Younger, Paul Alden, 1928-1969

American Baptist minister and social activist who worked with his wife, Betty Jean Nichols Younger, to organize the poor in neglected communities. The Youngers worked with numerous welfare rights, civil rights, church, community and educational organizations throughout the U.S.

Reverend Paul Alden Younger (1928-1969) and Betty Jeanne Nichols Younger (born 1927) were social activists, particularly for civil rights and welfare rights, who lived and worked in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1955 to 1967.

Paul Younger was born in Mt. Kisco, New York, to G. Dana Younger and Dorothy D. Younger. His formal education was interrupted after graduation from Yale (1950), by service in the United States Army Medical Corps as a Psychology Technician from 1950-1952. In November of 1952 he married Betty Jeanne Nichols, whom he had met in 1950 in a World Council of churches Work Camp group bound for Europe. While pursuing a degree from Yale Divinity School, he worked with the Group Ministry at Oak St. Christian Parish in New Haven, Connecticut, spent a summer as a church staff member in the East Harlem protestant parish in New York City, and interned at Fidelity Baptist Church in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio (1955). Upon completing his studies at Yale Divinity School (1956), he was commissioned as a missionary of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies, and ordained as an American Baptist minister.

His first pastorate was the storefront Church of St. Phillip the Evangelist (since demolished) of the Inner City Protestant Parish, in old Central Cleveland, Ohio, where he served until 1958. From 1958 to 1964 his efforts to organize the poor in neglected communities to effect action on the issues and problems of their areas continued in the Hough neighborhood. There he was pastor of Fidelity Baptist Church, an American Baptist Church which affiliated with the Inner City Protestant Parish after he became its minister. As a result of Rev. Younger's efforts to bring the Christian message to the people on the street by meeting their social, physical, and emotional needs, Fidelity became the center for community action during the neighborhood's transition from a predominantly white population to a population of moderate to low income African American residents. Through preschool and after school programs, "golden age" activities, and neighborhood organization projects, Fidelity addressed issues of welfare, education, and youth.

Following a summer sabbatical in Washington, D. C. in 1964 during which he worked on the President's Task Force on Welfare, he gave up his pastorate to serve as director of the Cleveland, Ohio, Protestant Ministry to Poverty - a task force of denominational and community and organizational representatives working on behalf of the poor. Protestant Ministry to Poverty was largely responsible for Headstart, Neighborhood Youth Corps, and the affiliation of state and local welfare rights groups following the inception of the National Welfare Rights Organization.

When the Protestant Ministry to Poverty office was closed for lack of funds in 1967 (it later came under the Metropolitan Affairs Commission of the of the reorganized Council of Churches of Christ of Greater Cleveland), the Youngers moved to Columbus, Ohio, where Rev. Younger organized welfare recipients and others at the South Side Settlement, and where he served as adviser to the Columbus Welfare Rights Organization and the Ohio Steering Committee for Adequate Welfare. In January of 1969, he became Director of Urban Action for the University and City Ministries of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an ecumenical ministry attempting to unify Greater Pittsburgh on social concerns. He was also a community organizer in the ghetto of South Oakland. Paul Younger was killed in an automobile accident on March 16, 1969.

Betty Jeanne Nichols younger was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1927 to Manson E. Nichols, M.D., and Esther L. Nichols. She attended graduated from Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio, in 1949 and the Case Western Reserve University School of Applied Social Sciences in 1951, for which her field work was carried out at the East End Neighborhood House and the Akron Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). She was a social worker and organizer in the East Harlem Protestant Parish from 1951 until her marriage to Paul Younger and subsequent move to Cleveland. While in Cleveland, she was the moving force behind the cooperative preschool and the Homework Center at Fidelity Baptist Church. The developed the Cleveland Area Church Federation's Headstart program (later Community United Headstart), and a Women's Center at the Addison Road Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). She was co-founder and chairman of the Citizens' Committee to Support Our Schools from 1959 to 1964, launching or supporting school lunch campaigns, reading programs, the renovation of the Hough area library, and such demonstrations as the Parents' March to End Relay Classes. She also served as a board member of the Welfare Federation of Cleveland from 1965-1967.

After the death of Paul Younger, Betty Younger served on the board of the Paul Younger Community Center in South Oakland and was chairperson of Pittsburgh's Friends of Welfare Rights until 1971. She moved to Chicago where her concern for the quality of life and health family development led her to work toward innovative social work programs in hospitals in multi-ethnic, economically diverse communities. She was a field instructor at the University of Illinois Jane Addams College of Social Work. She then moved to Delton, Michigan, where she worked to create a cooperative village at a family cooperative education center.