William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (born June 1, 1924, New York, New York, U.S.—died April 12, 2006, Strafford, Vermont, U.S.) was an American clergyman and civil rights activist who achieved national prominence as the chaplain (1958–75) at Yale University, where he became a familiar figure on campus, championing civil rights and opposing the Vietnam War. Famously, at the height of that conflict, Coffin and Benjamin Spock, among other illustrious activists, were arrested for and convicted of conspiracy to aid and abet disobedience of the Selective Service Act after advising men on how to evade the draft. They had collected some 1,000 draft cards at rallies in major cities and presented them to the U.S. Department of Justice. Their convictions were later overturned.

Following his high school graduation in 1942, Coffin enrolled in Yale University’s School of Music to pursue a career as a pianist. After a year, however, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he was assigned to a military intelligence unit. Following a stint (1950–53) in the CIA, he returned to the U.S. to study theology. A 1956 graduate of Yale Divinity School, Coffin was ordained a Presbyterian minister that same year. As a participant in the Freedom Rides of the 1960s, he was arrested three times for protesting segregation. Coffin’s energetic antiwar activism at Yale and his voluble engagement with students inspired cartoonist Garry Trudeau’s character the Rev. Scot Sloan (“the thoroughly modern minister/enabler”) in the Doonesbury cartoon strip.

After leaving Yale, Coffin worked with world food programs and wrote his memoir, Once to Every Man (1977), in which he revealed his regret and guilt for his role after World War II in the forcible repatriation of Russians who had been taken prisoner. From 1977 to 1987 he was senior minister at Riverside Church, New York City, where on a world and local level he continued to pursue social programs related to poverty, nuclear disarmament, homelessness, at-risk youth, peace, and the environment. He later spoke out against the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.