Liberal Religious Youth (LRY) was an autonomous, North American youth organization affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). LRY was unique as a church youth group in that it was governed solely by its members, who were generally between the ages of fourteen and nineteen years old, with adults serving only in an advisory capacity. Though partial funding and office space were provided by the UUA, primary funding was through an independent endowment, the investment of which was controlled by the LRY board of directors.Freedom to Question - Supplemental Materials - People Soup
. Archived PDF scans of the LRY newspaper, 1973–1982. Continental LRY was run by an executive committee, usually consisting of four or five full-time officers, elected to one-year positions by the board of directors. Executive committee members shared an apartment and office in Boston and, like the board of directors, were all under the age of twenty. Throughout the 1960s and most of the 1970s, the LRY office was in the UU headquarters at 25 Beacon Street, Boston. In the late 1970s it was moved by the UUA to the basement of a smaller building behind the headquarters. The LRY Executive Committee wrote program materials for youth groups and kept in touch with their international membership via their newspaper, ''People Soup'', which was also completely written, edited and published by the youth staff.

History

LRY was founded in 1954,MacCleary, John Bassett (2004). ''The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopedia of the 1960s and 1970s''. Berkeley, Calif.: Ten Speed Press. . pp. 306, 314, 610. before the official consolidation of the

American Unitarian Association The American Unitarian Association (AUA) was a religious denomination in the United States and Canada, formed by associated Unitarian congregations in 1825. In 1961, it consolidated with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Uni ...

and the

Universalist Church of America The Universalist Church of America (UCA) was originally a Christian Universalist religious denomination in the United States (plus affiliated churches in other parts of the world). Known from 1866 as the Universalist General Convention, the nam ...

in 1961, and has roots going back both to the Unitarian Young People's Religious Union, organized in 1896, and the Universalist Young People's Christian Union, founded in 1898.Roy, Ralph Lord (1960). ''Communism and the Churches''. Harcourt, Brace. p. 368. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, LRYers were seriously involved in the

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...

and anti-war movements. At times these radical activities were sanctioned by their elders in the church, but at other times they were condemned. In the 1980s, these activities continued but, along with the rest of the country, the leadership of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) was becoming more conservative, and relations between the leaders of LRY and the UUA became progressively more strained.Altbach, Philip G. (1997). ''Student Politics in America: A Historical Analysis''. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers. . p. 173.Oppenheimer, Mark (2003). ''Knocking on Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture''. Yale University Press. . pp. 35, 236. Because of ongoing conflict with Unitarian Universalist adult leadership, and amid a great deal of controversy, LRY was disbanded in 1982. Within the Unitarian Universalist Association it was replaced in 1982 by a new youth program, Young Religious Unitarian Universalists(YRUU).

Conferences and summer camps

Many Unitarian Universalist congregations had a local LRY chapter, which typically had at least one meeting per month, with some groups meeting weekly. The "locals" were organized into regional federations, such as BSF (Bay Shore AFederation), LAF (Long Island YArea Federation), CMF (Central Midwest Federation), the Iroquois Federation (upstate New York), LSD (Lower South District), and Toak-TM (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Tennessee, Missouri), the members of which elected officers to represent them on the continental board of directors. Many federations were also organized into intermediate "regional committees" such as MiCon (Mid-Continent Regional Committee), NERC (New England Regional Committee), MARC (Middle Atlantic Regional Council), etc.Liberal Religious Youth, Records, 1959–1966
. Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School Regional committees, federations and local groups hosted weekend conferences at UU churches or campgrounds, at which the members of locals got to know their fellow LRYers from other locals, or from other regions entirely. Many LRYers would travel great distances for particular conferences, and hitchhiking was a popular mode of transportation. As many as 120 kids would gather at regional conferences, which were planned and entiredly carried off by people under 20. Near the end of LRY, there was also a growing population of LRYers who had no local group, and only attended conferences. This was largely because some UU churches refused to allow LRYers to have a local at their church anymore. Unitarian Universalist summer camps existed throughout the US and Canada, where campers often formed lifelong friendships, and many counselors were drawn from active LRY groups. These camps included

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; Ferry Beach in

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; Homestead, originally at a site near Carmel, New York and later in Harriman State Park, New York; Star Island, in the

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off the coast of

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and Maine;

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, in the

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; Unicamp, near Shelburne, Ontario; DeBenneville Pines, in the San Bernardino Mountains in

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; The Mountain, in

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; and many others. Week-long summer conferences were held at many of these camps, and non-UU camps were sometimes rented for events such as OPIK in Tar Hollow State Forest, Ohio, the LRY Continental Conference ( Con Con), the location of which rotated throughout the US, and Summer's End, which took place every Labor Day weekend in New England. Summer's End is now an autonomous conference that occurs annually in mid-August

Notable LRYers

* Carolyn Garcia (a.k.a. Mountain Girl, a.k.a. Carolyn Adams) – Merry Prankster and the wife of Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. *

David Helvarg David Helvarg (born April 10, 1951) is an American journalist and environmental activist. He is the founder and president of the marine conservation lobbying organization Blue Frontier Campaign, a part of the Seaweed rebellion, which arose fro ...

– noted environmentalist. *

Ray Kurzweil Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and e ...

– author.Kurzweil, Ray (2005) ''The Singularity Is Near''. VIKING pp.382 *

Joyce Maynard Daphne Joyce Maynard (born November 5, 1953) is an American novelist and journalist. She began her career in journalism in the 1970s, writing for several publications, most notably '' Seventeen'' magazine and ''The New York Times''. Maynard contr ...

– author.Maynard, Joyce (2003) ''Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties''. iUniverse pp.82–84 * Joshua Prager – A physician leader in the field of

neuromodulation Neuromodulation is the physiological process by which a given neuron uses one or more chemicals to regulate diverse populations of neurons. Neuromodulators typically bind to metabotropic, G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) to initiate a second ...

. * Michael Ventura – author, screenwriter, critic, and founder of the '' LA Weekly''. * Jennifer Meta Robinson – food scholar and LRY national secretary 1980.

References

External links

The LRY Memorial Room

��PDF scans of the LRY newspaper, 1973–1982
People Soup Archives
at the UUA via the Wayback Machine
LRY Web at UUism Networks
via the Wayback Machine {{Authority control 1954 establishments in the United States Defunct religious organizations Religious organizations based in Canada Religious organizations based in the United States Religious organizations disestablished in 1982 Religious organizations established in 1954 Unitarian Universalist organizations Youth organizations based in the United States Youth religious organizations Youth-led organizations

History

Conferences and summer camps

Notable LRYers

See also

References

Further reading

External links