David Rhys Williams was minister from 1928 to 1958. He served as president of the Unitarian Fellowship for Social Justice, advocated Soviet-American cooperation, promoted the American Civil Liberties Union and supported several national legal defense campaigns. In 1933 Williams became one of the 34 signers of the Humanist Manifesto, which, among other things, declared the universe to be self-existing and not created, rejected the duality between mind and body, and called for religion to be reformed in light of the scientific spirit.