He was born in Bloomington, Illinois on September 6, 1925, to Walter and Helen (nee Young) Wolf and was raised there until he joined the U.S. Navy in World War II.
[2][b] Early in his career, Wolf served as the minister for Unitarian churches in Racine, Wisconsin and Meadville, Pennsylvania.
[3] While he served in the latter position, he became a leader of the civil rights movement in Tulsa, and his congregation grew from about 1,000 members in 1960 to about 2,800 by 1968, becoming the largest single UU church in the United States.
[5] Wolf recalled later that he was cautioned by a member of his church that he should never talk about the riot from his pulpit when he began to expound on race relations.
He knew that continued silence would never heal the city, which had experienced significant damage – even when many of the physical scars had been erased.
In 1968, the Tulsa Public School system was floundering on many issues, including integration, and top-heavy management (too many administrators overseeing too few actual teachers).