Frank Morales

Frank Morales
Born1949 (age 74–75)
New York City, New York
Occupation(s)Priest, activist
SpouseNancy Jo Sales (m. 2004; div. 2006)

Frank Morales is an Episcopal priest and activist in New York City.

Morales was born in 1949 and grew up in the Jacob Riis Houses on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.[1] His father was Puerto Rican and his mother was Peruvian. He first became involved in politics after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. as a member of the Assassination Information Committee.[1]

Morales graduated from the General Theological Seminary in 1976, and became an assistant pastor in 1978.[1] In the Bronx he worked with squatters. In one interview he recalled, “I used to walk out of services with a crowbar and we’d open up abandoned buildings…”[1] He now volunteers at St Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.[2][3]

In 2003, he founded the Campaign to Demilitarize the Police in NYC.[1] He continues to campaign on housing issues.[4]

He was married to journalist Nancy Jo Sales from 2004 to 2006.[5]

  1. ^ a b c d e Anderson, Lincoln (December 2004). "From skelly to squats to SWAT: Radical father finds a home at St. Mark's". The Villager. 74 (30). New York, NY: Community Media LLC. Archived from the original on 2013-09-02. Retrieved 2007-12-27.
  2. ^ Canon John Osgood, Episcopal Diocese of New York
  3. ^ Interview with Frank Morales by Aaron Jaffe, in Clayton Patterson, ed., "Resistance: A Radical Political and Social History of the Lower East Side" (Seven Stories Press, NY, 2007) pp. 193-212.
  4. ^ Jared Malsin, "On a Tour of Former Squats, Trash Artists and Cat-Poo Painters", March 19, 2012, The New York Times
  5. ^ Sales, Nancy Jo (January 2008). "The Golden Suicides". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2008-12-02.