Remembering Lloyd Morain

By BETTE CHAMBERS

For Humanist Network News
July 21, 2010

I met Lloyd and Mary Morain in the late '60s and have enjoyed a mutual friendship with them ever since. And while it's hard to separate them when writing about only one half of this extraordinary pair, I must note that Mary died several years ago. The American Humanist Association's national office building in Washington, DC is named in their joint honor: the Lloyd and Mary Morain Humanist Center.

Lloyd served as president of the American Humanist Association on two separate occasions: the late ‘60s and early '70s. And for all of his adult life, Lloyd was a generous benefactor of the AHA. When Paul Kurtz elected not to continue as editor of the Humanist magazine in 1978, Lloyd stepped in and served for many years--often contributing extra funds to add exceptional art work for its covers. Another of Lloyd's main and ongoing projects was to provide free Humanist magazine subscriptions for numerous public libraries throughout the country, many of them then subsequently subscribing on their own.

Lloyd and Mary both also founded the International Humanist and Ethical Union in 1952 along with Harold Blackham and James van Praag.* Now with a worldwide membership of over 100 humanist, rationalist, secular, ethical culture, atheist and freethought organizations in more than 40 countries, the IHEU represents world humanist interests as an international NGO with special consultative status with the United Nations.

Lloyd's practice of his humanism was widely eclectic. It would be trite to call him a "Renaissance Humanist;" he was a renaissance in himself. He collected aboriginal art from many continents and he and Mary in recent years had built a free museum to contain his collection in Bend, Oregon. Earlier, the two bought an old hotel in Salinas, CA to house itinerant farm workers and laborers, which the residents operated themselves. Lloyd's book, The Human Cougar, chronicles the lives of this "endangered species" of fiercely independent drifters.

Yet perhaps Lloyd and Mary's most significant book, Humanism as the Next Step, now in a revised edition, still speaks plainly to a wide spectrum of people no longer satisfied with traditional religions and creeds. Without including tedious "high-order abstractions," this vital little book invites readers to examine the life-affirming philosophy of humanism and to take that next step toward a more fulfilling and joyous life.

For more information about Lloyd Morain and his remarkable life, you can read AHA Executive Director Roy Speckhardt's speech presenting Morain with the 2007 Humanist Heritage Award. The AHA also issued a press release last week mourning the loss of this great man.

Bette Chambers is a past president of the American Humanist Association.

* Correction: The original version of this article incorrectly listed Lloyd and Mary Morain as the only founders of IHEU.