Chris Wells

Chris is the North American Spokesperson for New Humanism, also known as Universal Humanism. He has been an activist for New Humanism for the past 16 years; in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Like all New Humanists, his work has been entirely as a volunteer.

Chris was an Editor of The Chelsea Journal from 1992 to 1994, and helped organize a campaign to fight lead poisoning among local children during this time, among other grass-roots initiatives. From 1994 to 1997, he was publisher of The West Side Story, an all-volunteer humanist neighborhood newspaper for the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in New York City. He also founded a humanist community center for the neighborhood, which hosted projects in the arts, community gatherings and other initiatives. During this time, he launched a campaign to develop a new neighborhood middle school, and played a key role in running two Humanist candidates for the school board.

Over the course of his humanist work, Chris has helped organize local and city-wide humanist forums, and participated actively in projects aiming to humanize health care and education. He has also organized demonstrations calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament, as well as a reduction in conventional weapons. Chris has represented U.S. New Humanists at humanist conferences and gatherings in Spain, Italy, Mexico City, Argentina, and Brazil and led North American projects of support for grass-roots international movements such as the Zapatistas in the Chiapas region of Mexico. He also helped lead human support campaigns for humanist projects in Bangladesh and Mozambique.

Chris proudly marched with other New Humanists against the invasion of Iraq before it was launched, and in March (2007) he helped to organize a Living Peace Sign in Washington Square Park, protesting the occupation on the fourth anniversary of the invasion. Chris is an actor by profession and lives in New York City with his wife and two children.