Rev. Dr. Katie Cannon was the first African American female to be ordainedinto the United Presbyterian USA denomination. Rev. Cannon was ordained in Shelby, North Carolina, on April 24, 1974, by the Catawaba Presbytery, making her the first African American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Katie … Read MoreKatie Geneva Cannon (1950-2018)
Rev. T. J. Jemison With Students at Southern University Who Had Just Been Released From Jail for Civil Rights Protest, 1960 Image Ownership: Public domain Rev. Theodore Judson Jemison was a civil rights leader and president of the National Baptist Convention. He was responsible for leading the Baton Rouge Bus … Read MoreTheodore Judson Jemison (1918-2013)
Image Ownership: Public domain Alveda King, a prominent conservative leader, evangelist, and niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, as the first of five children of Alfred Daniel King and Naomi Barber King on January 22, 1951. Her father worked … Read MoreAlveda King (1951- )
Image Ownership: Public domain Maurice E. Washington is a Reno, Nevada businessman and pastor who is best known as a former Republican member of the Nevada State Senate. Washington was born on July 25, 1956, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He moved to Nevada where he … Read MoreMaurice E. Washington (1956- )
Minister, civil rights activist, vocalist, Jesse Lee Douglas, Sr. was born August 19, 1930 in New Orleans, Louisiana, to William and Isabella Douglas, a Merchant Marine cook and a maid. He attended Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana and Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee before … Read MoreJesse L. Douglas Sr. (1930- )
Jehu Jones Jr., the first African American Lutheran pastor, was born in Charleston, South Carolina on September 4, 1786 to slave parents, Jehu Sr. and Abigail Jones. Jones’ parents were freed in 1798. The elder Jones, who had been trained as a tailor, was able … Read MoreJehu Jones Jr. (1786-1852)
Fred Luter Jr., the first African American First Vice President and President of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), was born on November 11, 1956. Luter and his four siblings were raised in New Orleans, Louisiana’s Lower 9th Ward by his mother, Viola Brooks, who worked … Read MoreFred Luter Jr. (1956- )
Image Ownership: Public Domain Clergyman and civil rights activist John Hurst Adams was born November 27, 1927 in Columbia, South Carolina to Reverend E.A. Adams and homemaker Charity Nash Adams. John Adams graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Columbia, South Carolina and … Read MoreJohn H. Adams (1927– )
Image Ownership: Public Domain Educator, philosopher and theologian John Wesley Edward Bowen preached for social equality fifty years before the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. He supported black intellectualism and urged African Americans to develop self worth even in the face of white oppression. John Wesley … Read MoreJohn Wesley Edward Bowen (1855-1933)
Rev. Dr. Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Sr. carried on two family traditions: preaching and politics. The son of Alexander Stephens Jackson, a Baptist minister from New Orleans, and Odalie Alice Morse Jackson. Jackson was born into New Orleans’s Negro-Creole Society on May 3, 1894. Like his father, … Read MoreMaynard Jackson Sr. (1894-1953)