C.K. Hewett, 88, priest worked for civil rights

The Rev. Canon Clayton Kennedy Hewett, 88, an Episcopal priest who gained prominence as a civil rights activist in the mid-1960s, died Saturday, Aug. 1, of cancer at Mount St. Joseph Hospital in Waterville, Maine.

Born in Providence, R.I., in 1927, he was the son of William Benjamin Hewett and Phyllis Arlene Welch, both of Maine.

After completing service in World War II in the Merchant Marine and Coast Guard, Mr. Hewett graduated from Samuel Gorton High School in Warwick, R.I., and married Annagrace Carlson. He worked as an engineer at the Providence Gas Works.

In 1952, he moved his family to Fairless Hills, Bucks County, where he worked at U.S. Steel's new plant. By 1954, he felt called to the ministry in the Episcopal Church. In 1956, the family moved to Alexandria, Va., so Mr. Hewett could enroll in Virginia Theological Seminary.

He graduated in 1958 and went on to serve parishes and ministries in Morton, Delaware County; Chicago; West Philadelphia; Wilmington; and the East Falls section of Philadelphia.

By 1960, Mr. Hewett had become "a true evangelical catholic priest," his family said. He focused on activities aimed at desegregating suburban housing while working to rebuild the Church of the Atonement in Morton, where he was minister.

He served as a canon missioner of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, connecting the Morton church with various evangelical ministries in West Philadelphia.

From 1964 to 1967, he expanded his activism to include the schools outside Philadelphia.

According to the archives of the Episcopal Church, Mr. Hewett was arrested April 24, 1964, while participating in a demonstration to protest segregation in the Chester public schools.

"He had been arrested the previous October and jailed for four days," said his son, Bishop Paul Clayton Hewett, "but [the April arrest] was the big one."

Mr. Hewett directed the protesters to "lock arms and stand fast" when police tried to arrest them, the archives said, and he placed himself between a police officer and a young protester who was about to be hit in the head with a blackjack.

Mr. Hewett was arraigned on charges of inciting a riot, unlawful assembly, being a public nuisance, and conspiracy. Once in jail on $26,500 bail, he launched a hunger strike that lasted 18 days.

"Toward the end he gave up all liquids, and he was within 24 hours of dying," his son said. But the incoming bishop, Robert L. DeWitt, persuaded him to come off the fast so that he could go on to help the poor in Chicago.

Nineteen protesters were arrested that April day, the archives said. Twenty demonstrators and six police officers were injured. After mass picketing that followed the April protest, and at the request of church officials and human-rights activists, Gov. William W. Scranton mounted an investigation into conditions in Chester schools.

On Sept. 26, 1967, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled, 4-2, that the state Human Relations Commission had the authority to compel the Chester school board to desegregate its schools.

He was opposed to the Episcopal Church's decision to ordain women. "Put the other way, he was in favor of the tradition to ordain only men," his son said. "He always believed that."

In 1983, he returned to his roots and built a retirement house on land in South Somerville, Maine, near the family homestead.

His wife of 59 years died in 2006.

Besides his son, he is survived by daughters Darryl Jeanne Martin, Joan Nina, and Therese-Marie Carper; sons Philip William and Matthew Kennedy; 11 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

A visitation at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, is to be followed by a funeral at 11 at the Hall Funeral Home, 949 Main St., Waldoboro, Maine. Interment will be in the family plot at West Washington Cemetery in Maine.

Donations may be made to a fund for a stained-glass window in his memory at the Church of the Transfiguration in Phoenixville, founded by his son. Checks made payable to Anglican Church Women may be sent to Directress, Anglican Church Women, Church of the Transfiguration, 51 Columbia Ave., Phoenixville, Pa. 19460.