Southside Presbyterian Church has announced that Rev. Alison J. Harrington, 33, became the new church pastor March 29.
Harrington, a native of California, attended the University of California-Berkeley and went on to attend San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Harrington spent much of her time in prison ministries, most notably at San Quentin State Prison in California.
Southside Presbyterian Church gained national recognition for its leader’s role in the 1980’s Sanctuary Movement. The movement, which was co-founded by then Southside Presbyterian Church Pastor John Fife, brought Central Americans, primarily from El Salvador and Guatemala, illegally to the United States to avoid persecution in their native countries.
Fife and seven others were eventually convicted of bringing immigrants illegally into the country back in the mid-1980s.
