New York Stories: Fearless in the city

MANHATTAN – Lots of people profess to love New York, but former Homewood resident Jennifer Crumpton ups the ante.

“This city feels like one of my limbs,” said Crumpton, who’s lived in the Big Apple for 13 years. “I know it so well, and I don’t know how I’d live without it.”

After all, perhaps only in New York could Crumpton have changed her life as radically as she has over the last decade.

Formerly in advertising, Crumpton — tapping into her passions for social justice and progressive Christianity — went to seminary to become a minister and social justice organizer.

A graduate of Samford University with a degree in journalism, she also began a career as a writer, author, speaker and commentator.

Crumpton has since worked with New York faith groups on many issues, including equality for women, religious minorities and the LGBTQ community; sex trafficking; immigration reform; and economic and environmental justice.

“The city is my office,” she said.

So it seemed appropriate that The Homewood Star caught up with the busy Crumpton — who also finds time for an acting career — at an iconic outdoor location in the Financial District in lower Manhattan.

We met at the Fearless Girl statue, an image of a young girl erected to face down the Charging Bull, a bronze sculpture in Bowling Green park that symbolizes financial success and a “bull” market. 

And the new sculpture, swarmed that day by picture-snapping tourists, resonates for Crumpton. “She’s facing the bull and standing up to the powers that be,” Crumpton said. “That describes my work in social justice and media to a T.”

A Homewood High graduate, Crumpton earned her degree at Samford in 1996 and went to work in advertising. Her first job, with BellSouth/AT&T, took her to New York to shoot commercials and campaigns.

“I fell in love with the energy of the city and the people, and started to wonder if I could actually live there,” she said.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11, Crumpton said, “pierced the heart of what had started to feel like a magical place,” a place that was expanding her awareness and worldview.

But while some fled the wounded city, Crumpton began thinking more seriously about moving there.

She did so in 2004 and went to work for the McCann agency and such clients as Citibank and MasterCard.

On nights and weekends, she indulged her love of acting in plays, commercials and indie films.

She then underwent a bigger transformation than simply moving to New York.

Crumpton was raised a Christian but ceased regular church attendance in her 20s because it didn’t seem relevant.

But in 2008, she “felt a calling” to attend graduate school in religious studies so she could combine writing, communications and social justice work. 

She earned a master of divinity degree at the Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, taking such classes as feminist theology.

And it wasn’t just in class where Crumpton learned about faith, feminism and social justice.

“The city taught me so much,’ said Crumpton, who admitted she was “very sheltered” when she moved north.

“Having to make my way in more of a gritty reality opened my eyes,” she said, noting that she learned more about the struggles many people face due to their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

She was ordained as a minister at Park Avenue Christian Church and was on staff until 2013, when she joined the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy in Washington, D.C., for two years.

Crumpton has also been busy as a professional communicator.

She published a book about the link between faith and feminism, “Femmevangelical,” in 2015.

She’s also written for Time magazine, The Hill, Huffington Post and others, and she’s been a media commentator on such outlets as CNN and FOX News.

Life in New York is not perfect, Crumpton admits, citing “cold, snowy winters, crowded subways and the high expense of living.”

Crumpton and her husband, attorney Dave Ross, bought an apartment in the Tudor City neighborhood and, given what they had to pay, Crumpton said, they “could live like royalty somewhere else.”

In addition, New York is “a tough place — very competitive and demanding and will run right over you if you let it,” she said.

However, the city is also “very rewarding,” she said. “You can dream up anything, work hard, be creative and find unexpected opportunities.”

And she and Ross want to stay, with their 6-month-old daughter, Skylar.

“I want my daughter to reap the benefits of the culture and unique opportunities the city offers,” Crumpton said.

Crumpton said that the visit to the Fearless Girl statue had aroused some strong emotions for her. “When I walked up, I had tears in my eyes,” she said. 

“It’s like she’s saying. I’m so little, and this bull is so enormous, and I’m going to stand here, by God, and not let you run over me’ — and there’s no fear on her face,” she said.

There seems to be no fear or hesitation for Crumpton, either, as she continues the fight for justice in that big, tough city she now calls home.