July 12 : Al Winn Sunday
Rev. Albert Curry Winn is universally regarded as the most transformational minister in our church’s history. As pastor from 1974 –1981, Dr. Winn helped found ministries to the homeless, transportation for families of prison inmates, and an ecumenical Downtown Cooperative with nearby congregations. He served as moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. from 1979 –1980.
In a Times-Dispatch story, Winn’s son James commented that “he had a powerful moral and political vision about what was wrong and how it could be made better, and he was fearless in speaking truth to power. He discovered that four great-grandfathers and all eight great-great- grandfathers had been slaveholders. He felt a moral urgency to try to undo that evil.”
Active in the Civil Rights movement as a young man in Alabama, his son recalled that “a somewhat younger group of black preachers used to come to visit my father on Sunday afternoons while the Ku Klux Klan was taking license plate numbers outside.”
Winn came to Second from the presidency of Louisville Seminary, where he was widely known as a pacifist. He chaired the committee that wrote A Declaration of Faith. On Sunday May 3, Rev. Evans will preach on the legacy of Winn, and there will be a church school forum where members of the congregation will reflect on the impact Winn had on the church, the congregation, and the community.
