Episcopal Press and News

Seminarians Urge Senators

Diocesan Press Service. June 8, 1964 [XXII-10]

Fifteen Episcopal U. S. Senators have been urged by churchmen to support immediate passage of civil rights legislation. The action has been endorsed by Presiding Bishop Lichtenberger.

In a resolution sent in May to the senators, the Episcopal/Anglican Student Association of Union Theological Seminary requested them "to rise above political and economic sanction and use every effort of (their) high office to facilitate the immediate passage of H. R. 7152 without crippling amendments."

The student-faculty group also declared that civil rights legislation should be considered a duty in regard to "your .ord, church and country." Association members called it "a duty which we believe the higher than that to either your constituency or to your personal feelings. "

Copies of the resolution have been sent to Senators Allot (Colorado), Beall (Maryland), Brewster (Maryland), Byrd (Virginia), Dominick (Colorado), Goldwater (Arizona), Hayden (Arizona), Kuchel (California), Monroney (Oklahoma), Morton (Kentucky), Pell (Rhode Island), Proxmire (Wisconsin), Scott (Pennsylvania), Simpson (Wyoming), and Symington (Missouri).

In endorsing this action of the Episcopal/Anglican Student Association, Bishop Lichtenberger urged other Episcopal seminarians and members of college and university Canterbury Clubs to take similar steps toward support of the pending legislation for racial justice.