George Houser was born in 1916 in Cleveland, Ohio, to parents who were Methodist missionaries, and as a child, he spent several years with them in the Far East, largely in the Philippines.
Farmer, Bayard Rustin and Houser were all influenced at this time by Krishnalal Shridharani's Columbia University doctoral thesis published in 1939 as War Without Violence.
In 1946 Houser, along with Dave Dellinger, Igal Roodenko, Lew Hill, and others, helped found the radical pacifist Committee for Nonviolent Revolution.
[9] In 1947, after the US Supreme Court's finding (in Morgan v. Commonwealth) that segregation in interstate travel was unconstitutional, Houser helped organize the Journey of Reconciliation.
This was a plan to send eight white and eight black men on a journey through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky to test the ruling.
In February 1948 George Houser received the Thomas Jefferson Award for his work to bring an end to segregation on interstate buses and in their facilities.
The group circulated a statement which read, in part: Conscription fails to prevent war, foments further warlike preparation by our opponents, and denies fundamental freedoms of the individual necessary to democracy.
Houser led the American Committee on Africa for many years, spending decades on the continent to promote freedom from colonial rule and segregation.
His support of liberation movements led him to develop close ties with many African leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Amílcar Cabral, Julius Nyerere, Eduardo Mondlane, Kwame Nkrumah, and Oliver Tambo.
His son, Steven, previously taught history at Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York, and now teaches World Civilizations at Grand Valley State University.