vision continued through the 1970s and 1980s as well, under the Rev. David Eaton, the church's first African-American senior minister. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act revealed that J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
was so deeply distrustful of the direction in which Eaton was leading All Souls that he planted an undercover FBI agent in the church to monitor the congregation and undermine Eaton's ministry.
On the evening of September 11, 2001, All Souls and its newly-called senior minister, Robert M. Hardies, held a memorial service which was covered by National Public Radio. Soon thereafter, All Souls hosted a public memorial service for Joseph Curseen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr., two local postal workers who died from anthrax
Anthrax
Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Most forms of the disease are lethal, and it affects both humans and other animals...
exposure. It was recently the site of a large conference of religious liberals and progressives, and on June 5, 2006, Rev. Hardies was shown speaking against the Federal Marriage Amendment
Federal Marriage Amendment
The Federal Marriage Amendment H.J. Res. 56 was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution which would have limited marriage in the United States to unions of one man and one woman...
in a clip from a National Press Club news conference on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
's The Situation Room
The Situation Room
The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer is an afternoon/early evening newscast on CNN and CNN International hosted by Wolf Blitzer that first aired on August 8, 2005. The show replaces three politics and hard news programs: Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics, Crossfire and Wolf Blitzer Reports.At first,...
. On December 18, 2009, mayor Adrian Fenty
Adrian Fenty
Adrian Malik Fenty was the sixth, and at age 36, the youngest, mayor of the District of Columbia. He served one term—from 2007 to 2011—losing his bid for reelection at the primary level to Democrat Vincent C. Gray...
signed into law the "Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009" at All Souls, which made same-sex marriage legal in Washington, D.C.
Prominent members of All Souls have included William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
, the Hon. Hilda Mason
Hilda Mason
Hilda Howland M. Mason was a politician and statehood advocate in Washington, D.C. She was a member of the D.C...
, former D.C. mayor Marion Barry
Marion Barry
Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr. is an American Democratic politician who is currently serving as a member of the Council of the District of Columbia, representing DC's Ward 8. Barry served as the second elected mayor of the District of Columbia from 1979 to 1991, and again as the fourth mayor from 1995...
, mezzosoprano Denyce Graves
Denyce Graves
Denyce Graves is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer.-Early life:Graves was born on March 7, 1964, to Charles Graves and Dorothy Graves-Kenner. She is the middle of three children and was raised by her mother on Galveston Street, S.W., in the Bellevue section of Washington...
, and Sweet Honey in the Rock
Sweet Honey in the Rock
Sweet Honey in the Rock is an all-woman, African-American a cappella ensemble. They are an American Grammy Award-winning troupe who express their history as women of color through song, while entertaining their audience. They have together worked from four women to the difficult five-part harmony...
member Ysaye Maria Barnwell
Ysaye Maria Barnwell
Ysaye Maria Barnwell has been a member of the African American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock since 1979. She is a prolific composer, who composes many of the group's songs, and has been commissioned to create music for dance, choral, film, and stage productions...
.