This Week in History, March 16-22

“This Week in History” briefly lists significant events in the history of the Unification Church, the lives of the Founders, and world events that are important to Unificationists. This installment covers the week of March 16-22 and includes an extended story of a firsthand account of events in 1974 in Indiana.

March 16 – August 1, 1972

One World Crusade buses parked at Belvedere International Training Center.

“One World Crusade” Bus Teams Traverse the United States

Two evangelical bus teams, with approximately twenty-five members each, traveled across the United States from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., supporting the witnessing activities of pioneer Unificationists in the various states. Mobile Unit #1 (the northern bus) campaigned in 22 cities and 22 states, traveling a total of 8,400 miles. Mobile Unit #2 (the southern bus) campaigned in 21 cities and 20 states, traveling a total of 7,780 miles. The bus teams spent about a week in each city, and many members joined the church as a result of their efforts. Mr. David S.C. Kim emerged as the One World Crusade’s leading “field general.” He chronicled bus team activities in over 40 reports, under such titles as “Marching across This Great Land to Make It Free,” “One World Crusade Is Marching On” and “Mobile Unit 2 Moves West Coast States.” In December 1972, he was named Executive Director of the One World Crusade.

Two years later, also on March 16, the 32-city tour began. Read more about this tour of the One World Crusade in 1974 through a firsthand account by Carol Rengnez.

March 17, 2007

True Father Delivers a “New Civilization” Declaration at Hawaii King Garden

True Father delivered his “New Civilization” declaration before some 700 Unificationist movement leaders and Ambassadors for Peace on the grounds of Hawaii King Garden in Hawaii’s Kona district, on March 17, 2007. His speech, “A Providential View of the Pacific Rim Era in Light of God’s Will—The United States and the Future Direction of the United Nations and the World,” became the foundation for a global “New Civilization” tour. True Mother and Hyun Jin Moon began the U.S. phase of the tour in late May, delivering the message in twelve U.S. cities, with two of True Parents’ daughters-in-law covering cities in thirty-eight states during May and June 2007.

March 20 – April 10, 1992

Students of the former Soviet Union hold one of their Divine Principle workshops.

Thousands of High School Students and Teachers in Former Soviet Union hear Divine Principle

More than 7,000 high school students and their teachers from across the former Soviet Union, attended Divine Principle workshops held during spring break. Twenty-three different workshop sites were used in the Crimea, on the coast of the Black Sea, to accommodate forty workshops. Unificationist missionaries based throughout Eurasia, under the leadership of Dr. Joon Ho Seuk, took on Divine Principle lecturing and other staff responsibilities. Dozens of members from the United States also came to Crimea at their own expense to take part. The Divine Principle education of 7,229 participants over 22 days set a world record. It would actually be surpassed in the summer of that same year, when, over a period of eight weeks, 18,042 guests (university and high school students and professors) attended 129 workshops held at 26 workshop sites in Latvia, Lithuania, the countryside outside Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Central Asia.