Rev. Eugene Adams, at 87; civil rights leader, minister

The Rev. Eugene H. Adams, who rose from the boxing rings of New England to battle for civil rights not only in the Deep South but also in his adopted hometown of Medford, died Wednesday of cancer at a Cambridge hospice. The longtime leader of the First Universalist Church of Medford was 87.

''He really was someone who knew that he had to make sacrifices in life," said the Rev. Hank Peirce of Medford, who had worked with Rev. Adams for the past five years. ''He exemplified the role of the servant and everything that is meant by ministry to the people."

Born in Boston, Rev. Adams moved to Portsmouth, N.H., at an early age.

Both parents died of tuberculosis when he was age 10, making him and his four brothers wards of the state.

The Rev. Frank Chatterton, a minister of Portsmouth's Universalist Church, served as a father figure of sorts to Rev. Adams.

As a teenager, Rev. Adams became a boxer. He fought professionally under the name ''Red Adams," but his career ended by way of a knockout on the canvas of the old Boston Garden in 1938.

Rev. Adams turned instead to the classroom. Despite a number of hurdles, including lacking the proper high school credits for college admission, he entered Tufts College with a special student permit and graduated in four years. By 1945, he had a master of divinity degree from the university.

His first steps in the ministry, however, were staggers. At his first post, in Iowa in 1945, he lasted three days.

A church member denounced his smoking, saying it would lead to drinking and fraternizing with ''wild women," said Rev. Peirce. Rev. Adams quit the post, not the habit.

After a stint as a social worker, Rev. Adams joined the Unitarian Universalist Church of Binghamton, N.Y. This time, he lasted for three months, dismissed amid accusations that he was a Communist.

From 1949 to 1954, Rev. Adams served as a chaplain to the merchant marines in New York City at the YMCA's seaman's house.

He married his second wife, Caroline Brown, in 1956 in Cleveland. The couple had met while he was serving as a pastor with a Cleveland YMCA.

After a stint at the Universalist Church of Orange, he joined the First Universalist Church of Medford.

Among his accomplishments was the consolidation of three churches.

In 1961, Rev. Adams began serving at the First Universalist Church of Worcester and his social activism soared.

A leader in the local civil rights movement, he embraced several other causes; for three years, he wore denim in the pulpit to show his support for migrant farm workers.

In early 1965, Rev. Adams joined with local clergy and Worcester native Abby Hoffman to follow Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his historic and bloody march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.

Rev. Adams remained active in civil rights as a member of the Medford branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Greater Boston Civil Rights Coalition, and the Medford Human Rights Commission. He also served as head of the city's Fair Housing Commission.

After spending three years at the Unitarian Church in Jamestown, N.Y., Rev. Adams returned to Medford to serve as a minister of the same church that he had helped to consolidate years before. He retired in 1987.

In addition to his wife, Rev. Adams leaves four sons, Richard of Prince Frederick, Md., John of Nobleboro, Maine, Peter of Pittsburgh, and Thomas of Livermore, Calif.

A celebratory service is planned at 10 a.m. on Aug. 28 in Unitarian Universalist Church of Medford.