BCIH v5 by GLMO LLC

100 BLACK CHRISTIANS in H I S TO RY

THE

Compiled and Edited by the Editors of BCNN1.com BLACK CHRISTIAN NEWS NETWORK

Contents Foreword ........................................................................... 11 Ralph David Abernathy .................................................. 13 Richard Allen ................................................................... 15 Efrain Alphonse .............................................................. 19 Marian Anderson ............................................................. 23 Athanasius ......................................................................... 27 Augustine .......................................................................... 29 Moses Baker ..................................................................... 33 Benjamin Banneker.......................................................... 35 Mary McLeod Bethune .................................................. 39 Edward Boatner ............................................................... 43 Althea Brown ................................................................... 45 George Brown ................................................................. 47 Andrew Bryan .................................................................. 51 Harry T. Burleigh ............................................................ 53 George Washington Carver ........................................... 55 Lott Carey ......................................................................... 59 John Chavis ....................................................................... 63 Landon Cheek .................................................................. 67 John Chilembwe ............................................................... 69 James Cleveland ............................................................... 73 Daniel Coker .................................................................... 75 Samuel Ajayi Crowther ................................................... 77 Alexander Crummell....................................................... 79 John Day ............................................................................ 81 R. Nathaniel Dett ............................................................ 83

Thomas A. Dorsey .......................................................... 85 Frederick Douglass ......................................................... 87 Louise Cecilia Fleming ................................................... 89 Julia A. J. Foote ................................................................. 91 John Hope Franklin ......................................................... 93 Henry Garnet ................................................................... 97 David George .................................................................. 99 Eliza George .................................................................. 101 Lemuel Haynes .............................................................. 103 James A. Healy ............................................................... 107 Moses Henkle ................................................................ 109 Robert Hill...................................................................... 110 Mahalia Jackson .............................................................. 111 John Jasper....................................................................... 113 James Weldon Johnson ................................................. 115 Absalom Jones ................................................................ 117 Charles Price Jones........................................................ 119 Martin Luther King, Jr. ................................................. 123 Coretta Scott King ......................................................... 127 Festo Kivengere ............................................................. 131 Jarena Lee ........................................................................ 133 Marilyn Lewis ................................................................. 135 George Liele................................................................... 137 Oliver Lyseight .............................................................. 139 John Marrant ................................................................... 141 Sallie Martin.................................................................... 145 Charlotte M. Maxeke..................................................... 147 Samuel Morris ................................................................ 149 Abagole Nunemo .......................................................... 153

Rosa Parks ....................................................................... 156 Daniel Payne................................................................... 159 John Perkins .................................................................... 161 Israel Ransome-Kuti ..................................................... 163 Paul Robeson ................................................................. 166 William Seymour ........................................................... 168 William Sheppard .......................................................... 171 Amanda Berry Smith ..................................................... 175 Susan M. Steward .......................................................... 178 Betsey Stockton ............................................................. 181 Moses Ladejo Stone ...................................................... 183 Elgin and Dorothy Taylor ............................................ 185 Charles Tindley .............................................................. 187 Henry Townsend ........................................................... 189 Sojourner Truth ............................................................. 191 Harriet Tubman .............................................................. 193 James Varick .................................................................... 197 Montrose Waite .............................................................. 201 Booker T. Washington .................................................. 203 Phillis Wheatley ............................................................. 207 Daniel Hale Williams.................................................... 211 George W. Williams ...................................................... 214 How You Can Know Jesus Christ for Yourself ........................................ 217 Bibliography.................................................................... 219

Introduction From the first century after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to the twentieth century, Black Christians have played a key role in the history of Christianity, America, and the world. Oftentimes, these humble servants of our Lord and Saviour go unnoticed and unpraised by the world and even by many in the Christian community. These servants have labored in the dark jungles of Africa and in the cotton fields of pre-Civil War America. They have served among Native Indians in the Americas and have sung in the music halls of upper class society. They have ministered in slave cabins and in the U.S. House of Representatives. They were slave preachers on the plantation, they were missionaries on the foreign field, they were doctors, lawyers, educators, songwriters, singers, pastors and politicians. But most importantly, they were believers -- believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Gospel, for they were “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16) This book is our humble attempt to honor them for their service to their fellowman, the church of Christ, and the world, a ‘world which is not unworthy’. The editors of BCNN1.com

Ralph David Abernathy Preacher & Civil Rights Leader “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) “I don’t know what the future may hold, but I know who holds the future.”

Baptist preacher, Ralph D. Abernathy, was brought up on a farm in rural Alabama. In 1948, he was ordained as a Baptist minister and by 1951, lead the First Baptist Church in Montgomery. In 1955, Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr. organized a boycott of the city's bus system. The two later founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His autobiography was released in 1989. The son of a successful farmer, Abernathy was ordained a Baptist minister in 1948 and graduated with a B.S. degree from Alabama State University in 1950. His interest then shifted from mathematics to sociology, and he earned an M.A. degree in the latter from Atlanta University in 1951.

That same year he became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL., and he met King a few years later when the latter became pastor of another Baptist church in the same city. In 1955â&#x20AC;&#x201C;56 the two men organized a boycott by black citizens of the Montgomery bus system that forced the system's racial desegregation in 1956. This nonviolent boycott marked the beginning of the civil rights movement that was to desegregate American society during the following two decades. King and Abernathy continued their close collaboration as the civil rights movement gathered momentum, and in 1957 they founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC; with King as president and Abernathy as secretary-treasurer) to organize the nonviolent struggle against segregation throughout the South. In 1961 Abernathy relocated his pastoral activities to Atlanta, and that year he was named vice president at large of the SCLC and King's designated successor there. He continued as King's chief aide and closest adviser until King's assassination in 1968, at which time Abernathy succeeded him as president of the SCLC. He headed that organization until his resignation in 1977, after which he resumed his work as the pastor of a Baptist church in Atlanta. His autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, appeared in 1989.

Richard Allen Founder of AME Church “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) “This land, which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and the gospel is free.”

Born into slavery in Philadelphia in 1760, he died in 1831 not only free but influential, a founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and its first bishop. Allen's rise has much of the classic American success story about it, but he bears a larger significance: Allen, as one of the first AfricanAmericans to be emancipated during the Revolutionary Era, had to forge an identity for his people as well as for himself. After the War he furthered the Methodist cause by becoming a "licensed exhorter," preaching to blacks and whites from New York to South Carolina. His efforts

attracted the attention of Methodist leaders, including Francis Asbury, the first American bishop of the Methodist Church. In 1786 Allen was appointed as an assistant minister in Philadelphia, serving the racially mixed congregation of St. George's Methodist Church. The following year he and Absalom Jones, another black preacher, joined other ex-slaves and Quaker philanthropists to form the Free African Society, a quasi-religious benevolent organization that offered fellowship and mutual aid to "free Africans and their descendants." Allen remained a staunch Methodist throughout his life. In 1789, when the Free African Society adopted various Quaker practices, such as having fifteen minutes of silence at its meetings, Allen led a withdrawal of those who preferred more enthusiastic Methodist practices. In 1794 he rejected an offer to become the pastor of the church the Free African Society had built, St. Thomas's African Episcopal Church, a position ultimately accepted by Absalom Jones. A large majority of the society had chosen to affiliate with the white Episcopal (formerly Anglican) Church because much of the city's black community had been Anglican since the 1740s. "I informed them that I could not be anything else but a Methodist, as I was born and awakened under them," Allen recalled. To reconcile his faith and his African-American identity, Allen decided to form his own congregation. He gathered a group of ten black Methodists and took over a blacksmith's shop in the increasingly black southern section of the city, converting it to the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Although the Bethel Church opened in a ceremony

led by Bishop Francis Asbury in July 1794, its tiny congregation worshiped "separate from our white brethren." Allen's decision to found a black congregation was partly a response to white racism. Although most white Methodists in the 1790s favored emancipation, they did not treat free blacks as equals. But Allen's action also reflected a desire among African- Americans to control their religious lives, to have the power, for example, "to call any brother that appears to us adequate to the task to preach or exhort as a local preacher, without the interference of the Conference." By 1795 the congregation of Allen's Bethel Church numbered 121; a decade later it had grown to 457, and by 1813 it had reached 1,272.

Efrain Alphonse Missionary to the Indians "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” (I John 2:1-2) “Of all the missionary translators in the Western Hemisphere, probably no one has entered more fully into the rich realms of aboriginal speech than this humble African American servant of God who (worked) untiring among a needy people.” (Eugene Nide)

Efrain was an African American boy who lived in Panama while his father worked on the canal. He was an adventuresome lad, devoted to God. One day, when he was nineteen, Efrain escorted a Methodist missionary through the dangerous reefs and treacherous streams along the northeast coast of Panama. While piloting this small boat and chatting, the missionary was so impressed with Efrain that he asked, "How would you like to teach school in one of these Valiente Indian villages?" Efrain knew the Valiente

Indians' reputation. He knew they earned the name 'Valiente' which means 'brave and warlike'. He knew they did not speak Spanish and he knew not a word of their language. But the missionary's question and his love for Jesus Christ stirred Efrain's heart. He wanted to do whatever he could to help these neglected people. So he accepted a teaching post and went to live in one of the Indian villages. For twelve years Efrain lived among the Valientes, learning not just their language, but also their rich heritage of folklore, legends and tribal history. He developed his own system of putting together consonants and vowels to form root words and slowly built up a written form of the local language. Efrain knew the only way the Valiente Indians would know God loved them personally is if they could hear it and read it in their own language. Spanish wouldn't work. So, prompted by his love for the Indians and his love for God and His Word, Efrain A tried his hand at translating two gospels from the New Testament into their language. This whet his appetite for translation work and evangelism. Efrain left the tribe to seek out further training. He studied for several years, attended seminary and became well-versed in Greek. At last he was ready to tackle the translation of the entire New Testament so he eagerly returned to the Valiente people. He revised his early work and completed many more passages from the New Testament. Although he was not supported by his superiors, he pressed on. Eventually several books of the New Testament were completed and published by the Bible Society. Despite a serious heart ailment which would have hospitalized other men, Efrain carried on his work among

the Valiente Indians, translating the rest of the New Testament, directing five schools and shepherding many new churches in the area and throughout the Caribbean. Eugene Nide says of Efrain in his book, God's Word in Man's Language, "Of all the missionary translators in the Western Hemisphere, probably no one has entered more fully into the rich realms of aboriginal speech than this humble African American servant of God who (worked) untiring among a needy people." One African American man saw the need for Bible translation and gave himself to the task for the glory of God. We pray many others will see the need today and join in the task of Bible translation so, like the Valiente Indians, people groups all over the world will soon be able to read and know of God's love for them.

Marian Anderson Singer “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission [of sins].” (Hebrews 9:22) “When you stop having dreams and ideals...well, you might as well stop altogether.”

Marian Anderson displayed vocal talent as a child, but her family could not afford to pay for formal training. Members of her church congregation raised funds for her to attend a music school for a year, and in 1955 she became the first African American singer to perform as a member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Although many concert opportunities were closed to her because of her race, Anderson appeared with the Philadelphia Symphony and toured African American Southern college campuses. She made her European debut in Berlin in 1930 and made highly successful European tours in 1930–32, 1933– 34, and 1934–35. Still relatively unknown in the United States,

she received scholarships to study abroad and appeared before the monarchs of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and England. Her pure vocal quality, richness of tone, and tremendous range made her, in the opinion of many, the world's greatest contralto. Anderson's New York concert debut at Town Hall in December 1935 was a personal triumph. She subsequently toured South America and in 1938â&#x20AC;&#x201C;39 once again toured Europe. In 1939, however, she attempted to rent concert facilities in Washington, D.C.'s Constitution Hall, owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution, and was refused because of her race. This sparked widespread protest from many people, including Eleanor Roosevelt, who, along with many other prominent women, resigned from the DAR. Arrangements were made for Anderson to appear instead at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, and she drew an audience of 75,000. On January 7, 1955, she became the first African American singer to perform as a member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Before she began to sing her role of Ulrica in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, she was given a standing ovation by the audience. In 1957 Anderson's autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning, was published. The same year, she made a 12-nation, 35,000-mile (56,000-km) tour sponsored by the Department of State, the American National Theatre and Academy, and Edward R. Murrow's television series See It Now. Her role as a goodwill ambassador for the United States was formalized in September 1958 when she was made a delegate to the United Nations. Anderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 by President Lyndon

B. Johnson, and she was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees. She made farewell tours of the world and the United States in 1964â&#x20AC;&#x201C;65. In 1977 her 75th birthday (see Researcher's Note) was marked by a gala concert at Carnegie Hall. Among her myriad honours and awards were the National Medal of Arts in 1986 and the U.S. music industry's Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991.

Athanasius Christian theologian and church father “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:28) “He became what we are so that he might make us what he is.”

Athanasius of Alexandria (b. ca. 296-298 – d. 2 May 373) was the 20th bishop of Alexandria. His long episcopate lasted 45 years (c. 8 June 328 - 2 May 373), of which over 17 years were spent in five exiles ordered by four different Roman emperors. He is considered to be a renowned Christian theologian, a Church Father, the chief defender of the faith against Arianism, and a noted Egyptian leader of the fourth century. He is remembered for his role in the conflict with Arius and Arianism. In 325, at the age of 27, Athanasius had a leading role against the Arians in the First Council of Nicaea. At the time, he was a deacon and personal secretary of the 19th Bishop of Alexandria, Alexander. Nicaea was convoked

by the Emperor Constantine in Mayâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;August 325 to address the Arian heresy that Christ is of a distinct substance from the Father. In June 328, at the age of 30, three years after NicĂŚa and upon the repose of Bishop Alexander, he became archbishop of Alexandria. He continued to lead the conflict against the Arians for the rest of his life and was engaged in theological and political struggles against the Emperors Constantine and Constantius and powerful and influential Arian churchmen, led by Arian Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia and others. He was known as "Athanasius Contra Mundum". Within few years of his departure, St. Gregory of Nazianzus called him the "Pillar of the Church". His writings were well regarded by all Church fathers who followed, in both the West and the East. His writings show a rich devotion to the Word-becomeman, great pastoral concern, and profound interest in monasticism. Athanasius is counted as one of the four Great Doctors of the Church from the East in the Roman Catholic Church as well as one of the Great Doctors of the Church in Eastern Orthodoxy where he is also labeled the "Father of Orthodoxy". He is also celebrated by many Protestants, who label him "Father of The Canon". Athanasius is venerated as a Christian saint, whose feast day is 2 May in Western Christianity, 15 May in the Coptic Orthodox Church, and 18 January in the other Eastern Orthodox churches. He is venerated by the Roman Catholic church, Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches, the Lutherans, and the Anglican Communion.

Augustine Theologian, philosopher, and Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) “"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) “Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.”

Augustine of Hippo (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430) was Bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria). He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from Roman Africa. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity. According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith." In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in AD 387, Augustine developed

his own approach to philosophy and theolog y, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war. When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Catholic Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the Church, the community that worshipped God. In the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinian religious order; his memorial is celebrated 28 August, the day of his death. He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, the alleviation of sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of Reformation due to his teaching on salvation and divine grace. In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is blessed, and his feast day is celebrated on 15 June. Augustine was one of the most prolific Latin authors in terms of surviving works, and the list of his works consists of more than one hundred separate titles. They include apologetic works against the heresies of the Arians, Donatists, Manichaeans and Pelagians, texts on Christian doctrine, notably De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine), exegetical works such as commentaries on Book of Genesis, the Psalms and Paul's Letter to the Romans, many sermons

and letters, and the Retractationes, a review of his earlier works which he wrote near the end of his life. Apart from those, Augustine is probably best known for his Confessiones (Confessions), which is a personal account of his earlier life, and for De civitate dei (Of the City of God, consisting of 22 books), which he wrote to restore the confidence of his fellow Christians, which was badly shaken by the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. His On the Trinity, in which he developed what has become known as the 'psychological analogy' of the Trinity, is also among his masterpieces, and arguably one of the greatest theological works of all time. He also wrote On Free Choice Of The Will (De libero arbitrio), addressing why God gives humans free will that can be used for evil.

Moses Baker Evangelist; Founder of first Baptist church in Western Jamaica “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) “Baker had a spectacular conversion, and was zealous for his Lord.”. (Lloyd A. Cooke)

An American freed slave, Moses Baker had a spectacular conversion, and was zealous for his Lord. He was hired by a Quaker estate holder from the 'Stretch and Set' plantation near Adelphi, St. James, to teach his slaves. George Lascelles Winn hired Moses Baker's wife to be a seamstress for his slaves. However, not desiring to separate husband and wife, and hearing that Baker was a preacher, he hired him also to 'teach his slaves'. In 1784, Baker established the first Baptist church in western Jamaica. That congregation, Crooked Spring Baptist Church, later moved to Salter's Hill. It later was the church of Samuel Sharpe, Baptist deacon and national hero. Thus was Baptist work in Jamaica spread. Later, Baker wrote to the English Baptists to send them missionaries, in order to

overcome the hindrance of preaching to the slaves that were put in their path by the Consolidated Slave Laws of 18021810. The first white Baptist missionaries came to Jamaica in 1814, 30 years after these American freed slaves had began their missionary work in Jamaica.

Benjamin Banneker Astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, almanac author and farmer. "In [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.â&#x20AC;? (Ephesians 1:7) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties.â&#x20AC;?

On November 9, 1731, a boy was born on a farm near Baltimore, along the Patapsco river. The child had a disadvantage: he was born black in a society that held black slaves. However, because his mother was free, he also was free: slave mother, slave child; free mother, free child. He was named Benjamin. Benjamin Bannaky. His mother, Molly, taught Benjamin and his brothers and sisters to read, using the Bible as a textbook. Benjamin learned to play the flute and violin. When a Quaker school opened nearby, he attended. The schoolmaster changed the boy's last name from Bannaky to Banneker.

Benjamin proved to be a polymath. A polymath is a person who excels in many fields of endeavor. Taking apart a watch, he studied its workings and carved a wooden clock based on the principles he learned. It kept good time for forty years. Joseph Ellicott, an industrialist, asked Benjamin to build him a similar clock, which he did. The Ellicott brothers became Benjamin's close friends and loaned him books from which he taught himself astronomy and mathematics. He learned so well that he predicted an eclipse correctly when prominent astronomers and mathematicians got it wrong. In time, Benjamin became famous for the almanacs he issued between 1792 and 1802. But Benjamin may be most famous for a contribution he made to the nation when he was sixty. He was helping the Ellicott brothers lay out Washington, D. C. as the nation's capital. The architect in charge of the city plans was Pierre L'Enfant. Because of his bad-temper, L'Enfant was dismissed from the post. He took his plans with him. Benjamin recreated them from memory. Thomas Jefferson considered black people mentally inferior. To prove him wrong, Benjamin sent him a copy of his almanac. In the accompanying letter, he argued against slavery on the basis of his Christian beliefs: "...it is the indispensable duty of those, who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who possess the obligations of Christianity, to extend their power and influence to the relief of every part of the human race, from whatever burden or oppression they may unjustly labor under..." "...and it is under a sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, that I now confess to

you, that I am not under that state of tyrannical thraldom [bondage], and inhuman captivity, to which too many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings, which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty with which you are favored; and which, I hope, you will willingly allow you have mercifully received, from the immediate hand of that Being, from whom proceedeth every good and perfect Gift." Jefferson replied politely, but did nothing to end the slave system.

Mary McLeod Bethune American educator and civil rights leader “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:” (1 Peter 1:18-19) “Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.” Mary McLeod Bethune (18751955): Her life epitomized her philosophy of Christian Education. With a sense of divine destiny, clear vision, and daily awareness of God's presence and purpose, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, the daughter of freed slaves, became the most influential black woman of her times in the United States. Along with the establishment of the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls, later Bethune-Cookman College, Mary Bethune served as president of many national organizations and held leadership appointments under Presidents Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, and Truman. Her life of profound faith and service left a contagious legacy of perpetual spiritual and social transformation.

Upon graduation from Moody, Mary McLeod suffered enormous disappointment when the Presbyterian mission board denied her request for a position in Africa because she was black. Although Mary never got over the disappointment, she held firm to her belief in God's role in her personal history. Mary's missionary focus shifted from Africa to Africans in America when she was appointed by the Presbyterian Board of Education to serve as an eighth grade teacher under the inspiring leadership of former slave, Lucy Croft Laney at Haines Normal Institute in Augusta, Georgia. Mary invested herself fully in the mission of the school, and started an afternoon Sunday School involving hymn singing and Bible stories. During an assignment at the Kendall Institute, in May of 1898, Mary met and married Albertus Bethune, the son of Sarah and Reverend Albertus Bethune, a Methodist minister. For the sake of Albertus' employment, the Bethunes moved to Savannah, Georgia, and Mary Jane set aside her plans to teach when she learned she was expecting a child. The dreams and yearnings for missionary work continued, and when her son, Albertus McLeod Bethune was nine months old, the Bethunes moved to Palatka, Florida to work with Reverend Mr. Uggams in a church and missionary school. Mary Bethune's service in Palatka involved expanding the school to teach children and youth along with active ministry in the local jails. Mary Bethune was acutely aware of the social injustice that enveloped her people, and she yearned to establish her own school. After five years, with a strong sense of divine guidance, she left Palatka with the determination to start a school in a destitute area of Daytona Beach, Florida. While faced with opposition and insults, Mary Bethune saw the African American community of Daytona as a needy mission field with potential and opportunity.

With faith in God and one dollar and fifty cents, Mary Bethune opened her school, the Daytona Normal and Industrial School for Negro Girls, in a cottage home on October 4, 1904. The school expanded and changed over time under the leadership of the Methodist Church. A high school was added and then replaced by junior college curriculum in 1939. By 1943, the Institute had be become a Liberal Arts College granting Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in Elementary Education. Without success, Mary Bethune attempted to return Bethune-Cookman to an all-girls school. Mary's lifetime passion was to serve the particular educational needs of Negro girls. She resigned as president in 1942. Under the leadership of Dr. James A. Colston, the school became a fully accredited senior college by 1946, the year he resigned as president. Mary Bethune then resumed her leadership of the school in 1946 until Richard V. Moore was appointed one year later. In the final year of her life, Mary Bethune invested herself in the establishment of a foundation that would be located in her home. The foundation provided educational scholarships, an annual women's conference, a chapel for interracial devotional retreats, and the collection of all documents related to her life. Mary hoped the foundation would inspire ongoing advancement of her life goals. She managed to raise the needed funds for the foundation, and five days before her death, the filing cabinets arrived. At the end of her life, Mary McLeod Bethune acknowledged that the work of her life was filled with divine guidance and a daily awareness of the presence of God. Mary McLeod Bethune died on May 18, 1955, of heart failure in her Daytona home.

Edward Boatner Composer and educator "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14) “There has been no greater influence on the world of Black choral music than Edward Boatner.” (Max Roach)

Edward Boatner was born in 1898 and died in 1981. When he was a child, Edward Boatner traveled with his father, an itinerant minister. As a result, he came in contact with rural-church singing. He obtained musical education at universities. During the 1930s, he taught in Texas, and settled permanently in New York. He conducted a studio, directed church and community choirs, and arranged negro spirituals, which were sung by

concert artists. His best known arrangements are “Soon I Will Be Done”, “Let Us Break Bread Together” and “Oh, What a Beautiful City”. He published a "spiritual musical", The Man of Nazareth.

R. H. Boyd Minister and businessman “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” (Mark 16:16) “God-inspired visions do come true.”

Richard Henry Boyd (March 15, 1843 - August 22, 1922), commonly known as the Rev. Dr. R. H. Boyd, was an African-American minister and businessman who was the founder and head of the National Baptist Publishing Board and a founder of the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. In 1869 Boyd was baptized in Hopewell Baptist Church in Navasota, Texas. Shortly thereafter, he felt called to the ministry and was ordained as a minister in 1871. Subsequently he served as a pastor to several Texas churches, including the Nineveh Baptist Church in Grimes City, the Union Baptist Church in Palestine, and the Mount Zion Baptist Church in San Antonio, and helped to organize other churches in Palestine (including South Union Missionary Baptist Church),

Waverly, Old Danville, Navasota, and Crockett. In 1870 he helped organize the first black Baptist association in Texas, the Texas Negro Baptist Convention, and served as its missionary and educational secretary from 1870 to 1874. In 1876 he represented black Texas Baptists at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. While in Texas, Boyd became concerned that the Sunday school materials and other publications of the Southern Baptist Convention and American Baptist Publication Society, which were produced by white people, did not meet the needs of African American Baptists. He became interested in publishing black-authored materials for use in churches and Sunday schools. Because this view was not shared by all members of the Texas Negro Baptist Convention, in 1893 Boyd left that association to form the General Missionary Baptist Convention of Texas. In 1894 and 1895 he produced his first pamphlets for use in black Baptist Sunday schools. At the 1895 annual meeting of National Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, he pressed for the creation of a publishing board for the black Baptists and received the support of Elias C. Morris, president of the National Baptist Convention. In 1896 he resigned from his church positions in Texas and moved to Nashville to establish the National Baptist Publishing Board, arriving there on November 7, 1896. Boyd died in Nashville of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 22, 1922. The National Baptist Publishing Board was renamed the R. H. Boyd Publishing Corporation in his honor in 2000.

Althea Brown Missionary to the Bantu "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19) â&#x20AC;&#x153;None of us expected to see the rising of another sun. Every breath we took was a prayer for deliverance or of fitness to stand before the King [God].â&#x20AC;? (written after being attacked by rebels in the Congo)

On November 2, 1904, the missionaries at Ibanche station in The Congo (Zaire), trembled for their lives. Among them was Althea Brown. A runner had brought a branch dripping red to Ibanche, and said it was the blood of a Christian killed by rebel arrows. Warriors were on the march, burning Christian villages as they advanced. After making strong "medicine" that was supposed to deflect bullets, King Lukenga ordered his troops to bring the hearts of all traders and the heads of all missionaries to him, and the burning of every white person's dwelling. In issuing this order, he was acting in rebellion to the internationally recognized Congo government. By evening, fierce fighting surrounded the mission

compound. Night fell. "None of us expected to see the rising of another sun. Every breath we took was a prayer for deliverance or of fitness to stand before the King [God]," wrote Althea Brown later. Althea Brown was an African-American who had learned patient trust in her God. When, without linguistic training, she accomplished the amazing feat of preparing a Bakuba grammar, she had to wait twelve years before anyone would publish it! An honors student and beloved teacher, she left her native United States in order to tell the Bantu about Christ. On either side of the Atlantic, she was an example of applied faith, loving others and making things better for everyone through determined effort. She had even made and sold fudge in college to cover her expenses! She acquired any skill necessary for success, whether to learn a language or sew a dress. But her efforts seemed destined to end that night. "The hours until dawn seemed endless. Then we sang the doxology." During the day, the fighting eased off. There was a second long night of fear, until, on the following day, a few Congolese soldiers, well-armed, but fearful of attack, escorted the women and children to a safer town. Althea survived and later married co-worker Alonzo Edmiston, sewing all the wedding garments herself--their station and their clothes had burned in the rebellion. Later, Kueto, one of the rebel chiefs, softened by trials, asked them to name their first child for him, which they did. Althea died in 1937 of sleeping sickness and malaria, having given her life for the Congo.

George Brown Minister and missionary to Liberia “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6) "Here I became so convicted of sin, that I ran away from meeting to avoid weeping my soul away. But I carried my conviction with me, as a fiery arrow." (On first being convicted of sin at a camp meeting.)

Methodist Episcopal minister, missionary to Liberia, and expert stone mason, was born on Newport Island, Rhode Island, the son of Amos Brown, an elder in the Baptist Church. In 1828 Brown was converted by some Baptist friends but soon came under the influence of the Reverend William Ryder, whom he describes in his Journal as a “Holy Ghost man, an exhorter in the Methodist Episcopal Church...” He finally was led to join the “Episcopal Methodists” and preach the word of God. In April 1831 Brown was granted an exhorter's license and two years later was approved for a license to preach, the first such license granted to an African American in the Troy Annual Conference of the Methodist

Episcopal Church (MEC). Brown was a powerful preacher and often gathered large crowds when he preached. During these years Brown experienced a call from God to go as a missionary to Liberia. He was originally sent to Liberia in 1836 as a schoolteacher but was unable to resist the call to preach, as well. He was received as a probationary member of the Liberia Conference (MEC) in January 1838 and elected to both deacon's and elder's orders. He then sailed back to America, and at the New York Annual Conference of the MEC, held on March 25–26, 1838, Brown was ordained as a deacon one day and as an elder the next day. Upon returning to Liberia he was admitted as a full member of the Liberian Annual Conference on February 14, 1839. At this time African Americans in the Methodist Episcopal Church were not allowed to become full members of an annual conference except in missionary conferences. It would not be until 1864 that African Americans in the MEC would be granted full clergy rights. For the first few years that Brown was in Liberia he was a very successful missionary to the native Africans. Eunjin Park in White Americans in Black Africa describes Brown as “the missionary who was more devoted to African evangelization than anyone else.” In 1840, however, the white Superintendent of the Liberia Mission of the MEC, Reverend John Seys, became embroiled in a struggle with the Liberian government over custom duties owed on goods brought into Liberia from the United States. Seys attempted to persuade all of his pastors to support him in this political battle. Brown, who firmly believed that he had only been called to Africa to save souls, refused to become involved. As a result he was eventually

suspended from all of his duties in 1843 and was expelled from the Liberia Conference on 1 January 1844. Shortly thereafter he sailed to America, leaving his wife behind, assuming that he would be able to resolve his problems with the MEC Missionary Board in a timely manner and then return to Africa. This took much longer than anticipated, however, and Brown never was able to return. In 1855 Brown moved to the small village of Wolcott in north central Vermont and began gathering Methodist classes there. The following year under his direction the Wolcott Methodist Episcopal Church was built and is still in use in the present day. Brown kept a detailed record of the work on the church; the last entry was dated September 23, 1856. During the following winter Brown became ill with â&#x20AC;&#x153;bleeding at the lungsâ&#x20AC;? and was near death. He did manage to recover, however, and in 1863 he took the train from Fort Edward, New York, along with a number of men he had hired to assist him in building a stone wall on the farm of Dwight Merriman in Jackson, Michigan. Merriman had learned of Brown's stone walls from his father-in-law who lived in Glens Falls, New York. The wall took about two years to build and was about a half a mile long. In 1869 the Michigan Agricultural Society cited the wall for its artistic and engineering design. Much of the wall still stands today and can be seen on the property of what is now the Ella Sharpe Museum in Jackson. George S. Brown returned to the Glens Falls, New York, area and lived there until his death. He died as a result of complications following a fall on the ice. Despite his many trials with the Methodist Episcopal Church Brown never left

to join one of the African Methodist Episcopal denominations. He states in his Journal (p. 258), â&#x20AC;&#x153;I call heaven to witness that I truly love the M.E. Church with all my soul. I love her nonetheless for what a few individuals have mangled me.â&#x20AC;?

Andrew Bryan Minister and First African Baptist Church Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28) "This son of Africa, after suffering inexpressible persecutions in the cause of his Divine Master, was at length permitted to discharge the duties of the ministry among his colored friends in peace and quiet, hundreds of whom, through his instrumentality, were brought to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. He closed his extensively useful, and amazingly luminous course, in the lively exercise of faith, and in the joyful hope of a happy immortality." (the White Baptist Association on his death)

Andrew Bryan, the founder of the First African Baptist Church, was born enslaved in 1737, on a plantation outside of Charleston, South Carolina. He served as coachman and body servant to Jonathan Bryan, who along with his brother Hugh and several other planters, was arrested for preaching to slaves. Jonathan Bryan's plantation became the center of

efforts by dissenting group of planters to evangelize their slaves. In 1782, Andrew was converted by the preaching of George Liele, the first black Baptist in Georgia, who was licensed to preach to slaves along the Savannah River. Liele baptized Andrew and his wife Hannah. Andrew began to preach to small groups outside of Savannah. Fearing slave uprisings and desertions to the British, Georgian masters forbade their slaves to listen to Andrew's sermons. With the support of several prominent white men of Savannah who cited the positive effect of religion on slave discipline, Andrew was ordained and his church certified in 1788. When his own master died, Andrew Bryan purchased his freedom. In 1794, Bryan raised enough money to erect a church in Savannah, calling it the Bryan Street African Baptist Church -- the first black Baptist church in Georgia (and probably the United States), as well as the first Baptist church, black or white, in Savannah. By 1800, the church had grown to about 700; they reorganized as the First Baptist Church of Savannah, and 250 members were dismissed in order to establish a branch outside of Savannah. Bryan died in 1812, having obtained a house of his own, property in Savannah and in the country, and the freedom of his wife -- though his "only daughter and child, who is married to a free man" remained in slavery along with her seven children, since according to law children inherited the condition of their enslaved mothers.

Harry T. Burleigh Composer and singer It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible. (Mark 10:25-27) â&#x20AC;&#x153;I hope to make my greatest reputation as an arranger of Negro spirituals. In them my race has pure goal and they should be taken as the Negro's contribution to art.â&#x20AC;?.

One of the earliest arrangers of African American religious music and prolific composer of "Art" songs was Harry T. Burleigh. Burleigh was born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1866, he attended the National Conservatory of Music in New York City from 1892-1896, and was on the faculty there for several years. He also received honorary degrees from Atlanta and Howard Universities.

He was protege of Anton Dvorak, who it is said spent many hours listening to Burleigh sing folk songs of his people and discussing with him the possibilities of using this music as inspiration for a major composition. Soon after, Dvorak used some of these songs as the basis for his symphony, "From the New World (No.9 in E minor) which premiered in New York in 1893. Burleigh was a baritone soloist for St. George's Episcopal Church in New York City from 1894 - 1946, where he gave an annual concert of spirituals. In 1900, he was appointed soloist for Temple Emanu-El and remained there for twenty five years. He was a charter member of ASCAP and arranged many spirituals including “Deep River”, other songs composed by him include “Jean” and “Just You”. In 1917, he published a major series of music called, Negro Spirituals, where he describes the origins of this music. He arranged a hundred spirituals since 1901. They were adapted for the voices of the artists who had to sing these songs. For example, Paul Robeson used to sing on stage and recorded “Deep River” that he arranged He published “Jubilee Songs of the United States of America” in 1916.

George Washington Carver Scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor "I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." (John 8:24) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our creator is the same and never changes despite the names given Him by people here and in all parts of the world. Even if we gave Him no name at all, He would still be there, within us, waiting to give us good on this earth.â&#x20AC;?

George Washington Carver, US agricultural chemist and agronomist, was born a slave in Diamond Grove, Missouri., around 1864. While he was a baby, he and his mother were kidnapped by raiders. His owner, Moses Carver, paid for their return, but only George was returned. A frail child, George was late to talk but showed so great an interest in plants at an early age that neighbors brought him their problems with their plants. The Carvers taught him to read, write, and do math. When they could teach him no more, he decided that he would need to leave to find a school

that would teach African-American students. He was about ten or twelve years old. While working menial jobs, he worked on his education. He graduated from high school in his late twenties and earned Bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degrees from Iowa State Agricultural College in 1896. Though loving botany, Carver was a well-rounded student who excelled in music and art. Two of his paintings appeared in the 1893 Chicago's World Fair. He participated in YMCA, debate, and the campus's military regiment. After graduation Booker T. Washington invited him to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to be the director of agricultural research. Arriving at Tuskegee, he found that the agricultural department consisted of a barn, a cow, and some chickens. With the help of students, Carver scrounged and made tools and equipment. He taught farm management and programs on nutrition and health, even visiting farms and communities to help the people. A devout Christian, Carver considered his laboratory "God's Little Workshop." He discovered that peanuts and soybeans would restore soil fertility, but farmers complained that they had no market for these products. To provide markets, Carver developed 300 products from peanuts and 118 from sweet potatoes. By 1940 peanuts had become the South's second largest crop. In 1916 he was honored by being appointed to the Royal Society of Arts in London. In 1923 he received the NAACP's prestigious Spingarn Medal. In 1938 a feature film, Life of George Washington Carver , was made. Before his death in 1943, he received the Roosevelt Medal for Outstanding

Contribution to Southern Agriculture. The Hall of Fame for Great Americans inducted him in 1977. The National Inventors Hall of Fame included him in 1990. Carver's dedication to God and his people led him to patent only three of his 500 agricultural inventions because he wanted his products to benefit all. He left his life savings to Tuskegee Institute.

Lott Carey Baptist minister, physician, and missionary to Liberia "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." (John 10:9) â&#x20AC;&#x153;I feel bound to labor for my brothers, perishing as they are in the far distant land of Africa. For their sake and for Christ's sake I am happy in leaving all and venturing all.â&#x20AC;?

Lott was born a slave on the estate of William A. Christian, about thirty miles from Richmond. Though his parents were illiterate, Lott's father was a respected member of the Baptist Church. When he was twenty-four, Lott was hired out as a laborer in the Shockhoe tobacco warehouse in Richmond. As a young man he was profane and given to drunkenness. In 1807 Lott was converted and joined the First Baptist Church of Richmond. Hearing a sermon on John 3 caused Lott to want to learn to read the story of Nicodemus in John 3 for himself. Soon he learned to read and was licensed to

preach by the church. In 1813, about the time Lott bought his freedom, William Crane from New Jersey came to Richmond and took an interest in the young blacks of the town. Crane worked with Lott Carey to organize the Richmond African Missionary Society. The Society collected funds for mission work in Africa and within five years had collected $700. The Richmond Society worked with the Triennial Baptist Convention and the American Colonization Society in sending missionaries to Africa. Lott Carey and Collin Teague, another Richmond free black, were chosen as missionaries to Africa. When Carey announced he was going to Africa as a missionary, his employers at the tobacco warehouse offered him a $200 annual increase if he would stay on the job. Carey was not tempted; he wanted to be where his color was not a hindrance to useful service, and he was eager to preach the Gospel in Africa. Shortly before Carey, Teague, and their families departed, William Crane gathered them and a few Baptists in the upper room of his Richmond home and organized the emigrants into the First Baptist Church of Monrovia, Liberia. On January 16, 1821, they set sail from Norfolk for West Africa. During the forty-four day journey across the Atlantic the missionaries held regular worship services. At the beginning of March they joined the other settlers of the American Colonization Society at Sierra Leone. Soon after their arrival, Lott's second wife died. Lott was more interested in missionary work among the natives than in establishing a colony, but in 1822 he moved to Monrovia. There he established the first church in Liberia,

Providence Baptist Church, and ministered to the congregation as well as to native tribes. One native named John walked eighty miles to Monrovia from Cape Mount, adjacent to Sierra Leone. John had first heard of Christianity from the British but wanted to learn more. Under Lott Carry's ministry he was converted and baptized. He returned to his people with Bibles and hymnbooks and iron bars used in trade. Carey preached several times a week at the church and gave religious instruction to the native school children. He used his own money to maintain a weekday charity school in Monrovia and established a school at Big Town in the Cape Mount region. Moslems of the Mandingo tribe raised a great deal of opposition to the school, but Carey persevered to see the school completed. It was a 15 by 30-foot school which soon had thirty-seven children enrolled. Carey found a teacher, whom he paid $20 a month. He requested friends in the States to send forty suits of clothes "as soon as practicable," since school regulations said children should wear clothes! When 105 new settlers arrived in Monrovia in February 1823, many of them were sick with a fever, and there was no physician available. Though not a doctor, Carey used his common sense and knowledge of herbs to nurse many of the people back to health.

John Chavis Presbyterian minister and educator And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:28) â&#x20AC;&#x153;If Christ had not gone to the cross and suffered in our stead, the just for the unjust, there would not have been a spark of hope for us. There would have been a mighty gulf between ourselves and God, which no man ever could have passed.â&#x20AC;? (J.C. Ryle)

At a time when few AfricanAmericans were free and almost none were educated, John Chavis occupied a unique place in North Carolina society. Chavis was a free man, born in 1762 or 1763. Scholars debate his birthplace, showing evidence for the West Indies, Pitt County or Granville County, NC, or Mecklenberg County, VA. He was possibly the "indentured servant named John Chavis" mentioned in the inventory of the estate of Halifax attorney James Milner in 1773.

Chavis was not allowed to attend classes at Princeton University, but studied to become a minister under the seminary president, John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He became a scholar of Latin and Greek. A certificate made out in Rockbridge County, Virginia, on April 6, 1802, attests that John Chavis was known to the court and considered a free man and that he has been a student at Washington Academy at Lexington, Virginia, now Washington and Lee University. His education was exceptional for the age. He was probably the most learned black in the United States. Chavis played a role in our nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s independence as a soldier in the Fifth Regiment of Virginia, in which he enlisted in December 1778. He served for three years in the Revolutionary War. Captain Mayo Carington, in a bounty warrant written in March 1783, certified that Chavis had "faithfully fulfilled (his duties) and is thereby entitled to all immunities granted to three year soldiers." In a 1789 tax list of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, he was shown as a free black owning one horse. He and his wife, Sarah Frances Anderson, had one son, Anderson Chavis. Chavis was licensed to preach in 1799. It is recorded in Presbytery of Lexington records, "the said Jon Chavis (was voted a license) to preach the Gospel of Christ as a probationer for the holy ministry within the bounds of this Presbytery, or wherever he shall be orderly called, hoping as he is a man of colour, he may be peculiarly useful to those of his own complexion." Six months later he transferred to the Hanover Presbytery with this recommendation: "â&#x20AC;Śas a man of exemplary piety, and possessed of many qualifications

which merit their respectful attention." From 1801 through 1807 he served as a missionary for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to slaves in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. He was provided a horse and lodging. He came to Raleigh in 1807 where he was licensed to preach the Christian Gospel by the Orange Presbytery. He continued to preach to black and white congregations in Granville, Orange, and Wake Counties. Chavisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; preaching days ended abruptly in the 1832 after Nat Turner, an educated slave and preacher in southern Virginia, led a bloody rebellion that ended in the murder of dozens of whites. Slave-holding states quickly passed laws forbidding all African-Americans to preach. The presbytery continued to pay Chavis $50 a year until his death and continued payments to his wife until 1842. An educator as well as preacher, Chavis taught full time following the ruling. He taught white children during the day and free black children at night. He prepared the white children for college by teaching them Latin and Greek. The school he opened in Raleigh was described as one of the best in the state. It surely was an excellent school, for some of the most powerful men in white society entrusted their sonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; education to Chavis. Chavis died in June of 1838. His contributions to Raleigh were memorialized when the Chavis Heights apartments and Chavis Park, located near the site of his school, were named in his honor. Chavis Heights served residents with quality housing and an excellent neighborhood. The park served as the only public park for African-Americans in central and eastern North Carolina. On weekends people from miles around would gather to swim, picnic and ride the carousel.

In nice weather the park would be filled to capacity. Today Chavis Park is open to everyone and people still enjoy a day of sun, swimming, and fun at Chavis Park. Thus John Chavisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; legacy of public service continues.

Landon Cheek Missionary to Malawi In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:2-3) â&#x20AC;&#x153;The good news is that in the face of Jesus Christ we see the very face of God, the One who has decided to be with us and for us in spite of our sin.â&#x20AC;? (Kevin VanHoozer)

Landon N. Cheek was an African American Baptist missionary to Malawi. Born in Canton, Mississippi, Cheek was the son of a former slave and Baptist minister; his mother was a Cherokee Native American. He migrated to Bridgeton, Missouri, where he pastored Bridgeton Baptist Church while working as a letter carrier. At the age of 28 he volunteered to the National Baptist Convention to go to Africa as a missionary and eventually arrived in Malawi in 1901. He assisted John Chilembwe, founder and head of the Providence Industrial Mission (PIM) in Malawi, who later led an uprising against the colonial government. Shortly after arriving, Cheek married Rachel Chilembwe, niece of John Chilembwe, and they had three

children during Cheek's term of service. Cheek and fellow missionary Emma B. Delaney set up an industrial-based education curriculum for the PIM more than 20 years before it was recommended by the Phelps Stokes Commission as the best educational method for Africa. Colonial pressure, lack of financial support, and health problems led Cheek to return to the United States in 1906. During the next 50 years he served as pastor, raised funds for foreign missions, and preached a positive message about his missionary experience.

John Chilembwe Baptist educator of Nyasaland “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” (Acts 10:43) "Jesus is not one of many ways to approach God, nor is He the best of several ways; He is the only way." (A.W. Tozer)

Reverend John Chilembwe (1871 – February 3, 1915) was a Baptist educator and an early figure in resistance to colonialism in Nyasaland, now Malawi. Chilembwe attended the Church of Scotland mission from around 1890. In 1892 he entered the domestic staff of Joseph Booth, a Baptist missionary. Booth was critical of the Scottish Presbyterian missions in Nyasaland, where Chilembwe had been educated, and he established the Zambezi Industrial Mission. Importantly Booth's teaching focused on equality, a radical idea in colonial Africa.

In 1897 Chilembwe traveled with Booth to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he attended Virginia Theological College, a small African-American seminary. Here Chilembwe was exposed to the works of John Brown, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey and other abolitionists. In 1900 he returned to Nyasaland as an ordained Baptist minister. Working with the American National Baptist Convention, he founded the Providence Industrial Mission, which developed into seven schools, which by 1912 had 1000 pupils and 800 adult students. He tried to instill the values of hard-work, selfrespect and self-help in his community. In 1913 a famine caused hardship, and people from Mozambique moved to Nyasaland. Chilembwe was upset by the way his parishioners and the refugees were exploited by plantation owners. Workers were denied wages, and beaten. Chilembwe complained of racism and exploitation. On January 23, 1915 Chilembwe staged an uprising: he and 200 followers attacked local plantations that they considered to be oppressing African workers. Chilembwe's plan involved the killing of all male Europeans. They killed three white plantation staff, including Livingstone, whom they beheaded in front of his wife and small daughter. Several African workers were also killed, but they did not harm any women or children on orders of Chilembwe. When the uprising failed to gain local support, Chilembwe tried to flee to Mozambique, however He was killed by officials on February 3, 1915. Although Chilembwe had sent letters to neighboring Zomba and Ntcheu encouraging them to organize uprisings at the same time his word did not arrive in time. When his letters did finally arrive on Monday, January

25 the authorities already knew of the plot and the hastily coordinated uprisings failed to accomplish much. The colonial officials also killed a number of his followers. Chief among the victims of these reprisals were the 175 Africans listed on the uprising's "War Roll" and the 1,160 names on the list of Baptised Believers.[citation needed] Nyasaland gained independence in 1964, taking the name Malawi. Today Chilembwe's likeness may be seen on the obverse of all Malawian kwacha notes. John Chilembwe Day is observed annually on January 15 in Malawi.

James Cleveland Gospel singer, composer, and choir leader "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31) "It's my desire to do your will, To bear my cross up the rugged hill, It's my desire to give You my life, So when it's over You'll let me by Your side."

James Cleveland was born in Chicago. At the age of eight, he was a soloist in Thomas A. Dorsey’s Junior Gospel Choir. He was called the “Crown Prince of Gospel”. He was a Gospel singer, a pianist, a composer, a choir master, and a producer. He sang with groups (The Gospelaires, etc.) and formed his own groups (The Gospel Chimes, etc.). He also sang with leading choirs, such as The Voices of Tabernacle (of Detroit) and the Angelic Choir (of Nutley, New Jersey).. During the 1960s, he became a minister in Los Angeles, California. In 1968, he founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America.

He was prolific. Here are some of his songs “The Love Of God”, “Peace Be Still”, “Plenty Good Room”, “Get Right Church”, “Lord Do It”, “I Walk With God”, “Oh To Be Kept By Jesus”, “Christ Is Coming Back Again”

Daniel Coker Missionary, writer, activist, founder of the AME Church "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:20) “Without the way, there is no going; without the truth, there is no knowing; without the life, there is no living.” (Thomas a Kempis)

Daniel Coker (born Isaac Wright) was a writer, activist, and a founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church who eventually emigrated from the United States to Sierra Leone as a missionary and colonist. Coker was born in 1780 in either Baltimore County or Frederick County, Maryland to Susan Coker, a white indentured servant, and Edward Wright, a slave father. He was raised in a household with his white half-brothers from his mother’s previous marriage and was allowed to attend the local school as their valet. While still in school he fled to New York where he changed his name to Daniel Coker and

was ordained a Methodist minister. Upon secretly returning to Maryland, Cokerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s friends helped him purchase his freedom which gave him the rare opportunity to boldly speak out against the institution of slavery as well as participate in activities not usually open to black Americans at the time. He began both teaching and preaching in the Baltimore area. Responding to racial discrimination in the Methodist Church, Coker called upon African American Methodists to withdraw from the whitedominated church and establish their own organization. Unable to recruit enough parishioners from the Sharp Street Church where he worked, Coker and others who advocated his separatist ideals broke from the congregation to form the African Bethel Church, which later became Bethel A.M.E Church. In 1816 Coker and his supporters were invited to attend the Philadelphia Conference, from which the national organization of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was formed. The new AME Church denomination was the first in the United States founded by people of African ancestry. Coker became the first church secretary and was nominated to be the first bishop of the new denomination, a position he declined, possibly due to controversy surrounding his light-toned skin. Coker was expelled from the church from 1818 for reasons unknown but was then allowed to return to his ministerial role one year later. Daniel Coker left the United States in 1820 with 84 other African Americans who would become settlers in Liberia. Coker eventually established a church in Freetown and remained its spiritual leader until his death in 1846.

Samuel Ajayi Crowther First African Anglican Bishop in Nigeria "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) â&#x20AC;&#x153;About the third year of my liberation from the slavery of man, I was convinced of another worse state of slavery, namely, that of sin and Satan. It pleased the Lord to open my heart ... I was admitted into the visible Church of Christ here on earth as a soldier to fight manfully under his banner against our spiritual enemies.â&#x20AC;?

At the beginning of the 19th century very few people in Africa were practising Christians apart from Ethiopians, Coptic Egyptians and people living in the remnants of the Kongolese Empire (modern Congo Brazzaville and western DR Congo). The abolition of slave owning in 1807 and slave trading in 1834, throughout the British Empire proved to be two important turning points. Outlawing the slave trade and converting freed slaves became a powerful motive for setting

up European Christian missions. Human compassion in Europe for the plight of slaves meant that money could be raised to fund the considerable expenses of setting up a mission. Christian missionaries knew that if Christianity was to flourish, Africans would have to be ordained. Samuel Ajayi Crowther was one of the most famous African representatives of a European church (in this case the Anglican Church). He was the first African Bishop in the Anglican church. And he was a formidably able man. He kept his own name Ajayi, but also took the name Crowther from a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS). He was commissioned by the CMS to set up the Niger Mission; the first expedition to do so resulted in the death of a third of the party, all of which Crowther carefully documented in his journal. He supervised the setting up of a mission in Badagry, and later Abeokuta, (both in the south west of Nigeria), steering a difficult path between rulers in the region, some hostile to Christianity, some of whom were in conflict with each other. He later met Queen Victoria and read the Lord's prayer to her in the Nigerian language of Yoruba, which she described as soft and melodious. His missionary work expanded outside Yorubaland in south west Nigeria, founding a mission station in Onitsha, in the East of the territory. He published many works including the first written grammar of the Yoruba language and first Nupe grammar. In 1864, against considerable opposition from jealous fellow missionary Henry Townsend (another Niger Mission missionary), Crowther was made Bishop of 'Western Equatorial Africa' beyond the Queen's Dominions.

Alexander Crummell Pastor and professor "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved." (Romans 10:1) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Let our posterity know that we their ancestors, uncultured and unlearned, amid all trials and temptations, were men of integrity.â&#x20AC;?

Alexander Crummell, clergyman and author, was born in New York City to free parents. Crummell was a descendant of West African royalty since his paternal grandfather was a tribal king. He attended Mulberry Street School in New York, and in 1831 he was enrolled briefly in a new high school in Canaan, New Hampshire, before it was destroyed by neighborhood residents. In 1836 Crummell attended Oneida Institute manual labor school. He was received as a candidate for Holy Orders in 1839 and applied for admission to the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, but was not admitted

because of his color. He was eventually received in the diocese of Massachusetts and ordained to the diaconate there. After study at Queen's College, Cambridge, England, he went to Africa as a missionary, becoming a professor of mental and moral science in Liberia. While there, Crummell became widely known as a public figure; in 1862 he published a volume of his addresses, most of which had been delivered in Africa. After spending 20 years on that continent, Crummell returned to the United States and became rector of St. Luke's Church, Washington, D.C., and later founded the American Negro Academy.

John Day Missionary to Liberia "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:10) "All I ask on earth is to be treated as a man, a Christian, and I hate to add a gentleman, but nothing short of it will do.â&#x20AC;?

John Day, Jr., a Baptist minister, was born in Hicks Ford [now Emporia], Virginia, in 1797 into a family of free blacks. The Days had a family story, perhaps embellished, that was a variant on the many multiracial unions that created Virginia's early free mulatto class. He described his father as "the illegitimate grandson of an R. Day of S. Carolina whose daughter humbled herself to her coach driver" and was sent to Virginia to have the child. He noted that the woman left money for the child's education. Day added, "My mother [Mourning Stewart] was the daughter of a colored man of Dinwiddie County Virginia whose name was Thomas Stewart, a medical doctor, but whence he obtained his education in that profession, I know not." John Day's grandfather, Thomas Stewart, owned a large Dinwiddie County plantation. In his will, he freed at least 17 slaves. But the 17th and 18th century Virginia that gave rise to such mixed families began to end even before the

Revolution as enslaved Africans lost legal status compared to indentured whites. The elder John Day, a skilled cabinetmaker, saw his status decline and he fell back among the common lot of free blacks. The father took to drink, lost his business and property and left the state. He left behind John Day, Jr., who had been schooled and socialized with his white age mates, to work off his father's debts. A brother, Thomas Day, became a legendary cabinetmaker in North Carolina, and John Day, Jr., became a Baptist minister. He felt his calling to be a missionary in Haiti. But he received little or no support from Virginia Baptists in this endeavor and turned his attention to Liberia, leaving Hicks Ford, Virginia for that colony in 1830. In 1845, John Day was appointed superintendent of Liberian missions by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, a post he held until his death in 1859. In addition to his job as missionary, he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Liberia in 1847 and served as the second Supreme Court Justice of the country. His wife, Polly Wickham, and their four children died soon after the family arrived in Liberia. A generation later, in 1854, he wrote an open letter to free blacks in America saying, " I have noticed the prohibitory and oppressive laws enacted in many of the states in regard to you, I have wept and wondered whether every manly aspiration of soul had been crushed in the colored man, or does he pander to the notion that he belongs to an inferior race?" Until his death, John Day continued to believe that Liberia offered more opportunity for free black families than did the United States, and that one of those opportunities was for Christianizing Africa.

R. Nathaniel Dett Composer, pianist and choir director "For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." (Romans 10:11) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Most important in his life, however, was the dedication of his talents to the cause of the music of his people. As an educator, Dett discovered and nurtured the gifts of many persons; as a choral conductor, he gave both Europe and America additional reason to respect the unique musical heritage of AfroAmericans.â&#x20AC;? (Casa Musicale de Lerma on Nathaniel Dett)

Nathaniel Dett was born in Ontario in 1882 He studied composition and piano in New York and Oberlin. His teaching career includes tenures at Hampton Institute in Virginia, and Bennett College in North Carolina. The Hampton Institute Choir under R. Nathaniel Dett, its first black director, gave concerts in churches and concert hall, then toured in Europe (1930). He published collections of spiritual arrangements, such

as Religious Folksongs of the Negro (1927) and the Dett Collection of Negro Spirituals (1937). He also wrote anthems, "Listen to the Lambs" and "I'll Never Turn back No More".

Thomas A. Dorsey “The father of black Gospel music” "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 3:11) “I sat down at the piano and my hands began to browse over the keys. Then something happened. I felt as though I could reach out and touch God. I found myself playing a melody, one I'd never heard or played before, and words came into my head -- they just seemed to fall into place...”

Thomas A. Dorsey learned his religion from his Baptist minister father and piano from his music teacher mother in Villa Rica, Georgia, where he was born July 1, 1899. He came under the influence of local blues pianist when they moved to Atlanta in 1910. He and his family relocated to Chicago during World War I where they joined the Pilgrim Baptist Church, and he studied at the Chicago College of Composition and Arranging and became an agent for Paramount Records. He began his musical career known as Georgia Tom,

playing barrelhouse piano in one of Al Capone’s Chicago speakeasies and leading Ma Rainey’s Jazz band. He hooked up with slide guitarist Hudson Tampa Red Whittaker with whom he recorded the best selling blues hit, "Tight Like That," in 1928 and wrote more than 460 Rhythm and Blues and Jazz songs. He was soon whipped into shape to do the Lord’s will. Discouraged by his own efforts to publish and sell his songs through the old method of peddled song sheets and dissatisfied with the treatment given composers of race music by the music publishing industry, Dorsey became the first independent publisher of black Gospel music with the establishment of the Dorsey House of music in Chicago in 1932. He also founded and became the President of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. He wrote his classic and most famous song, "Precious Lord" in the grief following the death of his first wife in childbirth in 1932. In October of 1979, he was the first black elected to the Nashville Songwriters International Hall of Fame. In September 1981, his native Georgia honored him with election to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame; in March 1982, he was the first black elected to the Gospel Music Association's Living Hall of Fame; in August 1982, the Thomas A. Dorsey Archives were opened at Fisk University where his collection joined those of W. C. Handy, George Gershwin, and the Jubilee Singers. Summing up his life, he says all his work has been from God, for God, and for his people.

Frederick Douglass Abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:21) “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” “One and God make a majority.”

Thirteen-year-old Frederick Douglass longed for a protector. He was a slave in Maryland, working as a house servant and as a ship calker in Baltimore. A white Methodist minister showed him that God could be his father. "He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God; that they were by nature rebels against his government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God through Christ." "Though for weeks I was a poor broken-hearted mourner traveling through doubts and fears, I finally found my burden lightened, and my heart relieved. I loved all mankind,

slaveholders not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light and my great concern was to have everybody converted. My desire to learn increased, and especially did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible." When a saintly old black man named Uncle Lawson told him that God had a great work for him to do, Frederick believed--in spite of circumstances. Those circumstances changed in 1838 when he escaped to New Bedford, Massachusett. Encouraged by the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to become a speaker for the Massachusetts AntiSlavery Society. Frederick not only became an important spokesman in the abolitionist cause, but he was influential in the temperance and womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s rights movements. He lectured in both the United States and Europe, edited four newspapers and wrote three versions of his autobiography. When he met President Lincoln during the Civil War, he was the first black man to be formally presented to a President of the United States. Later he received government positions in the administrations of Presidents Harrison and Garfield. He became the first African-American to hold high office in the United States government. His Autobiography opens a thrilling window on the times. Although confessing himself a Christian to the end, Frederick rejected the church of the day, which had permitted--even endorsed--slavery. How could a slaveholder profess to believe in grace while he brutally held and abused slaves? He died on February 20, 1895, a man who achieved great things through persistence, pluck, hard work and Christian hope. In his lifetime, he was as well-known as any black person in America.

Louise Cecilia Fleming Medical missionary â&#x20AC;&#x153;Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.â&#x20AC;? (Galatians 2:16)

Louise Cecilia Fleming (January 28, 1862-June 20, 1899) was one of the most remarkable Baptist women in Florida in the 1800s. She was born in Hibernia (near Green Cove Springs), Clay County, the daughter of a slave mother who was owned by a family in the farming business. Fleming attended church with her mother and the slave-owning family at the Bethel Baptist Church of Jacksonville. This church was organized in 1848 with eleven whites and 145 slaves. After the war the church divided along racial lines and the white members called themselves First Baptist Church, Jacksonville. The black members became what is now Bethel Baptist Institutional Church of

Jacksonville. Fleming taught school for awhile after completing a tenth grade education. She moved to North Carolina and taught in the Raleigh area. She was invited to attend Shaw University, and graduated as class Valedictorian on May 27, 1885. She sought an appointment as an American Baptist Convention foreign missionary, and was appointed as their first black female missionary. She was appointed to the Congo in May 1886, and served until an illness caused her to come back to Raleigh for recuperation. She saw the need for medical attention in the Congo, and enrolled as the first black female to attend the Women's Medical College at Philadelphia (now known as the Medical College of Pennsylvania). Dr. Fleming was assigned to Ireba, in the upper Congo, on October 2, 1895, by the Women's Missionary Foreign Mission Society of the American Baptist Convention. She became medical missionary to a very large geographical area. During this service she became ill with African Sleeping Sickness. She returned to the United States for treatment and died at Philadelphia on June 20, 1899. Few women have influenced the cause of Christ as valiantly and as faithfully as Dr. Louise Fleming. She is a role model for women in education, medicine, and mission service.

Julia A. J. Foote Minister Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. (2 Timothy 1:9) â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have a consciousness of obedience to the will of my dear Lord and Master.â&#x20AC;?

Details about Julia Foote's life are sketchy, but her story is an inspiring one. She was the daughter of former slaves, born in Schenectady, New York in 1823. Her parents were strongly committed to the Methodist faith and to the education of their children. Because Schenectady's schools were segregated, Julia's parents hired her out as a domestic servant to a prosperous white family, who used their influence to place her in a country school outside the city. She received the only formal education of her life between the ages of ten and twelve. Julia moved with the white family to Albany in 1836, where she discovered the African Methodist Church. Her conversion came at the age of fifteen. She spent the rest of her teenage years caring for her younger siblings, but she read

considerably, especially in the Bible. At the age of eighteen, she married George Foote, a sailor, and moved with him to Boston, where she joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church of Reverend Jehiel C. Beman, a leading abolitionist. Julia heard the voice of God calling her to preach and share her faith with others. That put a strain on her relationships with those who believed it was inappropriate for a woman to be a preacherâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which meant practically everybody. She knew that a woman who claimed a divine calling to the ministry challenged Christian tradition and American social prejudice. Women were not expected to assume public leadership positions, nor were they allowed to speak in most Christian churches. Yet Julia could neither deny her conscience nor shirk the work that she felt had been given her to do. She sought Reverend Beman's permission to preach in 1844. Instead she was excommunicated from his church. She participated in the holiness revivals that swept the Midwest during the 1870s, and later became a missionary in the A.M.E. Zion church. On one occasion in 1878, an estimated 5,000 people heard her preach at a holiness meeting in Lodi, Ohio. Eventually, she settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where she published her autobiography, A Brand Plucked From the Fire. In 1894 Julia A. Foote became the A.M.E. Zion Church's first woman deacon. In 1900, she became the second ordained female elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Julia A. J. Foote died in 1901.

John Hope Franklin Historian and professor “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13) “I want to be out there on the firing line, helping, directing or doing something to try to make this a better world, a better place to live.”

John Hope Franklin was the James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History, and for seven years was Professor of Legal History in the Law School at Duke University. He was a native of Oklahoma and a graduate of Fisk University. He received the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Harvard University. He has taught at a number of institutions, including Fisk University, St. Augustine's College, North Carolina Central University, and Howard University. In 1956 he went to Brooklyn College as Chairman of the Department of History; and in 1964, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, serving as Chairman of the Department of History from 1967 to 1970.

At Chicago, he was the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor from 1969 to 1982, when he became Professor Emeritus. Professor Franklin's numerous publications include The Emancipation Proclamation, The Militant South, The Free Negro in North Carolina, Reconstruction After the Civil War, and A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Ante-bellum North. Perhaps his best known book is From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans, now in its seventh edition. His Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities for 1976 was published in 1985 and received the Clarence L. Holte Literary Prize for that year. In 1990, a collection of essays covering a teaching and writing career of fifty years, was published under the title, Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988. In 1993, he published The Color Line: Legacy for the Twentyfirst Century. Professor Franklin's most recent book, My Life and an Era: The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin, is an autobiography of his father that he edited with his son, John Whittington Franklin. His research at the time of his death dealt with "Dissidents on the Plantation: Runaway Slaves." Professor Franklin served on many national commissions and delegations, including the National Council on the Humanities, from which he resigned in 1979, when the President appointed him to the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. He also served on the President's Advisory Commission on Ambassadorial Appointments. In September and October of 1980, he was a United States delegate to the 21st General Conference of UNESCO. Among many other foreign assignments, Dr. Franklin served

as Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University, Consultant on American Education in the Soviet Union, Fulbright Professor in Australia, and Lecturer in American History in the People' Republic of China. Professor Franklin died of congestive heart failure at Duke Hospital on the morning of March 25th, 2009. He is survived by his son, John Whittington Franklin, daughter-inlaw Karen Roberts Franklin, sister-in-law Bertha W. Gibbs, cousin Grant Franklin Sr., a host of nieces, nephews, greatnieces and great-nephews, other family members, many generations of students and friends.

Henry Garnet Abolitionist and Presbyterian minister "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." (Titus 3:5) â&#x20AC;&#x153;In every man's mind the good seeds of liberty are planted, and he who brings his fellow down so low, as to make him contented with a condition of slavery, commits the highest crime against God and man. â&#x20AC;&#x153;

On February 12, 1865, Presbyterian minister Henry Garnett became the first African American to preach a sermon in the U.S. House of Representatives. Born into slavery in Maryland in 1815, Garnet escaped to New England with his father when he was nine years old. In 1852 Garnet went to Jamaica as a Presbyterian missionary. Ill health forced his return to the U.S. in 1855 where he became very active in the abolitionist movement. In 1842, Garnet became pastor of the Liberty Street

100

Presbyterian church, a position he would hold for six years. During this time, he published papers that combined both religious and abolitionist themes. Closely identifying himself with the church, Garnet supported the temperance movement and became a strong advocate of political antislavery. He later joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and frequently spoke at abolitionist conferences. One of his most famous speeches, "Call to Rebellion," was delivered August 1843 to the National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York. The speech echoed his views that slaves should act for themselves to achieve total emancipation. Garnet promoted active rebellion, arguing that armed unrest would be the most effective way to end slavery. Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, along with many other abolitionists, thought Garnet's ideas were too radical. He supported the Liberty Party, a party of reform that was eventually absorbed into the Republican Party, whose views Garnet disagreed with. After the Civil War, Garnet was appointed president of Avery College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1868. Later he returned to New York City as a pastor at the Shiloh Presbyterian Church. In 1879, Garnet married Sarah Smith Tompkins, who was a New York teacher and school principal, suffragist, and community organizer. Garnetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last wish was to go to Liberia, live even just for a few weeks, and die there. His wish was granted and he became U.S. Minister to Liberia in late 1881, but died two months later. Garnet was given a state funeral by the Liberian government and was buried at Palm Grove Cemetery in Monrovia.

101

David George Baptist preacher "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you." (1 Peter 1:3-4) â&#x20AC;&#x153;I do hereby certify that David George, a free Negro man, has permission from his Excellency, the Lieutenant Governor, to instruct the Black people in knowledge, and exhort them to the practice of the Christian religion.â&#x20AC;? (Jno. Odell, Secretary.)

David George was born into slavery in Virginia in 1742, but ran away to South Carolina where he hid for several years -- first as a servant to Creek chief Blue Salt, then to Natchez chief King Jack, who sold him to a plantation in Silver Bluff, South Carolina, near the Georgia border. Between 1773 and 1775, George, his wife, and six other slaves owned by George Galphin were converted to Christianity and baptized by Joshua Palmer, a white Baptist itinerant minister. With help from Galphin's children, George learned to read and write by using the Bible. The Silver Bluff church grew under George's leadership, gradually increasing in number from eight to more than 30. George Liele, the

102

first black Baptist in Georgia, occasionally preached to congregation. With borrowed money, George and his wife made their way to Charleston. When the British evacuated over 5,000 blacks from the city in 1782, most of them to slavery in the West Indies, they were among the handful who found their way to Nova Scotia. George settled in Shelburne, where he quickly became one of the leading black preachers, founding what was the first Baptist Church in Shelburne and the second in Nova Scotia. His powerful preaching attracted both black and whites to his camp meetings and mass baptisms. Since the arrival of the British refugees, tension had been building over competition between blacks and whites for scarce jobs and resources. In 1784, riots erupted when George attempted to baptize two whites. His July 26 diary entry records, "Great riot today. The disbanded soldiers have risen against the free Negroes to drive them out of the town." A few days later, "Riot continues. The soldiers force the free Negroes to quit the town -- pulled down 20 of their houses." George and his family fled to Birchtown, where he was required to obtain a preaching license that restricted his ministry to blacks. He also faced opposition from black Anglicans, forcing his return to Shelburne, where he gained a widespread following. George's ministry sparked many independent congregations in Nova Scotia (over the next thirty years making Baptists the majority among blacks); he himself established seven Baptist churches and trained a number of

103

other black preachers. His work, along with that of other black religious leaders, created the first movement of black churches and benevolent organizations in North America. Eventually, after a decade of persecution in Canada, George left to become a founding father of Sierra Leone and of the first Baptist Church in West Africa.

105

Eliza George Missionary to Africa "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8) Land of America, I love thee But a voice has called me over the sea; I will not stay longer, the Lord said, "Go." And I must obey Him for He loves me so. When this young, educated, beautiful woman resigned from her teaching position at Guadalupe College to become a foreign missionary, many were amazed. In her words: "These are the reasons for having to go. I must go because (1) I feel led by the Holy Spirit to go. (2) I've found my life's work. (3) Millions of my unsaved brethren are in Africa. (4) Africa is the home of our forefathers" On December 12, 1913, Eliza Davis boarded a ship for

106

Africa with six other missionaries. They landed in Monrovia, Liberia on January 20, 1914. One hundred and fifty souls were saved in the first meeting. She began her missionary venture before the split in the national convention, and continued to serve both conventions after the split. Adopted and brought children to America to be educated, so they could return to help their people. After the children grew into adulthood, some of them died on the mission field working for our national convention. Others served in various capacities. One, Adekie, attained his Doctorate, and became a teacher in a university abroad. Mother George founded numerous schools and churches for our convention, some with help from Southern Baptist Convention. She continued to work despite threats of war, internal church or convention discord, and ultimately a split in the convention, the death of her husband, and much hardship..At the time Mother George organized the first Mission Station of our convention, her support was mostly coming from churches and individuals in Texas, and only a few of them. Sis. M. A. B. Fuller, the St. John Regular Women, led by Sis. Birda Bradshaw, along with Dr. G. F. Curry, Dr. S. A. Pleasant, the Mt. Zion Association, and a few others were among those who help purchase land for a mission station from the Liberian government. The land was deeded to the Missionary Baptist General Convention of Texas. The station was named Kelton Baptist Mission. Mother George completed her last tour of Africa in 1977 after 64 years in the foreign mission field. She passed away at age 100.

107

Lemuel Haynes Protestant minister "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) â&#x20AC;&#x153;The pious preacher will commend the Savior, from the personal fund of his own experience. Being smitten with the love of Christ Himself, with what zeal and fervor will he speak of the divine glory! Love to Christ will tend to make a minister faithful, and successful.â&#x20AC;?

Lemuel Haynes was probably the first African American ordained by a mainstream Protestant Church in the United States. Haynes, the abandoned child of an African father and "a white woman of respectable ancestry," was born in 1753 at West Hartford, Connecticut. Five months later, he was bound to service until the age of 21 to David Rose of Middle Granville, Massachusetts. With only a rudimentary formal education, Haynes developed a passion for books, especially the Bible and books on theology. As an adolescent, he frequently conducted

108

services at the town parish, sometimes reading sermons of his own. After the Revolutionary War, Haynes turned down the opportunity to study at Dartmouth College, instead choosing to study Latin and Greek with clergymen in Connecticut. In 1780 he was licensed to preach. He accepted a position with a white congregation in Middle Granville and later married a young white schoolteacher, Elizabeth Babbitt. In 1785, Haynes was officially ordained as a Congregational minister. Haynes held three pastorships after his ordination. The first was with an all-white congregation in Torrington, Connecticut, where he left after two years due to the active prejudice of several members. His second call to the pulpit, from a mostly white church in Rutland, Vermont that had a few "poor Africans," lasted for 30 years. During that time, Haynes developed an international reputation as a preacher and writer. In 1804, he received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Middlebury College, the first ever bestowed upon an African American. In 1801, he published a tract called "The Nature and Importance of True Republicanism..." which contained his only public statement on the subject of race or slavery. In 1818, conflicts with his congregation, ostensibly over politics and style, led to a parting; there was some speculation, however, that the church's displeasure with Haynes stemmed from racism. Haynes himself was known to say that "he lived with the people of Rutland thirty years, and they were so sagacious that at the end of that time they found out that he was a nigger, and so turned him away."

109

His last appointment was in Manchester, Vermont, where he counseled two men convicted of murder; they narrowly escaped hanging when the alleged "victim" reappeared. Haynes's writings on the seven-year ordeal became a bestseller for a decade. For the last eleven years of his life, Haynes ministered to a congregation in upstate New York. He died in 1833, at the age of 80.

111

James A. Healy First African-American Catholic Priest “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” (1 John 5:11) “Healy was a religious leader whose intelligence, spiritual conviction, and dedicated service inevitably defined him and created a devoted, if not wholly color-blind, following.” (Jay Mazzocchi)

James Augustine Healy was the first born of ten children to Michael and Mary Eliza Healy on April 6, 1830 on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Michael Healy was a former Irish soldier who immigrated to America. He became a planter after the war of 1812. In 1829 he fell in love with Mary Eliza, a mixed-race domestic slave, whom he purchased from her former owner. At that time Georgia law prohibited interracial marriage, but both decided that they would base their marriage on love and not the law, to create a family of their own. However, James and his siblings were still considered illegitimate and slaves at birth under Georgia law. These laws banned them from attending school within the state, so to

112

receive an education James’s parents sent their children to Quaker schools in the north in the 1840s. In 1844, James Healy was sent to grammar, secondary and collegiate schools at the new Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts. James graduated as valedictorian in the first graduating class of 1849. Two years later he earned a master’s degree. It was at Holy Cross where James decided to enter the priesthood. James began his ministry as assistant priest with the diocese of Boston where he served for the next 21 years. In 1875, Pope Pius IX named James Bishop of Portland, Maine. In the following 25 years, under his administration, 60 churches, 18 schools and numerous convents and welfare institutions were established. Membership in the Catholic Church in his jurisdiction doubled to about 100,000. James Healy would also manage the diocese of Maine and New Hampshire. Bishop Healy took a leadership role in the American Catholic hierarchy. He proposed three major pieces of church legislation that passed the Third Council of Baltimore. Bishop Healy also served on the commission that established the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and he was a member of the Council’s commission for Negro and Indian mission. Despite his church responsibilities Bishop Healy also found time to lobby on social issues such as Indian rights and child labor laws. On April 5, 1900, Bishop James A. Healy died of a heart attack in Portland, Maine. Bishop Healy, as he wished, was buried in a simple graveyard rather than in the Portland Cathedral’s vault.

113

Moses Henkle Methodist minister â&#x20AC;&#x153;For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.â&#x20AC;? (Romans 3:23) "Grace is not looking for good men whom it may approve, for it is not grace but mere justice to approve goodness. Rather it is looking for condemned, guilty, speechless and helpless men whom it may save, sanctify and glorify." (C.I. Scofield)

The Reverend Moses Henkle was a Minister of the Methodist Church for 43 years. Six of his sons were also ministers, several of national prominence. In February 1819, Moses Henkle became acquainted with what John Stewart was doing to found a mission among the Wyandott Indians at Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Stewart, the first Methodist missionary to the Indians, had been converted in 1815 while drunk in a Methodist meeting in Ohio. Henkle's work with Stewart gave credibility to Stewart's ministry. The resulting publicity led to the organization of a Methodist missionary society in 1819 in New York City.

115

Mahalia Jackson Gospel singer “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20) “God can make you anything you want to be, but you have to put everything in his hands.”

Born on October 26, 1911, Mahalia was the third child to John A. Jackson, a barber and preacher, and Charity Clark, who died at the age of 25 when Mahalia was four years old. In 1916, her father sent her to live with her aunt Mahalia "Duke" Paul. Even at a very young age, Mahalia had a booming voice and she would sing hymns and old-time gospel tunes around the house. Mahalia Jackson is viewed by many as the pinnacle of gospel music. Her singing began at the age of four in her church, the Plymouth Rock Baptist Church in New Orleans. Her early style blended the freedom and power of gospel with the stricter style of the Baptist Church. As a teenager,

116

through her cousin's aid, she was influenced by such famous singers as Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Enrico Caruso and Ma Rainey, and her own style began to emerge into a more soulful expression. In 1927, at the age of 16, she moved to Chicago and found work as a domestic. But soon after, she found plenty of work as a soloist at churches and funerals after joining the Greater Salem Baptist Church choir. Her unique contralto voice caught the attention of many small churches from coast to coast. Larger, more formal churches frowned upon her energetic renditions of songs. After five years of touring with composer Thomas A. Dorsey at gospel tents and churches, Mahalia's popularity and success garnered her a second record contract, this time with Apollo Records, from 1946 to 1954. She then switched to Columbia Records, from 1954 to 1967, where she attained broad recognition as a spiritual singer. Throughout the 1950s, Mahalia's voice was heard on radio, television and concert halls around the world. Her shows were packed in Europe, and her audience very enthusiastic at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, at a special all-gospel program she requested. In 1954, she began hosting her own Sunday night radio show for CBS. She performed on the Ed Sullivan show in 1956 where she catapulted gospel music into America's mainstream. She sang for President Dwight Eisenhower and at John F. Kennedy's inaugural ball in 1960. Despite her doctors ordering her to slow down, Mahalia refused and collapsed while on tour in Munich in 1971. She died of heart failure on January 27, 1972, at her home in Evergreen Park, Illinois.

117

John Jasper Pastor and evangelist “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6) “O happy day! Can I ever forget it? That was my conversion morning, and that day the Lord sent me out with the good news of the Kingdom. For more than sixty years I’ve been telling the story. My step is getting rather slow, my voice breaks down, and sometimes I’m awful tired, but still I’m telling it. My lips shall sing the dying love of the Lamb with my last expiring breath!”

John Jasper was born a slave, the last of 24 children. He grew up on a plantation where he labored in the fields until he reached adulthood. One day, in 1839, while working in a tobacco factory, he was converted to Christ. Immediately sensing a divine call to the ministry, he began to tell everyone of his salvation.

118

He preached for 60 years, 25 of them as a slave. After the Civil War, he started a church on an island on the James River in Richmond, Virginia. The congregation grew to thousands before his death. Legislators, judges, governors, and many men of distinction went to hear him preach. He preached the fundamental doctrines of the faith with unsurpassed ardor. Jasper believed the Bible to be the source of all authority, and he preached it in nearly every county and city in Virginia and often beyond. He was sought after continually, and in that respect he stood unmatched by any man of his race. His moral and religious ideals were very lofty, and he lived up to them to a degree not true of many men. Many of the most distinguished white ministers of the country went to hear him preach when they were in Richmond. John Jasper was called the most original, masterful and powerful Negro preacher that this country has ever produced.

119

James Weldon Johnson Author, poet, politician, educator and lawyer As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. (Romans 3:10) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God.â&#x20AC;?

Born in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida, James Weldon Johnson was encouraged to study English literature and the European musical tradition. He attended Atlanta University with the intention that the education he received there would be used to further the interests of the black people. After graduation, he took a job as a high school principal in Jacksonville. In 1900, he wrote the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" on the occasion of Lincoln's birthday; the song which became immensely popular in the black community and became known as the "Negro National Anthem." Johnson moved to New York in 1901 to collaborate with his brother Rosamond,

120

a composer, and attained some success as a songwriter for Broadway, but decided to take a job as U.S. Consul to Venezuela in 1906. While employed by the diplomatic corps, Johnson had poems published in the Century Magazine and The Independent. In 1912, Johnson published The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man under a pseudonym, the story of a musician who rejects his black roots for a life of material comfort in the white world. The novel explores the issue of racial identity in the twentieth century, a common theme in the writing of the Harlem Renaissance. He had a talent for persuading people of differing ideological agendas to work together for a common goal, and in 1920 he became the national organizer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He edited The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), a major contribution to the history of AfricanAmerican literature. His book of poetry God's Trombones (1927) was influenced by his impressions of the rural South, drawn from a trip he took to Georgia while a freshman in college. It was this trip that ignited his interest in the AfricanAmerican folk tradition. James Weldon Johnson died in 1938.

121

Absalom Jones Founder of the Free African Society and the African Church “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” (James 2:10) “In his first sermon at the African Church of Philadelphia, Jones put out the call to his fellow African Americans to ‘arise out of the dust and shake ourselves, and throw off that servile fear, that the habit of oppression and bondage trained us up in.’” (Gary B. Nash)

Absalom Jones was born into slavery in Sussex County, Delaware, on November 6, 1746. He taught himself to read and knew the New Testament thoroughly at an early age. He was allowed to work for himself in the evenings and keep his earning. He was married in 1770. By the time Jones was 38 years old, he had purchased his wife's freedom, and his own, and had bought a house. During this period he met Richard Allen, and they became

122

lay preachers in St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church and lifelong friends. Their efforts met with great success, and the congregation multiplied tenfold. Jones and Allen, in 1787, organized the Free African Society. The Society was both religious and benevolent, helping widows and orphans and assisting in sick, relief and burial expenses, and the assimilation of newly freedmen into urban life. Because of racial tensions and an altercation with church officials, they left St. George's congregation. In 1792, under the leadership of Absalom Jones, "The African Church" was organized as a direct outgrowth of the Free African Society. In 1793, the two men organized the Black community to serve as nurses and attendants during Philadelphia's severe Yellow Fever epidemic. Absalom Jones led his African Church in applying to Bishop William White for membership in the Episcopal Church. On Sunday, September 14, 1794, the congregation was received into the fellowship and communion of he diocese of Pennsylvania. So "The African Church" became The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, and Absalom Jones was ordained Deacon. Some nine years later he was ordained Priest, becoming the first priest in America of African descent. During his ministry, Absalom Jones never lost his deep conviction that religious and social action go hand in hand. He founded schools for his people, helped them in distress, and supported them in their protest against slavery and oppression. He helped to found an insurance company, and a society which fought vice and immorality. Absalom Jones died at his home in Philadelphia.

123

Charles Price Jones Founder of Christian denomination “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”. (Ephesians 2:8-9) “There’s nothing so precious as Jesus to me; Let earth with its treasures be gone; I’m rich as can be when my Savior I see; I’m happy in Jesus alone.”

A veteran of many difficulties, Charles Price Jones founded the major black Holiness denomination. Born in 1865, Charles Price "C.P." Jones converted to Christianity at about age 20. By 1894 he was the successful pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama. But deep in his soul he was not satisfied. He came to believe that he, his parishioners and his fellow-ministers were not "toting fair with Jesus." As Jones studied the scripture, the hunger in his soul

124

coalesced on the doctrine of second-blessing holiness or entire sanctification. This teaching basically states that after a person is converted, he ought to come to another crisis point in his spiritual experience. And at that point he is to yield every aspect of his life to God who will, by a work of His Spirit, enable the believer to live without known sin. For Jones, coming to believe in this work of God's Spirit was not enough. He had to experience it, and after a time of prayer and fasting he did. Jones continued preaching in Baptist churches, moving in 1895 to the Mt. Helm Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, but he began promoting holiness doctrine. In 1897 he held a conference to promote it to the church people of the area. Many of his associates embraced it gladly, but there were always those who did not. Like many other leaders of the emerging Holiness Movement, C.P. did not intend to start another denomination. He urged unity under the slogan, "Denominationalism is slavery". But the difference was too great and Mt. Helm Baptist chose a new name. Jones and C. H. Mason began calling their work the Church of God in Christ about 1899. By 1907, however, Mason was promoting speaking in tongues and Jones' group chose the name Church of Christ (Holiness). The young movement faced opposition on many fronts. A few holdouts in the Mt. Helm church successfully sued for the church property when the majority of the congregation left the Baptist fold. And a mob burned down the church's new building, physically preventing firefighters from putting out the fire.

125

But the opposition never stopped C. P. from preaching and expanding the work. In the midst of some of the worst opposition, he also wrote gospel songs. He Wrote over 1,000 Gospel songs, most between 1895 & 1905. "Jesus Only" was the most popular in his day and "I Would Not be Denied" can still be heard in Holiness churches, white as well as black. He continued to actively lead in the church until he fell ill in 1943. He retired in 1944 and went home five years later to meet his â&#x20AC;&#x153;dear Master.â&#x20AC;?

127

Martin Luther King, Jr. Baptist minister and civil rights leader “And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.” (Romans 11:6) “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.” Drawing inspiration from both his Christian faith and the peaceful teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King led a nonviolent movement in the late 1950’s and ‘60s to achieve legal equality for African-Americans in the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr. used the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance, such as protests and grassroots organizing, to achieve seemingly-impossible goals. He went on to lead similar campaigns against poverty and international conflict, always maintaining fidelity to his principles that men and women everywhere, regardless of color or creed, are equal members of the human family.

128

Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Nobel Peace Prize lecture and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” are among the most revered orations and writings in the English language. His accomplishments are now taught to American children of all races, and his teachings are studied by scholars and students worldwide. He is the only non-president to have a national holiday dedicated in his honor, and is the only nonpresident memorialized on the Great Mall in the nation’s capitol. In 1957, Dr. King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization meant to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. He would serve as head of the SCLC until his assassination in 1968, a period during which he would emerge as the most important social leader of the modern American civil rights movement. In 1963, he led a coalition of numerous civil rights groups in a nonviolent campaign aimed at Birmingham, Alabama, which at the time was described as the “most segregated city in America.” The subsequent brutality of the city’s police, illustrated most vividly by television images of young blacks being assaulted by dogs and water hoses, led to a national outrage resulting in a push for unprecedented civil rights legislation. It was during this campaign that Dr. King drafted the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which as the manifesto of Dr. King’s philosophy and tactics, is today requiredreading in universities worldwide. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s decade-and-a-half of social leadership ended abruptly and tragically on April 4th, 1968, when he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King’s body was returned to his hometown

129

of Atlanta, Georgia, where his funeral ceremony was attended by high-level leaders of all races and political stripes. Later in 1968, Dr. King’s wife, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, officially founded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which she dedicated to being a “living memorial” aimed at continuing Dr. King’s work on important social ills around the world.

131

Coretta Scott King Author, activist, and civil rights leader “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” (Galatians 2:16) “I'm fulfilled in what I do. I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes -- the finer things of life -would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.”

Coretta Scott King was one of the most influential women leaders in our world. Prepared by her family, education, and personality for a life committed to social justice and peace, she entered the world stage in 1955 as wife of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and as a leading participant in the American Civil Rights Movement. Her remarkable partnership with Dr. King resulted not only in four children, who became dedicated to carrying forward their parent’s

132

work, but also in a life devoted to the highest values of human dignity in service to social change. Mrs. King traveled throughout the world speaking out on behalf of racial and economic justice, women’s and children’s rights, religious freedom, the needs of the poor and homeless, fullemployment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and ecological sanity. Born and raised in Marion, Alabama, Coretta Scott graduated valedictorian from Lincoln High School. She received a B.A. in music and education from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and then went on to study concert singing at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, where she earned a degree in voice and violin. While in Boston she met Martin Luther King, Jr. who was then studying for his doctorate in systematic theology at Boston University. They were married on June 18, 1953, and in September 1954 took up residence in Montgomery, Alabama, with Coretta Scott King assuming the many functions of pastor’s wife at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. After her husband’s assassination in 1968, Mrs. King founded and devoted great energy and commitment to building and developing programs for the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a living memorial to her husband’s life and dream. As founding President, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer, she dedicated herself to providing local, national and international programs that have trained tens of thousands of people in Dr. King’s philosophy and methods; she guided the creation and housing of the largest archives of documents from the Civil Rights Movement; and, perhaps

133

her greatest legacy after establishing The King Center itself, Mrs. King spearheaded the massive educational and lobbying campaign to establish Dr. King’s birthday as a national holiday. Mrs. King died in 2006 and is today interred alongside her husband in a memorial crypt in the reflecting pool of The King Center’s Freedom Hall. The inscription on the crypt memorializing her life of service is from I Corinthians 13:13 –“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

135

Festo Kivengere “the Billy Graham of Africa” “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” (Titus 3:5) “Peace is not automatic. It is a gift of the grace of God. It comes when hearts are exposed to the love of Christ. But this always costs something. For the love of Christ was demonstrated through suffering and those who experience that love can never put it into practice without some cost.”

Festo Kivengere, "the Billy Graham of Africa," was a Ugandan Christian leader who faced the wrath of the brutal dictator Idi Amin. Unlike Janni Luwum, who had been killed by Amin, Kivengere and his family fled the country. He returned after Amin's downfall to continue an active ministry until his death by leukemia in 1988. Born in 1919 in a rural setting among the semi-nomadic rural pastoralists of southwest Uganda, Festo Kivengere

136

belonged to a pagan ruling family. He spent his early life as a cattle herder, where he would read children's books about Jesus while herding calves. At about age ten he joined a mission school established in his village and was eventually sent away for higher education, after which he returned to his village as a teacher. Converted to Christianity during a revival meeting, Kivengere became a pastor and eventually Anglican bishop of Kigezi. After study in England and a trip to Australia he was asked to translate into Swahili the sermons of the American evangelist Billy Graham, who developed such confidence in Kivengere that he told him, "Don't bother to translate literally. You know what I mean, get that across." Kivengere and Graham became lifelong friends. The young African evangelist shared the platform with Graham on American revival tours and eventually formed his own African Evangelic Enterprise. His own growth in the church coincided with the increasing excesses of the ruler who has been called "Africa's Hitler," and Kivengere was forced to flee his country. But he was not bitter because of the experience. He wrote a book called I Love Idi Amin in which he wrote, "On the cross, Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, because they don't know what they are doing.' As evil as Idi Amin was, how can I do less toward him?"

137

Jarena Lee Minister of the Gospel For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5) â&#x20AC;&#x153;"That instant, it appeared to me as if a garment, which had entirely enveloped my whole person, even to my fingers ends, split at the crown of my head, and was stripped away from me, passing like a shadow from me sight -- when the glory of God seemed to cover me in its stead."

Jarena Lee was likely one of the first African American female preachers in America. Born in February 1783 to free but poor black parents, she was sent to work as a live-in servant at the age of 7. After hearing a sermon by Richard Allen, the founder of the African Methodist Church (AME), Lee underwent an intense and protracted conversion. Yet she had doubts. She later wrote: But to my utter surprise there seemed to sound a voice which I thought I distinctly heard, and most certainly understand, which said to me, "Go preach the Gospel!" I

138

immediately replied aloud, "No one will believe me." Again I listened and again the same voice seemed to say "Preach the Gospel; I will put words in your mouth and will turn your enemies to become your friends." But women weren't allowed to preach. Lee sought permission from Allen to preach. First he refused, then changed his mind, granting her permission to preach on an itinerary circuit and to hold prayer meetings in her own home. For a woman of any race to be granted such authority was highly unusual. Accompanied by a female companion, Lee later wrote that she "traveled two thousand three hundred and twentyfive miles, and preached one hundred and seventy-eight sermons" to mixed gatherings of blacks and whites. Vulnerable and subject to danger, she seemed confident that God was with her. That confidence took her to Maryland, a slave state. Her diary records one camp meeting where slaves had walked 20 miles and more to hear her preach. Accompanied by a female companion, Lee later wrote that she "traveled two thousand three hundred and twentyfive miles, and preached one hundred and seventy-eight sermons" to mixed gatherings of blacks and whites. Vulnerable and subject to danger, she seemed confident that God was with her. That confidence took her to Maryland, a slave state. Her diary records one camp meeting where slaves had walked 20 miles and more to hear her preach. Her date and place of death is unknown, but her spiritual autobiography remains an important record of a woman whose faith allowed her to break and defy the social conventions and racial barriers of her day.

139

Marilyn Lewis Mission worker “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) “Mission is the purpose of the church.”

On February 20, 2000, a heart attack claimed the life of Marilyn Lewis, volunteer at the United States Center for World Mission who helped lay the groundwork for their African American Mobilization Division. A school teacher in Pasadena, CA, Marilyn often spoke of her desire to serve as a missionary in Brazil, reaching the descendants of those who had come from Africa. Just prior to her unexpected death, Marilyn had written a call-to-action article which stated in part: "Just look at an African-American church today and you can see testimony to our new era: richly decorated, air conditioned sanctuaries with carpeted floors are now quite common. Many drive to church in the latest model cars.

140

Today, instead of working the tables at restaurants, many African Americans own them. God has blessed us. Now it is time for the African American to bless the world in evangelization efforts. In the past many African Americans cried because they could not become involved in missionary work. But now the doors are wide open and we are without excuse."

141

George Liele Black Baptist leader He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36) â&#x20AC;&#x153;I saw my condemnation in my own heart, and I found no way wherein I could escape the damnation of hell, only through the merits of my dying Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.â&#x20AC;?

George Liele was the first black Baptist in Georgia, and the first black Baptist churches in American resulted from his evangelism. Liele was born in Virginia in 1752, but lived much of his life as a slave in Georgia. He was converted and baptized by Matthew Moore, an ordained Baptist minister. When Liele felt the call to preach, he was encouraged by his master, Henry Sharp, a Baptist deacon and a Loyalist. Liele was licensed as a probationer around 1773, and for two years he preached in the slave quarters of plantations surrounding Savannah, including the congregation formed at Silver Bluff, South

142

Carolina. Sharp freed Liele sometime before the Revolutionary War began. After Sharp's death in battle in 1778, Liele made his way to British-occupied Savannah, where Sharp's heirs would have reenslaved him but for the intervention of a British officer. Over the next few years, he built a congregation of black Baptists, slave and free, including the Silver Bluff group led by David George. One of his converts was Andrew Bryan, who continued the work in Savannah after Liele and his family sailed with the British to Jamaica in 1784. Settling in Kingston, Liele formed a church on his own land. Liele's church flourished, despite persecution from whites. In exchange for a number of concessions, including inspection by authorities of every prayer and sermon, his ministry was tolerated, and he was allowed to preach to the poor and enslaved on plantations and in settlements. In 1791 he wrote, "I have baptized 400 in Jamaica....We have nigh three hundred and fifty members; a few white people among them." One of Liele's priorities was the organization and promotion of a free school for black children, taught by a black deacon. A few adult members of his congregation also learned to read, and he wrote that "all are desirous to learn." Over the years, Liele kept in touch with Bryan, George and other Baptist pioneers that he had converted. He wrote with a hint of pride of their far-flung ministries, noting that "a great work is going on..."

143

Oliver Lyseight Founder of the oldest Black church in Britain I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. (John 8:24) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dr. Lyseight coming forth with a passion and zeal to make Christ known... that made the people flock to a place of refuge.â&#x20AC;? (Bishop Selwyn Arnold on Oliver Lyseight)

When West Indians first arrived in the UK in the 1940s, they were kept away from churches by the racism that was found among members of English congregations. So one immigrant, Dr Oliver Lyseight, decided to start a church where fellow black immigrants would feel welcome. Born in Jamaica in 1920, Oliver Augustus Lyseight was a tailor before emigrating to England in the early 1950s. Seeing the struggle for spiritual fulfillment faced by his countrymen, and as a member of the worldwide New Testament Church

144

of God (NTCG) fellowship in Jamaica, Dr Lyseight and six friends opened the first UK branch of the church in Wolverhampton in a rented YMCA hall in 1953. The American headquarters of the church heard about Dr Lyseight's pioneering move and made him a bishop and national overseer of NTCG UK. The church grew as more immigrants arrived and today NTCG has over 30,000 members worshiping in 350 branches across Britain. During his tenure, Lyseight outlined the church's administrative structures, oversaw the purchase of church buildings, established Bible training institutes and sent missionaries to Africa. Voted second in a national poll of the "100 Greatest Black Britons," Lyseight was also the co-founder of the Afro-West Indian United Council of Churches in 1976 which united Britain's Black churches, and in 1978 helped establish the British Council of Churches aimed at bridging the gap between black and white Christians. Dr Lyseight died in 2006, but his contribution to the worldwide Christian community lives on.

145

John Marrant Preacher and missionary to Native Americans I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.(John 10:9) â&#x20AC;&#x153;I reasoned within myself whether I should turn to my old courses of sin and vice, or serve and cleave to the Lord; after prayer to God, I was fully persuaded in my mind, that if I turned to my old ways I should perish eternally.â&#x20AC;?

Born in 1755 in a free black family in New York, John Marrant's early life suggested nothing of the adventure his future would hold. His father died when he was four. He lived in several colonies with his mother and siblings for several years until he settled with an older sister's family in Charleston, SC, in 1766. One evening on his way to a dance, a friend challenged him to go into a church where evangelist George Whitefield was preaching and blow his French horn to upset the meeting. As Marrant prepared to blow the horn, Whitefield announced his text from Amos 4:12: "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel." Under conviction, Marrant passed out.

146

Over the next few days, Marrant talked with a preacher and prayed until he found relief from his guilt. However, his sister's family did not agree with his faith. Marrant returned to his mother's home but found only animosity at his change of life. At fourteen, Marrant left home to wander in the wilderness where he was rescued by a Cherokee hunter who took him to the Cherokee village. Sentenced to death in the Cherokee village in spite of the hunter's pleas, Marrant won his life through prayer and led several people to the Lord. Marrant, one of America's earliest missionaries to the Indians, spent two years among the Cherokees, Creeks, Catawars, and Howsaws, but his preaching was best received by the Cherokees. His family did not recognize him in his Indian dress upon his return. They had assumed him dead, but he remained with them until the American Revolution. The British impressed him into the navy where he served for seven years. During that time he backslid though he saw God extend a merciful hand to him and protect him in horrifying battles. After being released from the navy in the 1780s, he met evangelist George Whitefield again and renewed his walk with God. In 1785 he accepted ordination and published an autobiographical pamphlet, A Narrative of the Lord's Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, a Black, which was so popular that it was reprinted more than seventeen times under different titles. However, not all of those printings were arranged by Marrant and he received little financial support from the publication. In 1785 also, he received a letter from his brother who

147

lived in Nova Scotia, urging him to come to Nova Scotia to preach. Marrant started a church in the free black town of Birch Town and ministered to the Indians in the area for four years. In 1789 while in Boston, Marrant preached one of his few sermons that has been preserved on the equality of all men before God. His stay in Boston and his preaching on the dignity of all men infuriated some people and Marrant lived amidst death threats and mobs. He became Chaplain of Prince Hall Grand Lodge Free and Accepted Masons, one of the first institutions in Massachusetts to call for the abolition of slavery. Due to this group's work, Boston abolished the slave trade in 1788. He died in 1791 at the age of only thirty-six.

149

Sallie Martin Gospel singer, the “mother of Gospel music” “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6) “In the blues you are singing because you are down and out, because your man or woman left you and you got real blue-or so they tell me. In gospel, you are singing about the Lord. I don`t sing; the Lord just uses my tone. I don`t get blue because I got the Lord in me.”

Born in 1896, Sallie Martin was the first singer of Gospel songs. Her down-home style was initially at odds with Thomas A. Dorsey’s fledgling movement. But, in 1927, she joined The Dorsey Trio. In 1932, she was the cofounder, and organizer of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, of which she served as vicepresident for the rest of her life. In 1940, she formed the Sallie Martin Singers, with

150

Roberta Martin (1907-1969), Willie Webb, and Eugene Smith. The later members of her group were herself, Roberta Martin, and Doris Akers. She traveled the Gospel concert circuit as a soloist and with her group. In 1979, she took a leading role in the French production of “Gospel Caravan” in Paris, France. Two of her songs are: “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” and “God Put A Rainbow In The Clouds”

151

Charlotte M. Maxeke Singer and AME leader â&#x20AC;&#x153;He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.â&#x20AC;? (1 John 5:12) Charlotte is an argument for the education of African girls to lead exemplary lives as wives and as leaders of our womanhood to better things...Africa thanks God for Charlotte. (Alfred Xuma on Charlotte Maxeke)

Maxeke was a leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first African woman from South Africa to obtain a B.Sc. and the first African woman to be made a probation officer. She may also be called the 'Mother of Ethiopia' because of the part that she played in the amalgamation of the Ethiopian Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She was born on 7 April 1872, near Fort Beaufort. Her mother was a teacher and her father a foreman on the road gangs. He was also a lay preacher in the Presbyterian Church. Charlotte attended primary school in Uitenhage and senior

152

school in Port Elizabeth. She planned to be a teacher. Just before the family moved to Kimberley in 1890 Charlotte and her sister Katy were invited to join the Jubilee singers and tour Britain. This was an exciting time and the choir was even asked to sing for Queen Victoria. During the tour, Charlotte met students from Wilberforce University in America and realised for the first time that in America there were opportunities for black students which were not available in South Africa. The two sisters learned to speak English fluently with a British accent. When they returned home both were given the opportunity of touring America with the McAdoo singers. Charlotte travelled to America to join the choir. While in America she met Bishop Derrick of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, who arranged for her to study at Wilberforce University, Ohio. Maxeke was a founder member and president of the Bantu Women's League, a forerunner of the ANC Women's League. Her husband had been a member of the ANC from its inception so she had the interests of the organisation at heart. Maxeke, through the league, worked for the relaxation of the Free State pass laws. When the Maxekes moved to Johannesburg, Charlotte's concerns centered on the church. She involved herself in social action and started an employment bureau. She was made a probation officer, the first African woman to hold such a post. In 1928 Maxeke was sent to America as a delegate to the AMEC Conference. Busy to the end, she died in 1939.

153

Samuel Morris Pastor and missionary Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25-26) â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is not my work. It is His. I have finished my job. He will send others better than I to do the work in Africa.â&#x20AC;? (on having pneumonia and not being able to preach)

Over 130 years ago, in a small Liberian village in West Africa, Samuel Morris was born Prince Kaboo, the eldest son of a Kru tribal chieftain. While still a child, a neighboring clan defeated his people and demanded that Kaboo's father pay a hefty ransom for his son's return. The conquering chief subjected Kaboo to terrible treatment and cruel labor. During one of many intense whippings, Kaboo said he

154

saw a bright light and heard a voice from Heaven telling him to flee. Kaboo recalled that the rope binding him fell to the ground, after which he gathered his strength and ran into the jungle. Traveling at night and hiding in the hollow of trees by day, Kaboo navigated blindly through a jungle dominated by jungle law. Eventually, he arrived at Monrovia, the one city of the thousands in Liberia that was civilized and under the rule of law. At a coffee plantation that provided work and shelter, a young boy invited him to church where Miss Knolls, a missionary and graduate of Taylor University (then known as Fort Wayne College), spoke on the conversion of the Apostle Paul. Kaboo immediately recognized the story as being similar to his escape. Shortly afterward, he accepted Christ as Savior and was baptized under the name of Samuel Morris in honor of the missionaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s benefactor. Morris spent the next two years painting houses in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. He became a zealous member of the Christian community and displayed a fervent desire to learn about the Holy Spirit. Missionaries encouraged him to travel to America and seek the instruction of Stephen Merritt, former secretary to Bishop William Taylor. With no money or means of transportation, Morris began his journey on foot. Sleeping on the beach at the Robertsport harbor, Morris waited several days before finding passage on a ship in exchange for work. The journey would prove a difficult one as Morris was often beaten and assigned to the most dangerous tasks. However, by the time the ship docked in New York in September of 1891, the captain and most of

155

the crew had accepted Christ because of Morris' witness. As a pastor and sponsor of a rescue mission, Merrit warmly received Morris. He contacted Thaddeus Reade, then president of Taylor University, and requested to enroll Morris at the school. Due to Taylor's financial debt, Reade personally started a fund for Morris. The fruit of his effort would later be known as the "Faith Fund." In December of 1891, Morris arrived on Taylor's campus (then in Fort Wayne, Ind.). When asked by Reade which room he wanted, Morris replied, "If there is a room that nobody wants, give that to me." Morris' faith had such a profound impact on the Fort Wayne community that he was frequently invited to speak at local churches. At night, he could regularly be heard in his room praying, which he simply called "talking to my Father." Morris often asked others to read Scripture to him. When one student refused, saying he did not believe in the Bible anymore, Morris replied, "My dear brother, your Father speaks to you, and you do not believe him? Your brother speaks, and you do not believe him? The sun shines and you do not believe it? God is your father, Christ your brother, the Holy Ghost your Sun." President Reade once said, "Samuel Morris was a divinely sent messenger of God to Taylor University. He thought he was coming over here to prepare himself for his mission to his people, but his coming was to prepare Taylor University for her mission to the whole world. All who met him were impressed with his sublime, yet simple faith in God." On May 12, 1893, Samuel Morris died after contracting

156

a severe cold. His death inspired his fellow students to serve as missionaries to Africa on his behalf, fulfilling his dream of one day returning to minister to his own people. Hundreds of spectators lined the streets of Fort Wayne as Samuel Morris' body was carried to Berry Street Methodist Church. Lindley Baldwin, author of Samuel Morris, writes "the burial ceremony in Lindenwood cemetery, his last earthly resting place, was attended by a multitude such had never before accompanied there." Morris' untimely passing prevented him from participating at the laying of the cornerstone at Taylor's new Upland campus, where he was scheduled to speak and sing.

157

Abagole Nunemo Ethiopian church leader And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31) "If it is the will of God, I too shall drink this cup.â&#x20AC;? (on his impending death)

Abagole was born in 1894 at Dubancho in the Hadiya region, southern Shoa Province in Ethiopia. His mother was called by the affectionate name of Adeye and his father, Nunemo, was a killer who wanted to satisfy his desire to be famous. Nunemo named his son, Sofebo. Later on, Sofebo grew up to be a brave young man and his name was changed by his fellow cattle herdsmen to "Abagole" meaning "he who has the ability to gather people around him." In his early life he was a sorcerer, an idol worshipper, a known rebel, a slave trader, and a murderer. Due to his ability to manipulate the spirits, his relatives and neighbors brought him the firstborn of their domestic animals and "chuko," a delicacy made from the flour of roasted barley mixed with butter and salt to form a tasty thick paste. During the Italian invasion of Southern Ethiopia from

158

1937 to 1941, Abagole, with his compatriots from Hadiya, fought the colonizers. He also helped fleeing SIM missionaries by giving them shelter and food as they cautiously made their way to Addis Ababa. He heard the Gospel through them, but did not respond initially. One day a marauding army burned and looted his house, taking his wife and children. He pursued the looters to Wolaitta, attempting to reclaim his lost possessions and his family. While negotiating with the bandits he spent the nights on the vacated SIM compound near Soddo, where he was befriended by the guard who enthusiastically testified about Christ. One night in November of 1936, God gave Abagole a vision and the next morning he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. He was soon reunited with his wife and children and returned home to Dubancho in the Hadiya region. He was filled with the Holy Spirit soon after his conversion and began to preach the Gospel in his home district of Dubancho. God helped him open up the Scriptures to others even though he lacked formal training. His evangelistic outreach began extending beyond his own district of Dubancho, to Ololicho and then to Amburse. He ministered not only in the Kembata and Hadiya regions but also in many other parts of Ethiopia. He preached all over Ethiopia, except in the region of Wollega. He continually encouraged those who became believers in Christ to learn the Amharic alphabet, to read and write, and to become teachers in their own villages. Abagole was God's instrument for establishing churches inside and outside Ethiopia. He was given the opportunity

159

to preach in America and in Canada. When he was in Nigeria for nineteen days, many believed. He played a significant role as one of the founders of the Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church (EKHC). He was a EKHC leader for twenty-eight years in the regions of Kembatta and Hadiya. He was one of the founders and first chairman of the Fellowship of Evangelical Believers' Association (founded in 1963), in which organization he served as the first president for four years. He was also one of the decision makers when the name "Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church" was chosen in 1971. As a EKHC leader, he sent many evangelists to preach in various geographic areas of Ethiopia such as Arsi, Keffa, Mareko, Wollo, Tigray, and Gurage. He also coordinated operations and raised funds to build churches in Bobicho, Mochia among the Gurage ethnic group and at Geja in Addis Ababa. He did the same in Hosanna town and in the Dubancho district. Abagole also helped to establish primary schools both in Hadiya and beyond. At first, elementary schools began in local Kale Heywet churches and then developed into recognized public and government schools. One such school was the KHC/SIM Bobicho primary and secondary school (near Hosanna town) which was a prime mover in breaking the bondage of illiteracy. This school produced many who became professionals, who are now scholars, doctors, and ambassadors. Abagole also helped widows, orphans, evangelists, and the sick with the gifts and offerings he collected from believers. He bought mules for evangelists so that they could

160

avoid having to walk to distant areas. He also helped the drought-stricken victims in Wollo by donating grain and cash. As a founding father of EKHC, Abagole left a proud and enduring legacy.

161

Rosa Parks Civil rights leader That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9) â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.â&#x20AC;?

Rosa Louise Parks was nationally recognized as the "mother of the modern day civil rights movement" in America. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955, that reverberated throughout the United States. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history. Mrs. Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley, February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was the first child of James

162

and Leona Edwards McCauley. Her brother, Sylvester McCauley, now deceased, was born August 20, 1915. Later, the family moved to Pine Level, Alabama, where Rosa was reared and educated in the rural school. When she completed her education in Pine Level at age eleven, her mother, Leona, enrolled her in Montgomery Industrial School for Girls (Miss White's School for Girls), a private institution. After finishing Miss White's School, she went on to Alabama State Teacher's College High School. She, however, was unable to graduate with her class, because of the illness of her grandmother Rose Edwards and later her death. As Rosa Parks prepared to return to Alabama State Teacher's College, her mother also became ill, therefore, she continued to take care of their home and care for her mother while her brother, Sylvester, worked outside of the home. She received her high school diploma in 1934, after her marriage to Raymond Parks, December 18, 1932. Raymond, now deceased was born in Wedowee, Alabama, Randolph County, February 12, 1903, received little formal education due to racial segregation. He was a self-educated person with the assistance of his mother, Geri Parks. His immaculate dress and his thorough knowledge of domestic affairs and current events made most think he was college educated. He supported and encouraged Rosa's desire to complete her formal education. Mr. Parks was an early activist in the effort to free the "Scottsboro Boys," a celebrated case in the 1930's. Together, Raymond and Rosa worked in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP's) programs. He was an active member and she served as secretary and

163

later youth leader of the local branch. At the time of her arrest, she was preparing for a major youth conference. Mrs. Parks moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1957. In 1964 she became a deaconess in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). Mrs. Parks received more than forty-three honorary doctorate degrees, including one from SOKA UNIVERSITY, Tokyo Japan, hundreds of plaques, certificates, citations, awards and keys to many cities. Among them are the NAACP's Spingarn Medal, the UAW's Social Justice Award, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non - Violent Peace Prize and the ROSA PARKS PEACE PRIZE in 1994, Stockholm Sweden, to name a few. In September 1996, President William J. Clinton, the forty second President of the United States of America gave Mrs. Parks the MEDAL OF FREEDOM, the highest award given to a civilian citizen. Mrs. Parks has written four books, Rosa Parks: My Story: by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins, Quiet Strength by Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed, Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth by Rosa Parks with Gregory J, Reed. This book received the NAACP's Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, (Children's) in 1996 and her latest book, I AM ROSA PARKS by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins, for preschoolers. A quiet exemplification of courage, dignity, and determination, Rosa Parks was a symbol to all to remain free. Rosa Parks made her peaceful transition October 24, 2005.

164

Daniel Payne Bishop, educator and author “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.” (1 John 5:1) “When God has a work to be executed he also chooses the man to execute it. He also qualifies the workman for the work.”

Throughout the 19th century, pro-slavery arguments hinged on the idea that African-Americans lacked the capacity to be fully equal American citizens. Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne worked his entire life to disprove that theory. Payne became the premier bishop of the AME Church and was in some ways the most influential African-American Christian in the 19th century. He worked as a teacher, a minister, wrote the first history of the AME Church, and founded Wilberforce University, the first black owned and operated institution of higher learning in the country.

165

For half a century, Daniel Payne worked to make Africans fit for America. Payne lived in a time when the black race was on trial. Throughout the 19th century, pro-slavery arguments hinged on the idea that African-Americans lacked the capacity to be fully equal American citizens. Payne was born in 1811 to Methodist parents in Charleston, SC. Payne's family was part of the "Brown Society" elite, so distrusted by Denmark Veseyas he planned his rebellion. As a boy, Payne studied by candlelight. He taught himself mathematics, physical science, and classical languages. In 1829, he opened his first school, but six years later, South Carolina forbade the education of blacks, so it closed. Payne fled to the North to pursue an education with the Methodist Episcopalians. They were willing to offer it on the condition that he join their field mission in Liberia. He declined and instead joined a Lutheran Seminary, although his failing eyesight forced him to drop out. He joined the AME church in 1841. In April, 1865, as the Union flag was raised over Fort Sumter, South Carolina, nine missionaries sailed into Charleston Harbor. Bishop Daniel Payne led this group, returning home for the first time in thirty years. That night in Charleston's Bethel Church, Payne and his fellows, including a minister named R.H. Cain (who later represented Charleston in the U.S. House of Representatives), held services for the first time in more than 40 years. Within a month, they had organized, established the relevant committees and associations, and sent missionaries off to the southern countryside. A year later, the church had already drawn some fifty thousand congregants throughout the South.

166

John Perkins Civil rights activist “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20) “I am dedicated to seeing the gospel of Jesus Christ restore entire communities across America. Our work in racial reconciliation and community development demonstrates God’s power to bring true unity and hope to areas across the country.”

John M. Perkins was a sharecropper’s son who grew up in New Hebron, Mississippi amidst dire poverty. Fleeing to California at age 17 after his older brother’s murder at the hands of a town marshal, he vowed never to return. However, after converting to Christianity in 1960, he returned to Mendenhall, Mississippi, to share the gospel of Christ. While in Mississippi, his outspoken nature and support and leadership in civil rights demonstrations resulted in repeated harassment, beatings and imprisonment. He again was

167

arrested in 2005 while protesting in Washington D.C. against U. S. Government defunding of programs aiding the poor. In Mendenhall, Perkins and his wife, Vera Mae, founded Voice of Calvary Ministries. This Christian community development ministry started a church, health center, leadership development program, thrift store, low-income housing development, and training center. From this ministry, other development projects started in the neighboring towns of Canton, New Hebron, and Edwards. Philip K. Reed, the previous pastor of Voice of Calvary Fellowship, has assumed the leadership of this dynamic ministry. In 1982, the Perkins family returned to California and lived in the city of Pasadena where Perkins and his wife founded Harambee Christian Family Center in Northwest Pasadena, a neighborhood that had one of the highest daytime crime rates in California. Harambee is yet standing, running numerous programs including after school tutoring, Good News Bible Clubs, an award-winning technology center, summer day camp, youth internship programs, and a college scholarship program. In 1983, while yet in California, Perkins and his wife, along with a few friends and other major supporters, established the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation & Development, Inc for the sole purpose of supporting their mission of advancing the principles of Christian community development and racial reconciliation throughout the world.

168

Israel Ransome-Kuti Church leader and educator â&#x20AC;&#x153;Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.â&#x20AC;? (Acts 4:12) "What! Get to heaven on your own strength? Why, you might as well try to climb to the moon on a rope of sand!" (George Whitefield)

Eminent Nigerian churchman, educationist and administrator, he was the founding president of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Africa's largest professional group. He was born on 30 April 1891, to an Egba family in Abeokuta. His father was Reverend Canon J. J. RansomeKuti well known for his outstanding administrative competence as well as his talents as a singer, which earned him the nickname "the Singing Minister." Israel Oludotun was born at the Anglican parish of Gbagura, Abeokuta, where his father was serving as a teacher/catechist. After attending the Suren Village School there he went to the Lagos Grammar School, but returned to his hometown to complete his secondary education at the newly opened Abeokuta Grammar School. He was the first pupil to be enrolled at

169

the school in 1908. In 1913 Ransome-Kuti matriculated at Fourah Bay College, Freetown and returned to his country in 1916 with a B.A. degree. He began work in Lagos, as a teacher at his former grammar school from 1916 until 1918 when he left Ije-Ode. For thirteen years he was principal of Ijebu-Ode Grammar School, which had been established in 1912 and provided the only secondary education for all of Ijebu province. One of Ransome-Kuti's innovations at this pioneering institution was to form the first Boy Scout troupe there which became known in the province as the first IjebuOde Troupe. Ransome-Kuti's great intellect and sensitivity towards people soon won him the admiration and respect of the Ijebus. He became their spokesman, pleading their cause with the British colonial residents in the province. His great achievement in Ijebu was to break down the myth that his own Yoruba group, the Egbas, could not work among the Ijebus. Through his example, and the utmost concern for all, he was able to draw the two groups together. His departure from Ijebu was marked with a widespread expression of loss. Of his successor at the Ijebu-Ode Grammar School, the people used to say: "This new Kuti is not as the old." On leaving Ijebu-Ode in 1932, Reverend Ransome-Kuti returned to Abeokuta where for the next 22 years he served as principal of the Abeokuta Grammar School. During that period he visited Britain in 1939 and again between 1943 and 1945; he spent the latter years as a member of the Elliott Commission reviewing higher education in West Africa. During his posting at Ijebu-Ode Ransome-Kuti founded

170

an association of local teachers known as the Association of Headmasters of Ijebu Schools. This was in May 1926 a year after a similar association had been formed in Lagos by another renowned Anglican clergyman, Reverend J. O. Lucas, who inaugurated the Lagos Union of Teachers in May 1925. These two bodies became the base from which the idea of national organization that could embrace teachers from all parts of Nigeria grew and culminated in the formation of the NUT on 8 July 1931. At its founding that year, in Lagos, Ransome-Kuti was elected its first national president. At successive elections he was re-elected and he held that post until his retirement in 1954 at the age of 63. A man of strong, forceful and charismatic personality, he guided the union in its early campaign for improved working conditions for teachers and against colonial education policy in general.

171

Paul Robeson Singer and actor “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12) “Through my singing and acting and speaking, I want to make freedom ring. Maybe I can touch people's hearts better than I can their minds, with the common struggle of the common man.”

Paul Robeson was born in 1898 and died in 1976. His father was a slave who ran away and became a preacher. He began his professional career as an actor. He became active in the theater and in films. He met Lawrence Brown, a pianist and an arranger, who was highly interested in negro spirituals. In 1925, their collaboration gave birth to a concert in New York, with a program consisting solely of negro spirituals. He lived in London in the 1930s, then came back to the US. He spent his last years in Harlem, New York.

Some of his negro spirituals are “Go Down, Moses,” “Joshua Fit De Battle Of Jericho,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Balm In Gilead,” and “By ‘n’ By”.

173

William Seymour Minister and initiator of the Pentecostal religious movement “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3:36) “There are many wells today, but they are dry. There are many hungry souls today that are empty. But let us come to Jesus and take Him at His Word and we will find wells of salvation, and be able to draw waters out of the well of salvation, for Jesus is that well.”

Of all the outstanding black American religious leaders in the twentieth century, one of the least recognized is William Seymour, the unsung pastor of the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles and catalyst of the worldwide Pentecostal movement. In 1900 he moved to Cincinnati, where he joined the "reformation" Church of God (headquartered in Anderson,

174

Indiana), also known as "the Evening Light Saints." Here he became steeped in radical Holiness theology, which taught second blessing entire sanctification (i.e., sanctification is a post-conversion experience that results in complete holiness), divine healing, premillennialism, and the promise of a worldwide Holy Spirit revival before the rapture. In 1903 Seymour moved to Houston, Texas, in search of his family. There he joined a small Holiness church pastored by a black woman, Lucy Farrow, who soon put him in touch with Charles Fox Parham. Parham was a Holiness teacher under whose ministry a student had spoken in tongues (glossolalia) two years earlier. For Parham, this was the "Bible evidence" of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. When he established a Bible school to train disciples in his "Apostolic Faith" in Houston, Farrow urged Seymour to attend. After moving to California, Seymour searched Los Angeles for a suitable building. What he found was an old abandoned African Methodist Episcopal church on Azusa Street that had recently been used as a warehouse and stable. Although it was in shambles, Seymour and his small band of black washerwomen, maids, and laborers cleaned the building, set up board plank seats, and made a pulpit out of old shoebox shipping crates. Services began in mid-April in the church, which was named the "Apostolic Faith Mission." What happened at Azusa Street during the next three years was to change the course of church history. Although the little frame building measured only 40 by 60 feet, as many as 600 persons jammed inside while hundreds more looked in through the windows. The central attraction was tongues, with the addition of traditional black worship styles that included

175

shouting, trances, and the holy dance. In September, Seymour began publishing his own paper titled “The Apostolic Faith.” At its height, it went free to some 50,000 subscribers around the world. Perhaps the most damaging challenge to Seymour came in 1909 when white female co-workers moved to Portland, Oregon, carrying with them the mailing list for “The Apostolic Faith” magazine. This cut Seymour off from his followers and effectively ended his leadership of the emerging movement. After the "glory years" of 1906 to 1909, the Azusa Street mission became a small black church pastored by Seymour until his death on September 28, 1922, and then by his wife, Jennie, until her death in 1936. It was later sold for unpaid taxes and demolished.

176

William Sheppard “Black Livingstone”, a Missionary to the “Dark Continent” “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37) “How deeply in superstition and vice have my people fallen!”

As a child in Waynesboro, Virginia, Sheppard had heard about Africa and brazenly declared: "When I grow up I shall go there." Sheppard's father was a barber and church sexton; his mother tended to ladies at a warm springs spa. Even as a small boy, Sheppard supplemented his family's income with odd jobs. Around the age of 12, he left home to work as a stable boy for a white dentist in Staunton, Virginia. Treated much like a foster son, he learned to read from the family's castoff books and developed a poise and ease of conversation that would serve him well throughout his life. He eventually

177

enrolled in Booker T. Washington's innovative Hampton Institute, which enabled poor students to pay for their education by working all day and attending classes at night. In the mid-1880s, he studied for the ministry at a theological institute that later became Stillman College. Sheppard found his subsequent jobs as a minister uninspiring. Returning to his childhood dream, he repeatedly begged the Presbyterian Foreign Missions Board for a job in Africa. But the idea was out of the question for a black man, even one as enterprising as Sheppard had shown himself to be. Refusing to accept the verdict, Sheppard hopped on a train to Baltimore and appealed directly to a member of the Presbyterian board. A possible solution was proposed: He could go if accompanied by a white partner. In 1889 the big break came. Sheppard shipped out in the company of Samuel Lapsley, a white man in his early twenties who was comfortable with blacks after years of preaching to ex-slaves who filed into the church on his family's 400-acre farm in Alabama. Upon reaching the Congo, Lapsley and Sheppard set off on an arduous trailblazing journey to establish a Christian mission among the Kuba tribe. Sheppard was impressed by most of the native Congolese they met. He, in turn, quickly won their admiration and trust for his courage, good humor, and genuine interest in their lives. Sheppard also learned to speak the Kuba language, and this helped him discover parts of the Congo region that no American or European had ever visited. Traveling crosscountry and offering to buy eggs in each village he came

178

to, he would then be given a local guide who would show him the way to the next village market so that he could buy more. He preached the gospel at each stop. Finally he neared the village of the king, Luckenga, who had threatened to kill anyone who helped Western strangers find his capital city. Sheppard's fluency in the language, however, persuaded the king's retinue that he was a reincarnation of one of the king's deceased relatives. In 1893 Sheppard left Africa temporarily. He traveled to London, where he met Queen Victoria and was inducted into England's Royal Geographic Society. Back in the United States he found himself in demand as a lecturer, and experienced some financial success. He married Lucy Gantt and the two started a family that eventually included two offspring, Wilhelmina and Max, who survived childhood. Sheppard and his wife returned to Africa in 1894, expanding the Luebo mission and starting a second settlement, with American-style street names, in a place called Ibaanc (or Ibanj). Two children succumbed to childhood diseases, and in 1898 Lucy took their third baby, a daughter, back to the United States. In 1910 Sheppard returned to the United States for good. Sheppard and his family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where Sheppard spent the rest of his life as pastor at Grace Presbyterian Church during the most virulent years of racial segregation in the American South. Felled by a stroke in 1926, Sheppard died on November 25, 1927, in Louisville. Large interracial memorial services were held in both Louisville and Waynesboro, and a park and housing project in Louisville's Smoketown neighborhood were named after him.

180

Amanda Berry Smith Evangelist “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (John 10:28) “To stay here and disobey God – I can't afford to take the consequence. I would rather go and obey God than to stay here and know that I disobeyed.” Amanda Berry Smith (1837– 1915), a preacher and missionary, was a former slave who became an inspiration to thousands of women both black and white. During a forty-five-year missionary career of arduous travel on four continents, this self-educated former slave and washerwoman became a highly visible and well-respected leader despite intense opposition to women in public ministry, a crescendo of white racist violence and the tightening grip of segregation. In 1854, at the age of seventeen, Amanda Berry married Calvin Devine. Not long after the beginning of the Civil War, Calvin Devine joined an African American unit in the Union

181

Army. He was killed in battle in 1863. During this time, Amanda always worked hard as a cook and a washerwoman to provide for herself and her daughter. Amanda remarried to a coachman named James Smith, and Philadelphia became her new home. She experienced a religious conversion, and joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She worshiped at the church where her husband was a deacon. After James' death, Amanda decided to try her hand at preaching in 1869, which met with some initial resistance from the A.M.E. clergy, but Amanda persevered. For the next nine years, she preached in African Methodist Episcopal churches, to gatherings of Methodists and at Holiness camp meetings in New York and New Jersey, becoming a popular speaker to both black and white audiences. She was a compelling speaker and singer, and wherever she traveled, people responded to her engaging personality and spiritual power. She became well known and opportunities to evangelize in the South and West opened up for her. Wherever she travelled, she wore a plain poke bonnet and a brown or black Quaker wrap, and she carried her own carpetbag suitcase. By 1870, evangelism was her only vocation. By the end of the decade, she was known as far north as Maine and as far south as Tennessee. She received constant calls for her services at camp meetings, churches and gatherings. Although she was not ordained or financially supported by the A.M.E. Church or any other organization, Amanda Smith became the first black woman to work as an

182

international evangelist in 1878. Friends suggested that she consider working with churches in England. She responded to this offer, and after a year in England, spent two years working with churches in India. After returning to England in 1881, she traveled to Liberia and spent almost eight years in West Africa. There she worked with churches and helped to establish temperance societies. Amanda Smith emerged as one of the A.M.E. Church's most effective missionaries and one of the most remarkable preachers ever known. In the process, she opened the way for other black women to preach in the A.M.E. church. In 1890, Smith returned to the United States, and after two years of preaching and related work in the East, she settled in the Chicago area. There, she continued to evangelize, and wrote her life story, An Autobiography: The Story of the Lord's Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith, the Colored Evangelist (1893), which has become one of the better-known works by nineteenth century African American women writers. She also started an orphanage. Amanda Smith died February 24, 1915, in Sebring, Florida, at the age of 78.

183

Susan M. Steward Medical trailblazer “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39) “Fortunate are the men who marry these [black physicians] women from an economic standpoint…They are blessed in a three-fold measure…[taking] unto themselves a wife, a trained nurse, and a doctor.”

Susan Maria Smith was the seventh of ten children born to Sylvanus and Anne Springsteel Smith. She is a mix of European, African and Shinnecock Indian heritage. Prosperous pork merchants, her parents were civically active and socialized among the elite of Brooklyn's Black community. She became the organist and chorister at Brooklyn's Siloam Presbyterian Church and the Bridge Street African

184

Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1867, she entered the New York Medical College for Women, graduating three years later as class valedictorian. She later did postgraduate work at Long Island College Hospital. In an era when ladies either stayed at home as wives and mothers, or became teachers, Susan flaunted gender and racial stereotypes, and the prevailing opinion that medicine was the domain of men, to become the first African-American female doctor in New York, and the third in the nation. (Her two predecessors were Rebecca Lee, who graduated from the New England Female Medical College in 1864, and Rebecca J. Cole, who graduated from the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia in 1867.) After graduation, Susan established her medical practice in her Brooklyn home. It was slow to start, but soon word spread about her skill. Her patients grew more diverse: young and old, Black and white, poor and rich. Her patients affectionately called her "Dr. Susan." Her modesty, strong will and compassion became widely known. She later opened an office in Manhattan. On July 12, 1871, Susan married William G. McKinney, a travelling preacher, and they had two children, William S. McKinney (who became a clergyman with the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York) and Anna M. McKinney Carty (who became a New York City school teacher and married M. Louis Holly). Despite her full medical practice and surgical rounds at the Brooklyn Women's Homeopathic Hospital and Dispensary, Susan also attended seniors at the Brooklyn Home for Aged Colored People and founded the Women's

185

Hospital and Dispensary (later renamed the Memorial Hospital for Women and Children) in 1881, the Women's Local Union of New York (a leading black women's club), and the Equal Suffrage League of Brooklyn. She was active in Bridge Street's missionary work and was president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union Number 6. She was also a prolific writer of sacred and secular materials. On March 7, 1918, at the age of 71, Susan passed away. At her funeral, W.E.B. DuBois delivered the eulogy, and she was buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery with a monument to her achievements.

186

Betsey Stockton Educator and missionary These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:13) â&#x20AC;&#x153;If it were in my power I would like to describe the phosphorescence of the sea. But to do this would require the pen of a Milton: and he, I think, would fail, were he to attempt it.â&#x20AC;?

She was born into slavery in Princeton, New Jersey, about the year 1798. While a child, her owner Robert Stockton, gave her to his daughter upon her marriage to Reverend Ashbel Green, president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). In 1817 she was admitted as a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Princeton, and formally manumitted at that time. She remained as a paid domestic servant with the family, learned from reading in their library and home schooling by Dr. Green, and expressed a desire to go as a missionary to Africa.

187

She learned of plans by Charles S. Stewart, a student at Princeton Theological Seminary and friend of the Green family, to go to Hawaii as a missionary. She expressed a desire to go with them. Dr. Green and her Sabbath school teacher wrote letters of recommendation to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. She was commissioned by the Board as a missionary, and became the first single American woman sent overseas as a missionary. Her contract with the Board and with the Stewarts said that she went "neither as an equal nor as a servant, but as a humble Christian friend" to the Stewarts, and provided that she was not to be more occupied with domestic duties than the other missionaries. The team set sail from New Haven, Connecticut, on November 22, 1822, for a five month voyage. The Stewarts and Stockton settled at Lahaina on Maui. She was the teacher of the first mission school opened to the common (nonchiefly) people of Hawaii. She also trained native Hawaiian teachers who took over from her upon her departure until the arrival of another missionary. She returned to the U.S. in 1825 due to Mrs. Stewart's poor health. She stayed with the Stewart household until at least 1830. She taught briefly at an infant school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, established a school for Indians at Grape Island, Canada, and then returned to Princeton in 1835 and taught in its school for blacks until her death on October 24, 1865. In 1840, she helped found Princeton's First Presbyterian Church of Color which in 1848 was renamed the Witherspoon Street Church. She is buried in Cooperstown, New York alongside the Stewart family.

188

Moses Ladejo Stone Baptist leader in Nigeria For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23) â&#x20AC;&#x153;That which in the eyes of man is a calamity is often used of God for the expansion of His Kingdom.â&#x20AC;?

Moses Ladejo Stone was born around 1850 at Ogbomoso, Nigeria. He was ordained into the ministry on February 22, 1880 in the First Baptist Church, Lagos. Stone was called to Lagos in 1884 to become a teacher at the Elementary School of Baptist Academy and an assistant pastor at First Baptist Church, Lagos. M. L. Stone was able to fully use his ministerial talents after he was called to the First Baptist Church in Lagos. His subsequent nineteen years of pastoral activities at First Baptist Church (1894 - 1913) became a God-inspired manifestation of his many talents in ministry, preaching and human relations. Under Moses Ladejo Stone's influence and with God's blessings, First Baptist Church witnessed tremendous and phenomenal growth from 1894 onwards. While serving as the pastor of First Baptist Church, Stone led the congregation to raise funds with which the church

189

building was purchased from the mission. By 1900 the congregation could announce that it was self-supporting. At the time of his death in 1913 the membership of First Baptist Church had increased from fifty-two to two hundred and twenty-five, while contributions went from close to nothing to $1,200 and the sum of $1,300 was spent on the purchase of a pipe organ. His preaching gift helped to draw a large congregation to First Baptist Church every Sunday. During Stone's pastoral work at First Baptist Church, I. O. Gilbert became a Baptist and later contributed immensely to Baptist work in Nigeria. Another notable man in his congregation was Thomas Falope who went back home to establish Otun Gbede Baptist Church in 1906. Rev. Ladejo Stone was present at the first Native Workers' conference held at Oyo in 1897 under the chairmanship of L. M. Duval and this was the nucleus of the Yoruba Baptist Association formed in 1914. On March 28, 1906, M. L. Stone left Lagos for a visit to Ijebuland. There were three Baptist Churches in Ijebuland at that time located at Ogbogbo, Idesse, and Ilishan which was the most recent. He visited twenty-six villages, preached and baptized sixty-six converts. Among his achievements at First Baptist Church, Lagos, is the production of the first Hymn Book in 1907, the addition of a sacristy to the church building, and the installation of electric lights in the church. He continued his pastoral work at First Baptist Church, Lagos until late 1912 when due to ill health, he left Lagos for Ogbomoso where he died on April 30, 1913.

190

Elgin and Dorothy Taylor Missionaries “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:26) “I had been brought up in the church, so the message [of salvation] was not entirely new, but somehow it had been presented in a clearer and more Biblical way, requiring immediate action on my part.”

Elgin Taylor was one of Christians In Action’s first appointed missionaries. He and his wife, Dorothy, served as missionaries in Japan, Africa and Great Britain. Today Rev. Taylor serves as president and is the international director of CinA. Incorporated as Missionary and Soul Winning Fellowship in 1958 (the name was changed to Christians In Action in 1974). In 1959, Elgin and Dorothy became the first AfricanAmerican missionaries to be sent to the Orient. In 1982, Elgin became the first Afro-American President and CEO of a multi-ethinic, cross-curtural, international missions agency.

192

Charles Tindley Methodist minister and Gospel music composer And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (1 John 5:11) “By and by, when the morning comes, When the saints of God are gathered home,We’ll tell the story how we’ve overcome, For we’ll understand it better by and by.” (From the song, "We’ll Understand It Better By and By")

Charles A. Tindley’s legacy of sheer determination serves as an inspiration for this school. Charles Albert Tindley was born in Maryland in the 19th century. His father was a slave, and he worked in those same fields for most of his young life. Tindley taught himself to read and write by the age of seventeen. He went to work as a sexton at the Calvary Methodist Church in Philadelphia while he took courses in theology by correspondence from Boston University. He went on to earn two doctoral degrees. Dissatisfied with reading translations of the Bible, Tindley

193

taught himself to read Greek and Hebrew. Tindley was soon installed as pastor of the same church where he had worked as a laborer. When the Rev. Dr. Tindley passed away in 1933, there were over 12,500 members of the Tindley Temple United Methodist Church (the church was renamed in his honor), which is still a vibrant part of the Philadelphia community. Tindley is also known as the founder of gospel music. He wrote over 50 hymns which include, “We Shall Overcome” and “We’ll Understand it By and By.”

194

Henry Townsend Anglican missionary “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) “It gave me much pleasure to hear one of our communicants say that they (the Akus) had begun to pray that the Lord would send a missionary to their country.”

Henry Townsend (1815 - 1886) was an Anglican missionary in Nigeria. Ordained in England in 1842, Townsend set off for Sierra Leone, landing there that same year. After working there only a few months, he was transferred to the Yoruba mission. From 1846 to 1867, he based his mission in Abeokuta. According to Ajisafe, he was the first European person to enter Abeokuta, arriving there on the 4th January, 1843 and was 'given a grand reception' (Ajisafe 1924: 85). Working with Samuel Crowther, a Yoruba Anglican priest, Townsend wrote several hymns in Yoruba and aided in the compilation of Crowther's Yoruba primer. He retired in 1876.

196

Sojourner Truth Abolitionist and women’s rights activist “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) “Truth is powerful and it prevails.”

Sojourner Truth (originally named Isabella Baumfree), was born a slave in Ulster County, New York State, in about 1797. At the age of nine, she was auctioned off to an Englishman named John Nealey. Over the next few years she was owned by a fisherman in Kingston and then by John Dumont, a plantation owner from New York County. Between 1810 and 1827, she had five children with a fellow slave. She was dismayed when one of her sons was sold to a plantation owner in Alabama. After New York State abolished slavery in 1827, Quaker friends helped her win back her son through the courts. She moved to New York City and obtained work as a servant.

197

She became friends with Elijah Pierson, a religious missionary, and eventually moved into his home. In 1843, Isabella took the name Sojourner Truth. With the help of a white friend, Olive Gilbert, she published her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. In an introduction to the book, William Lloyd Garrison wrote that he believed it would "stimulate renewed efforts to liberate all those still in slavery in America." Over the next few years, Truth toured the country making speeches on slavery. After meeting Lucretia Mott, she also spoke at meetings in favour of woman's suffrage. When a white man told her that her speeches were no more important than a flea bite, she replied, "Maybe not, but the Lord willing, I'll keep you scratching." At the beginning of the American Civil War, she helped recruit black men to help the war effort. In 1864, she moved to Washington where she organised a campaign against the policy of not allowing blacks to sit with whites on trains. As a result of this, she was received in the White House by President Abraham Lincoln. Sojourner Truth died at Battle Creek, Michigan, on 26th November, 1883.

198

Harriet Tubman Abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2) “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

Harriet Tubman's life was a monument to courage and determination that continues to stand out in American history. Born into slavery in Maryland, Harriet Tubman freed herself, and played a major role in freeing the remaining millions. After the Civil War, she joined her family in Auburn, NY, where she founded the Harriet Tubman Home. After freeing herself from slavery, Harriet Tubman returned to Maryland to rescue other members of her family. In all, she is believed to have conducted approximately 300

199

persons to freedom in the North. The tales of her exploits reveal her highly spiritual nature, as well as a grim determination to protect her charges and those who aided them. She always expressed confidence that God would aid her efforts, and threatened to shoot any of her charges who thought to turn back. Her success was wonderful. Time and again she made successful visits to Maryland on the Underground Rail Road, and would be absent for weeks at a time, running daily risks while making preparations for herself and her passengers. Great fears were entertained for her safety, but she seemed wholly devoid of personal fear. The idea of being captured by slave-hunters or slave-holders, seemed never to enter her mind. She was apparently proof against all adversaries. While she thus maintained utter personal indifference, she was much more watchful with regard to those she was piloting. Half of her time, she had the appearance of one asleep, and would actually sit down by the road-side and go fast asleep when on her errands of mercy through the South, yet, she would not suffer one of her party to whimper once, about "giving out and going back," however wearied they might be by the hard travel day and night. She had a very short and pointed rule or law of her own, which implied death to any who talked of giving out and going back. Thus, in an emergency she would give all to understand that "times were very critical and therefore no foolishness would be indulged in on the road." That several who were rather weak-kneed and fainthearted were greatly invigorated by Harriet's blunt and positive manner and threat of extreme measures, there could be no doubt.

200

Tubman was closely associated with Abolitionist John Brown, and was well acquainted with the other Upstate abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, Jermain Loguen, and Gerrit Smith. She worked closely with Brown, and reportedly missed the raid on Harper's Ferry only because of illness. After the outbreak of the Civil War, Tubman served as a soldier, spy, and a nurse, for a time serving at Fortress Monroe, where Jefferson Davis would later be imprisoned. Only twelve miles from Seneca Falls, Tubman helped Auburn to remain a center of activity in support of women's rights. With her home literally down the road, Tubman remained in contact with her friends, William and Frances Seward. In 1908, she built the wooden structure that served as her home for the aged and indigent. Here she worked, and herself was cared for in the period before her death in 1913. After her death, Harriet Tubman was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn [grave], with military honors. She has since received man honors, including the naming of the Liberty Ship Harriet Tubman, christened in 1944 by Eleanor Roosevelt. On June 14, 1914, a large bronze plaque was placed at the Cayuga County Courthouse, and a civic holiday declared in her honor. Freedom Park, a tribute to the memory of Harriet Tubman, opened in the summer of 1994 at 17 North Street in Auburn. In 1995, Harriet Tubman was honored by the federal government with a commemorative postage stamp bearing her name and likeness.

202

James Varick First Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church â&#x20AC;&#x153;Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.â&#x20AC;? (2 Corinthians 5:17) "If any man ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ rightly." (Martin Luther)

Born to a slave mother, James Varick was fortunate that she was freed when he was a young child. The Varicks moved north to New York where James got an elementary education. When he was sixteen, he joined the John Street Methodist church in New York City. More and more blacks began to attend. But the white congregation discriminated against their dark-skinned brothers, making them sit at the back of the church. In 1796, James joined with about 30 other blacks to obtain

203

permission to hold separate services. By then, his oratorical skills and holy life were well known. He was also a successful entrepreneur and organizer. Having learned the shoemaking business some years earlier, he had opened his own business. Furthermore, out of his home he operated a school. He was a family man, too, having married Aurelia Jones who bore him seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Three years after pulling out of the John Street Church, the black group organized their own church. It seems that James led the way as they obtained an independent charter and legal documents to protect their investment from the white-run Methodist organization. They had no quarrel with Methodist doctrine, but only with racism. Their book of discipline differed little from the Methodists. Their new church was the first of over 3,000 African Methodist Episcopal Zion churches. Today, with well over a million members, the African Methodist Episcopal Church is the second largest denomination of African Methodists in the United States. For many years, the African church had to rely on white preachers, since no one would consecrate one of their own black leaders as bishop for them. The poor congregation paid the white preacher. James had to make his own living. This continued until 1820, when James was ordained as an elder. Then the blacks voted to make him their Supervisor (Bishop). After a two year struggle, white leaders finally agreed to consecrate James. He became the first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church on this day, July 30, 1822. The church was often known as the "Freedom Church"

204

because of its insistence on emancipation from spiritual, economic, and social chains. Among prominent blacks who attended at one time or another were Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth. Soon branches were founded in other east coast cities. However, Richard Allen's African Methodist Episcopal church surpassed Varick's denomination in numbers. Hardworking James was the first chaplain of the New York African Society for Mutual Relief, a vice president of the New York African Bible Society, and a co-founder of the first black newspaper in the United States, Freedom's Journal.

206

Montrose Waite West African missionary Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:23) "For 55 years I have made it a rule to tell everyone about the mission fields of the world ... I especially hoped that young African Americans would hear the Lord's call ... and be willing to go."

Montrose Archibold Waite. The name and the man will be unrecognized by most readers, but he and his wife, Anna, were among 10 black missionaries who served with The Christian and Missionary Alliance in West Africa during the first half of this century. Montrose Waite was a Jamaican by birth, although later he became a naturalized American citizen. Providentially he met Dr. A. B. Simpson, who assured him his sustenance at Nyack College if he would enroll and prepare for missionary service. Waite sailed for Sierra Leone, West Africa, three years after his 1920 graduation.

207

A year after his arrival in Sierra Leone he married Ella Mae Scott, a fellow missionary. They labored together until her death in early 1931. Waite later remarried and with his wife continued to serve until World War II interrupted their work. By war’s end, Mr. and Mrs. Waite had a large family, and Alliance officials were reluctant to return them overseas. Undaunted, Mr. Waite organize the Afro-American Missionary Crusade, raised his own support and took his family back to Africa, settling in Liberia, where he began a school. In 1977 H. Robert Cowles, then the editor of The Alliance Weekly, interviewed Waite, then a white-haired patriarch. Still vigorous despite his advanced years, Waite reflected on his long association with The Christian and Missionary Alliance. In Africa, Mr. Waite discovered a great amount of wonder on the part of local people at the appearance of a black missionary from North America. He recalled the African who rubbed his skin to make sure he was not simply painted. “Are there other black people in America?” the African wanted to know. “There are many of them,” Mr. Waite replied, adding optimistically, “and they’ll be coming.”

208

Booker T. Washington Educator, author and orator “[Jesus] gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Titus 2:14) “I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.”

Born a slave, Booker T. Washington rose to become the commonly recognized leader of the Negro race in America. Although he continually strove to be successful and to show other black men and women how they, too, could raise themselves, his leadership became controversial, and his critics ironically accused him of keeping the Negro down and in his place. Washington's method of uplifting was education in a harmonious trinity of the head, the hand, and the heart. From his founding of Tuskegee Institute in 1881 to his death in 1915, Booker T. Washington

209

exerted a tremendous influence on the consciousness of his people. W. E. B. Du Bois with his concept of developing the "talented-tenth" into leaders through liberal education, represented those who felt that Washington placed too much emphasis on industrial education. However, Washington's own Christian character and his education of the heart can give us added insight and perspective into the man and his approach. Perhaps the real key to Booker T. Washington's success was spiritual and inner development. He began to love and understand the Bible while at Hampton, and spent a year of study at Wayland Seminary where the "high Christian character of Dr. King" made a strong impression on him. The first religious services at Tuskegee Institute were conducted on Thanksgiving Day 1882 by a pastor from Montgomery. A few years later an ordained minister was named chaplain of the school which Washington described as "non-denominational but by no means non-religious." Even though Tuskegee was non-sectarian, its daily life was permeated by active religion. Washington himself described the following significant religious influences at Tuskegee: l) preaching service every Sunday for all teachers and students; 2) Sunday morning Christian Endeavour Society with scripture readings, prayer, and songs; 3) thirty-six Sunday school classes; 4) YMCA run by students which looks after the sick, needy, and elderly in the area;

210

5) two missionary groups and a YWCA for the young women; 6) Humane Society for the proper care of animals; 7) Tuskegee Women's Club and Mothers' Council in household matters; 8) every evening except Fridays and Saturdays the Principal or his representative led the whole school in devotional services in the chapel; 9) Friday evening prayer-meetings of informal worship, probably the most powerful of all services due to the home-like atmosphere; 10) Week of Prayer held for two weeks in January with usually about a hundred and fifty students happily converted who sign the following pledge: I thank God that I was led by the Spirit to accept Christ. I am glad I am a Christian, and I promise: l. That, as soon as I can, I will join the church of my choice, and by word and deed help to build up the kingdom of Christ on earth. 2. That I will, daily, think of, or read some portion of the Bible, and will pray, in private each day of my life, closing each prayer with this verse: "Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole; I want Thee forever to live in my soul; Break down every idol, cast out every foe: Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." -Amen.

211

11) Bible Training School established in 1893 to prepare students for the Christian ministry. These students helped the churches in the community every Sunday and turned in written reports of their work. Every morning a voluntary prayer meeting was conducted by one of the Bible students. In addition, all the students were organized into companies of twelve to fifteen with a teacher to counsel them. These social groups made the students feel more at home and improved discipline. Observing that the Negro was religious, but that he tended toward emotionalism, Washington sought to educate his people into the higher teachings and to encourage them to make their devotion practical every day in improving their own and their neighbors' lives. Washington believed that the attitude of some that religion was below the educated and independent mind was the greatest error and had no real joy. He discovered in his experience that the leaders in the educational and commercial world and in uplifting the people, were usually religious in their community life.

212

Phillis Wheatley Poet “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2) “God has implanted a Principle, which we call love of Freedom; it is impatient of oppression, and pants for Deliverance.”

In 1761, Phillis was purchased as a personal slave in Boston by Susannah Wheatley, wife of tailor, John Wheatley. She was evidently around 7 years old at the time. Her only written memory of her birthplace was of her mother performing a ritual of pouring water before the sun as it rose; biographers conjecture she came from Senegal/Gambia and may have been a Fula, a Moslem people who read Arabic script. Very likely she was kidnapped into slavery and brought on a slaving vessel on the Middle Passage. She learned to speak and write English very quickly, taught by Mary Wheatley, the 18 year old daughter of her owner;

213

within 16 months she could read difficult passages in the Bible. At 12 she began studying Latin and English literature, especially the poetry of Alexander Pope, soon translating Ovid into heroic couplets. These would have been remarkable accomplishments for an educated white male boy, and was virtually unheard of for white females. She may well have read Anne Bradstreet's poetry. The Wheatleys appreciated her talents, and showed her off to their friends; many came to visit with this "lively and brilliant conversationalist." She was thoroughly indoctrinated into Puritanism. Phillis's place was designated by her white world, and she was virtually cut off from her own people, but she was definitely still a slave, although a privileged one. Though superior to most in her intellectual and literary accomplishments, she was clearly never their social equal. Perhaps that accounts for her not adopting Pope's major literary characteristic--satire--although she did adopt his poetic forms and classical allusions. Nevertheless, modern feminist critics have pointed out her subtle and hidden critical messages (which would have had to have been well hidden, so as not to offend the white benefactors upon whom she had to depend). At the age of 20, the Wheatleys sent her to England for health (and exhibition?) reasons with her "young master," Nathaniel Wheatley, who was traveling on business. While there, her poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published and dedicated to her English patron, Lady Huntingdon. She noted the hope that under her patronage "my feeble efforts will be shielded from the severe trials of uppity Criticism."

214

Wheatley did reach out to other artists of color and they to her. She was also an inspiration for Jupiter Hammon, another African writer in America. However, the death of Mrs. Wheatley in 1774 (whose illness required Phillis to return prematurely from London) and the Revolutionary war were to change her life drastically. War, not poetry, became the major concern, and many of her former patrons had dangerous British connections. She was freed after Mrs. Wheatley's death and married John Peters, but her life was chaotic. She wrote to her black friend, Obour Tanner (who disapproved of the marriage), in 1778 (with her typically restrained style): "The vast variety of scenes that have pass'd before us these 3 years past will to a reasonable mind serve to convince us of the uncertain duration of all things temporal, and the proper result of such a consideration is an ardent desire of, & preparation for, a state and enjoyments which are more suitable to the immortal mind." Little is known of Peters, who was evidently handsome and educated, but unable to settle in any vocation. They lived in great poverty; she had three children and all died in infancy. She never found another patron for her poetry, though she continued to write poems, obscuring her own personal ordeals. She wrote over 100 poems, but at least 30 poems were evidently lost. Her long physical frailty, hard life and poverty led to her death at 31, with her third child dying shortly after. She had to tread a very fine line--between her own feelings, her patrons and readers, and the Christian God in whom she devoutedly believed. African-American feminist poets, such as Alice Walker and Naomi Madgett, have claimed Phillis as inspiration, if not a poetic model.

216

Daniel Hale Williams Surgeon and cardiologist “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) “Anything is possible when it's done in love...everything you can do should be in love or it will fail.”

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (18561931) the founder of Provident Hospital was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. His father was a barber who was deeply religious and imparted a sense of pride in his eight children. When his father died of tuberculosis, Daniel was nine years old. His mother, Sarah Price Williams, moved the family to Baltimore to live with relatives. He began his studies of medicine as an apprentice under Dr. Henry Palmer, a prominent surgeon. Dr. Palmer had three apprentices and all were accepted in 1890 into a three-year program at the Chicago Medical School, which was affiliated with Northwestern University. It was considered one of the

217

best medical schools. Daniel graduated with an M.D. degree in 1883. Dr. Williams began practice in Chicago at a time when there were only three other black physicians in Chicago. Considered a thoughtful and skilled surgeon, Dr. Williams' practice grew as he treated both black and white patients. But he was acutely aware of the limited opportunities for black physicians. In 1889, he was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Health (now known as the Illinois Department of Public Health), and worked with medical standards and hospital rules. In 1890, Reverend Louis Reynolds, whose sister Emma was refused admission to nursing schools because she was black, approached Dr. Williams for help. This led to the founding of the Provident Hospital and Nursing Training School in 1891. The first years of the hospital were challenging, but successful. Dr. Williams insisted that his physicians remain abreast of emerging medical discoveries. He himself earned widespread renown as a surgeon in July 1893 when a young man named James Cornish entered the Hospital with chest stab wounds. Dr. Williams performed a new type of surgery to repair a tear in the heart lining, saving his life. Williams served at Freedmen's Hospital in Washington D.C. from 1894 until 1898. He established a model internship program for graduate physicians and helped guide other improvements leading to a decline in the hospital mortality rate and a large number of surgical cases. In 1898, he married Alice Johnson, a school teacher whom he had met in Washington D.C., and they returned to Chicago.

218

He returned to Provident where he became chief of surgery and in 1902 performed another breakthrough operation, successfully suturing a patient's spleen. In 1900, Dr. Williams was invited to become a visiting professor of surgery at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, one of two black medical schools in the country. He told the group at Meharry that there were now ten black hospitals in the country, where a decade before there had been none. Dr. Williams felt these hospitals had helped reduce the high mortality of blacks and that their role in training could make even larger contributions. His speeches were printed and influenced black leaders in other cities to consider starting hospitals. Throughout his career, he urged black physicians to become leaders in their communities. He continued working at Provident and maintained an active national travel schedule until 1912, when he resigned from Provident after being appointed attending staff surgeon at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago (now known as RushPresbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center). He served as an attending surgeon at St. Luke's Hospital until 1926. He remained in active practice in Chicago until he suffered a stroke in 1926. He then moved to Idlewild, Michigan, where he lived in retirement until his death in 1931. Dr. Williams received many honors, including being named a Fellow in the American College of Surgeons (1913) and being awarded an honorary degree from Howard University School of Medicine. At his death, he left donations to many organizations he had supported including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Meharry Medical College, Howard University and other institutions. These gifts helped provide expanded medical education opportunities for black students.

219

George W. Williams Civil War veteran, minister, politician and historian “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) “I modestly strive to lift the Negro race to its pedestal in American history.”

Most popularly known as the author of History of the Negro Race in America, widely considered the first objective history of African Americans, George Washington Williams is famous for the oral histories he captured detailing the experiences of black Americans during the American Civil War. In addition to being an author, Williams was also a pastor, attorney and legislator--the first African-American to serve in the Ohio House of Representatives. The son of a laborer, Williams enlisted at age 14 in the Union Army and fought in the Civil War. Upon leaving the army in 1868, he underwent training as a minister at the

220

Newton Theological Institution and was ordained in 1874. In the following years he served as pastor of several churches, edited and published several short-lived journals, and served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1879 to 1881. By this time, he had become interested in the study of history, and after doing copious research he had his History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 published in 1882. There had been several previous works written on this subject by black historians, but Williams' work was the first relatively objective account that strove for historical accuracy rather than functioning as a work of black apologetics or propaganda. Williams' research for his next work, A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion (1888), involved the gathering of oral histories from black Civil War veterans and the culling of newspaper accounts, both techniques which subsequently became basic resources in American historiography. During the 1880s Williams worked on his books, practiced law, and gave lectures. In 1889 he became interested in the prospect of employing black Americans in the Congo Free State under the auspices of the Belgian king Leopold. But a visit to the Congo in 1890 shocked him into an appreciation of Leopold's brutal exploitation of the people of the Congo, and Williams spent the short remainder of his life publicizing the outrages that were being perpetrated there.

222

How You Can Know Jesus Christ for Yourself While the many people profiled in this book come from different social, economic, and historical backgrounds, the one thing that they have in common is that they have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And, for many of them, their relationship with Christ was the driving force in their life which led to their accomplishments. If you do not know Jesus Christ as your saviour, please read the following to find out how you can begin your relationship with Jesus Christ today. 1. Accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God's law. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:20: "For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not." Romans 3:23 reads: "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." In fact, I am the chief of sinners, so don't think that you're alone. 2. Accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is deathâ&#x20AC;Ś" 3. Accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." The Bible says in Revelation 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and

223

murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." 4. Accept the fact that you cannot do anything to save yourself! The Bible states in Ephesians 2: 8, 9: "For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast." 5. Accept the fact that God loves you more than you love yourself, and that He wants to save you from hell. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 6. With these facts in mind, please repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and pray and ask Him to come into your heart and save you this very moment. The Bible states in the book of Romans 10:9, 13: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." If you are willing to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, please pray with me the following simple prayer: Heavenly Father, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen. Congratulations on doing the most important thing in life and that is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour!

224

Bibliography The following sources were used to collect information for the profiles included in this book. African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas Afro Voices BBC Believerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Web Biography.com Black History Review BlackPast.org Charles A. Tindley Accelerated School Christianity.com Christianity Today / Christianity Today Library Civil War Women Dictionary of African Christian Biography Duke University Early Jazz History Encyclopedia of World Biography FamousPoetsandPoems.com Florida Baptist History

225

John M. Perkins Foundation Lakewood Public Library Literary Works of Sanderson Beck National Geographic NegroSpirituals.com New York History Net | New York Historical Society North Carolina Humanities Council North Carolina State University Oxford African-American Studies Center PBS Poets.org RosaParks.org SouthernMusic.net Southern Nazarene University Spartacus Educational Talbot School of Theology Taylor University The King Center The Provident Foundation University of Virginia Victoriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Past Women in History

226