Harris Wofford

Wofford was born in 1926 in Manhattan, New York City, the son of Estelle Allison (née Gardner) and Harris Llewellyn Wofford.[3] He was born to a wealthy and prominent Southern family.[4]

At age 11 he accompanied his widowed grandmother on a six-month world tour. They spent Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, visited Shanghai shortly after the Imperial Japanese Army captured it, spent time in India where Wofford became "fascinated" by Mahatma Gandhi and visited Rome, where they saw Benito Mussolini announce Italy's withdrawal from the League of Nations and a subsequent fascist parade.[4] While attending Scarsdale High School,[5] he was inspired by Clarence Streit's plea for a world government to found the Student Federalists.[6] By the time he was 18, the organization had grown so large that Newsweek predicted he would become president.[4]

He served in the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War[4] and was a 1948 graduate of the University of Chicago.[4] After eight months on a fellowship in India, conducting a study of the recently assassinated Gandhi, he and his wife Clare returned to America. He subsequently enrolled at historically black Howard Law School, the first white male student to do so.[7] After one year, he concluded his studies at Yale Law School, where he received his law degree in June 1954.[8] He began his public service career as a legal assistant for Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, serving from 1957 to 1959. In 1959, he became a law professor at University of Notre Dame. He was an early supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the South in the 1950s, accompanying Indian activist Ram Manohar Lohia on a tour of the South in 1951[4] and becoming a friend and unofficial advisor to Martin Luther King Jr.[4]

Wofford was raised an Episcopalian, and converted to Catholicism in the 1980s.[9]

Wofford first met John F. Kennedy in 1947 at a party at Clare Boothe Luce's Connecticut home.[4] Wofford's political career began in 1960 when Kennedy asked him to join his presidential campaign and work with Sargent Shriver on winning over the "Negro vote".[4]

When King was imprisoned shortly before the election, Wofford and Shriver persuaded Kennedy to call King's wife, Coretta Scott King, who faced the specter of her husband sentenced to hard labor in a Georgia prison for a minor traffic violation while she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. This prompted Martin Luther King Sr. to switch his endorsement from Richard Nixon to Kennedy[4] without the knowledge of Ted Sorensen, Ted Kennedy and Kenneth O'Donnell.[4][10] Following the phone call, Wofford and other Kennedy aides assembled a pamphlet that referenced the call, printed on blue paper and known as the "blue bomb"; some 2 million copies were circulated, mostly through African American churches—"below the registry of the news and white culture. It had enormous influence among black voters."[11][12]

In 1961, Kennedy appointed him as a Special Assistant to the President for Civil Rights. In the White House, he served as chairman of the Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights. Wofford was instrumental in the formation of the Peace Corps and served as the Peace Corps' special representative to Africa and director of operations in Ethiopia.[4] He was appointed associate director of the Peace Corps in 1964 and held that position until 1966. He also participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965.[4] Wofford's book Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties details his years in the civil rights movement and the creation of the Peace Corps.[13][14]

In 1966, Wofford left politics to become president of the State University of New York at Old Westbury.[4] At the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Wofford risked his career by allowing himself to be arrested in protest of police brutality.[4] In 1970, he became president of Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, holding that post until 1978.[4]

In 1978, Wofford joined the law firm of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP.[15]

Wofford speaks at Peace Corps ceremony in 2014.

From 1995 to 2001, Wofford served as chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that runs AmeriCorps and other domestic volunteer programs.[4]

In 2005, he met Barack Obama. The two became friends and when Obama made his speech on race in America, "A More Perfect Union", Wofford introduced him.[4]

On January 4, 2007, Wofford was present for the swearing-in of Senator Bob Casey Jr., who defeated Santorum in his bid for a third term,[25] and on January 3, 2013, Wofford again accompanied Casey to his swearing-in for a second term on the floor of the Senate.[26]

From 2001, Wofford served on the boards of several charities and service organizations, including America's Promise, Youth Service America and the Points of Light Foundation. He was a trustee to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change.[27] Between 2007 and 2009, Wofford was the national spokesperson for Experience Wave, a national campaign that sought to advance state and federal policies to make it easier for mid-life and older adults to stay engaged in work and community life.[28]

Wofford was a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. He served on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.[29] He served as a senior fellow at the Case Foundation in Washington, D.C.[19][30]

From 2012 to 2015, Wofford served as a senior advisor to the Franklin Project, a policy program of the Aspen Institute that sought to make a year of service a common opportunity and expectation for young Americans.[31]

In 2014, The New Republic featured Wofford in its 100th Anniversary issue, in a profile titled, "The Man Who Was Everywhere".[32]

In 1948, Wofford married Clare Lindgren. The Woffords later had three children. In January 1996, Clare Wofford died of acute leukemia at age 69.[33][34]

In April 2016 at the age of 90, Wofford announced that he would marry interior designer Matthew Charlton,[35] a man 50 years his junior and his companion since 2001.[36][37] That month, he published an opinion piece in The New York Times entitled "Finding Love Again, This Time With a Man".[38] Wofford and Charlton married that year.[24][39][40]

On January 21, 2019, Wofford died at age 92 in Washington, D.C., of complications from a fall.[12] Approximately 1,000 people attended his memorial service held on March 3, 2019, in Cramton Auditorium at Howard University. The Howard University Choir performed and speakers included his husband, his brother, his children, Wayne A.I. Frederick, Tom Wolf, Timothy Shriver, Bob Casey Jr., Bill Clinton (via video), Paul Begala, Ghebre Selassie Mehreteab and Peter Yarrow (via video), among others.[41]

• In 2002, Wofford was the recipient of the John W. Gardner Leadership Award.[42]
• In 2011, in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, the National Peace Corps Association created the Harris Wofford Global Citizen Award. It is given annually to an outstanding global leader who grew up and lives in a country where Peace Corps Volunteers served and whose life was influenced by the Peace Corps. The leader should be a person whose life's work has made a significant contribution to the world in a way that reflects the core Peace Corps values of service, peace, development, human rights, health, and understanding.[43]
• In 2012, Wofford received the Presidential Citizens Medal.[44]
• In 2015, Wofford was an honored speaker at the Memorial Tribute to Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., 1917–2015, President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, Congregation of Holy Cross and former chairperson of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.[45]

• List of LGBT members of the United States Congress

• United States Congress. "Harris Wofford (id: W000665)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Harris Wofford Global Citizen Award
• Peace Corps biography of Harris Wofford
• Trailer for upcoming documentary on Harris Wofford Archived July 31, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• with Harris Wofford by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, September 21, 1996