Eugene F Iii Rivers

American activist, a Reverend minister, the director of field operations for the Ten Point Coalition in Boston and project director for Boston Freedom Summer. A graduate of Harvard, he was formerly a fellow at the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at Harvard Divinity School. As Director of the Dorchester District Youth Advocacy Project - the first church-based initiative of its kind in recent Boston history, serving gang youth in the neighborhood, - Rivers also serves as the director of the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies, which is a research and educational organization focusing on the relationship between Christian faith and social policy. Rivers grew up in Philadelphia. He now lives in his birth town, Boston, with his wife and two kids. The white media touts him as "the single most engaging and dynamic black leader in America today," and Newsweek sees him as "becoming a national figure." The black community is not in total agreement, many seeing Rivers as bold and brash, willing to disparage and insult other blacks for their flaws. His very presence seems to ignite conflict. In 2000, he called on black American leaders to confront the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and urged the U.S. to forgive the debt of the countries most severely decimated.