Mansfield Tyler
*On this date, in 1826, Mansfield Tyler was born. He was a Black minister and administrator.
Tyler was born a slave near Augusta, GA., owned by a Baptist preacher; he learned to read and write and became a preacher while still in slavery. He was taken to Alabama by his owner in 1854, and after the American Civil War (1867), Tyler established a Baptist church in Lowndesboro, Ala.
In 1868, he helped organize the first Alabama Colored Baptist Church Convention, serving as its president for ten years until 1886. Tyler also represented the Alabama House of Representatives from 1870 to 1872.
Mansfield Tyler served as the chairman of the board of trustees of Selma University from its opening in 1878 until he died in 1904.
An Encyclopedia of African American Christian Heritage
by Marvin Andrew McMickle
Judson Press, Copyright 2002
ISBN 0-817014-02-0
