FFWPU Celebrates 26th Anniversary

July 30 marks the 26th anniversary since True Parents launched the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU). From July 30 to August 1, 1996, FFWPU’s inaugural world convention convened some 400 delegates and more than a thousand participants at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. This was the Unification movement’s most spectacular federation launch and included an incredible list of dignitaries: former U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush, former Costa Rica President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, former Prime Ministers Edward Heath of Great Britain and Brian Mulroney of Canada, 36 one-time heads of state or governments, university presidents including Boston University’s John Silber, Christian television personality Robert Schuller, Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed, Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow Coretta Scott King, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s daughter Maureen Reagan, well-known comedian Bill Cosby, and Christian singer-actor Pat Boone. The main proceedings were also covered live by C-SPAN television network. 

True Mother delivered an opening speech on the “View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation,” and True Father addressed the theme “In Search of the Origin of the Universe” at the convention’s closing banquet. Externally, FFWPU was a high-level forum for world leaders and scholars to address issues related to the family. Internally, it marked the next stage in the movement’s development beyond salvation of the individual to salvation of the family.