Rev. Malcolm Boyd, an Author, Activist and Counterculture Rebel, Dies at 91

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Father Boyd was among a handful of white clergymen who became nationally known for civil rights and protesting war, and — after disclosing in 1976 that he was gay — fought for women and homosexuals in the church.

Mr. Boyd with the actress Mary Pickford in 1949 in Hollywood, where he worked as a publicist and then a producer. Credit Malcolm Boyd Archives 

 

He was among a handful of white clergymen who were nationally known as champions of civil rights and opponents of the Vietnam War, a group that included the Rt. Rev. Paul Moore Jr., the Episcopal bishop in Washington and New York; the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., the Presbyterian chaplain at Yale University; and the sibling Roman Catholic Jesuit priests Philip and Daniel Berrigan, who were primarily peace activists.