Former House of Deputies Vice President Byron Rushing to be honored by ACLU of Massachusetts
[Episcopal News Service] Byron Rushing – three-time vice president of the House of Deputies and a deputy from the Diocese of Massachusetts for almost 50 years – is being honored by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Massachusetts during its annual Bill of Rights Dinner on Oct. 22.
Born in 1942, Rushing was active in the Civil Right Movement during the 1960s. From 1972 to 1985, he was president of Boston’s Museum of African American History. During his tenure, the museum purchased and began the restoration of the African Meeting House, the oldest extant Black church building in the United States and now a National Historic Site – something for which he lobbied.
Rushing served in in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1983 to 2018. The ACLU of Massachusetts’ Facebook page said Rushing’s legacy includes “major advocacy victories in the fields of LGBTQIA+ advocacy, homelessness and public health, anti-discrimination, and so much more.”
The post adds, “We can’t wait to honor this local legend!”
In The Episcopal Church, Rushing was a Massachusetts deputy to General Convention from 1973 to 2022, and in 1994 he became the first lay person to serve as chaplain to the House of Deputies.
He also served as a member of The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council, and when his final term as vice president ended, members of the House of Deputies adopted a resolution commending his years of service to the house and to The Episcopal Church.
A founding member of the Episcopal Urban Caucus and former board member of the Archives of The Episcopal Church, he is noted in the leadership gallery of a special section in the digital archives entitled “The Church Awakens: African Americans and the Struggle for Justice.”
