A gentleman and a scholar Thomas Ryley reflects on faith and activism

      "A lot of people ask me, as a historian, if I understood what was going on," said Ryley, legs crossed and smoking a pipe. "At the time, the historical context eludes you."
If the historical context eluded Ryley, 72, when he was a young man, it's probably because he was so busy as a professor and social activist, rallying against the injustices of the day. "It was a very eventful time," Ryley said. "We weren't unaware of the importance of what we were doing."
      On first impression, Ryley, president of the Baldwin Interfaith Conference and an adjunct professor of political science at Molloy College, seems somewhat like a thick treatise on philosophy or politics: complicated and impenetrable. But once the pages of Ryley's life are opened, he is not as daunting as he might seem.

A natural progression
Ryley was born in New London, Conn., in 1931, one of two boys in the family of an oil company executive. His father was, Ryley said, "one of the last people to make it to the top with no school."
Though his family was not deeply political, its members were very opinionated. When women won the right to vote, Ryley's mother took advantage of her new-found liberty.
When Ryley was a teenager, the family moved to Lynbrook, and he attended high school in Malverne. After a stint in the military, Ryley graduated from Rutgers University with a master's degree in political science. He began teaching a year later, in 1956, at New York City Community College, now New York City Technical College, where he served until he retired in 1991.
Ryley says that politics and academia just came naturally to him. "It's like when you ask someone why they chose a particular faith," he said.
In New York, he participated in civil rights marches and headed a number of organizations. He became co-state vice chairman of the New Democratic Coalition and was heavily involved with the Brooklyn chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he worked to force the redrawing of Brooklyn congressional districts, an experience that he would apply later in Baldwin.
In the late '60s, at the height of the Vietnam War, Ryley got involved in the anti-war movement, and supported a number of Democrats who opposed the war. "Basically we wanted to change the nature of democratic politics," Ryley said, adding that he supported the Republican, Lindsey, who ran as an independent for mayor of New York City, opposing war and vowing social change.
Ryley also threw his support behind Sen. Eugene McCarthy, an anti-war candidate who was aiming for the 1968 presidential nomination, the year Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. "I will never forget that night," Ryley said of Kennedy's death.

An academic moves to Baldwin
Ryley married his wife, Mary, in 1967 and had three boys, Tom, Chris and Tim. "Without her I couldn't have done half of what I did," Ryley said. His family took center stage in his life, and after living in Queens, they moved to Baldwin in 1972.
As a professor, he continued to write articles for various journals and has published four nonfiction books, including "The Jewish Seat" and "A Little Group of Willful Men." His children made the most of having a professor for a father. "Whenever they took a history course, they went down my rows of books," Ryley said.
When it comes to his religious faith, Ryley uses an analogy from the film "On the Waterfront." There is a scene in which the actor Karl Malden, who plays a priest, says, "It is the responsibility for people of faith to speak out." Ryley, who has a Ph.D. from New York University, completed his doctoral dissertation there on the social gospel movement.
Ryley says religion and activism go hand in hand. "There is nothing wrong with people of faith speaking out on social issues," he said. "People of faith should never shy away from social action."
He balks at the characterization of the '60s as nothing more than the era of radical hippies who confused social activism with the stereotypes of free love and psychedelics. "The '60s represented a period of social turmoil which had been percolating since the early days of the civil rights movement," Ryley said.
      And out of that humanist period, he said, arose the Baldwin Interfaith Conference.

A big fish in a small pond
Ryley became president of the conference in 1983. At the time, the activism that had predominated in the '60s and '70s lost steam. "The '80s brought an end to the '60s," he said. "Any movement runs its course."
By definition, an interfaith organization encourages dialogue between different faiths. As president, Ryley has coordinated numerous lectures on various ethical and moral topics, such as physician-assisted suicide, women in the clergy, Islam and the impact of Sept. 11.
"There is no opportunity for civil dialogue in society," Ryley said, referring to the proliferation of talking heads on television news programs. "The conference permits social issues to be discussed within an interfaith forum. Someone of a particular faith has the opportunity to see what it's like for a person of a different faith."
There have been issues that have galvanized the interfaith community, such as the objection several years ago to a proposed Off Track Betting center in town, as well as a number of bias crimes, such as anti-Semitic graffiti and synagogue desecration. In 1985, a fire at the South Baldwin Jewish Center damaged the center's sanctuary, and, Ryley said, the different religious communities in town banded together and organized support for the SBJC.
      The conference also has attempted to allay fears, such as those of residents who opposed the Mental Health Center's move into the South Nassau Communities Hospital building on Grand Avenue.
"Tom has been the one who has held it together and kept it on track," said Rev. Richard Smeltzer, a pastor at Baldwin Methodist Church. "This organization is important because it consists of laity. Baldwin is one of the few communities with an organization of this kind."
Ryley also has spread himself around and served on numerous committees, and is an advisor to the Baldwin Community Association's redistricting committee, where his expertise has been used in the attempt to unify Baldwin into one legislative district.
He also has been instrumental in supporting the Interfaith Nutritional Network, organizing the "Weekend of Sharing," in which 20 to 30 meals a month are prepared by the various churches in town. Maintaining organizations such as the INN depends in part on a coalition of different faiths to support it, he says.
Still, now that he's semi-retired, Ryley finds time to record audio books for the blind, play golf and spoil his two grandchildren. He does all this at a time when he says Baldwin is changing economically, religiously and ethnically. The changes, he said, are not unique to Baldwin, but indicative of changes in America.
      "The question is, Will we be able to negotiate this change? and I think we will," Ryley said. "Maybe I'm overly optimistic in my old age, but you want to be optimistic about the future. It's romanticizing the past that I'm not into."