In Memoriam
John H. More
September 29, 2022
John More
1964 Yale graduation
John Herron More passed away in Washington DC on September 29, 2022. John’s memorial service was on Saturday, November 5, at 2:00pm at St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square, 1525 H Street NW, Washington DC. The service may be watched in the video on this page.
Below are the following:
- Remembrance from the Rachel Carson Council
- Remembrance by Bob Musil ’64
- Essay by John from our 50th Yale Reunion Class Book
- Memorial service, St. John's Episcopal Church
[Published on the Rachel Carson Council website]
John More, Secretary of the Rachel Carson Council Board of Directors, and for decades one of the nation’s leading environmental attorneys and advocates, has passed away only weeks after doctors discovered that he had stomach cancer.
“John was one of the most brilliant, educated, caring, compassionate, and committed people I have known,” said RCC President & CEO Bob Musil. “Any conversation with him was fun, enlightening, and an interdisciplinary course connecting climate change, classics, politics, ethics and religion, grassroots environmental activism, and the need for action.”
More, also a former professor of classics at Brown University, was deeply interested in helping, mentoring, and getting to know RCC’s young staff and RCC Fellows and giving them advice on organizing, coalition building, and environmental tactics and advocacy.
In addition to his work with the RCC, More was a leader in community-based activities in the District of Columbia including the Washington Interfaith Network (WIN), a multi-racial interfaith grassroots organization concerned with affordable housing and neighborhood redevelopment and green jobs.
“John remained committed and active to the end, connecting our young staff and Fellows to other emerging leaders and the latest and best in environmental organizing,” said Musil.
More was also a founder of the Rhode Island Sierra Club and worked with Natural Resources of Maine to protect wetlands and oppose a natural gas pipeline there. In law partnership with Lee Rogers, More was regularly involved in gas pipeline issues and toxic landfills.
As RCC’s Secretary of the Board, John More also kept the RCC abreast of the latest developments in social media and connected the RCC to innovative website designers and other professionals. More also helped the Rachel Carson Council through a difficult transition in leadership after the retirement of Dr. Diana Post, the longtime head of the RCC, before convincing his friend and Yale classmate, Dr. Robert K. Musil, who had been the CEO of the Nobel Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility, to take the helm of the RCC. After Yale, More earned his Ph.D. and J.D from Harvard Graduate School and Harvard Law School.
The More family — John’s wife, Livesey (Livy), and children, Paul, and Anna — has generously requested that memorial gifts be given to the Rachel Carson Council.
Remembrance by Bob Musil ’64
John was a truly special friend and person — erudite and witty, while warm, open, caring, and so deeply engaged with helping others and the planet. I will sadly notify the Rachel Carson Council Board members today. John brought me to the RCC and helped it soar and stay relevant in these new, troubled times. His work for us and for the Washington Interfaith Alliance, and more, was just the capstone of a career and life dedicated to the environment, peace, and social justice.
Oh, how I shall miss him.
Essay, 50th Yale Reunion Class Book
by John Herron More ’64
May 2014
John More
2021
Yale has a strong claim on any of us who were undergraduates. Even almost 50 years from graduation I have strong, positive memories of my Yale education and my classmates, both whom I met then and those I have met since. I remember classes and professors who helped shape my subsequent career in academics and then my second career in the law. The tradition of public service and awareness of the world that surrounded us as undergraduates influenced me in my third area of activities, community organizing and non-profits, that paralleled my two wage-earning careers.
Yet, in spite of all that Yale gave me and how much I appreciate my four years in New Haven, I feel a certain gulf between the Yale of today and the Yale of yesterday, or perhaps, to put it better, the Yale that J would prefer to see. I have no particular desire to visit the campus. I have never attended a Yale '64 Class Reunion and do not feel particularly driven to attend the 50th, although I undoubtedly will in order to see classmates. I give to the annual Campaign every year, but not with any great enthusiasm.
Why the distance? The lack of enthusiasm for Yale of today? I have been thinking long and hard about the reason. I find it is because, while I am certain a Yale education and the undergraduate experience are as good as ever, I see a university that keeps raising tuitions and spending money on things that are not central to its role as an educator. Fancier digs for students, opening a campus in a repressive Asian country, building more and more fancy buildings, all seem to me to be Yale's joining in the deplorable nationwide move to handing higher education over to business and marketing. I am also concerned that Yale has not created an independent office for the reporting of sexual harassment and assaults on the campus.
So I will continue to enjoy classmates and go to mini-Reunions, but the money and energy I might have devoted to Yale will go where my heart and the need are: building affordable housing, protecting the environment from pesticides and dangerous chemicals, and keep the Internet open and available for all. In doing so I feel that I am in fact honoring my Yale education and what it gave to me than I would by supporting the current Yale financially.
Another reason I find for being active in civic organizations is that I want to give back. I feel that I have led a relatively blessed life. l had great jobs. I have been able to do interesting things: starting a Sierra Club Chapter in Rhode Island, litigating for inmate rights in DC in the 1980's, starting a U.A.E. health insurance company, travels, mission trips to Honduras and South Africa, being part of creating a soccer referee association, refereeing, etc. But most all I have enjoyed the blessings of a wonderful wife, successful children and lovely grandchildren.