Background
Edgar Chandler was born in Providence, Rhode Island, but grew up in Nahant, Massachusetts. His father, Henry J. Chandler, was an engineer at General Electric in Lynn, Massachusetts and later became a Congregational minister.
clergyman religious association official
Edgar Chandler was born in Providence, Rhode Island, but grew up in Nahant, Massachusetts. His father, Henry J. Chandler, was an engineer at General Electric in Lynn, Massachusetts and later became a Congregational minister.
Bachelor of Science, Boston University, 1928. Doctor of Divinity, Boston University, 1961. Postgraduate, University London, 1931.
Bachelor's Degree, Andover Newton Theological School, 1933. Postgraduate, Harvard Division School, 1935. Doctor of Divinity, Northland College, 1952.
Doctor of Laws, Loyola University, 1965. Doctor of Laws, Iowa Wesleyan College, 1967. Laureate, Lincoln Academy, 1966.
At the onset of World World War II, he enlisted in the Navy, where he became a chaplain and rose to the rank of Commander. He became the head chaplain of the Seventh Fleet in the European theater and was stationed in England for most of the war years. He wrote about his experiences during his years of working with refugees in a memoir, "High Tower of Refuge" (New York: Praeger, 1959).
Chandler was director of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago during the 1960s and worked closely with Martin Luther King Junior. in the Chicago civil rights movement.
He also participated in King"s civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965, and was co-organizer (with Edwin "Bill" Berry, head of the Chicago Urban League) of a civil rights rally in July, 1964, at Soldier Field in Chicago, at which King was the main speaker. One of his earliest acts in the civil rights movement was a multi-racial "wade-in" at the segregated Rainbow Beach on Chicago"s lakefront.
Then, in 1967, he moved with his family to the West Side of Chicago, in a nearly all-black neighborhood, as part of the movement to promote equal housing in the city. "There was no religious leader in Chicago who was more instrumental in bringing about an understanding of the civil rights movement to the people of Chicago than Editor Chandler," Msgr.
John Egan, a Catholic pastor at Chicago"s Presentation Church during the 1960s, remembered in an article on Chandler in the Valley News of Lebanon, New Hampshire (U.S.) Chandler later hired Jackson at the Church Federation of Greater Chicago and they became friends.
Chandler "really helped to bring me into the civil rights movement," Jackson was quoted as saying in the Valley News article. "He helped to hire me when I had no money, and helped sustain my family.".
Quotations: "really helped to bring me into the civil rights movement,".
In recognition of this work, he was given a knighthood from the Netherlands (knight-officer of the order of Orange-Nassau) and honors from West Germany and Greece, as well as appointment as an honorary member of The Order of the British Empire.
Married Ruth Doggett, April 18, 1927. Children: Hugh S., Marjorie Ann, Constance Elsie, Christopher Norris, David Luscombe.