People, Locations, Episodes

Rev. William Henry Jernagin, Minister and Pan-Africanist born.

*Rev. William Henry Jernagin was born on this date in 1869. He was a Black Baptist pastor, American civil rights, and Pan-African activist. William Henry Jernagin was born in Mashulaville, Mississippi, to Allen Fletcher Jernagin and Julia Ruth Walker. While his parents were mostly illiterate, they obtained a 40-acre farm to grow fruits and vegetables. […]

The Beale Street Baptist Church, a story

*Beale Street Baptist Church, also known as First Baptist Church or Beale Avenue Baptist Church, is celebrated on this date in 1869. It is a historic church built by a congregation of freed slaves in Memphis, Tennessee. It was designed by the prominent Memphis architectural firm Jones & Baldwin, a partnership between Edward Culliatt Jones […]

William J. Seymour, Minister born

William J. Seymour, an African American minister, was born on this date in 1870.

He was raised in Centerville, LA, in the Baptist Church. As a child, he had dreams and visions. At the age of 25, he contracted smallpox and lost his sight in his left eye.

In 1903, Seymour moved to Houston, looking for relatives who had been lost during slavery. It was there that he accepted an interim post as a pastor of a small Holiness Church led by Pastor Lucy F. Farrow, a Black woman who had gone to Kansas.

The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, a story

*The Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME.) Church was founded on this date in 1870. They are a historically black denomination within the broader context of Wesleyan Methodism. The CME Church was organized in Jackson, Tennessee, by 41 former slave members with the full support of their white sponsors in their former Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who met to […]

Mary Magdalena Tate, Minister born

Mary Magdalena L. Tate was born on this date in 1871. She was an African American minister and administrator.

Born in Dickson, Tennessee, her character and demeanor brought on the nickname “Miss Do Right” during her youth. Tate’s followers were also known as “The Do Rights” and later she became known as Mother Tate.

In 1903, she along with her two sons, Walter Curtis Lewis and Feliz Early Lewis, established “The Church of the Living God, the Pillar and the Ground of the Truth Without Controversy” (House of God).

John Chilembwe, Activist, and Educator born

*John Chilembwe’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1871. He was a Black African minister, activist, and educator.   John Chilembwe was born in Sangano, Chiradzulu District, in the south of what became Nyasaland.  His pre-baptismal name was Nkologo.  Chilembwe’s father was a Yao, and his mother, a Mang’anja slave, captured in warfare.  Chilembwe’s granddaughter stated that Chilembwe’s father might have […]

The 16th Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.) Holds Its First Service

*The first service at the 16th Street Baptist Church was held on this date in 1873. The church was organized as the First Colored Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama. It was the first Black church to organize in Birmingham, founded just two years before. The first meetings were held in a small building at 12th Street […]

William A. White, Canadian Minister and Soldier born

*William A. White II was born on this date in 1874. He was a Black Nova Scotian minister and soldier. William Andrew White II was born to formerly enslaved people in King and Queen County, Virginia. He moved to the city of Baltimore, Maryland, where he lived with his brother and attended Wayland Seminary in […]

Stephen Theobald, Spiritual Leader born

Stephen Theobald was born on this date in 1874. He was an African American journalist, priest, lawyer, and community activist.

He was born in British Guiana, and educated at St. Stanislaus’ College, Queen’s College, and Cambridge University, England where got his law degree. Theobald worked briefly in Canada for the Montreal Star where he befriended many of Jesuits in whom he confided about his interest in becoming a priest. Because of this relationship, he was referred to St. Paul, MN, and at the age 31, he began a five-year curriculum toward ordination in 1905.

Emma C. Clement, Theological Educator born

*Emma Clarissa Clement was born on this date in 1874. She was an African American theological educator.

Emma Clarissa Williams was born in Providence, RI. She was a graduate of Livingston College and she later married George C. Clement, Bishop, and AME Zion Church.  She was named American Mother-of-the-Year on May 1, 1946, she was the first Black woman so honored. As the granddaughter of a slave, Clement accepted the award “in the name of million of Negroes in the United States and in the name of all mothers.” 

Henry W. Botts Sr., Minister born

*Rev. Henry W. Botts Sr. was born on this date in 1875.  He was a Black minister and community activist.    Henry Botts was born in Meadville, MO, one of six children of Thomas and Matilda Botts, who were enslaved on a plantation in Meadville, MO.  The children’s names were Thomas, Virginia, Margaret, William, Henry, and Elizabeth.  […]

D. A. Holmes, Minister, and Activist born

*This date in 1876 is celebrated as the birth date of Rev. D.A. Holmes, a Black minister and community leader. Daniel Arthur Holmes, the son of former slaves, was born in Randolph County, Missouri. His family moved to Macon, Missouri, after being freed at the end of the American Civil War. At age 17, a […]

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church is Founded

*On this date in 1877, we celebrate Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.  This is a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, affiliated with the Progressive National Baptist Convention. Freedmen and free people of color organized the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church congregation. It was first known as the Second Colored Baptist Church. The church trustees paid $270 on […]

Wallace D. Fard, Nation Of Islam founder born

*This date celebrates the birth of Wallace D. Fard, founder of the Nation of Islam (sometimes called the Black Muslim) movement in the United States.

Though his birth date and year are not confirmed, Fard immigrated to the United States sometime before 1930. In that year, he established in Detroit the Temple of Islam as well as the University of Islam, which was the temple’s school, and the Fruit of Islam, a corps of male guards. Fard preached that blacks (who were not to be called Negroes) must prepare for an inevitable race war and that Christianity was the religion of slaveowners.

Arnold Josiah Ford, Rabbi, and Poet born

*Arnold Josiah Ford was born on this date in 1877.  He was a Black poet, musician, composer, and the first Black Rabbi in America.   Ford was born in Barbados to Edward Thomas Ford and Elizabeth Augustine Ford.   He asserted that his father’s ancestry could be traced to the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria and his mother’s to the Mendi tribe of Sierra Leone. According […]