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Eugene F. Rivers
Eugene F. Rivers
Personal details
Born	April 9, 1950
Nationality	American
Denomination	Pentacostal
Spouse	Jacqueline Rivers
Profession	Azusa Christian Community

Eugene F. Rivers III (born April 9, 1950) is an American activist, and Pentecostal minister based in Boston, Massachusetts.^[2]

Rivers is known for his work developing programs that reduce urban violence. He has also been both an activist and a thought leader in the areas of Black economic empowerment, urban renewal, and Black liberation.

Biography

Eugene Franklin Rivers, III, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 9, 1950. His parents were Eugene F. Rivers II and Mildred Bell Rivers. He grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, graduating high school from the Murrell Dobbins Vocational High School in 1968.^[3] He claims he was a gang member in Philadelphia, but left the gang, after being mentored by Reverend Benjamin Smith, the pastor of Deliverance Evangelistic Temple.^{[unreliable source?]} Rivers wanted to be a painter, and enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. While a student, he increased his involvement in grassroots activism in Philadelphia and beyond. He joined Black Church-affiliated movements working on black liberation, economic empowerment and urban redevelopment. He was connected with the Black Economic Development Conference, and supported James Forman's efforts to obtain reparations from churches and synagogues in the United States.^[3]

In 1974, Rivers was ironically the subject of a vérité styled documentary, Black at Yale: A Film Diary. ^[4] The film traces Rivers travails as a classroom crasher, and a dorm squatter, in his attempts to gain admittance to Old Blue. His efforts, unsurprisingly, end in failure as he was never a student, faculty, or staff Yale University.^[5]

Rivers moved to Boston, and began studying at Harvard College in 1976. ^{[unreliable source?]} In 1984, he founded the Azusa Christian Community in Dorchester, serving as pastor. He also founded the Ella J. Baker House, in Dorchester, as a community youth center. Concerned about gang violence, and the high number of youth being killed by gun violence, he joined with other black clergy to found the Boston TenPoint Coalition in 1992. The Coalition's efforts succeeded in reducing violence in Boston's neighborhoods, and led to what has been called the "Boston Miracle." Rivers became co-chair of the National TenPoint Leadership Foundation, and was widely seen as an expert on strategies for reducing urban violence that impacts African Americans.

Rivers served as an advisor to Presidents George H.W. Bush in urban issues.^[6] He has appeared on national television shows, including Hardball with Chris Matthews with Michael Rogers defending Rick Warren.^[7] He was featured on the cover of Newsweek Magazine in 1998,^[8] and he was written about in Commonwealth Magazine 1999.^[9] He is also an adviser to Bishop Charles Blake for Save Africa's Children.^[10]

Rivers' essay The Responsibility of Black Intellectuals in the Age of Crack published under the new editorship of Joshua Cohen in the Boston Review led to extensive debate in and around intellectual circles in New England.^[11]

Family

Rivers is married to Jacqueline Olga Cooke-Rivers, who earned her PhD at Harvard University under the tutelage of Orlando Patterson.^[12]^[13]

Rivers' parents, Mildred Bell Rivers and Eugene F. Rivers, Jr., were members of the Nation of Islam.^[14] They met as students at the Colored Normal Industrial Agricultural and Mechanical College of South Carolina.^[15] Both of his parents served in the U.S. military during World War II.^[15]

Mose Rivers, the paternal great-grandfather of Eugene, was born a slave.^[15]