Harmon Wray

Last updated
Harmon L. Wray, Jr.
BornNovember 10, 1946
DiedJuly 24, 2007 (aged 60)
Education Rhodes College
Duke University Divinity School
Vanderbilt University Divinity School
Occupation(s)Activist, author

Harmon Lee Wray Jr. (November 10, 1946 - July 24, 2007) [1] was an American activist and author, based in Tennessee, who supported human rights for the poor, abolition of the death penalty, and prison reform. He advocated that Christians had a moral obligation to try to keep people out of prison, and persisted with his efforts of reform during decades of rising rates of incarceration in the United States, especially of minorities.

Contents

Early life

Wray was born on November 10, 1946. He grew up in a working-class family in Memphis, Tennessee, [2] where he was raised as a Baptist. He later joined the United Methodist Church. [3]

Wray graduated from Rhodes College in 1968. [4] He earned a master's degree from the Duke University Divinity School in 1970. [4] He later attended graduate school at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School but never completed his PhD. [2] By 1998, he had been enrolled for 16 years. [3]

Career

Wray taught classes on prison ministry at the Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville in the 1970s. [5] [6] In 1978, he argued that, "Too often, people in the free world have a tendency to shy away from dealing with crime and with people in our society who don't fit in." [6] He believed that Christians especially had a duty to keep people out of prison. [6] In the decades since, the rates of incarceration increased dramatically nationwide, especially for minorities, both because of implementation of the war on drugs and more severe sentencing guidelines.

In 1995, Wray was hired by the United Methodist Church as Coordinator for Ministries with the Poor and Marginalized. His role was to raise awareness about poverty in Middle Tennessee. [3] Wray gave lectures about human rights for the poor at the Vanderbilt Divinity School and the West End United Methodist Church in the late 1990s. [3]

Wray advocated abolition of the death penalty and reform of excessively punitive sentencing and prison conditions. He participated in the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing and the Restorative Justice Coalition of Tennessee. [7] He worked with the Southern Prison Ministry, Project Return, and the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. [3] He also taught at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. [2]

In another means of reaching people, he co-authored two published books on prison reform. According to his obituary in The Tennessean , Wray believed America's prison system "penalizes people who can't afford lawyers and lets respectable criminals get away." [2]

Death

Wray died of a stroke on July 24, 2007, in Nashville, Tennessee. [2] [4] [8] His funeral was held at the Belmont United Methodist Church. [2]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanderbilt University</span> Private university in Nashville, Tennessee, US

Vanderbilt University is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1 million endowment in the hopes that his gift and the greater work of the university would help to heal the sectional wounds inflicted by the American Civil War. Vanderbilt is a founding member of the Southeastern Conference and has been the conference's only private school since 1966.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Lawson (activist)</span> American minister, educator, and activist

James Morris Lawson Jr. is an American activist and university professor. He was a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960s, he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was expelled from Vanderbilt University for his civil rights activism in 1960, and later served as a pastor in Los Angeles for 25 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Olivet Cemetery (Nashville)</span> Historic cemetery in Davidson County, Tennessee

Mount Olivet Cemetery is a 206-acre (83 ha) cemetery located in Nashville, Tennessee. It is located approximately two miles East of downtown Nashville, and adjacent to the Catholic Calvary Cemetery. It is open to the public during daylight hours.

Kenneth Lee Carder is a retired American bishop of the United Methodist Church, elected in 1992. Carder distinguished himself as a pastor, a member of Annual Conference and General U.M. agencies, a bishop, seminary professor, and an author.

Roy Clyde Clark was an American bishop of the United Methodist Church, elected in 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanderbilt University Divinity School</span>

The Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion is an interdenominational divinity school at Vanderbilt University, a major research university located in Nashville, Tennessee. It is one of only six university-based schools of religion in the United States without a denominational affiliation that service primarily mainline Protestantism.

James Geddes Stahlman was an American newspaper publisher and philanthropist. He was the publisher of the Nashville Banner. He was opposed to desegregation.

Kelly Miller Smith Sr. was a Baptist preacher, author, and prominent activist in the Civil Rights Movement, who was based in Nashville, Tennessee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harvie Branscomb</span> American academic

Bennett Harvie Branscomb was an American theologian and academic administrator. He served as the fourth chancellor of Vanderbilt University, a private university in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1946 to 1963. Prior to his appointment at Vanderbilt, he was the director of the Duke University Libraries and dean of the Duke Divinity School. Additionally, he served as a professor of Christian theology at Southern Methodist University. He was the author of several books about New Testament theology.

Jesse Lee Cuninggim (1870–unknown) was an American Methodist clergyman and university professor and administrator. After serving as Head of the Department of Religious Education at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, he served as the President of Scarritt College for Christian Workers, which he moved from Kansas City, Missouri to Nashville, Tennessee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Little Page Green</span>

Alexander Little Page Green was an American Methodist leader, slaveholder, and co-founder of Vanderbilt University. He was the founder of the Southern Methodist Publishing House. He was instrumental in moving the Methodist General Conference to Nashville, Tennessee, where he was the minister of McKendree United Methodist Church. He was an authority on fishing.

John Keith Benton was an American theologian and university administrator. He served as the Dean of the Vanderbilt University Divinity School from 1939 to 1956.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas H. Malone</span>

Thomas H. Malone (1834-1906) was an American Confederate veteran, judge, businessman and academic administrator. He served as the President of the Nashville Gas Company from 1893 to 1906. He served as the second Dean of the Vanderbilt University Law School from 1875 to 1904.

Robert A. Young (1824–1902) was an American minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. A descendant of slaveholding planters, he served as a minister in many churches in Tennessee, Alabama and Missouri in the Antebellum South. He served as the President of Florence Wesleyan University (later known as the University of North Alabama in Florence, Alabama from 1861 to 1864. He supported the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, and he did not believe in the "social equality of the Negro" after the war. He was a founding trustee of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Colonel Edmund William Cole was an American Confederate veteran and businessman. He was the president of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, and the founder of the American National Bank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitefoord Russell Cole</span> American businessman

Whiteford Russell Cole was an American businessman. He was the president of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad from 1926 to 1934, and a director of many companies. During the railroad strike actions of 1921–1922, he threatened his workers with dismissal and loss of pensions. His mansion in Louisville, Kentucky, is the official residence of the president of the University of Louisville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Thorpe Elliston</span>

Joseph Thorpe Elliston was an American silversmith, planter and politician. He served as the fourth mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, from 1814 to 1817. He owned land in mid-town Nashville, on parts of modern-day Centennial Park, Vanderbilt University, and adjacent West End Park.

Earl Caspar Arnold was an American academic administrator. He served as the dean of the Vanderbilt University Law School from 1930 to 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph A. Johnson Jr.</span> American theologian

Joseph Andrew Johnson Jr. was an African-American theologian. He was a professor of New Testament at the Interdenominational Theological Center and Fisk University, and a bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Bill Barnes was an American United Methodist minister. He was the pastor of Edgehill United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1966 to 1996. Known as "the conscience of Nashville" for his civil rights, homelessness and LGBT advocacy, Barnes admitted in his 2007 book that he "grieve[d] over its divisions and exclusions, its racism and classism and Nimbyism."

References

  1. "Harmon". Nashville Scene. 24 July 2007. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Waddle, Ray (July 28, 2007). "Community loses prison minister who simply lived his faith" . The Tennessean. p. B3. Retrieved October 15, 2018 via Newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Waddle, Ray (June 1, 1998). "Lending his voice to the poor" . The Tennessean. pp. 14–15. Retrieved October 15, 2018 via Newspapers.com.
  4. 1 2 3 Egerton, John (July 24, 2007). "Prisoner Advocate Harmon Wray Dies at 60". Nashville Scene. Retrieved October 15, 2018.
  5. "Divinity School Host. Prison Ministry Unit Sets VU Meetings" . The Tennessean. November 12, 1978. p. 22. Retrieved December 24, 2018 via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 3 Lewis, Dwight (December 12, 1978). "More 'Criminal Concern' Urged" . The Tennessean. p. 36. Retrieved December 24, 2018 via Newspapers.com.
  7. Barry, Bruce (July 24, 2007). "Harmon". Nashville Scene. Retrieved October 15, 2018.
  8. McCullah, Jodi (August 5, 2007). "Harmon Wray honored peace by uniting people" . The Tennessean. p. A21. Retrieved October 15, 2018 via Newspapers.com.