Ware Lecture
2012 Ware Lecturer Maria Hinojosa
From NPR: For 25 years, Maria Hinojosa has helped tell America's untold stories and brought to light unsung heroes in America and abroad. She is the anchor and managing editor of NPR's Latino USA.
In April 2010, Hinojosa launched The Futuro Media Group with the mission to produce multi-platform, community-based journalism that respects and celebrates the cultural richness of the American experience. In addition, Hinojosa is the anchor of the Emmy-award winning talk show Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One from WGBH/La Plaza.
Hinojosa has reported hundreds of important stories—including the immigrant work camps in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, teen girl victims of sexual harassment on the job, and Emmy-award winning stories of the poor in Alabama—previously as a senior correspondent for PBS' Now and currently as a contributing correspondent on PBS' Need to Know.
Throughout her career Hinojosa has helped define the conversation about our times and our society with one of the most authentic voices in broadcast. As a reporter for NPR, Hinojosa told groundbreaking stories about youth and violence and immigrant communities. During her eight years as a CNN correspondent Hinojosa took viewers into communities that had never been shown on television. Her investigative journalism presses the powerful for the truth while giving voice to lives and stories that illuminate the world we live in.
Hinojosa has won top honors in American journalism including two Emmys, the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Reporting on the Disadvantaged, and the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Overseas Press Club for best documentary for her groundbreaking Child Brides: Stolen Lives. In 2009, Hinojosa was honored with an AWRT Gracie Award for Individual Achievement as Best TV Correspondent. Three times over the past decade, Hinojosa has been named one of the 100 Most Influential Latinos in the United States by Hispanic Business magazine. She has received the Ruben Salazar Communications Award from the National Council of La Raza and was inducted into the "She Made It" Hall of Fame at the Paley Center/Museum of Television and Radio in a program that honors women trail blazers in the media.
Hinojosa is author of two books including a motherhood memoir, Raising Raul: Adventures Raising Myself and My Son.
Born in Mexico City, Hinojosa was raised in Chicago. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Barnard College at Columbia University in New York.
2011 Ware Lecturer Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong is one of the world’s leading commentators on religious affairs and a best-selling author, whose books have been translated into forty-five languages. Her early work focused on the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but she has since begun to explore the eastern religions.
Her books include: Through the Narrow Gate, an autobiographical work; A History of God; Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths; The Battle for God, A History of Fundamentalism; Islam, A Short History; Buddha; The Spiral Staircase: A Memoir; A Short History of Myth; The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions; Muhammad: A Prophet for our Time; The Bible: A Biography, The Case for God. Armstrong recommended that anyone attending this year's Ware Lecture read her newest book, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life in advance of her engagement.
Since September 11, 2001, Karen Armstrong has become chiefly known for her work on Islam and Fundamentalism, particularly in the United States. She has addressed members of the United States Congress and the Senate on three occasions, has participated in the World Economic Forum in New York and Davos, has spoken at study days at the United Nations and at the NATO Naval Defense College in Rome, and has addressed the Council for Foreign Relations in Washington and New York. She has also advised members of the Dutch parliament about Islam and the integration of Muslim communities in Europe.
She is increasingly invited to address audiences in the Muslim world. In 2007 she was awarded a medal for Arts and Sciences by the Egyptian government for her services to Islam, the first foreigner to have been awarded this decoration. In the summer of 2007, she was invited by the Malaysian government to speak in Kuala Lumpur (even though her books are banned there!) and gave the Muis Lecture in Singapore. She also spoke at the Young Presidents’ Organization in Istanbul and later that year she gave the keynote address at an international conference on Islamophobia there. In January 2008, she visited Pakistan, where gave lectures on Islam in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi.
In February 2008, she was awarded the TED prize and has been working with TED on a major international project to create, launch and propagate a Charter for Compassion, created online by the general public and crafted by leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Charter was signed in the fall of 2009 by a thousand religious and secular leaders.
Coverage of the 2011 Ware Lecture
2010 Ware Lecturer Winona LaDuke
Winona LaDuke is a Native American activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for vice president as the nominee of the United States Green Party, on a ticket headed by Ralph Nader. An Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg, she lives and works on the White Earth Reservations in northwestern Minnesota.
As Program Director of the Honor the Earth Fund, she works on a national level to advocate, raise public support, and create funding for frontline native environmental groups. She also works as Founding Director for White Earth Land Recovery Project.
In 1994, Winona was nominated by Time magazine as one of America's fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age. She has been awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, the BIHA Community Service Award in 1997, the Ann Bancroft Award for Women's Leadership Fellowship, and the Reebok Human Rights Award, with which she began the White Earth Land Recovery Project.
A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, Winona has written extensively on Native American and Environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and serves as co-chair of the Indigenous Women's Network, a North American and Pacific indigenous women's organization. In 1998, Ms. Magazine named her Woman of the Year for her work with Honor the Earth.
Coverage of the 2010 Ware Lecture
2009 Ware Lecturer Melissa Harris-Lacewell
Melissa Harris-Lacewell is Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of the award-winning book, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, (Princeton 2004). And she is currently at work on a new book: Sister Citizen: A Text For Colored Girls Who've Considered Politics When Being Strong Wasn't Enough. Her academic research is inspired by a desire to investigate the challenges facing contemporary black Americans and to better understand the multiple, creative ways that African Americans respond to these challenges.
Coverage of the 2009 Ware Lecture
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.
- 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 Marion 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
- 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 DeWolfe Smyth
- 1954 Agnes E. 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 White
- 1942 Alfred M. Bingham
- 1941 Harry D. Gideonse
- 1940 A.A. Berle, Jr.
- 1939 Eduard 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 H. 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
For more information contact generalassembly@uua.org.
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Last updated on Wednesday, October 26, 2011.
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