George Houser
Encyclopedia
George M. Houser is a Methodist minister, civil rights activist, and activist for the independence of African nations. He served on the staff of the Fellowship of Reconciliation
(1940s - 1950s). With James Farmer
, and Bernice Fisher
, he co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE) in 1942 in Chicago. With Bayard Rustin
, another FOR staffer, Houser, a white Methodist minister, co-led the Journey of Reconciliation
, a form of non-violent direct action, a two-week interracial bus journey challenging segregation. It was a model for the 1960s Freedom Ride
s.
. He attended Union Theological Seminary
, where he served as chairman of the school's social action commission. Houser, along with David Dellinger
, was among twenty Union students who announced publically that they would defy the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940
. In November of 1940 Houser was arrested for refusing entry into the draft. He would serve a year in jail.
After college, he became ordained as a Methodist minister. He soon became involved in movements for social justice and civil rights.
in the 1940s and worked with it until the 1950s. It sponsored education and activities related to civil rights for African Americans and the end of segregation.
In 1942 with fellow staffer James Farmer
, and activist Bernice Fisher
, he co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE) in Chicago
and served as its first executive secretary. The co-founders, Farmer, Rustin and Houser, were influenced by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's ideas on nonviolent civil disobedience
and decided to apply the same methods in their work for civil rights. In 1946 Houser, along with Dave Dellinger, Igal Roodenko
, Lew Hill, and others, helped found the radical pacifist Committee for Nonviolent Revolution
. In 1947, after the Supreme Court's finding (in Morgan v. Commonwealth
) that segregation in interstate travel was unconstitutional, Houser helped organize the Journey of Reconciliation
, a plan to send eight white and eight black men on a journey through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky to test the ruling. The protest brought a great deal of press attention to CORE and to the issue of segregation in interstate travel. In February of 1948 George Houser received the Thomas Jefferson Award for his work to bring an end to interstate segregation.
In 1948, Houser was the secretary of the Resist Conscription Committee. He described the RCC as a temporary group of pacifists, whose purpose was to gather names of people who were willing to resist conscription. The group circulated a statement which read, in part:
In 1949, Houser moved to Skyview Acres, an intentional community
in Pomona, New York
, where he was still living as of 2007.
In 1952 he helped found "Americans for South African Resistance" (AFSAR) to organize support in the U.S. for the ANC
-led Defiance Campaign against apartheid in South Africa
. He was a founder in 1953 of the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), which grew out of AFSAR. In 1954 he took his first trip to Africa, visiting West Africa and South Africa. In 1960, as president of ACOA, Houser sent a telegram to Dwight Eisenhower urging him to officially condemn the treatment of Africans by South Africa. Because of his continuing activities for independence and against apartheid, it was the only time he was admitted into that country until 1991.
From 1955-1981, House served as Executive Director of the ACOA; he also was Executive Director of The Africa Fund from 1966-1981. At ACOA he spearheaded numerous campaigns supporting African struggles for liberation and independence, from Algeria
to Zimbabwe
. Since 1954 he has made over 30 trips to Africa. His support of liberation movements led him to develop close ties with many African leaders, including Amilcar Cabral
, Julius Nyerere
, Eduardo Mondlane
, Kwame Nkrumah
, and Oliver Tambo
.
He currently serves on the Advisory Committee of the African Activist Archive Project.
at Horace Greeley High School
, Chappaqua, New York
.
Fellowship of Reconciliation
The Fellowship of Reconciliation is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries...
(1940s - 1950s). With James Farmer
James L. Farmer, Jr.
James Leonard Farmer, Jr. was a civil rights activist and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was the initiator and organizer of the 1961 Freedom Ride, which eventually led to the desegregation of inter-state transportation in the United States.In 1942, Farmer co-founded the Committee...
, and Bernice Fisher
Bernice Fisher
Bernice Fisher was a civil rights activist and union organizer. She was one of the original founders of the Congress of Racial Equality...
, he co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
(CORE) in 1942 in Chicago. With Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.In the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation , Rustin practiced nonviolence...
, another FOR staffer, Houser, a white Methodist minister, co-led the Journey of Reconciliation
Journey of Reconciliation
The Journey of Reconciliation was a form of non-violent direct action to challenge segregation laws on interstate buses in the Southern United States....
, a form of non-violent direct action, a two-week interracial bus journey challenging segregation. It was a model for the 1960s Freedom Ride
Freedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...
s.
Early life and education
George M. Houser was born in 1916 to parents who were Methodist missionaries. As a child, he spent several years with them in the Far EastFar East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
. He attended Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...
, where he served as chairman of the school's social action commission. Houser, along with David Dellinger
David Dellinger
David T. Dellinger , was an influential American radical, a pacifist and activist for nonviolent social change.-Chicago Seven:...
, was among twenty Union students who announced publically that they would defy the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940
Selective Training and Service Act of 1940
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke-Wadsworth Act, was passed by the Congress of the United States on September 17, 1940, becoming the first peacetime conscription in United States history when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law two days later...
. In November of 1940 Houser was arrested for refusing entry into the draft. He would serve a year in jail.
After college, he became ordained as a Methodist minister. He soon became involved in movements for social justice and civil rights.
Career
Houser joined the Fellowship of ReconciliationFellowship of Reconciliation
The Fellowship of Reconciliation is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries...
in the 1940s and worked with it until the 1950s. It sponsored education and activities related to civil rights for African Americans and the end of segregation.
In 1942 with fellow staffer James Farmer
James L. Farmer, Jr.
James Leonard Farmer, Jr. was a civil rights activist and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was the initiator and organizer of the 1961 Freedom Ride, which eventually led to the desegregation of inter-state transportation in the United States.In 1942, Farmer co-founded the Committee...
, and activist Bernice Fisher
Bernice Fisher
Bernice Fisher was a civil rights activist and union organizer. She was one of the original founders of the Congress of Racial Equality...
, he co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
(CORE) in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and served as its first executive secretary. The co-founders, Farmer, Rustin and Houser, were influenced by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's ideas on nonviolent civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
and decided to apply the same methods in their work for civil rights. In 1946 Houser, along with Dave Dellinger, Igal Roodenko
Igal Roodenko
- Biography :Roodenko graduated from Townsend Harris High School in Manhattan, New York. He attended Cornell University from 1934 to 1938, where he received a degree in horticulture. Roodenko was a gay man, and a printer by trade....
, Lew Hill, and others, helped found the radical pacifist Committee for Nonviolent Revolution
Committee for Nonviolent Revolution
The Committee for Nonviolent Revolution, or CNRV, was a pacifist organization founded in Chicago at a conference held from February 6 through 9, 1946. Many of the founding members were conscientious objectors who had served time in prison or in Civilian Public Service camps due to their refusal to...
. In 1947, after the Supreme Court's finding (in Morgan v. Commonwealth
Irene Morgan
Irene Morgan , later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, was an important predecessor to Rosa Parks in the successful fight to overturn segregation laws in the United States...
) that segregation in interstate travel was unconstitutional, Houser helped organize the Journey of Reconciliation
Journey of Reconciliation
The Journey of Reconciliation was a form of non-violent direct action to challenge segregation laws on interstate buses in the Southern United States....
, a plan to send eight white and eight black men on a journey through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky to test the ruling. The protest brought a great deal of press attention to CORE and to the issue of segregation in interstate travel. In February of 1948 George Houser received the Thomas Jefferson Award for his work to bring an end to interstate segregation.
In 1948, Houser was the secretary of the Resist Conscription Committee. He described the RCC as a temporary group of pacifists, whose purpose was to gather names of people who were willing to resist conscription. The group circulated a statement which read, in part:
Conscription fails to prevent war, foments further warlike preparation by our opponents, and denies fundamental freedoms of the individual necessary to democracy. This violates our deepest convictions that no person should be forcibly coerced into adopting a military way of life. We believe human beings are fit for something better, something nobler than slavery and training in the mass extermination of their fellows.
In 1949, Houser moved to Skyview Acres, an intentional community
Intentional community
An intentional community is a planned residential community designed to have a much higher degree of teamwork than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and often follow an alternative lifestyle. They...
in Pomona, New York
Pomona, New York
Pomona is a village partly in the Town of Ramapo and partly in the Town of Haverstraw in Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of New Hempstead, east of Harriman State Park, north of Monsey and west of Mount Ivy. According to the 2010 Census, the population was 3,103, a 13 percent...
, where he was still living as of 2007.
African Independence movements
Houser left the FOR in the 1950s, when he turned his attention to African liberation struggles. He led the American Committee on Africa for many years, spending decades on the continent to promote freedom from colonial rule and segregation.In 1952 he helped found "Americans for South African Resistance" (AFSAR) to organize support in the U.S. for the ANC
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
-led Defiance Campaign against apartheid in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. He was a founder in 1953 of the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), which grew out of AFSAR. In 1954 he took his first trip to Africa, visiting West Africa and South Africa. In 1960, as president of ACOA, Houser sent a telegram to Dwight Eisenhower urging him to officially condemn the treatment of Africans by South Africa. Because of his continuing activities for independence and against apartheid, it was the only time he was admitted into that country until 1991.
From 1955-1981, House served as Executive Director of the ACOA; he also was Executive Director of The Africa Fund from 1966-1981. At ACOA he spearheaded numerous campaigns supporting African struggles for liberation and independence, from Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
to Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
. Since 1954 he has made over 30 trips to Africa. His support of liberation movements led him to develop close ties with many African leaders, including Amilcar Cabral
Amílcar Cabral
Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral was a Guinea-Bissauan and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, writer, and a nationalist thinker and politician. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence...
, Julius Nyerere
Julius Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985....
, Eduardo Mondlane
Eduardo Mondlane
Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane served as President of the Mozambican Liberation Front from 1962, the year that FRELIMO was founded in Tanzania, until his assassination in 1969.-Early life:...
, Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
, and Oliver Tambo
Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Tambo was a South African anti-apartheid politician and a central figure in the African National Congress .-Biography:Oliver Tambo was born in Bizana in eastern Pondoland in what is now Eastern Cape...
.
He currently serves on the Advisory Committee of the African Activist Archive Project.
Writing
In the course of this work, Houser wrote numerous articles and two books:- No One Can Stop the Rain: Glimpses of Africa’s Liberation Struggle (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1989)
- With Herbert Shore, I Will Go Singing: Walter Sisulu Speaks of his Life and the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa (Cape Town: Robben Island Museum, 2000).
Marriage and family
Houser married and raised four children with his wife, Jean. His son Steven Houser teaches AP European HistoryAP European History
Advanced Placement European History is a course and examination offered by the College Board through the Advanced Placement Program...
at Horace Greeley High School
Horace Greeley High School
Horace Greeley High School is a public, four-year secondary school serving students in grades 9–12 in Chappaqua, New York. It is part of the Chappaqua Central School District....
, Chappaqua, New York
Chappaqua, New York
Chappaqua is a hamlet and census-designated place in northern Westchester County, New York. As of the 2010 census, following a major revision to the delineation of its boundaries by the Census Bureau, the population was 1,436...
.
Further reading
- George Houser,"No One Can Stop the Rain: Glimpses of Africa’s Liberation Struggle," The Pilgrim Press, 1989, forward by Julius Nyerere.
- Tribute to George Houser (American Committee on Africa, 1981)
- George M. Houser, "Meeting Africa’s Challenge – The Story of the American Committee on Africa", Issue magazine, African Studies Association, 1976
- African Activist Archive Project, Mississippi State University
- James Farmer and George Houser, "Founding of CORE", Fellowship magazine, Fellowship of Reconciliation, (Spring, Summer and Winter 1992 issues)
- "Erasing the Color Line in the North," Conference - 22 October 1992, Bluffton College in Bluffton, Ohio. Academics and the participants agreed that the founders of CORE were Jim Farmer, George Houser and Bernice Fisher. A videotape of the conference is available from Bluffton College.
External links
- Robin Washington, "Journey of Reconciliation, PBS documentary
- Bayard Rustin, PBS documentary
- "The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It", PBS documentary on conscientious objectors in World War II.
- , Civic Knowledge Project documentary on the origins of CORE.