Nob Hill Gazette, Dec. 1, 2017: “Gliding into a New Era — Karen Hanrahan takes the reins from activist power couple Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani”
Nob Hill Gazette, Dec. 1, 2017 — In today’s feature story, reporter Meaghan Clark Tiernan writes: “Just to clarify, Reverend Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani are not retiring. “Don’t use the ‘R’ word,” says Mirikitani, with a laugh.
Together, the couple helmed Glide Memorial Church in the Tenderloin for more than five decades—growing the congregation from just 35 members to nearly 10,000. Now they’re “in a period of transition,” Williams remarks.
They are leaving their throne in good hands. Karen Hanrahan, a former U.N. human rights worker and alum of President Barack Obama’s State Department, has been appointed Glide’s new President and Chief Executive Officer. Hanrahan has over two decades of experience advocating for human rights around the world and most recently served as a foreign policy advisor on issues of gender, development, and human rights for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
After years spent in war zones in Afghanistan, and then across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia for the U.N., Hanrahan—who was also a program officer in Palestine for Nonviolence International says she began “hearing the call for social justice issues domestically. GLIDE seemed like a natural fit.”