Save the Date
SAVE THE DATE FEBRUARY 27, 2021 AT THE LUTHERAN CENTER GLENDALE, CA Rev. Nelson Wesley Trout (1921 - September 20, 1996) First African-American U.S. Lutheran Bishop The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America celebrated the life of Bishop Nelson Wesley Trout on September 20, 1996, as it mourned his passing. The Rev. Dr. Trout was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1921. He attended and would graduate from Capital University and Trinity Lutheran Seminary, both in Columbus. He would later receive a Doctor of Divinity degree from Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa. Over the years, he pastored congregations in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Montgomery, Alabama, along with Community Lutheran, Los Angeles. California. Dr. Trout left Montgomery in 1955, but not before he befriended The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Trinity Lutheran Church, Montgomery, was a small congregation with an attached private school funded as a mission by the World Lutheran Council. Trout was always an advocate of and a champion for quality education. Trout and King, while residing in Montgomery, were known to “kid” each other from time to time. Trout asked King how he got the name “Martin Luther?” King replied by asking Trout how he came to be Lutheran? Trout joked that “competition among Baptist preachers for placements was rough, and that the Lutherans were begging for Negroes” (to use the word common at the time). Trout served on the staff of the American Lutheran Church (ALC) in 1960, which would merge into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1987. From 1960 to 1967, Dr. Trout was the ALC’s Associate Youth Director, a post he would leave to become Director of Urban Evangelism (1968-1970).
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