Ralph T. Templin (1896–1984) was an American missionary in India, and an educator, publisher, and social activist.
In 1954, he became the first white minister to join the then all-black Methodist Lexington Conference.
Missionary work in India
Templin worked in India from 1925 to 1940, where he became an admirer of
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...
's philosophies. He was active with the kristagraha (Christian nonviolence) movement there.
Because he would not desist from promoting Gandhi's nationalist direct action, the British occupation government expelled Templin from the country.
On his return to the United States, he founded the Harlem Ashram with Jay Holmes Smith to put Gandhi's philosophies to work in that community of African Americans and Puerto Rican immigrants in New York. He also became director of the decentralist, nonviolent School of Living in Suffern, New York.
Activism
Although he served as an aviator in World War I, Templin refused to register for the draft during World War II, and later refused to pay taxes for war expenses. In 1948, he was one of the founders of
Peacemakers, the first non-sectarian war tax resistance organization in the United States.
In 1955 he engaged in a 12-day protest fast following the executions of
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. He also fasted after the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights activist, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05& ...
He refused to appear when he was summoned before the
House Unamerican Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty an ...
in 1965.
He lobbied for Puerto Rican independence and supported independence fighters like
Ruth Mary Reynolds.
In 1968, he defended the
black power
Black power is a list of political slogans, political slogan and a name which is given to various associated ideologies which aim to achieve self-determination for black people. It is primarily, but not exclusively, used in the United States b ...
movement to white audiences.
Works
* ''Between Two Worlds: The Story of a Missionary's Experiences in International Fellowship'' (Fellowship Publications, 1948)
* ''Symposium, is Puerto Rico Fully Self-governing?'' (1953)
* ''Democracy and Nonviolence: The Role of the Individual in World Crisis'' (Porter Sargent, 1965)
* "Emancipation from Prejudice" ''Journal of human relations'' Vol. 14 (1966) p. 74–87
* ''American's Manifesto on Our Unfinished Business of Colonialism: A Call to Free Puerto Rico Now'' (1967)
See also
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Templin, Ralph T.
American Methodist clergy
American Methodist missionaries
American tax resisters
Gandhians
Methodist missionaries in India
1896 births
1984 deaths
American expatriates in India