People, Locations, Episodes

Samuel Bacote, Minister born

*This date in 1866 is celebrated as the birth date of Rev. Samuel W. Bacote, a Black minister.  The son of former slaves, Bacote was born in Society Hill, South Carolina. His mother died when he was three months old, leaving him to be raised by his father and grandmother.  His father was literate and […]

James Westley Hurse, Minister born

*James Wesley Hurse was born on this date in 1866.  He was a Black minister. Born in Collierville, Tennessee, he spent his early years on a farm near Mason, Tennessee. As a teenager, he left home and worked at various odd jobs in Memphis before moving to Kansas City at 21. He enrolled at the […]

Nora A. Gordon, Teacher, and Missonary born

Nora Antonia Gordon was born on this date in 1866. She was an African American teacher and missionary.

She was born in Columbus, GA, and graduated from Spelman Seminary (now Spelman College) in 1888. Antonia attended a missionary school in London before arriving at the Palabala mission in the Congo a year later. Working with Lulu Fleming, she taught classes in the day school and the Sunday school. In 1891, she was transferred to Lukunga mission where she was in charge of the afternoon school and the printing office.

Pilgrim Baptist Church (St. Paul, MN) is Founded

On this date in 1866, Pilgrim Baptist Church in St. Paul, MN, was formally organized with its first service.

The First Congregational Church (Atlanta) is Founded

*On this date in 1867, the First Congregational Church of Atlanta held its first service. It came into existence as a “gathered church.”  At first, The American Missionary Association established the Storrs School in Atlanta. The school served as a center for social services, education, and worship for newly freed Blacks. Worshipers at the school’s […]

Abraham Lincoln DeMond, Minister and Activist born.

*Abraham Lincoln DeMond was born on this date in 1867. He was a Black minister and civil rights advocate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Seneca, New York, DeMond was the son of Quam and Phebe (Darrow) DeMond. He was the first black graduate of the State Normal School at Cortland, […]

The Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church (Richmond, VA) is Founded

*The Sixth Mount Zion Baptist was founded on this date in 1867. John Jasper organized Sixth Mount Zion in Richmond, Virginia, he would go on to become one of the nations most well-known post Civil War Black ministers.

Henry H. Proctor, Author, and Minister born

*Henry Proctor was born on this date in 1868. He was an African American author, minister and lecturer.

Born near Fayetteville, Tenn., Henry Hugh Proctor was born to parents who were former slaves. Hannah Murray and Richard Proctor, a carpenter, he had four older siblings. His parents dug ditches and preached sermons to pay for his degree from Fisk University. After graduating in 1891, he received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Yale University in 1894 and was ordained into the Congregational ministry.

Wheat Street Baptist Church is Formed

*Wheat Street Baptist Church is celebrated on this date in 1869. This is a historic black Baptist church in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. The church was founded by members of First Baptist Church in Atlanta (now known as Friendship Baptist Church) who wanted a place of worship closer to where they lived. […]

St. Mark A.M.E. Church (Milwaukee) is Formed

*On this date in 1869, we celebrate St. Mark A.M.E. Church, Milwaukee. This is the first Black church in Milwaukee, WI. In 1868, Ezekiel and Catherine Gillespie, Louis and Matilda Hughes, Charles and Sarah Dorsey, James Johnson, and Catherine Paget gathered to organize a Church of Allen in Milwaukee. On January 9, 1869, Rev. Theodore […]

The Beale Street Baptist Church, a story

*Beale Street Baptist Church is celebrated on this date in 1869. Also known as First Baptist Church or Beale Avenue Baptist Church, 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 […]