Francis James Grimké In his sermons, Grimke emphasized honesty, Rev. Francis J. Grimke hard work, spiritual principles, and preached against Change the World through the Gospel worldly evils. He encouraged his fellow African by Victoria McAfee Americans to put their trust in God as they endured injustices and Jim Crow laws. He believed God would Francis J. Grimke was born in 1850. He was the give them the perseverance to overcome victoriously son of a rice plantation owner, Henry Grimke, and as He did for the Israelites, but they must also fight Nancy Weston, a slave of African and European for their rights: “We must agitate, and agitate, and descent. When Francis was two years old, Henry agitate, and go on agitating until blacks are accorded Grimke died of yellow fever. His will freed Francis, their full rights….We are not going to secure our but placed him under the guardianship of his white rights in this land without a struggle.” While he never half-brother, Montague, Henry’s oldest son. When used his church or services as a center for radical Francis turned 10, Montague threatened to enslave agitation or political action, Grimke regularly used his him. Francis ran away and joined the Confederate sermons to point out injustices he saw in society. Army as an officer’s valet. Months later, Montague Grimke never understood or condoned segregation imprisoned Frances while he was visiting his family. in the Christian church and passionately argued for Montague sold him to another officer even while racial justice. He praised evangelists such as D.L. Francis was recovering from a deathly illness. Moody and Billy Sunday for their soul-winning and Francis was freed by the end of the war. their stands against moral evils, but also criticized Grimke’s white aunts were Quaker abolitionists, them for not speaking up against the evil of racism. Angelina and Sarah Grimke. In 1868, they He urged all pastors to speak out against racism. acknowledged Francis and his brother Archibald as Grimke was encouraged when Woodrow Wilson their relatives and gave financial backing for them was elected president in 1912 with promises to reform to attend Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. After government and society. But when reforms did not graduating as valedictorian of his class, Francis happen, and black soldiers in World War I fought answered God’s call to the ministry, continuing his in segregated units without being allowed to enter education at Princeton Theological Seminary. officer’s training, Grimke wrote a letter accusing In 1878, Grimke began his pastoral ministry at the Wilson of abandoning his “lofty principles.” 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Until his death in 1937, Grimke preached and He served this same church for 50 years until 1928. advocated a Christianity that confronted society’s His convicting sermons ignited a spiritual revival. wrongs in order to change them. On the 40th Congressmen and Supreme Court justices frequently anniversary of his graduation from Princeton attended Sunday services to hear Grimke preach. Seminary, he wrote that through the years “[I] tried to In 1878, Francis married Charlotte L. Forten of do two things with all my might: to preach the gospel Philadelphia, an abolitionist and teacher. They had of the grace of God—to get men to see their need of one daughter who died in infancy. a savior, and to accept Jesus Christ as the way, the Grimke was a brilliant orator and an articulate truth, the life, [and] to fight race prejudice, because opponent of racism. He set forth the Gospel and the I believe it is utterly un-Christian, and it is doing Bible as the way to change people and society. “I place almost more than anything else to curse our own land my hope not on government,” he said, “not on politi- and the world at large.” cal parties but on faith in the power of the religion of Jesus Christ to conquer all prejudices, to break down all walls of separation, and to weld together men of all races in one great brotherhood.” Ida B. Wells the previous 10 years alone, she discovered, 728 black men and Ida B. Wells women had been lynched in the United States, many without by Victoria Johnson charges or a trial. Her thorough research resulted in the publica- “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” tion of “Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases,” which Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, brought her national and international attention. suffragist, women’s rights advocate, journalist, and speaker. Ida lashed out at anyone who did not vigorously protest Wherever she saw injustice against African Americans, she injustices to African Americans. She highly criticized Booker worked to set it right. T. Washington as being too accommodating of segregation and Ida’s mother was a deeply religious woman who was con- voting discrimination. When a black postmaster was lynched, cerned about the dignity of people of color. She instilled biblical she went with a Congressional delegation to President William principles in Ida, who on Sundays was only permitted to study McKinley, urging him to sponsor federal legislation against the Bible. It was a book Ida read repeatedly throughout her life. lynching. Ida was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862, the el- She also challenged evangelist D.L. Moody for continuing dest of eight children. Her father served on the board of Rust to speak to segregated audiences and refusing to condemn racial College, which was started for freed black students. Ida took injustices. She spoke at several church denominational meet- classes there with her mother, who came along to learn to read ings around the country, urging them to condemn segregation and write. and lynching, but none did. She wrote, “Where were all the When Ida was only 16, a yellow fever epidemic swept legal and civil authorities of the country, to say nothing of the through Holly Springs and killed her parents and youngest Christian churches, that they permitted such things to be? I brother. Ida provided for her five sisters and secured a job could only say that despite the axiom that there is a remedy for teaching for $25 a month. After a year, she moved with the two every wrong, everybody in authority from the President of the youngest sisters to Memphis to teach for a higher salary and United States down, had declared their inability to do anything; live with her aunt, while her other siblings stayed behind with and that the Christian bodies and moral associations do not relatives. touch the question.” In Tennessee, Ida started her first civil rights campaign. In In 1893 Ida moved to Chicago, and with Jane Addams she 1884, a railroad conductor asked Ida to give up her seat on the successfully blocked the establishment of segregated schools in train to a white man and ordered her into the segregated “Jim Chicago. Also in Chicago, she helped start the Negro Fellow- Crow” car, which was already crowded with passengers. Ida ship League when the Sunday school class she was teaching resisted and was forcefully removed from the train as the white discussed a lynching in Springfield, Illinois. She encouraged passengers applauded. When she returned to Memphis, she sued the class to do something, so they began providing lodging and the railroad and wrote about her struggle in The Living Way, employment opportunities for black men who had moved north. a local church paper. She won her case in circuit court, but In 1895, Ida married F.L. Barnett, a journalist and lawyer the railroad appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which from Chicago and owner of the city’s major black newspaper. reversed the decision. After the court loss, she wrote in her They had four children. Ida arranged for her children to be diary that if it were possible, she “would gather my race in my cared for so she could go on speaking engagements or she took arms and fly away with them. Oh God, is there no redress, no them with her. She firmly believed in the dignity of working peace, and no justice in this land for us? Come to my aid at this mothers. moment and teach me what to do, for I am sorely, bitterly disap- In 1906, she joined with W.E.B. DuBois and others to help pointed. Show us the way.” found the National Association for the Advancement of Col- Ida started writing for local papers about the poor conditions ored People (NAACP), and she also worked with the women’s in Memphis schools where she was teaching. Her contract was suffrage movement. During the 1913 march of 5,000 women not renewed. The Rev. R. Nightingale invited Wells to become for universal suffrage in Washington, D.C., the white Illinois a partner in the Free Speech and Headlight, an anti-segregationist marchers asked her to march in the rear with the other black newspaper. women. Ida refused and walked up front. A turning point came for Ida in 1892 when a mob attacked All her life, Ida reported on discrimination, lynching, and three young, black Memphis grocery store owners to stop them race riots around the country. In 1922, she went to Arkansas to from competing with white businesses. Shots were fired, killing interview 12 black farmers wrongly charged with starting a riot. three white men. The three black men were jailed for trial, but She prayed with them and said, “The God you serve is the God a mob broke into the jail and lynched them. When Ida wrote a of Paul and Silas who opened the prison gates, and if you have story against the lynching, a mob destroyed her newspaper office all the faith you say you have, you ought to believe He will open and warned her not to stay in Memphis. She angrily called on your doors too.” In 1930, disgusted with the nominees of the black citizens to boycott white businesses or leave Memphis— major parties who were running for the Illinois Senate—they and many did. had no plans to help blacks in the Great Depression—she ran as She moved to New York to write for the New York Age while an Independent. A year later, she passed away suddenly at the gathering evidence from newspaper reports throughout the age of 69, sadly never seeing the completion of her crusade to country that showed white mobs were regularly lynching black bring the light of truth to the world. men, accusing them of rape but rarely proving that crime. In Fred Shuttlesworth discourage ACMHR meetings, but those tactics failed. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth Connor is also believed to have been behind two more at- Civil Rights Pioneer tempted bombings of Shuttlesworth’s church. Shuttlesworth joined with Dr. King and Rev. Ralph Ab- by Victoria McAfee ernathy to help found the Southern Christian Leadership “The best thing we can do is be a servant of God. It does Conference (SCLC). He told Dr. King, “I assure you if you good to stand up and serve others.” come to Birmingham, this movement can not only gain prestige, but really shake the country.” At first, the mass One of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth’s first sermons as sit-ins he and King organized brought little public atten- a Baptist minister focused on two questions that Paul tion, but in 1963 Shuttlesworth was behind the decision (then Saul) asked God: “Who are you?” and “What would to allow students and even young people to participate in you have me do?” The latter question guided Rev. Shut- demonstrations and sit-ins. Some 2,000 students joined tlesworth for the rest of his life as a socially conscious min- this “children’s crusade,” as it became known, and more ister first in Alabama, then in Ohio. than 600 of them were arrested. The Birmingham police Fred Lee Shuttlesworth was born in Montgomery turned police dogs and fire hoses on the demonstrators. Im- County, Alabama, on March 18, 1922. His family moved ages of the demonstrations on national television caught to Birmingham when he was a toddler, and he served as a the attention of the country, and President Kennedy truck driver during World War II. After leaving the ser- declared the struggle for civil rights a moral issue for the vice, he experienced what he believed to be a call to the nation. ministry. He enrolled in Cedar Grove Bible College in Mo- Some people said Shuttlesworth was too aggressive, too bile, and eventually he graduated from Alabama State Col- confrontational, even a hindrance to the movement. But lege in 1952. Ordained in 1948, he took over the pastorate Dr. King called Shuttlesworth “one of the nation’s most of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953. A year courageous freedom fighters” and they continued to work later he met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., right before Rosa together, organizing the voting rights march to Selma in Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery. 1965 and integration initiatives across the South. Rev. Shuttlesworth began his work with the civil rights Though Shuttlesworth regularly visited the movement movement by supporting the NAACP voter registration in Alabama, he felt the Lord leading him to move in 1961 and also the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. The follow- to Cincinnati for the sake of his family, and he pastored ing year, when the NAACP was banned from Alabama, there for almost 50 years. He led protests against discrim- he founded his own organization, the Alabama Christian ination in Ohio as well, and in 1989 he established the Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). The organiza- Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation, which helps low-in- tion’s first fight was integrating the Birmingham Police -De come Cincinnatians purchase their first home. In 2001, he partment. After witnessing the success of the bus boycott received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President in Montgomery, Shuttlesworth also attempted to desegre- Clinton. gate the Birmingham Transit Company with blacks riding Shuttlesworth kept his connection to Birmingham. the buses. Once he announced his plans, on Christmas He worked with Richard Arlington, the city’s first black night, 1956, segregationists planted 16 sticks of dynamite mayor, to establish the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute outside his bedroom in the church parsonage. In the blast, and Museum, and the Birmingham Airport Authority Shuttlesworth landed in the basement while his bedroom voted to honor Shuttlesworth by renaming the city’s was blown apart, but he and visiting Deacon Charles Rob- airport as the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International inson were unharmed. A policeman told him, “Reverend, Airport. In 2007, during a commemoration of the vot- if I were you I’d get out of town fast.” Shuttlesworth re- ing rights march to Selma, then-presidential candidate plied, “If God could keep me through this, then I’m here Barack Obama pushed Shuttlesworth in a wheelchair for the duration.” The next day he led the bus protest. across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to honor his service and That he persevered, he said, “gave people the feeling that I commitment. wouldn’t run, I didn’t run, and that God had to be there.” Shuttlesworth came back to Birmingham after he re- In 1957, Shuttlesworth made front-page news when a tired from his church in Cincinnati. He suffered a stroke white mob beat him with chains and brass knuckles and and returned to Alabama in 2008 for rehabilitation. He stabbed his wife as they attempted to enroll two of their died on October 5, 2011, in Birmingham. children in an all-white high school. Incredibly, Shut- When a group of grade school students asked him later tlesworth managed to drive his family to the hospital while in his life what he did in the civil rights movement, he telling his children to always forgive your enemies. said, “I went to jail 30 or 40 times, not for fighting or steal- Also in 1957, Eugene T. “Bull” Connor, an avid segre- ing or drugs…. I went to jail for a good thing, trying to gationist, was elected Birmingham commissioner of public make a difference.” safety. Conner used the fire and police departments to George Washington Carver At Tuskegee, Carver devoted his attention to projects to George Washington Carver: improve the quality of life for poor Southern farmers—black A Scientist of Faith and Vision and white. He wanted to create new food products for them by Daphne Myers to grow and sell and taught crop rotation to improve the soil. He conducted experiments with organic fertilizers and the “All my life, I have risen regularly at peanut, and his research suggested hundreds of products that four o’clock and have gone into the woods and could be made from peanuts—products such as cooking oil, talked with God. How I thank God every day paint, stains, and peanut oil massages. Carver’s research also that I can walk and talk with Him.” suggested hundreds of uses for crops such as sweet potatoes, George Washington Carver helped change the course of soybeans, and pecans. In 1916, Carver’s fame as a chemist America’s agricultural and scientific landscape. He lived out and agriculturalist earned him an election to a Fellowship his faith as a scientist who saw God’s hand in everything in in the English Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts. creation. In 1921 Carver appeared before the Congressional Ways Carver was born into slavery on the farm of Moses and and Means Committee to support a tariff tax on imported Susan Carver in a one-room log shanty in Diamond Grove, peanuts. His lecture and demonstration of the many uses of Missouri. His exact birthday is unknown, but is believed to peanuts elevated him to national and international fame. be in 1861 or 1864. Carver’s childhood was traumatic—he Carver then toured the country lecturing to promote the and his mother, Mary, were kidnapped by raiders and sold. numerous benefits of the peanut. Moses Carver was able to find George and buy him back, Carver struggled with prejudice in society. Many of but George’s mother was not found. George and his older his close friendships were with whites. He often spoke brother James were raised by their owners until slavery was to white groups, but he stayed in poor “coloreds only” abolished in 1865. accommodations when he traveled. Carver wanted white The Carvers taught George to read and write, but at the Americans to be aware of the creativity and talents of blacks. age of 11, he left their home to attend the Neosho, Missouri, He particularly wanted all young people to catch a “vision” school for black children approximately eight miles away. of everyone working together to solve the world’s problems, Although his only childhood book was Webster’s Elementary especially through science and agriculture. God, he said, had Spelling Book, George was fascinated by music, painting, made him a “trail blazer” in casting this vision. flowers, science, and especially algebra. George stated, “Day Carver said his faith helped him see truths about creation after day I spent in the woods alone in order to collect my that God had left for him to find. Throughout his life, he said floral beauties and put them in a little garden I had hidden he had visions that he took as direction from God. Carver in brush not far from my house . . . and strange to say that all spent many hours teaching and mentoring his students, and sorts of vegetation succeed to thrive under my touch until not just on agriculture. He taught a Bible study class because I was styled the plant doctor, and plants from all over the he wanted his students to “find Jesus, and make Him a daily, country would be brought to me for treatment. At this time, hourly, and momently part of themselves. I want them to see I had never heard of botany and could scarcely read.” the Great Creator in the smallest and apparently the most Frail and sickly, Carver was not expected to live to the insignificant things around them.” age of 21, but in his biographical writings he said, “I trusted In his final years, Carver often traveled to promote God and pressed on (I had been a Christian since about 8 Tuskegee, peanuts, and racial harmony. He met with years old).” As his health improved, Carver moved across three American presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Kansas to attend several schools until completing high Coolidge, and Franklin Roosevelt—and the Crown Prince school in Minneapolis, Kansas, where he learned that his of Sweden studied with him. From 1923 to 1933, Carver brother James had died of smallpox. toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on For the next two decades, Carver worked odd jobs to Interracial Cooperation. pay for his education. In 1891, he enrolled in Simpson Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78. He was College to study art and piano, but transferred the next buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee. He once year to Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State wrote to a friend, “No, I am not for sale. God has given me University), where he earned a Bachelors of Agriculture what He has in trust to make of it a contribution to the in 1894 and a Masters of Agriculture in 1896. That year, world far greater than money can for myself.” Reflecting this, Booker T. Washington invited him to join the faculty of the his gravestone says, Tuskegee Institute, a trade school for blacks in Alabama, as He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, its Director of Agriculture. he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world. Daniel Alexander Payne Daniel Alexander Payne Payne married in 1847, but his wife died during the first year of marriage from complications of childbirth. In 1854, he married Faith, Education and the Gospel again, to Eliza Clark of Cincinnati. Eliza had children before they by Victoria McAfee married, and then she had three more with Payne. Daniel Alexander Payne was a theologian, historian, church Before the Civil War, Payne also worked with abolitionists and bishop, the first African-American college president, and a con- others against slavery as part of a committee that helped provide stant voice for the education of African-Americans, especially slaves with food, clothing, and shelter as they escaped to Canada. their church leaders. He had no fear of speaking out against racial injustice. He was born February 24, 1811, in Charleston, South Car- Seriously committed to the education of African Americans, olina, the son of free black parents Martha and London Payne. especially leaders, in 1856 he helped establish Wilberforce Uni- Sadly, his father died when versity in Ohio, and in 1863, he became the first black college Daniel was only four years old, and his mother died five years president when the AME Church bought the university. In fact, later. Although he only spent a short time with his father, he he convinced the university board to open a seminary (now called credits him for his spiritual and educational commitments, saying, the Payne Theological Seminary) in 1871, and Payne was its first “I was the child of many prayers.” dean. Like Hannah in the Book of 1 Samuel, Payne’s father asked Payne continued to be an overseer of the AME Church, the Lord for a son and promised to consecrate him to God’s ser- emphasizing formal education and preparation for ministers. At vice. When that son came, London Payne named him Daniel. an early AME conference, he had called for a “regular course of Payne’s father also modeled what it means to be a Christian. He study for prospective ordinees” that included courses in English taught Bible classes at the Methodist church, conducted family grammar, geography, arithmetic, ancient and modern history, and worship, and started his day singing hymns. Payne also remem- theology. He believed that bered getting a spanking from his father for not completing a “…an undereducated and ill-prepared minister was a scandal lesson. When Payne’s father died, his mother continued taking and affliction upon black churches.” He taught that a clergyman him to Bible classes. After she died, a great aunt took him in and ought to first preach the Gospel, showing a person their need for continued to raise him to know God. a Savior, then encourage maturity, training, and understanding of As a child, Payne said he felt “the Spirit of God moving my the doctrines and government of the church. According to Payne, childish heart.” One sermon so impressed him, he went home a person called to ministry needed to live a life of faith and prayer. “crying and praying.” As a teen, he went to the Methodist Episco- They should want to fill their “…head [with] all knowledge and pal church for examination. They assigned him Samuel Weston as [their] heart with all holiness.” Payne was the first bishop in the his teacher, and Weston became a major spiritual guide for Payne. AME Church to have theological seminary training. The AME At 18, Payne gave his whole heart to the Lord. Church points to Payne as the reason for its continuing emphasis Several weeks after his conversion, while in prayer, Payne on educated ministers in their congregations. believed God spoke to him and said, “I have set thee apart to Under Payne’s leadership, the AME Church expanded foreign educate thyself in order that thou mayest be an educator to thy missions, reorganized its publications, established new churches, people.” This incident caused Payne to resolve to intently study and introduced trained choirs and instrumental music into the as many books as he could. He spent all his extra funds to pur- worship experience. After the Civil War, the denomination chase reading materials, spent all his spare time reading, and drew gained 250,000 new members, partly because Payne organized pictures with a crayon to help him better understand the concepts missionaries, committees, and teachers to reach out to newly freed in the books. Payne received his formal education in Charleston black slaves. The denomination spread across the South, from schools that were established by free blacks, and he had a private Florida to Texas, with new congregations. tutor. He mastered mathematics, Greek, Latin, and French. In 1881, Payne traveled to Britain to be the first African As a teen, Payne also worked as a shoe merchant, carpenter, American to preside over the Methodist Ecumenical Council, and tailor before he opened his own school for African-Ameri- and in 1891 he wrote the first history of the AME Church, a few can children and a few adult slaves at the young age of 19. Sadly, years after he published his memoirs, Recollections of Seventy in 1835, after the Nat Turner slave rebellion, a law was passed Years, in 1888. He died on November 2, 1893. prohibiting the education of slaves or free blacks. Forced to close Several people have called Payne the Rosa Parks of his day. his school, Payne moved to Pennsylvania and attended the Lu- In fact, Rosa Parks attended an AME Church where she learned theran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg while teaching at about Payne and his actions against discrimination. Payne refused Gettysburg College. After two years, he was ordained as the first to give up his seat on a train. When Payne was in his 70s, a con- African-American minister in the Lutheran Church. His ordina- ductor asked him to move to the Jim Crow car. He refused, stat- tion speech was on the topic “Slavery Brutalizes Man,” in support ing, “Before I’ll dishonor my manhood by going into that car, stop of a Lutheran resolution to abolish slavery in America. However, your train and put me off.” The conductor did just that—he made in 1841, he left the Lutheran Church and joined the African Payne get off at the next stop. Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, where he became the sixth bishop of the church in 1854. He remained its bishop the rest of his life. Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson Dr. Halle Tanner doctors had helped at the school and generally been cor- dial to the all-black student body, but Washington felt “the Dillon Johnson growing need of broadening out its work and putting this A Ground-Breaking Woman Doctor responsible charge in the hands of one of the members of the race, if one could be found capable and venturesome Victoria McAfee enough to stand the rigorous examination which the State of Alabama gives to all applicants who desire to practice Halle Tanner wanted what seemed an impossible goal medicine within its border.” for an African-American woman in the late 1800s—she Halle Dillon sought the job, which paid $600 a year wanted to study medicine and become a doctor. In spite with room and board. She would have to teach two classes of the tremendous odds against her, she became the first at the Institute, compound her own medicines, and run the female physician to pass the Alabama state medical ex- school’s health department. Washington came to Philadel- amination and the first woman physician at Tuskegee phia, met with Halle and her father, and determined that Institute. “Tuskegee would be the right place for a young black doc- Halle was born into a family deeply rooted in the Chris- tor to begin her career.” tian faith. Her father, Benjamin Tucker Tanner, was born But first, Halle would have to pass the rigorous Alabama of free parents and became a college-educated African medical board test, a 10-day-long exam on 10 different Methodist Episcopal (AME) bishop. He wrote extensively, medical subjects. The mere fact that she was taking the publishing books and articles on issues pertaining to peo- exam caught both local and national attention—a black ple of color, and he became the editor of the influential woman in Alabama at that time daring to take such a test Christian Recorder weekly newspaper and the AME Church for state certification was big news. Her father wrote to Review. In his writings, he spoke about his faith, the strug- Washington, “We are all anxious about the Doctor. Not gles with the AME church, and his disappointments when that we have any misgivings as to her ability to pass any Christians chose to act less than Christlike. Through it all, reasonable and just examination. But we know that both he maintained a habit of morning and evening devotions her sex and her color will be against her.” with his wife, Sarah Elizabeth Miller Tanner, and their Halle passed the test with a 78% average, a score that seven children. she decided was due to a very “rigorous” grading of her We know he prayed a blessing over his first child, Henry papers. But her passing was again headline news, especially O. Tanner, at his birth, so he surely prayed the same way since a white woman had previously failed the test and still over each of his other children, including Halle, who was been certified by the state board. born October 17, 1864. Once at Tuskegee, Halle worked as a physician, phar- The Tanner home constantly welcomed clergy of all macist, and teacher and also ran a private practice for three races. The children observed and heard years. She founded a training school for nurses and staff spiritual and intellectual conversations throughout their and a medicine dispensary. growing years. It caused them to believe anything was Halle’s work at Tuskegee ended in 1894, when she met achievable, and they set high standards for themselves. and married Rev. John Quincy Johnson, an AME minister Henry, the oldest son, became a famous painter, and an- who had come to teach math at Tuskegee. Her husband other son, Carlton Tanner, became a minister in his moth- then became president of Allen University, a private black er’s church. college in Columbia, South Carolina, for a year before the Halle became a partner with her father on the Christian couple moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1900. Johnson Recorder, but it’s reported her mind strayed from her writ- became pastor at Saint Paul AME Church for three years, ing because she fell in love with Charles E. Dillon. The and Halle became a pastor’s wife, raising the couple’s three two married in 1886, and a year later moved to New Jer- sons, who were named after her husband, her father, and sey, where Halle and Charles became parents of a daughter, her painter brother. The expected birth of another child Sadie. But tragedy struck and at the young age of 23, Halle brought great joy to the household, but also great tragedy. became a widow. Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson died April 26, 1901, at age Halle moved back into her family home and after a few 37 of childbirth complications due to dysentery. months of grieving she decided to enter medical school. Sadly, little has been written about Halle’s faith and She attended the Women’s Medical College in Philadel- personal life in spite of her pioneering accomplishments. phia, completed a three-year course, and graduated with But coming from a strong Christian family, working at a high honors in a class of 36 women on May 7, 1891. This Christian institution such as Tuskegee, and then marrying single mother was ready for her medical career. a husband who was a pastor—no doubt she was a woman of Shortly before her graduation, Booker T. Washington, great faith who credited God for president of Tuskegee Institute, had written to the college allowing her to overcome such difficult challenges and looking for a resident physician for the Institute. He had achieve so much in so little time. been searching four years for the right person. Some white Dr. Herbert Smitherman and engineers to receive a paycheck for their work Dr. Herbert Smitherman along with promotions, awards, and scholarships. ‘The Jackie Robinson of P&G’ After retiring from P&G, he joined the staff of Wil- berforce University, serving as Assistant Vice President by Victoria McAfee of Academic Affairs and a professor of chemistry. After Wilberforce, Dr. Smitherman desired to influence Herbert Smitherman was born March 23, 1937, to young people in math and science. He started a high Rev. Otis C. Smitherman and his wife Alberta. An school, Western Hills Design Technology, and was only child, Herbert grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, the principal there for nine years. He also developed a in the tight-knit African-American section of town weekend program for inner city middle schoolers. The known as West Princeton. Opposers of the civil rights scientists and mathematicians in the local area volun- and voter registration movements burned his father’s teered to tutor the students. church, but it was rebuilt. Despite his busy career, Dr. Smitherman took time Regardless of the obstacles, the Smithermans en- to actively be involved with his children wherever they couraged their son to get as much education as possi- were involved—he served as a Boy Scout leader and a ble. Smitherman recalled a time his father took him Little League baseball coach. He also was a member of to a construction site and showed him a worker with a a neighborhood association and Stepping Stones, and jackhammer breaking up concrete. Rev. Smitherman tutored at several schools. He completed OSHA re- said, “If you don’t get an education, this is where you quirement training to become a safety manager to assist will end up.” Dr. Smitherman jokingly said, “I’ve been his son Albert, who owns a construction company. An- reading books since that day.” other son, Dr. Herbert Smitherman, Jr., now practices Although the Rev. Smitherman’s family was poor, internal medicine in Detroit and is Vice Dean of Di- Herbert went on to fulfill his parent’s dreams. He at- versity and Community Affairs and Associate Professor tended Tuskegee Institute where he obtained both his of Internal Medicine and the Karmanos Cancer Insti- B.S. and M.S. in chemistry and met his future wife, tute at Wayne State University. Son Christopher is a Barbara. He went on to teach at Texas Southern Uni- Cincinnati, Ohio, city councilman actively involved in versity and received an officer’s commission in the community affairs just as his father was. army, where he served for two years at Fort Hood and Dr. Smitherman had learned early in life that Sun- Fort Benning. After his military service, he completed day was a special day of the week spent going to church his doctoral degree at Howard University in 1966, with and focusing on God. His parents did not allow him two of the couple’s six children (including five sons) to go to movies, play sports, or even play board games already born. on Sunday. Dr. Smitherman showed his family that Dr. Smitherman applied for jobs at several chemi- you prepared for Sunday even on Saturday night, with cal companies and was hired at Proctor and Gamble shoes shined and special clothes laid out for the Lord’s (P&G) as the first African American with a Ph.D. Day. When the family joined Bellermine Chapel in at the company. As a physical organic chemist, Dr. Cincinnati in 1968, Dr. Smitherman made sure his Smitherman worked at P&G for the next 29 years. He children were involved in the church youth groups and was a part of development teams that improved Crest projects. When the church once asked if his children toothpaste, Biz stain remover, Folgers coffee, Bounce would be at a particular event, he said matter-of-factly, fabric softener, Safeguard soap, Crush soda, and many “They will be there.” Not going was not an option in other P&G products. Smitherman’s new formulations the Smitherman house. and inventions led the company to increase its profits Barbara Smitherman thanks God for the 51 years and fame. they were married. She says that her husband faced Dr. Smitherman’s son Christopher nicknamed him death with tremendous faith in his Lord, worrying the “Jackie Robinson of P&G” because he used his more about her continuing welfare than about him- position to open the door for so many other African self. When he passed away, his funeral service on Americans. He saw himself as a bridge builder, assisting October 9, 2010, at the church was packed not only other minorities to make progress in this field. While with P&G employees and friends but with the people employed by P&G, he pioneered a recruiting program he met every day in the community. His wife says he for minority undergraduate and graduate students made “long” shopping trips because he was a “people pursuing degrees in science, chemistry, and chemical person”— he always stopped in the grocery store and engineering. He assisted in the creation of the Black every place else he went to talk with people and listen Technical Ph.D. Group and The National Organi- to their stories. You were never a stranger for very long zation for Black Chemist and Chemical Engineers to Dr. Herbert Smitherman. (NOBCHE). The organizations allowed black scientists Hiram Rhodes Revels In 1869, Revels won a seat in the Mississippi State Hiram R. Revels Senate. The next January, he gave a powerful opening Making History in Congress prayer in the Mississippi Senate Chamber that impressed and in Education the senators. The following February, the impressed by Victoria McAfee Mississippi senators chose Revels to fill a U.S. Senate seat, left vacant when Mississippi seceded. One year was left on Hiram R. (Rhodes) Revels, an educator, minister, and the term of that seat. politician, was the first African American to serve in the Revels’s appointment caused controversy in United States Senate. It would be almost 90 years before Washington, D.C. Senate Democrats, afraid of the new another African American would be elected to the Senate. voting power blacks had, moved to block the seating of Revels was born September 27, 1827, in Fayetteville, Revels on technicalities while racist newspapers denounced North Carolina, to free parents—an African-American a black man being in Congress. However, on February Baptist preacher and a mother of Scottish descent. Hiram 25, 1870, the Senate voted to seat Revels. Massachusetts was taught by a free African-American teacher for his early Republican Senator Charles Sumner declared, “The time education. has passed for argument. Nothing more need be said. For Revels moved to Liberty, Indiana, and attended Beech a long time it has been clear that colored persons must be Grove Quaker Seminary, then Darke County Seminary for senators.” black students in Ohio. Revels was ordained by the African Revels’s first speech in Congress challenged Georgia’s Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1845 and served in petition to be readmitted to the Union because the state Richmond, Indiana. He married Phoebe A. Bass, and they had denied blacks the right to serve in its legislature. had six daughters. While in the Senate, he introduced several bills, presented Revels became an itinerant preacher, traveling a number of petitions, and served on the Committee on throughout Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and the District of Columbia and the Committee on Education. Tennessee, educating and ministering to African Revels called Americans. for racial equality, compromise, and moderation, favoring Despite the state of Missouri’s restrictions against free amnesty for former Confederates if they signed an African Americans living there, Revels started pastoring oath of loyalty to the United States. He supported the a St. Louis AME Church in 1853. Revels’s ministry never desegregation of schools and railroads and rejected the encouraged rebellious activity: “I sedulously refrained from separation of the races. doing anything that would incite slaves to run away… Revels resigned from his Senate seat to become slave holders were tolerant of me . . . my object was to president of the Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical preach the Gospel to them, and improve their moral and College (later Alcorn State University), the first black land spiritual condition.” However, Revels was eventually grant college in the country. In 1873, Mississippi Governor imprisoned for preaching the Gospel to slaves. Adelbert Ames dismissed Revels in a political dispute, but After serving his sentence, Revels worked with his he was reinstated in 1876 due to his popularity with both brother, Willis, at a Presbyterian church in Baltimore as the students and faculty. He served at the college until his well as being a principal of an African-American school. retirement in 1882. He later moved back to Illinois and attended Knox College Later in life, Revels served as editor of the Southwestern in Galesburg. Christian Advocate newspaper and taught theology When the Civil War broke out, Revels helped establish at Shaw College. He was a pastor of a Holly Springs, black Union regiments in Maryland and Missouri. He Mississippi, ME church and served as the denomination’s served as a chaplain at battles in Vicksburg and Jackson, district superintendent. Revels died of a paralytic stroke in Mississippi, in 1863. Aberdeen, Mississippi, on January 16, 1901. Revels left the AME church in 1865 and joined Revels was committed to sharing the Gospel and the Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church, which offered advocating for the advancement of African Americans more opportunities for his work in the South. He served through both education and politics. churches in Kansas and Louisiana before pastoring a church in Natchez, Mississippi. Revels became involved in politics as a Natchez alderman in 1868. His compassion and moderate political opinions won over both blacks and whites. Dr. Howard O. Jones Howard’s church was invited to send recordings of Dr. Howard O. Jones Negro spirituals to a radio station in Liberia. The station Pioneer Evangelist also invited Howard to preach on the radio and lead a by Daphne Myers three-month evangelistic crusade in Liberia, Ghana, and “It’s an awareness that you’re a living test, a human experiment. Nigeria—the first black clergyman to do so. He was return- It’s knowing that your every word, your every action, has the poten- ing to Cleveland when Graham asked him to help inte- tial to either make or break the hopes of your race.” grate a crusade at Madison Square Garden in New York. Howard told Graham to take his crusade to the streets, A pioneer is one who leads the way, who pushes open the and they did, preaching in Harlem and the Bronx to huge door for others to follow. For example, Martin Luther King, audiences that included many minorities. For the next year Jr., Rosa Parks, and Jackie Robinson made decisions that Howard and Wanda fasted about his becoming full-time in changed the way society thought and set a better course for the Graham organization until they felt the Lord said this future generations. was what He wanted them to do. Add to this list of trailblazers Dr. Howard O. Jones. Dr. While the New York crusade was a success, Howard Jones pushed through a major color barrier in Christianity faced discrimination at crusades elsewhere. “I remember when he joined the Billy Graham evangelistic crusades and sitting on the crusade platform on various occasions,” became the first African American on Graham’s team. It is Howard said, “with empty seats next to me because some important to remember this happened in the early 1950s, white crusade participants had decided to sit on the other before the major civil rights movement in the United States. side of the stage. The stares, the people muttering under Racism lifted its ugly head even in the Christian community. their voices. In the crusades there were nights when it was When Howard joined Graham’s staff some supporters refused palpable.” He would go back to his hotel room and weep, to continue funding the ministry, but Graham knew what saying, “Lord, I can’t take this pressure.” God called him to do and he refused to back down. Despite But Howard persevered, helping to prepare crusades and the discrimination, Howard also refused to stop what he felt leading some himself. In 1961 alone, he led crusades in God had called him to do. Philadelphia, Liberia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya. Howard was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1921 to a fam- His three daughters sang at a number of the crusades and ily who attended church faithfully. But it was his girlfriend the Jones Wanda (who eventually became his wife) who was responsi- Sisters became a well-known singing group. ble for him making a commitment to Christ. While in high For 35 years, from 1958 to 1993, he led an Hour of Free- school she made a personal commitment to follow the Lord. dom radio show that was broadcast widely in the U.S. and Prior to her conversion, Wanda dated Howard but she began Africa. From 1960 to 1966, he and his family lived in Li- refusing their dates, saying, “I cannot go out with someone beria. He ministered via radio while Wanda led a women’s who is not a Christian.” devotional group. Eventually Howard made his own commitment to the Overseas, Howard led spiritual and humanitarian drives, Lord, but he still wanted a career as a musician: “I wanted to such as raising $80,000 for famine relief in Africa. Rev. become the next big name in jazz music.” Eventually he and Ralph Bell, an associate of Graham recruited by Howard, his brother formed said, “[He] played a strong role in showing Billy the impor- a professional jazz band. As God began to deal tance of meeting physical needs as well as the spiritual.” with Howard, however, he gave up the band and resolved to In addition to his work with Graham, Howard served as give his gifts to the Lord. the first president of the National Black Evangelical Asso- After high school, he and Wanda both attended Nyack ciation (NBEA) and was the first African American named College in New York. Nyack was a predominately white to the National Religious Broadcasters’ Hall of Fame. Bible school and Howard and Wanda were two of 12 Af- In the 1970s, Howard stood by his wife when he was rican-American students among 600 white students, most forced to place her in a nursing home the latter part of her of them from the South. They were disrespected, watched life. He faithfully visited and ministered to her daily until closely, and discouraged from going to the mission field. her death in 2001. Howard died Nov. 14, 2010, at age 89. While they did not then go overseas, they felt they eventu- A few years before he died, Howard said, “The greatest ally helped the student body and staff adopt a more biblical need for Christians today is a moral and spiritual awak- view of missions rather than a racial one. ening, but I don’t think we’re going to see an outpouring After their graduation, Howard married Wanda in 1944 of the Holy Spirit like we need until the church comes to and became pastor of Bethany Christian Missionary Al- grips with its race problem, because Jesus said, ‘By this shall liance Church in Harlem, where he also preached on the all men know that you are my disciples, because you love radio. Then came six years as pastor of Smoot Memorial one another.’ ” Christian Missionary Alliance Church back in Cleveland. Jesse LeRoy Brown training, he prayed, “Lord God, I’m going to fly… like a Jesse LeRoy Brown bird… a kite.” He openly declared, “I trust God and turn by Victoria McAfee my case and myself to His keeping.” Wherever he moved as A Man of Courage and Commitment an aviator, he and his family always found a Baptist church Jesse LeRoy Brown was the first African-American aviator to attend and drew strength from the old songs, high spir- in the U.S. Navy and the first African-American naval of- ited services, and the pride of the people in the pews. ficer killed in the Korean War at the young age of 24. Brown would soon have his courage and flying ability On October 13, 1926, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Jesse tested in Korea. At the end of World War II, the Korean was born to Julia and John Brown. He grew up, along with peninsula was divided between the United States in the his six brothers and sisters, in a strong Christian family. south and the Soviet Union in the north at the 38th Paral- Brown’s mother taught regular school and Sunday school lel. While South Korea voted to establish a democracy, the while his father served as a deacon in the small Baptist North refused, and in June of 1950, the Communist North church they attended. Both sang in the church choir, and Korean army invaded democratic South Korea. The North as soon as Brown became of age he joined his parents—he Koreans easily overwhelmed the South Korean Army, and loved to sing. His parents strongly encouraged schooling the country turned to the United Nations for help. Sixteen and homework, so Brown and his siblings walked three countries sent forces to Korea, though the United States miles to school each day. accounted for about 90% of the fighting force. The family also believed in hard work. They all pitched Brown was assigned to the USS Leyte and sent to the in harvesting corn and picking cotton. Those who knew Korean Peninsula. He flew at least 20 combat missions Brown during his youth described him as witty but serious before his aircraft was shot down and crashed on a moun- and intelligent. He was very athletic and a member of the tain top in December 1950. His friend, Thomas J. Hudner, school basketball, football, and track and field teams. Jr., who was flying behind him, watched the tragedy from However, Brown’s dream from a very young age was his plane. Hudner intentionally crashed his plane next to to fly an airplane. When he was six years old, his father Brown’s with the intention of helping his air mate. Shortly took him to an air show, and Brown often visited a dirt after both planes crashed, Lieutenant Charles Ward came airfield near his home, where he would wave his straw hat with a helicopter to rescue both men, but they could not at the pilots and shout, “I’m going to be up there some pry Brown out of the cockpit—his legs were pinned, and day.” At 13, he took a job as a paperboy for the local black the men were not able to pull him out. Brown kept going newspaper, allowing him to read an article about why Afri- in and out of consciousness until he slumped over and died. can-American aviators could not be in the U.S. Army Air Brown gave Hudner one request before he died: “Tell Corps since they did not have the necessary intelligence. Daisy I love her.” The night before he had written his wife Brown was so upset he cut out the article, pasted it on a long letter repeatedly declaring his love for her, but he his bedroom wall, and wrote a protest letter to President also attempted to bolster her faith: “Don’t be discouraged, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Angel,” he wrote. “Believe in God … with all your might While still in high school, he met the love of his life, and I know that things will work out all right. We need Daisy Brown Nix. They later married and had one daugh- Him now like never. Have faith with me, darling.” ter, Pamela. Daisy prayed constantly for Brown and he re- Hudner escaped on the helicopter and begged his su- garded her has one of his main supporters. periors to allow him to go back to the plane and at least Brown graduated as salutatorian of Eureka High School attempt to retrieve the body, but the location was too in 1944 and decided to attend Ohio State University. He dangerous. The Navy performed what is called a “warrior’s attempted several times to apply to the school’s aviation funeral” as pilots bombed the plane two days later to keep program, but was denied because of his color. During his it out of enemy hands. They recited the Lord’s Prayer over second year in the radio as Brown’s body was consumed by flames. college, he learned of a training program for pilots. De- In February 1973, the U.S. Navy commissioned a frigate spite resistance from recruiters, Brown passed the entrance the USS Jesse L. Brown. Daisy, their daughter Pamela, and exams and enlisted in the Naval Hudner were part of the ceremonies. Reserve in 1946. A small monthly stipend allowed him As Hudner later reflected on his fellow airman and to quit his jobs and complete the program. He made it friend, he penned these words: “Jesse Brown…made his through although he encountered overt racism and incred- dreams come true… won his fight, gained his wings, flew ible opposition as the only black among the 600 airmen off carriers, defying those who attempted to keep a black training at Pensacola man out of cockpits. He was gone now and certainly in (Florida) Naval Air Station. But in October of 1948, he heaven, a kinder place in which Jesse truly believed and was given his Naval Aviator Badge and his picture ap- had said so.” peared in Life magazine. “A Christian soldier, a gentleman, a shipmate, and friend. Throughout his training and career, with each pro- His courage and faith ... shone like a beacon for all to see.” — gressive step, he always gave God all the credit. After one Quotes from Jesse Brown’s shipmates. Jarena Lee for a woman to preach, it should be remembered that nothing is Jarena Lee impossible with God. And why should it be thought impossible, Preaching Freedom from Sin and Slavery heterodox, or improper for a woman to preach? seeing the Saviour by Patricia Merritt died for the woman as well as for the man. “I have recorded how the Lord called me to his work, and how he has kept “If the man may preach, because the Saviour died for him, me from falling from grace, as I feared I should. In all things he has proved why not the woman? seeing he died for her also. Is he not a whole himself a God of truth to me.” Saviour, instead of a half one? as those who hold it wrong for a woman to preach, would seem to make it appear. Did not Mary first At one time in America, it was dangerous for a female to proclaim preach the risen Saviour, and is not the doctrine of the resurrection the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was also not popular for anyone to the very climax of Christianity?” condemn slavery. But one African-American woman did both— But Lee put her preaching aspirations on hold and in and more. 1811 married a Methodist minister, Joseph Lee, in Snow Hill, Jarena Lee was the first official female preacher in the African Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. Their marriage was short lived— Methodist Episcopal Church. Lee traveled across the country and he died in about 1818, leaving Lee with two small children. It was into Canada preaching against sin and slavery. Lee was also the first then that she renewed her desire to preach the Gospel. She came black American to have an autobiography published in the United back to Allen, who recanted his earlier prohibition and allowed States. Lee to preach the Gospel in the AME church. Much of what we know about Lee comes from her own But despite Allen’s blessings, Lee continually dealt with autobiography, The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee, and hostility to her ministry because of her sex and race. She became a its expanded version, Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena traveling minister and journeyed thousands of miles on foot. In one Lee. These autobiographical stories, taken from the journals that year, Lee reported that she traveled over 2,700 miles and preached Lee kept beginning as a girl and throughout her life, tell us she had 138 sermons. only three months of formal education and describe her conversion Eventually, Allen became one of Lee’s greatest admirers. The and her travels preaching. two also became close friends, with Allen arranging preaching Lee was born February 11, 1783, to free parents in Cape May, engagements for her and taking Lee along with him to Methodist New Jersey. She was separated from her parents at the age of seven conferences. Often, however, Lee traveled across the country alone and worked as a servant for a white family about 60 miles from her or with another woman and preached to small and large crowds of home. both blacks and whites. Her willingness to risk her life for the Lord At an early age, Lee said the Lord began to deal with her about illustrates her determined faith in God. her sins. She writes: “. . . the Spirit of God moved in power through Perhaps the riskiest engagements were in Maryland, which was my conscience, and told me I was a wretched sinner. On this a slave state. The real possibility of Lee being taken into slavery account so great was the impression, and so strong were the feelings did not deter her. And when slaves heard that a free black woman of guilt that I promised in my heart that I would not tell another preacher was in the area, they also risked much to travel to hear lie. But notwithstanding this promise my heart grew harder, after her. Lee writes about one camp meeting where a large number of a while, yet the Spirit of the Lord never entirely forsook me, but slaves walked long distances—some even up to 70 miles—to hear continued mercifully striving with me, until his gracious power her preach, despite the fact they would have to walk the entire converted my soul.” distance back at night in order to be in their slave quarters the next Lee’s first account of attending a church service was in 1804. morning for work. The Presbyterian minister’s message convicted her again of her In addition to preaching men’s and women’s need for a Savior, sinful state. Lee then wrestled for a Lee preached against the immorality of slavery. Slavery was a sin, period of time with thoughts of suicide: “I was driven she said, one she felt that God would punish. of Satan, in the course of a few days, and tempted to destroy myself. Lee also faced ill health for much of her life, but It was the unseen arm of God which saved me from self-murder.” did not let that slow her down either. Though in one account she However, Lee’s devotion to God remained steadfast, and she laments of her hardships in life, she still gives praise to God. After continued to seek the Lord. She went to Philadelphia where she the death of Allen, she said, “My money was gone, my health was visited various church services and eventually came to know gone, and I [was] measurably without a home. But I rested on the Bishop Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal promises of God. ‘They that put their trust in me shall never be Church. confounded.’ Without having a dollar to help myself, I saw the A few years later, Lee said the Lord called her to preach: “But to Lord would verify his promise, bless his name for it.” my utter surprise there seemed to sound a voice which I thought I In 1833, Lee began working with an editor to turn her religious distinctly heard, and most certainly understand, which said to me, journal into an autobiography. Three years later, she had 1,000 ‘Go preach the Gospel!’ I immediately replied aloud, ‘No one will copies of her Religious Experience and Journal printed and began believe me.’ Again I listened, and again the same voice seemed to distributing it at camp meetings, organizational meetings, and say—‘Preach the Gospel; I will put words in your mouth.’ ” on the street. In 1839 she had another 1,000 copies printed, and Allen was one of the first people with whom Lee shared her in 1849, she had an expanded version printed. The last known news. The aspiring minister also made an application to preach event in her life was a visit she made to the home of Rebecca Cox in the AME church. However, Allen told her the Methodist Jackson, a Shaker leader, on New Year’s Day in 1857. We do not church did not allow women preachers. He told Lee that she could know when and where she died. “expound” about the Word of God but could not “preach” in the Her life was one of deep conviction and faith. Lee’s driving pulpit. She questioned this reasoning in one of her now famous passion was to be a minister of the Gospel and bring men and quotes: women of all races to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And “O how careful ought we to be, lest through our by-laws of because she wanted to help people long after she was gone, she left church government and discipline, we bring into disrepute even a record of her travels and the goodness of God. the word of life. For as unseemly as it may appear now-a-days Jo Ann Robinson of flyers calling for all riders to stay off the buses on Jo Ann Robinson the day of Mrs. Parks’s trial. Several of Montgomery’s black clergymen offered moral support, opened their A Boycott in the Fight altars for prayer, and gave spiritual guidance. For for Justice the first time in history, Montgomery’s black minis- by Victoria McAfee ters of several denominations united to act for civic improvement. Jo Ann Robinson was a leader of the Montgom- After the success of the one-day boycott, it was ery, Alabama bus boycott that brought national decided to continue the boycott with pastors such as attention to the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., providing leadership. The Born April 17, 1912, in Culloden, Georgia, Rob- Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was inson earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State formed with Dr. King, Robinson’s pastor, as president. College, taught in the Macon public school system, Robinson edited the monthly newsletter and served and later earned a master’s degree in English and liter- on major MIA committees as requested by Dr. King. ature at Atlanta University. After teaching in Texas, Eventually, most of the MIA leaders, including Robin- she moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1949 to son, were arrested for their boycott involvement. teach at Alabama State College. Robinson believed the involved pastors “kept the In her memoir, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Christian spirit in the midst” of the movement. Even- Women Who Started It, Robinson described a Decem- tually released, the jailed protestors spent time in wor- ber 1949 incident that changed her life. When leav- ship. Their singing and praying in church lifted spirits ing Montgomery to spend Christmas with her family, and gave strength to continue the boycott: “People Robinson boarded an almost empty bus, and sat in the asked God for courage…continued unity…overcom- fifth row from the front. (African Americans weren’t ing faith…guidance and direction.” allowed to sit in the first 10 rows.) The driver stopped The boycott continued for a year with the MIA the bus and demanded that she move to the back providing transportation for African Americans in as he yelled repeatedly, “Get up from there!” Rob- Montgomery. The city’s case against the boycott went inson departed the bus, filled with shame, hurt, and to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled on Decem- humiliation. ber 20, 1956, that segregation laws on the buses were Shortly after that, Robinson joined the Women’s unconstitutional. Political Council (WPC) in Montgomery, a group Robinson said, “I felt the need…to offer prayers of dedicated to inspiring African Americans “to live thanks…Rejoicing publicly was not in my thoughts… above mediocrity, elevate their thinking, fight delin- We had come too far, suffered too much, for laughter. quency, register to vote, and generally improve their Those of us who were together seemed almost simulta- status as a group.” They tried to work with the mayor neously to grow quiet, prayerful…and still.” and city council assisting people who had discrimina- Discriminatory backlash caused Robinson to move tion complaints—especially against the bus company. to Louisiana in 1960 to teach. Later, she taught in Los But by 1955, nothing had changed these injustices, so Angeles public schools until her retirement in 1976. Robinson suggested boycotting the buses. She died in Los Angeles on August 29, 1992. The catalyst came December 1, 1955, when Rosa Robinson’s last words in her memoir challenge con- Parks was arrested for refusing to vacate her bus seat tinuing discrimination: “The demons of racial hatred for a white man. Tired from work, Rosa sat in a row are much alive and are, seemingly, everywhere.” You designated for blacks. The bus filled and black riders should not judge a person “by the color of his skin or were supposed to move back or stand if white riders the texture of his hair but, to quote Dr. King, ‘by the got on the bus and needed a seat. Mrs. Parks refused. quality of their character.’” If we all tried “to recognize She was arrested and jailed. the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God… Robinson suggested the WPC distribute thousands this would be a better world.” Lacey Kirk Williams from the old church building to the new one singing “On- Lacey Kirk Williams and ward Christian Soldiers.” S. Mattie Fisher: Helping Williams was S. Mattie Fisher, daughter of Serving the Lord and Man Olivet’s late pastor. Fisher was one of the first African from Olivet Church Americans trained as a social worker. She and Mrs. Jessie Victoria McAfee Mapp helped Olivet “grow from a church to a religious center.” They canvassed the neighborhood around the new [May] God give us a thirst for Him, and power building and surveyed the needs of over 5,000 area house- to find Him that He might unite our hearts holds. Olivet used the information to make over 62,000 and hands in the service of God and man. home visits to the sick, elderly, shut-ins, and needy. Those connections helped create a kindergarten and The Rev. Dr. Lacey Kirk Williams was loved, honored, and children’s church so children could “enjoy religious wor- admired for his devotion to Christ and His Church. He ship from [their] viewpoint.” The women organized a and S. Mattie Fisher had a major impact on thousands of young women’s group and a Mother’s Circle. Mrs. Mapp African Americans who migrated north during the early taught a weekly Life of Christ class to young married 1900s. women. She also led a Mother’s Circle where the Bible, Williams was born July 11, 1871, in a cabin near Eu- home economics, sewing and mending, and how to have a faula, Alabama, to former slaves Levi Shorter and Elizabeth healthy home were taught. There women had the opportu- Hill. When Lacey was six years old, Levi changed the nity to discuss problems resulting from overcrowded neigh- family name to Williams and moved the family to Burleson borhoods and to support each other. County, Texas. At age 16, Lacey earned his teaching cer- Olivet continued to grow. Membership reached about tificate in Waco, Texas. He returned to Burleson County 12,000 while the Sunday school had 3,100 pupils each where he taught school and married Georgia Lewis. week. The church was said to be both the world’s largest Soon after Williams made a profession of faith and was African-American and Protestant congregation. Williams baptized, he was ordained and became pastor at Thankful led a staff of over 30 workers including two associate pas- Baptist Church in Pitt Bridge, Texas, a church his parents tors and three or four ministerial students from the Uni- had founded. versity of Chicago Divinity School. The church had 860 Williams gained education so he could volunteer officers in charge of 55 departments. adequately teach God’s people. In 1902, he enrolled at Olivet was well known both nationally and internation- Bishop College, in Marshall, Texas. While still a student, ally. In 1928, Williams was appointed vice president of the he pastored Bethesda Church. In 1913, he received a B.A. Baptist World Alliance and received the national Harmon degree from Arkansas Baptist College and then an hon- Foundation prize for distinguished religious service. orary D.D. degree from Selma University in Alabama in In 1940, Williams and another minister were tragically 1914. killed in a plane crash while on the way to a political Between 1916 and 1919, thousands of people of color rally in Flint, Michigan. He will be remembered as one of migrated from the South to the North in search of jobs. the most celebrated pastor/preachers to ever stand in the Many settled on the south side of Chicago, swelling the pulpit. Together, Williams and Fisher reached out to thou- African-American population in that area from 44,000 to sands of African-American migrants. an estimated 109,000. Williams is remembered for his ability to move an audi- In 1916, Williams left Texas to pastor Olivet Baptist ence, the shiny glow in his eyes, his analytical mind, and Church in south Chicago. Church membership rose to his sharp gift of exposition. Here is an excerpt from one of over 4,000 in Williams’s first five years as pastor, due in part his sermons, preached on the first Sunday of the New Year, to his eloquent preaching, 1926, to encourage the Olivet congregation, taken from excellent leadership skills, and the outreach ministries of the book Preaching with Sacred Fire by Martha Simmons: the church. “Christ prayed for your safety. This should invite and “Olivet” became a byword for help among those who deepen your faith and dependence upon God. It should planned to migrate north. The church received hundreds check your haste, confusion, and restlessness and make you of letters addressed to “Oliver,” “Ovlivet,” or just Olivet satisfied with His daily provisions and providence. This for help with bus or train passes. Church members met should lead you to know that you are not a creature of people at the railroad and bus stations to direct families to chance or fate but the child of God and the heir of a pleas- Olivet’s ministries which included a day nursery, home for ing heritage. If He permits or sends hardships, He will give working girls, and a bus to bring children and the elderly to upholding, enduring grace. Paul loathed his handicaps and worship. prayed for their removal, but God’s answer was, ‘My grace Olivet soon outgrew its facilities. In 1918, after the is sufficient for thee.’ This is the thing that kindles and white First Baptist Church moved, Olivet bought the his- maintains hope and leads to victory. Surely we have here toric building at 31st Street and South Park Avenue. One no uncertain way or doubtful results. For through Him we Sunday in September, the entire congregation marched are conquerors, yea, more than conquerors.” Maggie Lena Walker persuasive, musical, and eloquent, fell from her lips, as she Maggie Lena Walker called upon the black men of Virginia to stand up for their A Gift for Serving rights, to fight slavery, to live for their children and for hers, [that it] caused old men and young men to weep.” by Daphne Myers In 1903, she opened the St. Luke’s Penny Savings Bank, “If you can read and write, you can do anything and go anywhere. where she served as president. Under Maggie’s leadership, You can ride the wind.” the bank helped purchase approximately 600 homes for Af- God certainly wants us to use the gifts and talents He has rican Americans. By 1924, St. Luke’s had grown to 50,000 given us in our churches, but we are also to use them as we members in 20 states, had a staff of 50, and managed nearly go about our daily business, in our schools and workplaces. $400,000 in assets. In the Great Depression, the financial That is what Maggie Lena Walker did—the first woman strength of the Penny Savings Bank allowed it to absorb all in the United States to found a bank and be its president. other black-owned banks in Richmond. It was renamed the She always believed that the key to advancement in life is Consolidated Bank and Trust Company and Maggie served having opportunities, and she used her God-given gifts to as its chairman of the board until her death. provide opportunities for others, especially women, so that, St. Luke’s also started an African-American as she said, they could be “exercising…every talent that department store called the Emporium, particularly to God had given them.” provide jobs for black women, but it failed due to the in- Maggie was born July 15, 1864, in Richmond, Virginia. fluence of white store owners. Maggie was always proud Her parents, Elizabeth Draper and William Mitchell, were that at least at St. Luke’s and the bank she could provide former slaves who worked in the mansion of Elizabeth Van women jobs and “a chance in the race of life.” Lew, an abolitionist and Union spy during the Civil War. “Every woman,” she said, “was by Divine Providence Sadly, Maggie’s father was found drowned in the James created for some man; not for some man to marry, take River in 1876. Maggie always believed he was murdered. home and support, but for the purpose of using her powers, Her mother provided for her two children, Maggie and her ability, health and strength, to forward the financial…suc- brother Johnnie, by operating a laundry business. Maggie cess of the partnership into which she may go.” did what she could to help by delivering the clothing to Maggie’s tireless work included helping found the Rich- the customers. mond Council of Colored Women, where she served as the Maggie’s early education came at the Lancaster School, president. She was also an early member of the Women’s then the Armstrong Normal School, where she graduated Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention and joined in 1883. After graduation, Maggie taught at her alma mater the International Council of Women of the Darker Race, for three years while studying accounting at night until the National Association of Wage Earners, and the Na- she met a building contractor at church named Armstead tional Urban League. Maggie’s service was not in title only; Walker, Jr. They were married in September, 1886. Shortly she raised money for the Community House for Colored after, for the second time in her life, Maggie suffered sig- People, the African-American Old Folks Home, and the nificant loss when one of her sons died in infancy the same Friends Orphan Asylum. year her brother Johnnie died. Though her professional accomplishments were impres- Maggie’s business and spiritual development ran parallel. sive, her personal tragedies continued through her life. In She was raised in the First African Baptist Church, where 1915, her husband died after their son Russell shot him, she was saved and baptized in 1878. At 14, Maggie joined having mistaken him for a prowler. Maggie had devel- the Independent Order of Saint Luke, a mutual aid society oped several health problems over the years and by 1928, that provided insurance, proper health care, and burial ser- she was confined to a wheelchair. But she continued her vices for its African-American members. Those who joined work—she had an elevator put in her house and a car cus- vowed to “be true and faithful to the Christian religion” and tomized to accommodate her wheelchair. Maggie died on “search the Holy Scriptures, so that I may become useful December 15, 1934, from complications associated with and true to all mankind.” Maggie worked for the society’s diabetes. Her family home in Richmond is now a National founder, Mary Prout, until 1899, when she became the exec- Historic Site, and two public schools memorialize her. utive secretary-treasurer of the organization. In the life of Maggie Walker, God’s gifts of service, ad- In 1902, Maggie began publishing The St. Luke Herald ministration, and leadership were obvious, but the grace of newsletter to promote the organization’s various services and God also helped her endure the many personal trials she also to speak out against the slander of black women, who faced. were portrayed in many writings of the time as promiscuous, Maggie Walker (front row, second from left) with her staff immoral, and good only for house cleaning jobs. She gave in front of the St. Luke’s Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, emotional speeches about the good St. Luke’s was doing Virginia. for the black community. One person who described her speaking said, “For fifteen minutes or more, such a speech, Mary Eliza Mahoney housemaid than a nurse—she would not eat in the kitchen Mary Eliza Mahoney with the household staff. Once again, she pioneered the way She Saw Her Calling as Nursing for other African Americans with her hard work, efficiency, by Victoria McAfee and professionalism. Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first black professional nurse According to a biography of Mahoney by Susan Muaddi in America. She was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Darraj, “Mahoney is said to have been quiet, competent… around May 7, 1845, the oldest of three children. Her have a strong faith in God…[and] very likely believed her parents, freed slaves, relocated from North Carolina prior to work was a religious calling. Caring for the sick was viewed the Civil War. Mahoney and her family faithfully attended as charitable, humanitarian work that complimented what People’s Baptist Church in Roxbury. She attended one of it means to be a good Christian. Nursing was a way to put the first integrated public grade schools in Boston—Phillips one’s faith into action and have a direct impact on the lives School. In addition to general academics, the school of the needy and downtrodden.” emphasized humanitarian efforts, sacrificial giving, integrity, Mahoney broke the color barrier when she was accepted ethics, truth, and love. into the all-white American Nurses Association (ANA). This kind of teaching inspired Mahoney to begin think- But when they did not show an interest in having more ing about becoming a nurse. A physician whose name is not black nurses, she helped organize the National Association known asked for Mahoney’s hand in marriage but ended the of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) to eliminate racial relationship after a brief courtship. This affected her deeply, discrimination in the profession. She gave the address at and she never married. their first convention and urged members to push for more Mahoney began working as a cook, maid, janitor, and un- minorities to be trained as nurses through the New England trained nurse’s aide at the New England Hospital for Women Hospital. She was named a life-long member of the group and Children. She juggled these roles in the hospital, some- and became their chaplain. times for 16 hours a day for over 15 years. The New England From 1911–1912, she relocated to Long Island, New Hospital was a pioneer in the nursing field with state-of-the- York, to serve as director of the Howard Orphan Asylum for art medical care given only by female physicians. freed black children and the elderly, but she then returned Eventually, on March 3, 1878, the hospital allowed Ma- to Boston. honey to enroll in a 16-month nursing program. The ap- After over 40 years of nursing, Mahoney retired, but she plication required the trainee to be Caucasian, able to clear continued to fight for minority rights. In 1920, after the pas- a physical fitness test, and have a reputation of faith and sage of the 19th Amendment that permitted women to vote, good character. The intensive program included 12 hours of she lined up at the age of 76 to be among the first women required lectures, plus lessons and hands-on training in the to register to vote in Boston. She attended her last national hospital where she was in complete charge of a ward with NACGN conference in 1921, when she and other nurses six patients. The exhausting shifts ran from 5:30 a.m. until were the guests of the Freedman’s Hospital Alumnae Asso- 9:30 p.m. seven days a week with no scheduled free time. ciation and visited the White House to meet President and The trainees were given $1 a week for the first six months, Mrs. Warren G. Harding. then $2 for the second six months, and $3 for the last four Mahoney became ill with metastatic breast cancer in months. That was enough, the hospital believed, for the 1923. In December 1925, she was rushed to the New England trainees to buy a uniform, a calico dress, and slippers for Hospital with severe pain, and despite excellent care from the their duties. staff, she died there on January 4, 1926, at the age of 80. Mahoney weighed less than 100 pounds and she was only Ten years after her death, the NACGN created a Mary 5 feet tall. In spite of all the illnesses around, she didn’t miss Mahoney Award for women who have helped raise the sta- a single day of training. Mahoney was one of only three of tus of African Americans in nursing. After the NACGN the 42 students who completed the training. She received and ANA later merged, the ANA continued to present that her nursing certification in 1879, the first African American award, and in 1976 they inducted Mahoney into the ANA’s to earn such an honor. This blazed the trail for other black Hall of Fame. In 1973, the African-American sorority Chi women desiring to be nurses, including her sister. Eta Phi cleaned up Mahoney’s gravesite in Woodlawn Cem- Mahoney spent the next 30 years as a private care nurse etery in Everett, Massachusetts, and erected a monument to for the nurses’ directory of the Boston Medical Library, this pioneering nurse. which assigned nurses to families throughout the area at The Jacksonville University Nursing Program describes a time when serious illnesses were most often treated at Mary Mahoney as “not just an inspiration to African-Amer- home, not in a hospital. Her clients repeatedly called for ican women, but to the entire nursing profession. Her drive her, and they came from the most prominent Boston fam- and passion for nursing helped shape the standards that the ilies. Though she stayed in the area, she did journey to profession has come to expect and continues to develop.” Washington to nurse the husband of a friend who was dying Her efforts to promote equality in nursing were successful. In of tuberculosis. Mahoney lived in an apartment with her 1910, about 2,400 African-American nurses worked in the sister Ellen so they could attend church together, and she profession, but by 1930, four years after her death, that num- refused to be treated by the families she served as more of a ber had more than doubled. Nannie Helen Burroughs The Woman’s Convention raised funds for missions to Nannie Helen Burroughs provide food, clothing, housing, and educational opportu- ‘The Bible, the Bath, and the Broom’ nities for poor people in the United States and throughout the world. Burroughs later served as the corresponding by Patricia Merritt secretary and president of the Women’s Convention during her 60-year membership. Nannie Helen Burroughs, best known for starting the On October 19, 1909, with the endorsement of the Women’s Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention National Baptist Convention and the Women’s Conven- and the National Training School of Women and Girls in tion, Burroughs fulfilled her dream of creating a school Washington, D.C., was a religious leader, educator, civil for females. She opened the National Training School for rights activist, and businesswoman. Burroughs also helped Women and Girls in Washington, D.C. establish the National Association of Colored Women Burroughs referred to her school as the school of “Three (NACW), a philanthropic organization. B’s—the Bible, the bath, and the broom.” The core of the Burroughs was born May 2, 1878, in Orange, Vir- curriculum was the study of the Bible. Other courses in- ginia, to John and Jennie Burroughs. John was born cluded vocational training, domestic science, missionary a free person of color who later became a Baptist work, social work, home nursing, clerical work, printing, preacher. Jennie, who was born a slave, later became dressmaking, beauty culture, shoe repair, and agriculture. a domestic servant. The widowed Jennie moved to Classes were also taught in grammar, English literature, Washington, D.C., in search of a better education for Latin, drama, public speaking, music, physical education, her five-year-old daughter.Nannie Burroughs graduated and a mandatory course in African-American history. with honors from M Street High School in 1896, but was In 1976, the school was renamed the Nannie Helen denied a teaching position because of her color. “I wanted Burroughs School and offered coeducational classes for to become a domestic science teacher,” she elementary grades. The Trades Hall building, built in said, “so that I could offer these women [domestic ser- 1927, was designated a National Historic Landmark in vants such as her mother] professional training that might 1991. help them earn a higher salary and afford better living Burroughs was active in the National League of Repub- conditions.” lican Colored Women. She joined the group to influence The rejection of this job would later fuel her resolve to the national party in behalf of African Americans. provide educational opportunities for black females. In 1928, the Hoover administration appointed Bur- Burroughs moved to Philadelphia in 1897 and worked roughs as committee chairwoman of Negro Housing for as an associate editor of a Baptist newspaper, The Christian the 1931 White House Conference on Home Building and Banner. A year later, she became a bookkeeper and edito- Home Ownership. rial secretary for the Foreign Mission Board of the National Years later, as Burroughs continued to be concerned Baptist Convention. The National Baptist Convention with civil rights and worked with the National Baptist was the largest organization of black clergymen at the time Convention, she also met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bur- and the national association of black Baptist churches. roughs invited him to speak to the Women’s Auxiliary in While working with the Foreign Mission Board, Bur- 1954. In a letter to Dr. King thanking him for his presenta- roughs formed black women’s clubs throughout the South tion “The Vision of the World Made New,” Burroughs said, that taught night classes in typing, stenography, bookkeep- “What your message did to their thinking and to their faith ing, millinery, and home economics. is ‘bread cast upon the water’ that will be seen day by day Burroughs was not shy in speaking her mind regarding in their good works in their communities.” the contributions that black women could make. At an Burroughs, who never married, remained as principal of annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention in the National Training School for Women and Girls until Richmond, Burroughs “argued for the right of women to her death at the age of 82. She died of natural causes on participate equally in missionary activities of the denomi- May 20, 1961, in Washington, D.C. nation in a speech entitled, ‘How the Sisters Are Hindered from Helping.’ ” As a result, the Woman’s Convention, an auxiliary to the National Baptist Convention, was organized. Octavia V. Rogers Albert and was unable to give them proper attention. At night, leeches Octavia Albert almost bled her to death. But Aunt Jane would slip away to Char- Exposing the Evils of Slavery lotte’s plantation at night and hold prayer meetings, and at one of by Victoria McAfee those Charlotte accepted the Lord. Here are some of the other stories Albert recorded: As a Christian author and researcher, Octavia Victoria Rogers • Richard and Betty were a married couple who was forced to Albert desired to bring to light the atrocities of slavery. Albert put separate and marry other people. her pen to paper in the 1800s, when black women authors were • Hattie delivered and buried her still-born baby out in the rarities in this arena. It was a time in history when those responsi- woods, only to return to her master and be beaten half to death. ble for slavery attempted to make something inhuman human. In • Sallie was forced to pick 150 pounds of cotton each day and her writing, Albert boldly exposed the cruelties of slavery and the was whipped when she got home at night. injustices blacks still felt after the Civil War. She took on this task Despite these hardships, Albert records in her book that these like a missionary answering God’s call, pioneering her way through same slaves called the Bible their anchor and Christ their Rock uncharted territory. Through her writings, she projected the voice in a weary land. Calling on Jesus spoke peace to their souls. Un- of the ex-slave. like their cruel and unreasonable masters, their heavenly Father Albert was born in Oglethorpe, Georgia, to parents who were wanted nothing from them but their hearts and devotion. Aunt slaves until their emancipation. The exact date of her birth is un- Charlotte spoke about feasting on Jesus when she had no bread. certain, but it was probably around 1853. In 1870, she enrolled in Another former slave desired only to have the words of Scripture the Atlanta University after the Civil War. Three years later she read to her on her deathbed—her last words were, “Glory be to began teaching in Montezuma, Georgia. God and the Lamb forever.” One brother and sister reported they While in Georgia, she met another teacher, A. E. P. Albert, and had better treatment as a result of their prayers. Many attributed they married in 1874. She joined the African Methodist Episcopal the North winning the Civil War as a direct answer to years of Church in Oglethorpe, Georgia, under the ministry of former Con- prayer. Their Christian beliefs, the biblical stories, singing the gressman and political activist Henry M. Turner. However, shortly songs of Zion, gave them daily strength. They looked forward to after their marriage, her husband became an ordained minister in freedom from their miserable existence on earth and always antici- the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he baptized her when the pated their real home in heaven. couple moved to Houma, Louisiana in 1877. The Encyclopedia Albert’s stories first appeared in columns for theSouthwestern of African American Christian Heritage says that like many of her Christian Advocate newspaper, published by the Methodist Epis- contemporaries, Albert viewed her teaching “as a form of worship copal Church, from January to December 1890 after her death. and Christian service,” and those who knew her described her as a When newspaper readers asked for more, that gave her husband woman with “strong religious faith.” and her only daughter, Laura, the encouragement to publish the In Louisiana, the couple used their home as a place to teach stories as a book, The House of Bondage, or Charlotte Brooks and blacks to read and write. Their home also became a place to re- Other Slaves. ceive a good meal, and many ex-slaves heard there the comforting Writers documenting the history of slavery in the United Sates words of Scripture. Albert encouraged them to tell their stories and before the Civil War admit that all the stories of what happened share about the agony of other slaves who were now long gone. will never be told. However, Albert joined ranks with those who She later wrote about the time of slavery, “Consider that here in tried. Some estimate that she wrote over 200 accounts, but her this Bible land, where we have the light, where the Gospel was book only chronicles the lives of around 15 people. The Encyclo- preached Sunday after Sunday in all portions of the South, and pedia of African American Women Writers says she collected these where ministers read from the pulpit that God had made of one stories to “correct and create history.” Surely the Holy Spirit blood all nations of men, etc., that nevertheless, with the knowl- guided her hand as she spilled out the unimaginable, horrific pain edge and teachings of the word of God, the slaves were reduced of men and women for public display so their suffering will never to a level with the brute. The half was never told concerning this be forgotten. race that was in bondage nearly two hundred and fifty years.” Albert concluded The House of Bondage with the hymn “The Most of Albert’s stories centered around the life of Aunt Song of Miriam” by Thomas Moore. She thanked God “that the Charlotte Brooks, who was brought from Virginia to Louisiana unearthly institution [of slavery] has been swept away forever in a to be sold as a slave there. Her mother and brothers and sisters sea of blood never to rise again”: were left behind, and Charlotte never saw them again. When she “Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea; came to Louisiana Charlotte was not a Christian, but she prayed Jehovah has triumphed, his people are free! like she had heard her mother praying. Her master allowed her to Sing, for the pride of this tyrant is broken, visit another woman from Virginia named Aunt Jane on another His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and plantation on Sunday afternoons. Jane could read and write and brave— told Charlotte stories from the Bible. She also sang hymns such How void was their boast, for the Lord hath but spoken as “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” Those hymns and stories And chariot and horsemen are sunk in the wave. helped Charlotte through her horrible ordeals. Her master beat her Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea; weekly and often threw her in jail. She also had several babies by Jehovah has triumphed, his people are free!” her master’s son, but all died because she had to work in the field Roberta Evelyn Martin if performing a solo, allowing the listener to pick out each voice Roberta Evelyn Martin from the background. Her style of concentrating on the mid sec- ‘I Have Hope’ tion of the piano is still the popular style of church organists and pianists today. by Victoria McAfee In 1939, Martin began to concentrate on the gospel music business and founded the Roberta Martin Studio of Music. The Thomas A. Dorsey takes center stage as “the father of gospel Chicago-based publishing house distributed her arrangements, as music,” and many people call Mahalia Jackson “the greatest gos- well as those of James Cleveland, Dorothy Norwood, and Alex pel singer ever.” As gospel music historian Clayton Hannah writes, Bradford. Martin’s company produced such popular gospel songs “Although Dorsey is credited as the originator of gospel music, and as “He Knows How Much We Can Bear” (1941), “Try Jesus, He Jackson received the highest acclaim, Roberta Martin unequivo- Satisfies” (1943), “I’m Just Waiting on the Lord” (1953), and cally made the greatest contribution. She created and left a dynasty “God Is Still on the Throne” (1959). of gospel singers and a portfolio of unduplicated gospel music.” In 1947, one of Martin’s music students, “Little” Lucy Smith, During her musical career, she composed at least 70 songs under introduced her widowed father, James Austin, to Martin. Austin her own name and others under the name Fay Brown. The words and Martin married in 1948 and had one son. Smith later be- of her music encouraged individuals to turn to Jesus for hope, help, came the organist and pianist for the group. A couple years later and comfort—what she did herself in her last days as she battled the Roberta Martin Singers signed with Bess Berman’s New York cancer. label Apollo Records and recorded “Only A Look,” by Anna Roberta Martin was born Roberta Evelyn Winston on Feb- Shepherd, and it became the group’s theme song. ruary 12, 1907, one of the six children of William and Anna Among those who sang with the group at one time or another Winston, in Helena, Arkansas. As a toddler, Roberta played were Deloris Campbell, Archie Dennis, Gloria Griffin, Myrtle around on the piano with her little hands and actually played Jackson, Romance Martin, Louise McCord, Myrtle Scott, James identifiable melodies. As a child, she played for Sunday school as Lawrence, Dinah Washington, and Della Reese. early as age six. When she was 10, her family moved to Illinois Around 1950, Martin cut back on engagements with the and eventually settled in Chicago, where she attended Wendell group and instead concentrated on writing and arranging music Phillips High and studied the classics under the tutelage of the as well as running her publishing business. But she never cut school’s choir director, Mildred back on giving to others. The business manager of the publish- Bryant Jones. As a high school student, she directed the Windy ing house, Leona Price, said people thought Martin was wealthy City Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church choir. When she attended but she was not, and if she had been, she would have given it all Northwestern University, her dream was to become a concert away because she was “freehearted and giving and pianist. sharing with others.” However, Martin’s interest eventually changed. She later The Martin singers earned six gold records for selling a mil- said, “I’d been playing in churches all my life… At that time I lion copies of a song or album, all Christian music. She refused to was just interested in church hymns, anthems, Christian music, allow the ensemble to perform in the secular arenas in America, and secular songs. The first time I heard gospel singing… Bertha such as the Apollo Theater and Las Vegas clubs. Wise and her Singers, from Augusta, Georgia…They came to our For the last two years of her life Martin battled church and oh, did we enjoy them.” cancer. In the midst of her fight she rallied and Gospel became Martin’s main focus and she played piano returned to record a final album with her singers. Her good friend for the Chicago-based Young People’s Choir at Pilgrim Baptist Jessie Jameson wrote a touching song for the album, “I Have Church, led by Thomas A. Dorsey and Theodore Frye. She and Hope,” one of the last musical pieces sung by Roberta Martin. Frye established the Martin-Frye Quartet, which later became Martin died on January 18, 1969, in Chicago. On the day of the Roberta Martin Singers. Originally the Singers included her funeral, over 50,000 people paid their final respects as she lay herself and four young males. Martin later added a few women in state at the Mount Pisgah Baptist Church. The U.S. Postal members, unusual for a small vocal group. As she blended the Service issued a postage stamp on July 15, 1998, commemorating mixed voices it created a unique gospel sound. Some of Chicago’s four “queens” of gospel music: Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, Sis- best male voices became part of the Singers, including Robert ter Rosetta Tharpe—and Roberta Evelyn Martin. Anderson, Norsalus McKissick, and Eugene Smith, who wrote Perhaps her life, and especially her battle with cancer, can be the gospel blues song “The Lord Will Make a Way Oh Yes, He summed up in the chorus of the song, “I Have Hope”: Will.” He was manager of the Singers from 1947 until they dis- banded in 1969. I have hope, when trouble comes my way The Martin group harmony made it easy to hear the back- I have hope, since Jesus has come to stay ground singers. The artists’ voices followed each other but not at I have hope, oh yeah, when things are not well with me the same time, unlike the typical quartets. Martin instituted the I have hope, it’s a beautiful hope that sets me free. call-and-response technique often demonstrated in the Holiness churches. Unique in the gospel music world, each singer sang as Rosa Young students attended the first year and over 200 the second. Rosa Young However, in 1914, the Mexican boll weevil attacked the A Persistent Christian Educator cotton fields cutting off the region’s main source of income. by Victoria McAfee The tuition payments from the parents ended. The support from the donors dwindled down. “She taught more than 2,000 students, impacting Desperate to keep the school open, Rosa wrote to their lives forever with her faith and her belief in the importance Booker T. Washington for assistance. He suggested she of education, at a time when education contact the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) in for children of sharecroppers was limited.” St. Louis. This organization historically established black —from the film,The First Rosa churches and schools. They responded positively to Rosa, Rosa J. Young was born on May 14, 1890, in rural Rosebud, sending veteran missionary Rev. Nils J. Baake, in 1916, Alabama, to Grant Young, an African Methodist Episcopal to Rosebud. As superintendent, he founded the first Lu- minister and his wife Nancy, the fourth of ten children. theran school and church in the area, appointing Rosa as a President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed teacher and advisor. The Lutheran denomination supplied the slaves but left many African-American families, like the funding and materials. those in the Alabama Black Belt, in extreme poverty. Rev. Baake, a preacher committed to spreading the This was the place Rosa grew up—a place filled with Gospel, included solid Christian-based teaching to both the disadvantaged amidst widespread immorality, people the children and the families in the area. After only four without proper clothing, no shoes, and very little food. months in the area, he baptized 58 people. Rosa was among Yet, her mother taught her the Lord’s Prayer, and her the first of Baake’s converts. Although she had several grandmother encouraged her spiritually. At an early age, spiritual experiences as a child, she never really understood she began to constantly pray. She also had a thirst for salvation. Under Rev. Baake’s biblical teaching, he gave learning, and eventually a longing to teach others. She her a clear understanding. gathered her siblings around and instructed them with only For several years, Rev. Baake and Rosa traveled around an old spelling book and the Bible. She loved to sing the the area setting up churches and schools. Four years after old Negro spirituals and plantation songs as well. Baake arrived, the two of them had started 35 congrega- Her parents and others took note of her exceptional tions and 30 Lutheran schools in such Alabama towns mind, her spiritual appetite, and diligence in her work. as Buena Vista, Tilden, Tinela, Midway, and Ingomar. In Once she finished her basic schooling, her parents sent her 1919, Rev. Baake had to leave because of health reasons. to Selma for more education at Payne University. The city But he left behind a very capable missionary—Rosa Young. students bullied this country girl, and often she had to live She continued to teach, relentlessly visiting families to with unkind landlords. But Rosa stayed the course. Rosa spread the Gospel message of Jesus Christ while raising the desired to return to Rosebud, one of the worst communities necessary funds to keep the schools and churches function- in the South, to teach the children, bring light into a deep ing. She faced opposition, mainly from those who failed dark place, and uplift the underprivileged. to understand her involvement with the Lutheran church. Rosa prayed her way through the difficulties in Selma She also suffered from heart issues as a result of exhaustion and eventually made several friends. She excelled in her and childhood diseases. Laboring nonstop, without breaks studies, won scholastic awards, became editor of the school or a vacation, characterized her work. In 1930, she first newspaper, and finished as valedictorian of her class. Her published her autobiography, which the Lutherans repub- speech at the graduation moved the audience to tears. The lished in 1950. theme of her message was “Serve others,” and she said, “ At the age of 52, she joined the faculty at Alabama ‘He that is greatest among you shall be your servant,’ is Lutheran Academy, later named Concordia College Al- the language of the Great Teacher. To serve is regarded as abama. It served high school and junior college students, a divine privilege as well as a duty by every right-minded primarily for the preparation of teachers and pastors. She man.” served there for 15 years, and the LCMS honored her with After graduating, she received her teaching certificate a doctorate degree from Concordia Theological Seminary and instructed children all over Alabama, praying for each in 1961, before she died 9 years later. She was both the first student. African American and woman to be honored in this way In 1912, she finally was able to travel back to her home- by the Lutheran church. town, intending to start her own school, Rosebud Literary and Industrial School. She raised funds from people in the area, both black and white, oversaw the construction, and found teachers and textbooks for the school. Over 100 Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander: company, appointed her as assistant actuary. After two years in North Carolina, Sadie married her col- ‘Make Yourself the Best of What You Are’ lege sweetheart, Raymond Alexander, who had just graduated by Victoria McAfee from Harvard Law School. She went back to the University “I knew well that the only way I could get of Pennsylvania to their Law School and earned a degree in that door open was to knock it down; because 1927, the first black woman to graduate from the university’s I knocked down all of them.” law school. Her husband hired her as a partner in his law firm, and the two helped found the National Bar Association Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander’s accomplishments opened (NBA) for black attorneys. They were one of America’s first doors for black women in the legal profession while she also husband-wife law partners until he became a judge in 1959. fought for equality for all African-Americans. She was the Sadie started practicing law in Orphans Court, then first black woman to receive a doctorate in economics and to worked uncontested divorce cases. She never turned anyone graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. away, even the clients unable to pay. But her greatest struggle Her faith came from her religious heritage, and she pushed was juggling her family responsibilities and her law career. the African-American church to allow women to participate She remained ill for long periods after the birth of her chil- fully in the work of the Kingdom. dren. She lost her first two children before they turned six Sadie was born January 2, 1898, in Philadelphia to Mary months old, but two other daughters lived. Mossell. Shortly after Sadie’s birth her grandfather, Bishop Sadie earned a reputation as a tough negotiator in Or- Benjamin Tucker Tanner, came to baptize the baby. Sadly, phans Court, and soon she brought other clients to the law by the time she celebrated her first birthday, her parents sep- firm, especially the AME Church. She handled its real estate arated. Sadie never knew her father Aaron Mossell, the first and tax business, but more than that, she argued for the black man to church to recognize women’s abilities: “Women are leaders graduate from the Law School of the University of Pennsylva- in the world—race rises no higher than its women,” she said. nia in 1888. She wanted churches to elect “strong, capable, intelligent Mary’s sister convinced Mary to move to Washington, women” to church offices, and as the first female attorney for D.C., so that she and husband Howard Moore, dean of How- the AME Council of Bishops she pushed the group to involve ard University, could help care for Sadie and her siblings. more lay women and men in church business. She was in Mary often visited her parents in Philadelphia, where Sadie great demand as a speaker at church women’s conferences, met distinguished leaders in the African-American church though her work and home duties forced her to decline many and came to know her famous, well-educated family. Bishop invitations. One leader wrote in her invitation, “Mrs. Sadie Benjamin Tucker Tanner was editor of the Christian Recorder Alexander… has a contribution to make to the Christian and the AME Church Review; one of her uncles, Dr. Nathan woman of America which no other person can make.” F. Mossell, was a surgeon and founder of the Frederick Doug- She and Raymond supported organizations to empower lass Hospital; and another uncle was Henry African-Americans such as the National Urban League, Ossawa Tanner, a famous painter. Her aunt, Dr. Hallie Tanner which in 1948 in a comic book of Negro Johnson, was the first black woman to pass the Alabama med- Heroes for children called her “Woman of the Year.” The two ical exam and started the Tuskegee Institute’s Nurses’ School helped write a Pennsylvania law to ban discrimination in ho- and Hospital. tels, theaters, and restaurants, and they spent several nights in Because Mary and the children traveled back and forth so jail in Philadelphia when business owners refused to obey the often, Sadie struggled academically in grade school because law and had them arrested. Their civil rights work gained the of inconsistent attendance. When she finished high school in attention of President Harry S. Truman, who appointed Sadie Washington, Howard University awarded her a scholarship, to his new Civil Rights Commission that pushed to end but her mother said no. She enrolled Sadie instead in the segregation in the armed forces. Ironically, when she flew to University of Pennsylvania. Sadie graduated from the Uni- Washington on business and was changing planes, she was versity’s School of Education in 1918 with honors in spite of denied a glass of milk at the airport’s lunch counter, and that the white students who never even looked in her direction eventually led to a government ban on discrimination at and places of business that refused to serve her. She prayed airports. every night for strength and credited her faith for getting her Sadie’s time in public service ended at age 83 with Presi- through: “God, give me the strength to do my assignments dent Jimmy Carter appointing her chairperson of his White the very best I have the ability. And Dear Lord, teach me to House Conference on Aging in 1978. She continued practic- walk alone and not be lonely, knowing Thou art at my side.” ing law until she was 85 and began to suffer from Alzheimer’s. She then went on to start her graduate education in eco- She eventually died of pneumonia on November 1, 1989, at nomics and earned her doctorate in 1921. She was the second the age of 91. In one of her last interviews, she urged young African-American woman in the United States to earn a black men and women, “Don’t let anything stop you. There Ph.D. will be times when you’ll be disappointed, but you can’t stop. Sadly, no insurance company would hire her, Make yourself the best that you can make out of what you although her grades and achievements were impeccable. are. The very best.” Eventually, North Carolina Mutual Life, a black-owned Wilma Glodean Rudolph won a bronze medal as a member of the 4 X 100-meters relay Wilma Rudolph team. Champion and Role Model In Rome, after a practice session the day before compe- by Daphne Myers tition began, Wilma tripped over a water main and severely “The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” sprained her ankle. Heavily taped, she still set a world record of 11.3 seconds in the 100-meter dash in the semifinals. Wilma Rudolph raced into the history books in the 1960 Then she won the 100 in the final round with a time of Summer Olympics in Rome when she became the first 11.0. She broke the Olympic record in the 200-meter dash American woman to win three gold medals in track and (23.2 seconds) in the semifinals; afterward she won the 200 field during a single Olympic Games. in the final. She was part of the team that broke the world She was born Wilma Glodean Rudolph, the 20th of 22 record in the 4 X 100-meters relay (44.4 seconds) in the children in a very large and very poor family. Her father, semifinals before winning the relay in the final in 44.5 sec- Ed Rudolph, had 11 children by an earlier marriage, and he onds. The 80,000 fans in Olympic stadium chanted “Vilma! had 8 more with Wilma’s mother, Blanche Rudolph, before Vilma! Vilma!” before and after each of her triumphs. Wilma was born on June 23, 1940, near Clarksville, Ten- After the Olympics, over 40,000 people attended Wil- nessee. A premature baby, born at four and a half months ma’s homecoming parade in Clarksville. Segregationist Ten- and weighing just 4.5 pounds, Wilma was frail, thin, and nessee governor Buford Ellington was to lead the parade and sickly. At age four, she developed double pneumonia and celebration but Wilma refused to participate in a segregated scarlet fever followed by polio, which left her left leg para- event, so the parade became the first integrated event in lyzed for most of her childhood and forced her to wear a leg Clarksville’s history. It was only one of several protests she brace. joined against the town’s segregation laws. “My doctors told me I would never walk again. My mother In 1961 Wilma was the first woman ever invited to such told me I would. I believed my mother.” track meets as the Millrose Games, the Los Angeles Times Her father worked as a railroad porter and did odd jobs, Games, and the Drake Relays. At Stanford University, she and her mother worked six days a week as a maid. Her won the 100-meter and a relay race against a Soviet Union mother especially had a deep Christian faith and taught team, then gave away her track shoes to a young fan and Wilma that God had a purpose for her life. Twice a week retired. for two years, Wilma made the 90-mile round-trip bus ride “When I was going through my transition of being famous, I with her mother or an aunt from their home to a hospital for asked God, why was I here? What was my purpose? Surely, it blacks in Nashville, where she received heat and water ther- wasn’t just to win three gold medals. There has to be more to this apy on the leg. Her brothers and sisters also massaged her leg life than that.” every day, and the whole family prayed together every night After retirement, Rudolph made goodwill trips to west for Wilma’s leg to get better. Africa, east Asia, and to Japan with evangelist Billy Gra- At age nine, Wilma removed the brace one Sunday in ham and the Baptist Christian Athletes. However, even church and took a step that the doctor told her she could though she was world famous, good jobs were hard to come never take. By age 11, Wilma walked without any sign of a by. She taught elementary school in Clarksville while prior disability. At age 15 she walked the aisle of her church coaching high school track. She worked with young peo- and made a commitment to Jesus. Church, she said, was the ple in the Job Corps, was a consultant to university track only place in the segregated South “that said to black people teams, and was on a national radio sports show, but never come, we’ve got a place for you with no questions asked.” made much money in those jobs. With great faith, determination, and physical therapy, In 1974 Wilma was inducted into the National Track Wilma not only walked again, she ran with ever increasing and Field Hall of Fame and in 1983 into the U.S. Olympic strength. In her first high school track season, at age 13, Hall of Fame. She established the Wilma Rudolph Founda- Wilma ran five different events. In 20 different races, she tion to promote amateur athletics. She used her platform won every event. She also played basketball, and in her to inspire, motivate, and to extend opportunities to other sophomore year of high school, she scored 803 points in 25 aspiring athletes, especially black women. One was Jackie games—then a state record in girls’ basketball. Joyner-Kersee, holder of six Olympic medals, who de- Rudolph began competing in Amateur Athletic Union scribed Wilma as a mentor who “was always in my corner.” (AAU) track meets with the women’s team from Tennessee After losing her battle with brain cancer, Wilma Ru- State University. At the nationals in 1955, baseball great dolph died on November 12, 1994, but her legacy lives on Jackie Robinson saw her run and told the 15 year old, “One through the door she first opened for young athletes and day you’re going to be the world’s fastest woman.” Wilma her commitment to God’s purpose for her life. qualified for the 1956 Summer Olympics team and went to the games in Melbourne, Australia, where at age 16, she Dovey Mae Johnson Roundtree took a bus desegregation case in 1955 to the Dovey Mae Johnson Roundtree Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)—Sarah One Child Can Change the World Keys v. Carolina Coach Company. Keys, a WAC, by Victoria Johnson had been forced (like Roundtree) to give up her bus There is always someone, I am convinced, who would be the mira- seat to a white Marine in 1942. Roundtree won the cle maker in your life, if you believe. One story cannot change the case, but the ICC did not fully enforce desegregation until the Freedom Riders challenged segregated world, but one child can. transportation in 1961. Black lawyers were not respected in Roundtree’s James Johnson, a printer and Sunday school teacher, and day—they had to leave courthouses to go to segregated his wife Lela, a seamstress and domestic worker, welcomed bathrooms elsewhere. However, she and her partner won their second daughter into the world on April 14, 1917, in multiple cases for black clients before white judges and North Carolina. A family of strong faith surrounded Dovey juries, including that of a poor black man accused of mur- Mae, as her folks affectionately called her. At two months dering a white society woman. In 1963, Dovey Mae broke old she was baptized at East Stonewall A.M.E. Zion another barrier when she was admitted into the all-white Church, a church her grandfather pastored. Women’s Bar Association in D.C. When Dovey Mae was the tender age of four, her father Roundtree has described herself as a Christian lawyer, died and her mother and three sisters moved into their open and available to God and willing to help all people. grandparents’ home. Rachel Bryant Graham, her grand- She has kept her home open to children or teens in need of mother, had only a third grade education but she stood a place to stay. as a firm pillar for her family and in her community. She Her life has had many challenges. She has struggled led out each Sunday walking to church on the arm of her with diabetes and in 1960 threatened to quit law after the pastor husband singing, “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine.” sudden death of her first law partner, followed by the death Dovey Mae’s family followed her of her beloved grandmother. Nevertheless she opened a grandmother and then each family from the neighbor- new law office in Washington and hired three additional hood followed behind. Rachel Graham expected all of her lawyers. As she said, “If you wish to do, God will somehow granddaughters to be educated and do well. Besides her make a way for you.” words of encouragement she was known to pray constantly Shortly before her first partner’s death, for her family. Mrs. Graham’s faith in God, love and care Roundtree found herself battling a spiritual restlessness. for her family, and willingness to help people was obvious She blurted out to a visiting minister friend, Rev. Green, and contagious. Dovey Mae caught it all. “What would you say if I told you I wanted to become a God opened the door for Dovey Mae to attend Spellman minister?” He affirmed her calling and suggested she speak College in Atlanta. In spite of several obstacles she gradu- with the Howard Divinity School staff. She broke down ated in 1938. She taught school briefly in South Carolina another barrier in 1961 when she became one of the first but wanted to be more of a financial help to her family and ordained female ministers in the A.M.E church. decided to move to Washington, D.C., where she worked Dovey Mae summed up her personal statement of faith, for Mary McLeod Bethune, a friend of her grandmother. “I profoundly believe in the resurrection story and what it Bethune persuaded Dovey Mae to be one of the initial 40 promises. I’ve seen a cremated body. It’s hardly a teacup. black women to join the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in But there’s more to me than that. There’s more to you than World War II, and she traveled the South recruiting black that. And so I believe—you ask me how I believe. I know women for the service even as she was evicted from a Mi- not how I believe, but something in my soul convinces me ami bus and forced to give up her seat to a white Marine. that life is not mocked and that I shall see God and see After the war Dovey Mae worked with black labor leader Jesus for myself.” A. Philip Randolph to promote equality in hiring practic- In her senior years she initiated a campaign tackling es. During this time she married Bill Roundtree, but the the black family crisis from the perspective of a lawyer and marriage ended in divorce after he realized he did not share minister. She speaks out for the cause of children and fam- his wife’s views and passion. Around the same time, she ilies. “It is our business to save our children,” she says, “and met a lawyer who helped her understand important social that has nothing to do with whether you’re black, white, change happens through law. She enrolled in the How- brown, yellow, whatever you are…you can’t make the next ard University School of Law on her GI Bill. She studied generation unless we make the children.” diligently and won the respect of her fellow male lawyers Roundtree gives us her story with coauthor Katie Mc- and professors. She researched for Thurgood Marshall as he Cabe in Justice Older than the Law. This book captures and others fought and won the landmark Brown v. Board of Roundtree’s gratitude for all the people who helped her Education Supreme Court case. throughout her life and her challenge to the current gener- After graduating from Howard, Roundtree, along ation to make a difference for the next. with her law partner and mentor Julius Robertson, Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays and racial divisions. Despite many opposing his teach- Dr. Benjamin E. Mays ings, what he taught about equality is biblical. Man of Faith and Passion Mays proclaimed biblical truths while president of by Dr. Roslyn R. Yilpet Morehouse College. During his tenure, he educated men on the importance of radical, relevant ministry. Dr. Benjamin E. Mays was an outstanding leader, He taught both students and churches that segrega- teacher, preacher, and scholar. He saw his life as tion was an insult to God. His ministry glorified God, one of obedience to God. He often quoted Micah even if it went against society. Mays’s ministry influ- 6:8—“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; enced many black ministers, including the Rev. Dr. and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do Martin Luther King, Jr. justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy Under Mays’s influence, King felt called to become a God?” He believed one’s character and beliefs should minister. Mays’s life and sermons inspired King. Mays be embodied in actions. Dr. Mays integrated his faith said, “King often stayed behind after Tuesday morning and passion in his life. chapel to discuss some point I had made. I was not In 1894 Benjamin Mays was born in South Carolina aware how deeply he was impressed by what I said and to Hezekiah and Louvenia Carter Mays. His father did until he wrote Stride Toward Freedom, and mother were children when slaves were set free in in which he indicated that I had influenced his life to 1865. Even though it was illegal for slaves to read and a “marked degree.” Martin Luther King, Jr., saw Mays write, a white boy secretly taught Mays’s as his spiritual mentor. His influence was evident in father to read. King’s language and passion for civil rights. Mays’s mother shaped his view of himself and God. Mays lived out Micah 6:8. He fulfilled the command She told her eight children, “You are as good as any- in 2 Timothy 2:2 to teach others that they may go and body!” She planted his faith in a living and faithful teach others. Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays died in 1984, God. He stated in his autobiography, “My mother but his teachings live on through those he taught and only had two things to give me—her love and prayers. their students. She gave both with an open heart.” Mays learned from his mother’s life and prayers that God answers prayer. With his mother’s teaching as a foundation, Mays reached his dream of an advanced education. While working in the fields, he prayed God would enable him to go away to school. Those prayers were an- swered; he received a high school education, and three collegiate degrees. At home and in school Mays learned about black heroes such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Wash- ington, Paul Dunbar, and Crispus Attucks. This knowledge—and his time spent picking cotton—in- stilled a passion for social justice, racial equality, and solidarity. He said, “No one has agonized more over the race problem than I have. It has weighed heavily on my mind ever since I saw my first [lynch] mob when I was only four or five years old.” Mays influenced the world through his faith and ad- vocacy for justice. Mays traveled internationally and influenced church and social organizations. In 1937, he traveled to Oxford, England, to present at a church conference that discussed racial issues. He taught that it is the church’s responsibility to demonstrate God’s view of community—one that transcends all national Thomas A. Dorsey opportunities opened up to him in secular music, so he at- Thomas A. Dorsey tempted to do both. Serving His Precious Lord This double-mindedness caused Dorsey to suffer another by Victoria Johnson emotional breakdown. By this time he was married to Nettie I can’t take credit for this stuff…I’m only human and these things Harper and they settled in the Chicago area. Nettie, like his are the making of God. I feel I’ve thoroughly been blessed over the mother, attempted to encourage him to commit his musical years with an abundance of songs and material…There is definitely gifts totally to the Lord. She was forced to seek employment God behind this thing that I do. Everything I do—that’s good, at to maintain the household while Dorsey recovered. Finally, least—is a reflection of His hand. at a church service the pastor said, “Brother Dorsey, there is no reason for you to be looking so poorly and feeling badly. Thomas Andrew Dorsey, the father of black gospel music, The Lord has too much work for you to do to let you die.” developed a sacred music based on the secular blues. Blues Dorsey experienced a spiritual deliverance that day. music carries a theme of defiance in the face of despair, but He established the Dorsey House of Music, solely for Dorsey’s music combined that feeling and rhythm with lyrics black Christian songwriters to write and produce their of hope. Dorsey authored hundreds of songs, including the music. Dorsey and singer Sallie Martin cofounded the gospel classics “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” and “Peace National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. Ro- in the Valley.” berta Martin became the pianist for the choir that Dorsey Dorsey was born in Villa Rica, Georgia, July 1, 1899, to started at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago, where he was Thomas Dorsey, Sr., an itinerant preacher, and Etta Dorsey, music director until 1972. a piano player, organist, and singer. In 1908, the family The demand for gospel type music started to explode in moved to Atlanta and at the age of 11, Dorsey left school to churches. However, during this successful time of Dorsey’s take a job at a local vaudeville theater selling popcorn. In be- life he suffered a great personal tragedy. In 1932, while in tween his concession stand job he learned to play the piano St. Louis, he received a telegram telling him to come home by watching the entertainers. His mother owned an organ, immediately. His wife, who was pregnant, died in childbirth. and his relatives down the street owned a piano. Dorsey Soon after, his infant son, Thomas Dorsey, Jr., passed away listened to songs in the theater and then came home and as well. They buried both of his loved ones in the same cas- tinkered on the instruments until he correctly played the ket. Dorsey barely made it through the service. tune. Dorsey learned ragtime, blues, and jazz in addition to Dorsey locked himself in a room for three days with a spiritual music. piano. The words to “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” flowed In 1916 Dorsey moved to Chicago. He stayed with rela- from his broken heart. The first time Dorsey sang the song tives, worked late night entertainment jobs, and attended in a church service the people in the audience were over- the College of Composition for several years to learn how to come with emotion. He was surprised. He knew the song read and write music. helped him during the loss of his family, but he had no idea Under the stage name “Georgia Tom,” Dorsey composed it would affect and minister to so many others. His prayer his first blues song, “If You Don’t Believe I’m Leaving,” in and cry to the Lord became a classic, and a favorite of the 1920. He became the founder, director, and piano player for Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ma Rainey’s backup band, the Wild Cat Jazz Band. During In the 1930s he met Mahalia Jackson, and they toured that time, he recorded his blues best seller, “Tight Like together for several years. In 1937 he wrote for her the clas- That.” sic, “Peace in the Valley.” Sallie Martin helped promote his While living in Chicago the constant demand of late publishing house, and it was so successful that sheet music night performances, trying to promote his music, and con- copies of any gospel piece became known as “Dorseys.” tinuing to take classes proved too much for the young man, Dorsey traveled and trained upcoming young singers and and he fell into a deep depression. His mother traveled wrote a book about his life. He was the first black elected to Chicago to bring him back home to Atlanta, and she to the Nashville Songwriters International Hall of Fame. strongly encouraged him to give his life and talent to the At one point he served as Dean of Evangelistic Musical Re- Lord. search and Ministry of Church Music for the Gospel Choral Recovering from his illness, Dorsey did write some gospel Union of Chicago. songs; however, his devotion to the Lord and commitment Thomas Andrew Dorsey died on January 23, 1993. He to Christian music was inconsistent. His efforts in gospel once described his blending of the blues and gospel in this song writing yielded very little financially. He also faced way: “If a woman has lost a man, a man has lost a woman, continued opposition from the church community because his feeling reacts to the blues; he feels like expressing it. The of the kind of spiritual music he was attempting to intro- same thing acts for a gospel song. Now you’re not singing duce. It sounded too worldly for the Christian community. blues; you’re singing gospel, a good news song, singing Later he would say, “I have been thrown out of some of about the Creator; but it’s the same feeling, a grasping of the the best churches in Chicago.” Big checks and plenty of heart.” Dr. Dorothy Height North America, which worked to end lynching, desegregate Dorothy Height the armed services, reform the criminal justice system, and ‘Open Wide the Freedom Gates’ provide free access to public accommodations for all. Her first job was helping feed thousands of people out of work from the by Patricia Merritt Depression at a Christian center in Brooklyn. Dorothy Irene Height lived her life serving those who had In 1937 Height started to work with the Harlem YWCA and little to no hope and no voice. She wanted to “open wide the in 1944 became part of the national staff. She introduced pol- freedom gates” for other African Americans, women, and the icy to integrate YWCA facilities nationwide and was elected poor as she matched her faith to real world problems. In so the Interracial Education Secretary. In 1965, she became the doing she achieved national recognition for her work, includ- first director of the YWCA’s new Center for Racial Justice, ing the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 and the Con- where she monitored the Association’s progress toward full gressional Gold Medal in 2004. integration. Height was born March 24, 1912. Her father was a building The YWCA and her Christian youth work brought Height contractor, and her mother a nurse. In 1916, the family moved into contact with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary Mc- to the coal-mining town of Rankin, Pennsylvania. Height’s Leod Bethune, founder and president of the National Council mother became active in the Pennsylvania Federation of of Negro Women (NCNW). When Height escorted Mrs. Colored Women’s Clubs and regularly took her daughter to Roosevelt to an NCNW meeting held at the YWCA, Bethune meetings, providing Dorothy with the roots for a life of social put her hand on Height and said, “The freedom gates are half activism. Her mother helped Height understand “my responsi- ajar. We must pry them fully open.” bility to other people, and she taught me the importance of Thus began Height’s lifelong affiliation with the NCNW. being cooperative instead of competitive.” After Bethune’s death in 1955, Height served as president for Height’s activism was also driven by her faith. The Heights 41 years. She helped organize and coordinate the 1963 March lived next door to Emmanuel Baptist Church, where her father on Washington. Height participated in virtually all the major was the choirmaster, Sunday school superintendent, and a dea- civil and human rights efforts of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, con; her mother was very active in missions work. “As a many times as the only woman in critical, strategic meetings. child,” she said, “I joined the church, and then I became ac- She said she felt it was “the hand of God” that brought her tive in all of the children’s missions.” into a leadership role with such men as Dr. Martin Luther She taught Bible stories to white children at a nearby Chris- King, Jr., Whitney Young, James Farmer, A. Philip Randolph, tian center for immigrants. She was hurt at the age of nine and Roy Wilkins, and she counseled presidents from Eisen- when her best friend (a white girl) told her she could no lon- hower to Obama. ger play with Height because she was black. In the turbulent 1960s she organized “Wednesdays in Mis- Height joined the Girl Reserve Club in Rankin, which was sissippi” to bring black and white women together to dialogue organized by the Pittsburgh Young Women’s Christian Associ- about change. Through the NCNW she organized “Operation ation (YWCA), and soon became club president. One day she Woman Power” in the 1970s, which assisted women in open- wanted to swim at the YWCA pool in downtown Pittsburgh, ing their own businesses. In the 1980s she started “Black Fam- only to learn that her race prohibited her from doing so. She ily Reunion Celebrations,” which still bring together blacks later wrote, “I was only 12 years old. I had never heard of ‘so- from all social and economic classes to help each other cial action,’ nor seen anyone engaged in it, but I barely took a with the problems of the black community. breath before saying that I would like to see the executive Height died April 20, 2010, at the age of 98. At her funeral director” about this discrimination. Early on, Height showed a in the National Cathedral, President Obama described her life talent for public speaking, and in a national oratorical contest as fitting Matthew 23:12: “whoever humbles [herself] will be won a $1,000 college scholarship. However, Barnard College exalted.” turned her down because the college had already filled its At age 93 she said of her life, “I find through meditation and quota of two black students per year. Instead, she enrolled prayer that there are very few things that I do not find some in New York University, where she earned a Bachelors and a way to deal with. I was interviewed by someone last year and Master’s. She wanted to major in religion so she could work she said, ‘You keep saying it’s through your Christian faith.’ full time in the church, but one of her professors told her “the And I said, ‘I say that, because it is. I believe that church was not ready for women, and the black church was God has a purpose for my being here.’ . . . We have surely not ready for me.” to keep working. Justice is not impossible. We can So Height served God through social change. In 1933, she achieve it.” became a leader in the United Christian Youth Movement of Theophilus Gould Steward Black soldiers served with distinction and honor in the Union Henry V. Plummer (9th Cavalry, 1884–1894), born a slave, Army in the Civil War, so after the end of the war in 1865, the became the first African-American chaplain after the Civil War. Army created two all-black cavalry units, the 9th and 10th Cavalry After serving faithfully, he was courtmartialed on an unjust charge. Regiments, to serve on the Western frontier. According to The The Maryland governor in 2004 signed a document to overturn Black West by William Katz, the two regiments made up 20 per- the charge. cent of the U.S. Army cavalry in the American West. Nicknamed George W. Prioleau (9th Cavalry, 1895–1920) was also the “buffalo soldiers,” some white officers such as George Custer born a slave in South Carolina and replaced Chaplain Plummer refused to command the units, but General John J. Pershing at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, during the Sioux Indian War. He earned the nickname “Black Jack” when he commanded them. In pastored several African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) churches the Spanish-American War at the Battle of San Juan Hill, Pershing and later in life started Bethel A.M.E. Church in Los Angeles. The saw the buffalo soldiers save the day for Teddy Roosevelt and his denomination sent him to Wilberforce University in Ohio for Rough Riders, who received all the credit for the victory. Later, more education, and he continued to pastor while also teaching at Pershing commanded the 10th in his expedition against the Mex- Wilberforce. In 1895, President Grover Cleveland commissioned ican revolutionary Pancho Villa when Villa raided the United Prioleau for chaplaincy in the army as a captain. He took this States from Mexico on March 9, 1916. spiritual mission very seriously. According to the book Five Black Serving on the frontier from Texas to Montana, the 9th Cavalry Preachers in Army Blue, Prioleau exhorted those in the ministry guarded river crossings and the Rio Grande border, protected to the soldiers to “carefully study the work before them, adapt survey parties and lumber wagons, fought Indians, and chased themselves to the circumstance, and take the Holy Ghost as their outlaws. During the Ghost Dance uprising of the 1890s, when the teacher and guide.” Indians believed if they danced the buffalo would return and the William T. Anderson (10th Cavalry, 1897–1910), also born white people would be buried under a layer of new earth, the 9th a slave, eventually earned several degrees. He pastored an A.M.E. rode 100 miles to rescue the embattled 7th Cavalry. church, but he was also a physician with his own private practice. The 10th Cavalry was formed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in His involvement with the Republican Party secured him a position 1866 and later adopted a buffalo on their regiment insignia. They as a chaplain. patrolled the plains of west Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma, as well Allen Allensworth (24th Infantry, 1886–1907) focused his as the mountains and deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. They attention on the men being educated to move up in rank and help participated in the capture of Bill the Kid and on the campaigns themselves once they became civilians. He too was born a slave, against the Apaches and their chiefs Geronimo, Victorio, and but he ran away and joined the federal forces in the Civil War and Nana. was the first African American to become a lieutenant colonel. He Besides the two cavalry units, two black infantry units, the is further remembered as the founder of the all-black township of 24th and 25th Regiments, served across the frontier. Interestingly, Allensworth, California, now Colonel Allensworth State Historic the Army assigned chaplains to the two units to educate the men. Park in Tulare County. Sadly, he was killed in a car accident in Chaplain George C. Mullins wrote in 1875, “For the most part the Monrovia, California, in 1914 on the way to preach in a local soldiers seem to have an enthusiastic interest in the school. They church. are prompt in attendance, very orderly and cheerful. In learning Theophilus G. Steward to read and write many of them have made astonishing progress.” When bandits attacked a detachment of the 24th and the 9th (25th Infantry, 1884–1901) was the Cavalry in Arizona guarding an army payroll wagon, the bandits only chaplain from the North born a free man. Steward, racially got the strongbox, but the soldiers put up such an exceptional fight mixed, could have easily passed as a white man but choose to that the paymaster recommended two of the infantrymen for the identify himself as black. He joined the A.M.E. church and quickly Medal of Honor because they continued fighting in spite of their was called into the ministry. He wrote several books and articles serious wounds. which caused controversy within the denomination. He welcomed One famous person who defended the soldiers in print and in the opportunity to become a military chaplain. Like all the other his artwork was Frederic Remington. He rode twice with the 10th chaplains, Steward found himself in the role of librarian, teacher, Cavalry, sketched and painted the men in action, and said in a and pastor. His wife, Susan McKinney Steward, was the first magazine article they were soldiers “who knew what it is all about, African-American woman to earn a medical degree in the state this soldiering” as he described their bravery in battle. of New York and moved with her husband to forts in Montana, The chaplains for the buffalo soldiers shared the same duties Nebraska, and Texas. as the white chaplains—evangelism, conducting religious services, Each of the chaplains held up the banner of Jesus Christ and visiting the wounded, burying the dead, and caring for the spiritual proclaimed the Gospel while also fighting against social injustice. needs of the men. However, the black chaplains went a step Five Black Preachers in Army Blue records that one chaplain beyond, serving as educators and social advocates. While the white wrote, “The prejudice is not so much against the ignorant Negro… soldier was welcomed into restaurants and given free meals, the as it is against the intelligent, educated tax-paying Negro… who is black soldier stood outside, not allowed through the door because trying to be a man.” The chaplains thought being a soldier proved of the color of his skin. The minority military men fought under to be one of the best opportunities for advancement for a black the same U.S. flag and risked their lives for their country—yet were man in this country. Each of them, with the help of the Lord, mistreated as civilians. viewed their chaplain role as an excellent avenue to aid in this Here are several of those chaplains who took up the fight process. against these and many other kinds of injustices: Dr. Charles Clinton Spaulding Insurance and that white businesses and black businesses had Charles Clinton Spaulding friendly competition, each one respecting the other. Washington A Businessman Doing the Lord’s Work said Durham “was the city of cities to look for prosperity of the by Victoria McAfee Negroes and the greatest amount of friendly feeling between the two races of the South.” Charles Clinton Spaulding was one of the most successful Af- Spaulding saw businesses and the church enhancing each other. rican-American businessmen of the 20th century. He helped He recognized all black fraternal societies and businesses started in establish and was later president of North Carolina Mutual Life the church. His insurance company had Christian founders on a Insurance, the largest African-American business of its time. It spiritual mission. They committed themselves not merely to mak- grew from assets of a few thousand dollars in 1899 to over a quarter ing money but also to uplifting the struggling black community. million in 1910 during its rise to prominence. But more than being Spaulding picked up the baton and credited his Christianity for his a successful businessman, Spaulding was a devoted Christian who management style. Before each board meeting, he humbly stopped brought the principles of his faith to work with him. outside the door, acknowledging himself as God’s instrument, His Spaulding was born in 1872, the second of 10 children, on servant. He looked to God for guidance to direct his decisions: “I’m a farm in Columbus County, North Carolina. Benjamin McIver doing the Lord’s work,” he frequently said. Spaulding and Margaret Ann Moore, his parents, were wealthy Spaulding treated the company’s employees like family. The landowners. His father wore several hats—he was a successful in- workers referred to him as “Papa.” He held an open-door policy, dependent farmer, a blacksmith, a craft worker, and also held the welcoming employees to come into his office. His Bible was also office of county sheriff. Spaulding grew up watching those around open as he usually started his conversation with Scripture. He him work hard and have a deep faith in the Lord. cared for those under his leadership. He stated the Christian busi- In his youth, Spaulding worked exclusively on his father’s nessman “satisf[ies] every complaint, receive[s] every visitor, listens farm, and that took precedence over his attendance at school. At to every plea and contributes to every cause believed to be wor- the age of 20, he moved to Durham to stay with his uncle, Dr. thy.” He emphatically stated, “no poker players and whiskey drink- Aaron Moore, a physician, philosopher, and philanthropist. In ers worked for the Mutual.” He wanted only upstanding employees Durham, Spaulding completed grade school and started working who represented the company well and were good examples in the various jobs. First, he was employed as a dishwasher, then a waiter, community. Spaulding called the working atmosphere “the good bellhop, and office worker. In 1898 he became the manager of a old Mutual spirit.” At a company gathering, they sang spirituals black-owned grocery store. That same year his uncle, plus John and prayed, like a church service. Merrick and several local black business owners, put in $50 dollars Spaulding’s business helped fund Lincoln Hospital, North Car- apiece and established the North Carolina Mutual and Provident olina Central hospital, a library, local churches, and three news- Association. papers. He and the founders were on a quest to save and improve The first year the company was in operation, business was bad, the black community. and most of the investors pulled out except for Dr. Moore and John Before his death, he also launched Mechanics and Farmers Merrick (a businessman with a string of successful barber shops). Bank, Bankers Fire Insurance Company, and Mutual Savings and They reorganized the company in 1900 as North Carolina Mu- Loan Association. Spaulding was a leader in the National Negro tual Life Insurance. Initially, Spaulding did whatever the company Insurance Association and the National Negro Bankers Associa- needed to help move it forward: “When I came into the office early tion. The New York Chamber of Commerce, a mostly white orga- in the morning…I rolled up my sleeves and swept the place as a nization, invited him to become a member, which he did. He also janitor. Then I rolled down my sleeves and was an agent, and later served as a trustee for several colleges, including Howard Univer- I put on my coat and became a general manager.” sity, Shaw University, and North Carolina College at Durham. The company initially sold industrial insurance, which was Shaw, Tuskegee Institute, and Atlanta University all honored him basically burial insurance. Part-time salespeople, usually school- with an honorary Doctor of Law. He also worked with the execu- teachers and ministers, collected small payments each week (about tive branch of the YMCA and the Boy Scouts of America. 10 cents) that covered the person for the next week. If the insur- In the area of politics and race relations, he established the ance payments were kept up to date, the company paid $100 to the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs and chaired the Urban beneficiary, which covered the cost of a decent funeral and burial. League’s Emergency Advisory Council. In that position he encour- By 1910 this company was one of the largest black businesses in aged the city to establish parks, pools, and playgrounds in the black the U.S., and 13 years later, when Dr. Moore passed away, Spauld- community and hire black policemen. He helped secure New Deal ing became the company’s president. He had picked up his uncle’s jobs for African Americans during the time of President Franklin social skills as well as his faith. He supported the philosophy of D. Roosevelt, and his company weathered the Great Depression Booker T. Washington, who advocated that African Americans because of it thriftiness. could gain equality through self-help and diligent work. “You can’t Spaulding’s first wife (John Merrick’s half-sister) passed away in drink from the spring high upon the mountain unless you climb for 1919 after they had three sons and a daughter together. He mar- the water,” Spaulding said. ried again, and his second wife, Charlotte Garner, died in 1971. While Durham was an obviously segregated city, the black Spaulding died of heart failure on his 78th birthday in 1952. At community was recognized nationwide for the many opportuni- the time of his passing, North Carolina Mutual had assets of more ties it gave African Americans to start businesses there. In fact, than $40 million and was the largest black-owned enterprise in Durham was nicknamed “the Black Wall Street,” and prominent the world. Today, the company is still headquartered in Durham African-American leaders such as Washington and W.E.B. Du and has total assets of $162 million. But Spaulding did not die Bois visited the city to see the progress it had made in raising a millionaire. Even when he was president of the company, he the economic level of its black citizens. They noted that the en- was its employee, not the owner. His final estate was valued under tire town was proud of the success of North Carolina Mutual Life $200,000. He had let his money help others. Harry Thacker Burleigh They worked on compositions together and the spiritual flavor Harry Thacker Burleigh ended up in some of Dvorak’s major compositions, including his The Singer of Spirituals Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”). Dvorak also encour- aged other students to use the melodies he heard Burleigh sing by Victoria McAfee because, he said, “the so-called plantation songs are indeed the most striking and appealing melodies that have yet been found A man of grace, gentleness, courtesy, humor, and loyalty. on this side of the water.” A musician who, as composer, singer ...and interpreter has given to Early in life, Burleigh had been a soloist in churches and a multitudes a lift along life’s steep ascent. synagogue in Erie. His life changed dramatically in 1894 when A representative of race which having suffered much at the hands of he became baritone soloist for the choir at St. George’s Episcopal its brothers, has chosen to express its suffering not in retaliation, but Church in New York City. He was the first black singer at the in song. church, and some in the all-white congregation opposed his pres- A man of faith who took his religion seriously and counted it a high ence. However, Burleigh remained there for over 50 years (miss- privilege to pray much, to serve humbly, and to sing for half a century ing only one performance in that time) and won the people’s to the glory of God... hearts and respect. He started the church’s tradition of having an annual Spirituals service every May for over 30 years. Also, —A tribute to Harry Burleigh written by Rev. Elmore M. the payment from the church made it possible for him to work McKee, the author of Hard Trials: The Life and Music of exclusively on his studies at the conservatory and other creative Harry T. Burleigh musical diversions. In 1895, New York’s governor signed a civil rights bill barring Henry (Harry) Thacker Burleigh is not well known, but he sig- discrimination in restaurants. Burleigh and two others tested the nificantly contributed to the development of American art songs. bill in 25 restaurants and were served in all but four. He was the first African American to compose over two hundred In 1898, Burleigh married Louise Alston, a poet and actress. of those songs, many of which incorporated plantation melodies Alston, his son and only child (given his wife’s maiden name), including “By an’ By,” “Go Down Moses,” “Swing Low, Sweet was born the following year. The couple experienced a very trou- Chariot,” and especially “Deep River.” bling marriage and separated, but Burleigh was against divorce Burleigh was born December 2, 1866, in Erie, Pennsylvania and continued to support his wife. and named Henry after his father. His partially blind grandfa- Also about this time, three of Burleigh’s songs were published, ther, Hamilton Waters, bought his freedom from a plantation in and in 1900 he became the first African American to solo for Maryland and moved to Erie where he and his wife Lucinda Temple Emanu-El, an affluent New York synagogue. He pub- became the parents of Elizabeth Walters, Burleigh’s mother. Eliz- lished his popular arrangement of “Deep River” in 1917, which abeth graduated from college fluent in French and Greek, but led to a dozen more spirituals being published that year as well. was denied a teaching position in the public schools. Instead, she He also set to music American poems such as Walt Whitman’s became a domestic worker and taught in the colored school. She “Ethiopia Saluting the Colors”; arranged vocal solos in differ- also taught one of the largest white Bible classes in town. Serious ent keys for mixed chorus, men’s chorus, and women’s chorus; about her faith, she passed on her Christian beliefs to her chil- composed original song cycles like Saracen Songs; and edited or dren. Burleigh remembered her singing while doing housework, transposed arrangements for such church hymns as “In Christ and he and the other family members joined in. There Is No East or West” (the tune is “McKee,” the name of the Burleigh worked several jobs to help his family financially. rector at St. George’s). His grandfather worked as a lamplighter and town crier in Erie. Burleigh received honorary degrees from Atlanta and Howard At age 12, Burleigh and his brother worked alongside him. Universities for his contributions as a vocalist and composer. The Grandpa Walters sang as he worked and taught his grandsons old payment of his works covered his travels to Europe and language plantation songs. studies. He had the privilege of performing for the king and Early in Burleigh’s teens, one of his aunts paid for him to take queen of England and President Theodore Roosevelt and encour- a few piano lessons, but his major musical breakthrough came aged the careers of many singers like Marian Anderson, Roland through a family his mother worked for—the Russells. They Hayes, and Paul Robeson. hosted recitals with famous performers in their home, and the In his later years, Burleigh attended a concert in his honor young Burleigh made it his business to listen. One time, when he and listened to others perform several of his musical pieces. At heard Rafael Joseffy, the Hungarian pianist, planned to come, he the time he said, “Now it’s time for me to be goin’ home. Next stood for hours in the snow outside the window to hear him and time you walk down to the shore, and look out across the water, almost caught pneumonia. After that incident, his mother, his you remember you’re not at land’s end; you’re where a bridge strongest cheerleader, got him a job as the doorman for the Rus- begins!... from this world to the next.” The show ended with “I sell family, allowing him to continue to enjoy the musicians. Stand at the River of Jordan,” one of his arrangements. In 1892, at the age of 26, Burleigh took his whole savings of A skillful preacher can take the Word of God, excellent sto- $30 and a recommendation letter from Mrs. Russell to New York ries, and illustrations and put together a message to move people City to audition for a scholarship at the National Conservatory and help people see God and the hereafter. Burleigh’s long legacy of Music. Low grades initially eliminated him, but an acquain- of Christian music did the same. He made that heavenly shore tance of Mrs. Russell’s helped him, and he finally received the visible through the power of song. scholarship to attend the school. After he completed his educa- Burleigh became ill and retired in 1946, and three years later tion, he eventually became an instructor there. he died of heart failure at the age of 82. Over two thousand As a student, he needed extra money so he cleaned in the mourners attended his services at St. George’s. One writer stated school, singing as he went up and down the halls. The director of it well about Burleigh’s death, that “the ‘dapper little man with the conservatory, Antonin Dvorak, heard Burleigh and greatly the white mustache’ had indeed laid down his burden.” admired his voice and the richness of the plantation melodies. Katherine G. Johnson an all-male, white flight research team. It was a tense Katherine G. Johnson situation, but her bosses and colleagues eventually Math, Faith, and the Race to Space respected her precise computations, which she made in by Victoria McAfee her head, long before the days of pocket calculators and I don’t have a feeling of inferiority. Never had. computerized flight plans. She asked to be included in I’m as good as anybody, but no better. editorial meetings and got her name put on reports, a first for a woman. Johnson’s work is credited in several major Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson was born August 26, space flights such as calculating the trajectory for Freedom 1918, in White Sulphur Springs. Greenbrier County, West 7, which put the first US astronaut, Alan Shepard, into Virginia, the youngest daughter of Joshua and Joylette space. She calculated the launch window for his 1961 Coleman’s four children. Her father was a lumberman, Mercury mission. It is said that John Glenn specifically farmer, and handyman, while her mother taught school. called on Johnson to check the numbers of his flight At an early age, Johnson demonstrated a God-given orbiting the earth and refused to start the mission unless intellect and a superior skill in math. She started high Johnson confirmed the calculations of the new electronic school at 10 years old and graduated summa cum laude computers. She also worked out the math for the 1969 from West Virginia State College at 18, with degrees in Apollo 11 mission, which sent the first three men to the mathematics and French. Later, she desegregated the moon, and the aborted Apollo 13 mission. It was part of graduate school at West Virginia State University, the first her job to get the astronauts back safely to earth after the African-American woman to earn a master’s degree there. equipment failure. She later worked on the Space Shuttle After her undergraduate graduation, she started teaching at program and plans for a mission to Mars before she retired a black public school in Virginia. in 1986 after working 33 years for NASA. In 1939, Johnson married her first husband, James Johnson’s importance to the space program was largely Goble, and when she became pregnant, she quit school unknown until author Margot Lee Shetterly wrote the and concentrated on her family. Her husband died in 1956 book Hidden Figures about three African-American of cancer at the age of 43, leaving her with three children women, employed by NASA, who played a significant role to raise alone. Three years later she married James Johnson in the space program—Doris Vaughn, Mary Jackson, and and became the first black woman to attend graduate Katherine Johnson. Later, a movie of the same title was school at the University of West Virginia. Daughters produced. Both the movie and the book have been praised Joylette and Katherine later became teachers, while her as something to inspire youth, especially girls who might other daughter, Constance, became a guidance counselor. think math and science is just for boys. She would tell them that math was not hard: “If you don’t It took years, but finally, Johnson and the other do well in math, normally it’s because you had the wrong two women have been recognized for their significant teacher, you know, or the teacher didn’t like math and contributions. When she was 96, President Obama somebody told you it was hard.” awarded Johnson the Medal of Freedom. Following this In 1952, God opened a door for Johnson to become award, on May 5, 2016, the 55th anniversary of Alan a mathematician at the National Advisory Committee Shepard’s historic rocket launch and splashdown, NASA for Aeronautics (NACA) in Hampton, Virginia, the named a building in her honor at the Langley Research predecessor of the National Aeronautics and Space Center in Hampton, where she originally worked. Administration (NASA). Initially, Johnson worked in a In spite of all of these accomplishments, past and pool of women performing math calculations referred to as present, Johnson has maintained a humble spirit. Her “computers who wore skirts.” In keeping with state racial pastor said he had no knowledge of her significant work segregation laws, Johnson and the other African-American in the space program until three years after he knew her. women in the computing pool worked, ate, and used In spite of her serious and time-consuming job, Johnson restrooms a half-mile away from their white co-workers. stayed active in her church for over 50 years, singing in The men she worked with did not want her drinking out the choir, chairing the church’s finance committee, and of the same coffee pot as them, so they had one exclusively performing other duties in the church. for her labeled “colored.” God definitely had a guiding hand throughout her However, Johnson stated, “Everybody there was doing life and put her in a strategic place at an important time. research. You had a mission and you worked on it, and God used her to aide in the success of several major it was important to you to do your job. I didn’t feel the space programs but even more importantly, she helped segregation, I knew it was there.” NASA disbanded the save astronauts’ lives that might have been lost in space colored computing pool in 1958. or destroyed on a return flight. Those who know her One day Johnson’s supervisor assigned her to assist personally call her a woman of courage and deep faith. Florence Spearing Randolph Florence Spearing Randolph evangelist. However, the ordination only allowed her to serve as a deacon. Finally, in 1903, she was ordained an elder, which allowed ‘Christ Is All in All’ her to consecrate the sacraments and serve Communion. by Victoria McAfee God opened the door for her to minister internationally. In “African Americans should forget our color and only remember 1901, she served as a delegate to an international ecumenical con- that life is a great state of action and we too must play our part. ference in London. As head of the New Jersey Women’s Foreign Perseverance only gains success, and since each of us is assigned a Missionary Society, she set up a Bureau of Foreign Supply to collect work, let us go about it diligently….” and distribute donations for missionaries. This led her to visit AME Florence Spearing Randolph stood tall as a suffragist, civic reformer, Zion missionaries in Liberia and Ghana from 1922 to 1924 at her temperance leader, and pastor. Her constant speaking out and orga- own expense. She brought a young African girl back to be educated nizing against discrimination, poverty, and inequality helped set the in the U.S. stage for the later Civil Rights movement. Politically, Randolph organized the New Jersey State Federation The youngest of seven children, she was born in Charleston, of Colored Women’s Clubs, where she served as president for 12 South Carolina, on August 9, 1866, to John and Anna Smith years, and she argued before the New Jersey State Legislature for Spearing. Her family was proud of their free heritage—no one had the state to adopt the Nineteenth Amendment so women could been a slave in the family for two generations before the Civil War. vote. The Republican Party appointed her to assist in the wom- Her father, a cabinet maker and painter, took on the responsi- en’s division organizing the vote for Warren G. Harding, and later bility of raising the children after Florence’s mother died during her helped her run for nomination as state assemblywoman. childhood. At age 8, Florence accompanied her blind grandmother, She pastored four small, struggling AME Zion churches in New a city missionary in Charleston, to pray with the sick and explain York and New Jersey—for no salary—before the denomination the Scriptures to people. This experience deeply touched Florence, assigned her to a “temporary” pastoral position at Wallace Chapel and she made a decision for Christ at age 13. in Summit, New Jersey, in 1925. The church was really a mission When she visited her older sisters in New York, she discovered with only 35 members that met in the local YMCA. She led that dressmaking was in great demand there, so she moved to New Jer- growing congregation for over 20 years, guiding the building of a sey. Her business was so successful she employed seven people. new church, parsonage, and community center. She goes down in In 1884 while in New Jersey, she married Hugh Randolph of history as one of the few women in the denomination to receive Richmond, Virginia, a cook on a railroad dining car. Sadly, Hugh both a regular ordination and appointment to a church. During Randolph passed away in 1913, making Florence a young widow. that time, she was the first African-American woman to enroll in The couple had one daughter, Leah Viola. an advanced course at Madison and Drew Seminary (later known Florence became a Sunday school teacher and youth leader as Drew University). In 1933, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church, began of Divinity degree from Livingstone College, and Drew University studying the Bible under the tutelage of the Rev. E. George Biddle, now offers a Reverend Florence Spearing Randolph Prize through and took a correspondence course from the Moody Bible Institute their theological school. in Chicago. Pastor Randolph’s messages in church and in political gatherings In 1892, she noticed a crowd across the street from her dress- attacked racism and sexism. She believed Christianity and partic- making business and heard an intoxicated young man causing a ipation in civil rights causes fit together like a hand and glove. In disturbance next to a saloon. She shook her head and thought a message to AME Zion Woman’s Home and Forage Mission Soci- aloud, “If I had my way I would close every saloon before night.” A ety, she commented on the horrible lynchings in the South: “How white woman who heard her invited her to a meeting of the Jersey could such things occur in a great county such as America? It’s be- City Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Florence cause we know not God… the only thing that needs to be stressed said that event “marked the beginning of 14 years of real missionary anytime and anywhere among church groups is the need of a clear work among those who suffer from strong drink and from poverty. interpretation of Jesus Christ and His teaching.” Thus as a [member of the] WCTU, [Young People’s Society of] One of her sermons, “If I Were White,” was widely publicized by Christian Endeavor, King’s Daughter, and [as a] Sunday school the major newspapers of the day. She teacher, I soon developed into a Bible student, discovering that one said in part, “If I were white and believed in God, in can do a real telling work for God and humanity.” His Son Jesus Christ. . .I would speak in no uncertain words against Initially, she dismissed the idea of becoming a woman preacher, race prejudice, hate, oppression and but in 1898 the pastor of the Jersey City AME Zion Church be- injustice. . . .” came ill, and Florence started the church meeting. The enthusiastic Though she was controversial and outspoken about racism, reception encouraged her to lead many more evangelistic meetings suffrage, and discrimination, Florence was also known for her great around the state. Florence joined the New Jersey Conference of empathy and generosity. People called her “Mother Bird” because the AME Zion and petitioned the denomination for a license to she loved to put her arms around people and love them with the preach. This caused a great conflict concerning women being in love of Jesus. Rev. Florence Spearing Randolph died in 1951, aged positions of authority. But Florence received her license, which 85 years, and is remembered for her response whenever asked for led to ordination as a minister and recognition as a denomination the secret of her success: “Christ is all in all.” Thank you for downloading this digital product from David C Cook! We hope you and your ministry benefit from this content, and we encourage you to share it with others.

All David C Cook digital product is protected by copyright laws and is intended for non-commercial use only.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher.

The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.

Your use is subject to the End User License Agreement (“EULA”) and any additional terms or restrictions that may accompany the product. Digital products cannot be returned, sold, or relicensed.

Read the full text of the David C Cook End User License Agreement at: https://davidccook.org/eula/

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact us at: http://davidccook.org/contact/

Thank You!