McEwen, Homer C. (Homer Clyde)
Dates
- Existence: 1913-1985
Biographical Statement
Homer C. McEwen was a Congregational minister in New Orleans and Atlanta. Apart from his religious duties, McEwen was also active in various civil rights organizations and causes.
Homer Clyde McEwen, son of the Reverend Tolbert McEwen and Mrs. Julia Clay McEwen, was born December 4, 1913, in Aberdeen, Mississippi. After his early education he attended Straight College in New Orleans, Louisiana. During his time at Straight he earned varsity letters in football, basketball, tennis and track before graduating summa cum laude in 1934. He graduated with a Bachelor's of Divinity cum laude from the Chicago Theological Seminary in 1940. From 1940-42 he studied at the University of Chicago under a Ford Fellowship at the Chicago Theological Seminary with his advanced studies culminating in the Doctor of Divinity. He was awarded honoris causa by the Chicago Theological Seminary in 1963.
In 1934, McEwen worked as Assistant Director of the Federal Transit Bureau in New Orleans, as the Boys Work Secretary at the Dryades St. YMCA in 1935, and in the Federal Writers Project, where he was assigned to the Dillard University library. In 1936 he began his Christian ministry as the Minister of Christian Education at the Lincoln Memorial Congregational Church in Chicago from 1938-1940 and as Interim Pastor from 1940-1942. He then moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he was pastor at St. Luke's Congregational Church until 1947. It is during this time period that McEwen married Maxell Elaine Kerr (1935) and become the father of four children: Elaine McEwen Hughes, Homer Clyde Jr., Cynthia Theresa and Phyllis McEwen Jordan.
In 1947, Dr. McEwen moved to Atlanta where he served in the capacity of pastor at First Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ and remained there for the rest of his career. Combining his scholarly and Christian interests, Dr. McEwen also devoted himself to Christian education, and served from 1948-1958 as Instructor in Homiletics and Worship at Atlanta's Gammon Theological Seminary and in the same capacity at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta after 1958. Many essays are found within his papers, including one he wrote about Black Protestant churches in Brownsville, a community in Brooklyn, New York. McEwen was also a writer of poetry and there is correspondence from people who were touched by his poetry requesting copies. There is also correspondence from his daughter to what seems to be a publisher about getting her father's poems published.
McEwen served on many boards during his lifetime including the United Church Board for Ho,meland Ministries, Dillard University's Board of Trustees, the Metropolitan Center for the Blind, and the Theological Commission of the United Church of Christ. McEwen was president of Frank L. Stanton School P.T.A., a member of the Boards of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the Carrie-Steele Pitts Home. McEwen's memberships in many local organizations document his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta. He was a part of the Concerned Clergymen of Atlanta, where the group used their influence to boycott a grocery chain in Atlanta called Buehler's Super Markets, because of their discriminatory pricing in Black communities, lack of sanitary conditions concerning food, and their inability to promote and hire Blacks within its store chains.
Dr. McEwen died August 4, 1985.