The History of the Riverside Church in the City of New York2004

The Riverside Church emerged out of the mutual vision of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Harry Emerson Fosdick, a collaborative venture between America's greatest philanthropist and its most renowned liberal preacher. For seven decades the church has served as the premier model of Protestant liberalism in the United States. The Riverside Church is viewed widely as the place in which to honor visiting dignitaries to New York. It was from the pulpit of the Riverside Church that Martin Luther King, Jr. first publicly voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War, that Nelson Mandela addressed US church leaders after his release from prison, and that speakers as diverse as Cesar Chavez, Jesse Jackson, Desmond Tutu, Fidel Castro, and Reinhold Niebuhr have lectured church and nation about issues of the...