Founding of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity (ESCRU) by the national church (TEC). In December 1959, approximately one hundred lay and ordained Episcopalians responded to a call for meeting issued by the Reverends John Morris, Neil Tarplee, and Arthur Walmsley (later, Diocesan Bishop of Connecticut), to form an organization committed to removing all vestiges of segregation from the life of the Church. The group adopted the name “Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity” and immediately took issue with the de facto racial segregation that dominated Church life in the South, which included refusing African Americans admission to Church-run institutions and to white worship services.