Presentation: The North Avenue Irregulars – A ’60s Church Fights for Civil Rights and Civility

In the 1960s the North Avenue Presbyterian Church in New Rochelle was a sanctuary for citizenship. Deacons and elders were black, Asian and white. Jackie Robinson preached about not casting the first stone. Duke Ellington performed his second sacred composition in a pink tuxedo. The Rev. Fay Hill battled the Mob with the aid of U.S. Treasury agents and young congregation mothers who spied on reputed criminals with binoculars and walkie-talkies. These intrepid women starred in Hill’s 1968 book, “The North Avenue Irregulars,” and in a same-named 1979 Disney comedy. A panel discussion on this remarkably progressive house of worship will be moderated by Geoff Gehman, New Rochelle native, former North Avenue Presbyterian member, journalist, book author, and son of an Irregular. Joined by ex-Irregulars, he will trace the exciting, frightening job of tracking mobsters; the failed attempts to make an “Irregulars” starring James Garner or Bing Crosby as Rev. Hill, and the church’s rebirth as a Pentecostal sanctuary, led by Rev. Clara Rivera, whose husband, Mariano, was the last major leaguer to wear Jackie Robinson’s retired uniform number. Free. Ossie Davis Theater.