ANDOVER, Mass. — The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, one of the country’s leading peace, civil rights and social justice activists, will be honored at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., Wednesday, Nov. 19, when he is awarded the Claude Moore Fuess Award at an all-school meeting.

A 1942 graduate of Phillips Academy, Coffin has led a varied and accomplished career often taking controversial stands on civil rights and peace issues. Coffin served as a World War II infantry officer and liaison to the French and Russian armies and later served as a CIA operative, training anti-Soviet Russians for operation within the Soviet Union. He graduated from Yale University in 1949 and later entered Yale Divinity School and received a bachelor of divinity degree in 1956. He was chaplain of Yale University (1957-1975), senior minister of the Riverside Church in New York City (1977-1987), and president of the nuclear disarmament advocacy group SANE FREEZE (1987-1990).

Coffin gained national prominence in the early 1960s as a Freedom Rider, one of a group of activists, black and white, who rode interstate buses in the South to protest segregation laws. He was arrested, but the conviction was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. During the Vietnam War, he gained national attention after his arrest (along with Dr. Benjamin Spock, graduate of the Phillips Academy Class of 1921), on charges of conspiracy to aid military draft resisters. The charges were dropped on appeal.

Coffin continues to lecture widely on the imperative of ending the global arms race and routinely calls on citizens to be what he calls “true patriots . . . those who love their country enough to address its flaws.”

In his honor, the Yale Divinity School established the William Sloan Coffin Peace and Justice Award, presented last month for the first time to longtime peace activist Cora Weiss. On the occasion of that presentation, the Rev. Frederick Streets, current Yale chaplain, declared Coffin “a consistent voice of moral conscience for the nation,” and said, “He has the prophet’s courage, spirit and vision and a pastor’s heart.”

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin is the author of a number of books and essays including A Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches, The Heart is a Little to the Left: Essays on Public Morality, Once to Every Man: a Memoir, and Credo, published this month by Westminster John Knox Press.

First awarded in 1967, the Claude Moore Fuess Award honors Phillips Academy alumni for distinguished contribution to public service. The award is named for the academy’s 10th headmaster. Past recipients have included former President George Bush, Class of 1942, A. Bartlett Giamatti, former president of Yale, Class of 1956, and William Davis Taylor, publisher of the Boston Globe, Class of 1927.

Phillips Academy is a 226-year old boarding high school located in Andover, Mass., of 1,080 students known for its broad curriculum and rigorous academic program.