Ware Lecture

2013 Ware Lecturer Eboo Patel

Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) President Peter Morales and the General Assembly Planning Committee are delighted to announce that Beacon Press author Eboo Patel has been named the 2013 Ware Lecturer for the UUA General Assembly in Louisville.

Dr. Patel is founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, an international nonprofit building the interfaith youth movement. He was appointed by President Obama to the Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and serves on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations. Patel writes "The Faith Divide" blog for The Washington Post and has also written for the Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, The Chicago Tribune, and other prominent journals. He has been featured on a range of media, including CNN Sunday Morning, NPR's Morning Edition, the PBS documentary Three Faiths, One God, The New Republic, American Public Media, the BBC, and CNN. Patel is a sought-after speaker whose addresses include the keynote speech at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum with President Jimmy Carter. He is the author of Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice and the Promise of America, and Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, which was the 2011-2012 UUA Common Read and 2010 winner of the prestigious Louisville Grawemeyer award in religion.

An Ashoka Fellow, Patel was named by Islamica Magazine as one of ten young Muslim visionaries shaping Islam in America, was chosen by Harvard's Kennedy School Review as one of five future policy leaders to watch, and was selected to join the Young Global Leaders network of the World Economic Forum. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

History of the Ware Lecture

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) President, in consultation with the General Assembly Planning Committee, invites a distinguished guest each year to address the General Assembly as the Ware Lecturer.

In 1920, Harriet E. Ware of Milton, MA, bequeathed $5,000 to the American Unitarian Association (AUA) for its unrestricted use. Two years later, on the evening of May 24, 1922, the first Ware lecture was given by the Rev. Frederick W. Norwood, pastor of the City Temple in London, England. The Lecture had been "established in honor of the distinguished services of three generations of the Ware family to the cause of Pure Christianity."

The lecture has been given every year at the former May Meetings of the AUA and since 1961 at the General Assembly. No lecture was scheduled for 1945 due to World War II, although Morris S. Lazaron delivered an address on May 23, 1945, in All Souls Church in Washington, DC, which is referred to as a Ware lecture. There was no lecture in 1950 when the Unitarians celebrated their 125th anniversary.

The Harvard Square Library maintains a history of the Ware Lecture, including illustrated biographical notes.

Previous Ware Lecturers

Previous Ware Lecturers have included the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Kurt Vonnegut, and poet Mary Oliver.

• 2012 Maria Hinojosa
• 2011 Karen Armstrong
• 2010 Winona LaDuke
• 2009 Melissa Harris-Lacewell
• 2008 Van Jones
• 2007 Rashid Khalidi
• 2006 Mary Oliver
• 2005 Dr. Elaine Pagels
• 2004 Holly Near
• 2003 Julian Bond
• 2002 Stephen Lewis
• 2001 Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes
• 2000 Morris Dees
• 1999 Mary Pipher
• 1998 Amitai Etzioni
• 1997 Rev. Joan Brown Campbell
• 1996 Sylvia Ann Hewlett
• 1995 Norman Lear
• 1994 Dr. Holland Hendrix
• 1993 Marian Wright Edelman
• 1992 Mel Hurtig
• 1991 Elizabeth Dodson Gray
• 1990 Schuyler Chapin
• 1989 Sissela Bok
• 1988 Robert Coles
• 1987 Anthony Lewis
• 1986 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• 1985 Shirley Chisholm
• 1984 Dr. Helen Caldicott
• 1983 Thomas R. Berger
• 1982 May Sarton
• 1981 Vernon Jordan, Jr.
• 1980 LaDonna Harris
• 1979 Jesse Jackson
• 1978 Jean Mayer
• 1977 Milton R. Konvitze
• 1976 Bruce Murray
• 1975 John Beecher
• 1974 Elliot Richardson
• 1973 John Coleman
• 1972 Malvina Reynolds
• 1971 Alvin Toffler
• 1970 Rollo May
• 1969 Martin E. Marty, Bernard Delfgaauw, R.J. Werblowsky
• 1968 Carl B. Stokes
• 1967 Saul Alinsky
• 1966 Martin Luther King, Jr.
• 1965 Harry D. Gideonse
• 1964 Linus Pauling
• 1963 F.S.C. Northrop
• 1962 Walter Kaufmann
• 1961 Abram Sachar
• 1960 Harold Taylor
• 1959 George Wald
• 1958 Edward A. Weeks, Jr.
• 1957 Charles Frankel
• 1956 Howard Thurman
• 1955 Henry DeWolf Smyth
• 1954 Agnes Ernst Meyer
• 1953 Howard Mumford Jones
• 1952 Henry Steele Commager
• 1951 T.V. Smith
• 1950 No lecture due to 125th Anniversary of Unitarians
• 1949 Erwin D. Canham
• 1948 Henry J. Cadbury
• 1947 Brock Chisholm
• 1946 George D. Stoddard
• 1945 No lecture due to World War II
• 1944 Max Lerner
• 1943 Walter Francis White
• 1942 Alfred M. Bingham
• 1941 Harry D. Gideonse
• 1940 Adolph Agustus Berle, Jr.
• 1939 Eduard C. Lindeman
• 1938 John Haynes Holmes
• 1937 Michael Williams
• 1936 James G. McDonald
• 1935 Frederick B. Fisher
• 1934 Reinhold Niebuhr
• 1933 Jesse H. Holmes
• 1932 Aurelia Henry Reinhardt
• 1931 Jane Addams
• 1930 William L. Sullivan
• 1929 Francis J. McConnell
• 1928 Frank Oliver Hall
• 1927 William Ellery Sweet
• 1926 James Smyth
• 1925 Ambrose W. Vernon
• 1924 John H. Finley
• 1923 K.H. Roessingh
• 1922 Rev. Frederick W. Norwood