each extraordinary. More extraordinary still is how he gave each up for the next.
For the first third of Boyd’s life, he was an A-list producer in Hollywood’s golden age, most famously as a business partner of silent film actress Mary Pickford.
But in 1951, he gave up the glamorous life to become an Episcopal priest. His was an activist ministry. He was one of the Freedom Riders in 1961, he marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, got arrested for protesting the Pentagon. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once recalled about Selma, he prayed with his feet — but Boyd maybe more so. Boyd’s renowned 1965 collection of contemporary prayers was called “Are You Running With Me, Jesus?”
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So, even beyond the courage of a Hollywood player who became a priest, a priest who became a civil rights activist, and an activist who risked it all by coming out, Boyd had the courage of unpopular convictions. As he grew older, he grew into his wisdom, and it was easy to mistake him for being a kindly old man.
He was much more powerful than that.
