Rev Stephen Spottswood
On this date, in 1897, Stephen Gill Spottswood was born. He was a Black Bishop, religious leader, and civil and human rights activist.
He was from Boston, where he attended Albright College and Gordon Divinity School, and then received a Doctor of Divinity from Yale University. Bishop Spottswood was president of the Ohio Council of Churches and served on the boards of numerous interfaith conferences. He joined the NAACP in 1919 and was appointed to their board in 1955. He was elected Chairman of the Board in 1961 and held that position for ten years.
As head of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, he became the center of a political storm in 1971 when he publicly chastised the Nixon administration for its treatment of blacks. Although under extreme pressure from the administration, he refused to retract his statement. Stephen Spottswood died on December 1, 1974.
The Encyclopedia of African American Heritage
by Susan Altman
Copyright 1997, Facts on File, Inc. New York
ISBN 0-8160-3289-0
