September 30, 2014 – Faith & Politics: 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act
Season 6, Episode 14
Rudolph “Rudi” Cleare, Exec. Dir., “Negro Spiritual” Scholarship Fdn.
On this episode of Friends Talking Faith with The Three Wise Guys we’ll discuss faith and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Following the assassination of President Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson, in his first address to a joint session of Congress on November 27, 1963, told the legislators, “No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.”
A strong opponent to the Civil Rights Act was Senator Strom Thurmond, Democrat from South Carolina, who said, “This so-called Civil Rights Proposals, which the President has sent to Capitol Hill for enactment into law, are unconstitutional, unnecessary, unwise and extend beyond the realm of reason.” Where was the faith community then, and where is it now, 50 years later?
Our Guest: Rudolph Cleare serves as the Executive Director of the “Negro Spiritual” Scholarship Foundation, before that he served as a parish priest in the Roman Catholic tradition, and holds the distinction of being the first Catholic priest of African heritage to be ordained in Florida and to serve in the Orlando diocese under the leadership at the time of Bishop Thomas Grady. Rudi was born and grew up in the Bahamas, and came to the United States in 1975 to pursue both college and seminary degrees.