The Reverend Maurice McCrackin’s birthday was December 1, his deathday, leaving the planet in 1997 at the age of 92, is December 30.
Mac was such an important part of my son Brian’s life – a second father, an excellent father, a great teacher. They both supported each other, going to jail together at least once.
He was in many ways a very open character. When he listened to someone, they were all he was paying attention to. He took in a lot of information, thought things over. But once he came to a conclusion about the injustice of a situation – he truly would not be moved.
He protested at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, atomic weapons facility over many years, and at the School of the Americas in Georgia. Here in Cincinnati, his protests were about the homeless, about the loss of single room occupancy housing, about the injustice of poverty.
Ailing for several years before he passed, Mac would still go out to protests, carried and wheeled in his wheelchair by friends. A pure soul, a holy soul, I always experienced his energy as the energy of the saints – the clarity, the simplicity, the generosity, the calm.
Happy Birthday, Mac!