P. G. Rodgers:
Builder of Black Adventism By Douglas Morgan
Rodgers (1885-1961) proved
Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP, and
to be one of Adventism’s
Charlotta A. Bass, publisher of the California
most effective spokespersons
Eagle, Southern California’s leading Black newspaper,
in America’s Black urban
were among the guest speakers at Wadsworth
communities during the first
Seventh-day Adventist Church in Los Angeles on
four decades of the 20th
January 7, 1931. They were there both to celebrate
century. He was likewise a
the 25th wedding anniversary of the church’s pastor,
leading voice in the struggle for Black equality within
P. G. Rodgers, and his wife, Alverta Durham Rodgers,
the church. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August
and “to congratulate the church on the rapid
10, 1885, Gustavus Rodgers was the sole convert
strides it has made under
resulting from evangelistic meetings conducted by
the leadership of Elder
Fred H. Seeney in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1908.
Rodgers.”
Gustavus and Alverta, married in 1906, both had
1
SOURCE: OAKWOOD UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
The presence of these community leaders, reported on the front page of the Eagle, is one marker of the impact made by Rodgers’ ministry. In Los Angeles, and before that
P. Gustavus Rodgers
in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Peter Gustavus
12 Pacific Union Recorder
roots in the Delaware-based people of ambiguous racial heritage known as “the Moors.”2 The couple’s light complexions sometimes confused people. When, for example, they arrived in Los Angeles in 1923, their congregants reacted with surprise, thinking that the conference had sent a white man to be their minister.3 Yet there was nothing ambiguous about their identity as Black or about
SOURCE: DUPONT PARK SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D.C.
D
r. H. Claude Hudson, president of the
