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After high school, when he was one of the first U.S.Pres-idential Scholars, he was admitted to Harvard University.He grad-uated in 1968.Some of Sinkford s activities during college includedadvising local youth groups in Boston and Lexington, Massachusetts,serving as Assistant Director of Rowe Camp, a Unitarian Universal-ist Camp in Rowe, Massachusetts, and directing a Harvard-RoxburySummer Project.After that he spent a year in Greece as a RockefellerFellow.Sinkford worked in private business for many years.Mostlyemployed in the marketing field, he held management positions withGillette, Avon, Johnson Products, and Revlon.During this time he re-ceived the Black Achievers in Industry Award from the HarlemYMCA.He also ran his own business, Sinkford Restorations, Inc.After returning home to Cincinnati, Sinkford became active in hislocal church again and entered the Starr King School for the Min-istry.During this time he served on the UU Urban Concerns andMinistry Program and also became active in African American Uni-tarian Universalist Ministry.As he neared the end of his seminary 432 " SKINNER, CLARENCE RUSSELL (1881 1949)training he was hired to serve on the staff of the UUA.A close friendof president John Buehrens, in 1994 he became the director of theCongregational, District, and Extension Services departments, whichoversee congregational health and growth.The following year he wasfellowshipped as a community minister and ordained in his homechurch in Cincinnati.In 2001 he ran for president of the UUA againstDiane Miller, the director of the UUA Department of Ministry.Hewon by a large majority, but soon after taking office, Sinkford foundthat as a religious leader, he had to respond to the terrorist attacks onNew York.He believes that the shared tragedy has heightened ourappreciation of the importance of religious life and community. Sinkford, who lives in Newton, Massachusetts, has two children andis a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Marblehead,Massachusetts.The first African American to head the UUA, Sink-ford says of his Unitarian Universalist faith, We are committed toliving as a religious community that honors and celebrates difference.We believe that our differences can be blessings, not curses. SKINNER, CLARENCE RUSSELL (1881 1949).Skinner was thegreat Universalist social prophet of the 20th century.He was born inBrooklyn, New York, on March 23, 1881.He grew up in a family ofactors and theater people.His father, who was a reporter, also wroteplays and was a drama critic.Young Clarence took part in plays atErasmus Hall High School and also at St.Lawrence University,where he started in the fall of 1900.Skinner was also active in theUniversalist church in Canton, New York, where his classmate ClaraAyres played the organ.After they graduated in 1904, Skinner wasleaning toward the ministry as a career and went to work at the Uni-versalist Church of the Divine Paternity in New York.He was incharge of the Sunday School and youth programs.He also attendedprograms at the University Settlement and eventually taught classesthere in current events.Skinner was ordained in New York on April8, 1906, and accepted a call that summer to the Universalist churchin Mt.Vernon, New York.That fall he and Clara were married.Skinner s ministry in Mt.Vernon was a success, as a building waserected and the church school prospered.He continued to be involvedin the University Settlement and also finished his M.A.from St.Lawrence.Soon thereafter John Haynes Holmes was settled in New SKINNER, CLARENCE RUSSELL (1881 1949) " 433York, and he and Skinner became friends.They agreed that thechurch must broaden its orientation toward reforming all of society.At this time congregations were taught about many of the social in-justices of the day and public forums became popular.Christiansacross the country were applying Christ s teachings to the socialproblems of the day, calling it the Social Gospel.This reform impulsewas spearheaded in the Universalist denomination by Skinner.In1910 Skinner helped form the Universalist Social Service Commis-sion and served as secretary for six years.The following year he leftMt.Vernon to accept a call to Grace Universalist Church in Lowell,Massachusetts.Here, in a community where the industrial revolutionhad started, Skinner had more firsthand experience in dealing withsocial problems.He tried to bring labor and management together fordiscussions and sponsored many forums.He was also named presi-dent of the Massachusetts Universalist Sunday School Association.Then in 1914 he was appointed to the new position of Professor ofApplied Christianity at Crane Theological School at Tufts.This wasthe beginning of a long relationship with Tufts.Although some wereconcerned about Skinner s social radicalism, he was a popularteacher with the students.After he was there for only a year, his ma-jor work on The Social Implications of Universalism was published(1915).Here Skinner wrote, The true social objective is the perfect-ing of human character by the progressive improvement of those con-ditions and environments which are within the social control (Skin-ner, Social Implications, p.33).In 1917 the denomination approved a Declaration of Social Prin-ciples that Skinner had written.That year was a difficult one for Skin-ner, as his stand against World War I and his avowed pacifism wasunpopular with much of the campus.After the war he once againjoined forces with Holmes; together they formed a CommunityChurch of Boston, similar to Holmes s venture in New York.Bothbelieved that the church must move beyond sectarian boundaries andserve the broader community with a ministry that addresses socialproblems in the world.Organized in 1920, Skinner remained therefor 17 years as leader
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