Saints of 2024 – The Episcopal Urban Caucus

WAYNE A. WRIGHT, SR.

Wayne Arthur Wright was born on July 2,1945 at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, New York, to Myrtle and Rivers Wright, with whom he would settle in the Bronx as the second of four children.

Wayne’s mother insisted that he and his brother go to a better school than their local high school, so they both took the test and were enrolled in the Whole World-Aviation High School in Long Island City, NY. There Wayne excelled and graduated with a Powerplant license. That same year he was hired by the New York Transit Authority as an ironworker where he had a successful thirty-year career and rose through the ranks to become the first Black superintendent of the Iron Workers SMC. Shortly after a year as an Ironworker, Wayne was drafted into the US Army during the Viet Nam War. Based in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, he was trained as a dental assistant. While there he met Vicki Jean Gedney, who was also an Army dental Assistant. They were married in September of 1968 at Columbia University in New York City. They lived at the Seton Hotel in New York until their move to the South Bronx with their first son, Sean David. Following the birth of their second son, Wayne, Jr., the family moved to Co-op City in the North Bronx. There their third son, Ian Eric Frederick, was born.

Wayne continued his career with the Transit Authority until 1978 when he joined the US Army Reserve in the Naval Construction Battalion known as the Seabees. There he served for twenty years until his retirement as Chief of the Construction Battalion. He and his wife, Vicki purchased a townhouse in Carlsbad, California where they enjoyed welcoming family and friends. In Carlsbad he joined St. Michaels by the Sea, Episcopal Church where he served as a vestryman, church Warden and director of acolytes.

In 2014, Wayne suffered a stroke that reduced his ability to travel and eventually to care for himself. After a few years he and Vicki moved to northern California to be nearer family. Wayne Wright, Sr. passed away on Friday, August 16th, with his wife of fifty-five years at his side. He is survived by Vicki and their sons, Sean, Wayne, Jr. and Ian as well as granddaughters, Olivia, Cassiana, Addison, Rayliana and Scarlett and grandsons Joshua and Wayne, III.

THE VERY REV. CECIL DAVID WILLIAMS

The Very Rev. C. David Williams (as he preferred to be called) was born on May 3, 1942 in Valhalla, New York. He was one of four children who grew up with their parents in Tuckahoe, New York. Following graduation from high school he attended Central College in Iowa, followed by service in the US army.

Dean Williams’ theological education began at the George Mercer School of Theology in Garden City, New York, and continued at the Institute of Theology at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Ordained to the diaconate in 1974 and the priesthood in 1975 in the Diocese of New York, he began his ministry as a curate at the Church of St. Matthew and St. Timothy in Manhattan. He later served as Administrative Chaplain at the Men’s House of Detention at Riker’s Island (New York City). In 1984 he was elected rector of St. George’s Church in Brooklyn, New York and in 2000 he was called to be Dean at Trinity and St. Philip’s Cathedral in Newark, New Jersey, where he served until his retirement from active ministry in 2008. During his retirement he often served as a supply priest in the Diocese of Long Island where he resided.

Throughout more than three decades of ordained ministry, Dean Williams was active at all levels of the Episcopal Church. In the Diocese of Long Island, he served on the Commission on Ministry and as Chair of the Black Clergy Caucus. His service in the wider church included Deputy to the General Convention and President of the Union of Black Episcopalians.

He entered eternal life on January 10, 2024. At the time of his death, he was a resident of Hempstead, New York. He is survived by his brother, Wade.

THE REV. CANON EDWARD W. RODMAN

The Rev. Canon Edward W. Rodman was known church-wide as a strategist, advocate and activist for social and racial justice, and as an educator and mentor across generations in the Episcopal Church.

While still in high school in Portsmouth, Va., he worked with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) as a field secretary, and he organized the only high school-based sit-in movement in the United States. Later, at Hampton Institute, he became a founding member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Rodman has been a devoted spokesperson on black youth issues and the emergence of Black Power since the 1960s.

Ed Rodman holds degrees from Hampton Institute, and the Episcopal Theological School, and honorary degrees from Saint Augustine’s College and Episcopal Divinity School.

He was ordained a deacon in 1967 and a priest in 1968. After an initial service at St. Paul’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut, Rodman returned to the diocese of Massachusetts in 1971, where he became a canon missioner. He served in that capacity under five Massachusetts bishops. Upon leaving the diocesan staff, he served as Professor of Pastoral Theology and Urban Ministry at the Episcopal Divinity School, until retiring in 2009.

He was a long-time member of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, a founding member of the Union of Black Episcopalians and The Consultation, a former urban hearings coordinator for the Urban Bishops’ Coalition, as well as Coordinator of the Episcopal Urban Caucus.
Ed Rodman leaves an extraordinary legacy. Fierce in his commitment to racial and economic justice, he was also fiercely loyal to his friends and companions. Lay and clergy leaders alike have been mentored, supported, challenged, chastened and made stronger by him.

The Rev. Canon Edward W. Rodman died peacefully at the age of 81 on April 2, 2024, in his home in Framingham, Massachusetts. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Gladys, and by three daughters, Claire, Alice and Sara Rodman.

THE REV. EARL A. NEIL

The Rev. Earl A. Neil was a priest and human rights activist who was born on December 17, 1935 in Saint Paul, Minnesota to Katherine L. and Earl W. Neil. He grew up in St. Paul and attended Carleton College, from which he graduated in 1957. He attended Seabury-Western Theology Seminary in Evanston, Illinois where he completed his ministerial training in 1969. He was ordained in the Episcopal Church the same year.

From his first assignment, Neil experienced the often subtle and sometimes blatant racial prejudice that would both constrain his opportunities for service and inspire him to work for change. Unable to receive an appointment in this home state, he accepted his first assignment in Wichita, Kansas, at the mission congregation of St. Augustine’s, an all-black parish. After losing diocesan sponsorship, the church was closed down. The loss of his parish inspired him to make resistance to segregation the heart of his pastoral mission.

Neil transferred to Christ’s Church in Woodlawn, a mission congregation in Chicago, in 1964. In the summer of 1965, he helped to organize the historic Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery, and spent several months in the South helping to register voters. The perversive hostility and violence Neil witnessed in the South – most notably the fatal beating of a Unitarian minister from Boston outside of a restaurant where he and a fellow vicar from Chicago had just eaten – strengthened his commitment to racial equality.

In Chicago he put his beliefs into action, becoming the chapter president of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity (ESCRU) as well as joining The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), a powerful and stabilizing force in Chicago, because of their organized efforts in dealing with Mayor Richard J. Daley’s political machine.

Frustrated with the ability of black priests to work effectively in a mission congregation, Earl Neil transferred to St. Agustine’s Church in Oakland, California, where he continued to confront racial tensions. With the indirect support of Bishop Chauncie Kilmer Meyers, Neil reached out to the Black Panthers, even sheltering members of the group and becoming involved in a standoff on April 3rd, 1968, when law enforcement officials ordered him to give up the Panthers who were seeking refuge. Neil refused. His defense of the Panthers, whose use of violence generated a mixed response from the church community, revealed the firmness of his conviction. On the following day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, and Neil sponsored a joint memorial service at St. Augustine’s to commemorate the lives of Dr. King and Bobby Hutton, a Black Panther member killed at the same time.

Flowing from his involvement in the struggle for racial equality, Neil turned his focus to include the wider church and its members. In 1977 he began his work with the Coalition for Human Needs, a church organization created with his help, for the purpose of improving the lives of underprivileged and neglected members of society.

In 1985, Neil made his first visit to South Africa, where he found the spiritual involvement a pleasant change from American materialism. An initial three-month sabbatical in 1990 grew into a three year stay during which he worked on the staff of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Church of South Africa’s Department of Justice and Reconciliation. He also met and married Angela Kazzie in 1991. The couple has one daughter. In 2005, after forty-five years of ministry, Neil and his wife took permanent residency in South Africa, where they resided until his death on March 11, 2024. He is survived by his wife Angela, daughter, Latoya and one grandson.

MRS. GLENDA LAVERNE EVANS

Glenda Laverne Evans was the eldest of four children born to Myrtle and Rivers Wright on June 10, 1942 in the Bronx, New York. She grew up in the Bronx where she attended PS42, followed by attendance at PS119 in Harlem, Wadleigh Junior High School in Manhattan and George Washington High School, from which she graduated in 1960. Glenda earned her associate degree from Central Texas College. In high school she volunteered as a candy striper at a local hospital and after her graduation, she became an inventory clerk at Lady Marlene Brassiere Company. After completing jobs as bookkeeper and teller at Chemical Bank she worked as a toll booth collector on the Tappanzee Bridge in New York. When her family moved to Willingboro, New Jersey she became a child development instructor, and lead teacher prior to becoming an administrative assistant for the child development program.

In 1967, Glenda met Nathaniel Paul Evans on a New York City subway where they discovered they were neighbors. A romance began and two years later they were married at Holyrood Church in Manhattan. In April of 1974, their only child, Nathan Jamal Evans was born.

Glenda loved the arts and danced at the age of 12, with the Miss Bruce Dance Company of Harlem. She also played the piano. At Christ the King Episcopal Church in Willingboro, Glenda joined the Women’s Group, the Altar Guild and the vestry. Glenda’s love of travel was formed early when, as a child, her family traveled by car from Maine to Florida. Later she enjoyed cruises with her friends. She also enjoyed knitting and crocheting and taught classes for crocheting at Christ the King Church. She loved collecting dolls, going on bus outings and attending Broadway shows.

Glenda Laverne Evans died peacefully at Riverview Estates in Riverton, New Jersey on Friday, April 5, 2024. She is survived by her husband, Nathaniel, their son, Nathan, her brother, Wayne Wright and sister Velva Wright.

THE EUC SALUTES ITS 2024 SAINTS

MRS. GLENDA LAVERNE EVANS

THE REV. EARL A. NEIL

THE REV. CANON EDWARD W. RODMAN

THE VERY REV. CECIL DAVID WILLIAMS

WAYNE A. WRIGHT, SR.

The Rev. Darryl James