*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 […]
learn more*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 […]
learn moreStephen 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.
learn more*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.”
learn more*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. […]
learn more*The birth of Rev. D.A. Holmes is celebrated on this date in 1876. He was 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, […]
learn more*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 […]
learn more*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.
learn more*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 […]
learn more*On this date in 1879, St. James Methodist Episcopal Church was incorporated.
Located in quaint and charming Oriole, Maryland, the house of worship was not built until 1885. The church community was comprised of free Blacks; freed slaves and watermen who desired a place to conduct social and spiritual matters.
learn more*Cameron Alleyne was born on this date in 1880. He was a Caribbean-American bishop. Cameron Chesterfield Alleyne was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, to Robert Henry Alleyne and Amelia Anna Alleyne. He attended Naparima College in Trinidad between 1899 and 1903 before traveling to the United States for a Bachelor of Arts degree at Tuskegee Institute in […]
learn more*On this date, in 1881, the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church was founded. Located in Birmingham, Ala., it closely parallels the story of people freed from slavery following the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the ending of the American Civil War. Encouraged by Reverend M. Tyler, president of the Alabama State Convention, a small band […]
learn more*Grant AME Church of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is celebrated on this date in 1883. This is the oldest Black church in Albuquerque and the first in New Mexico, organized during the state’s territorial period. In 1882 William Slaughter, Allen Carter, and Edward Clark organized the New Mexico Colored Religious Society, which the following year became […]
learn more*On this date in 1884, we celebrate the Tuskegee Choir. Beginning as a quartet, this group was sent out by Booker T. Washington for several years to “promote the interest of Tuskegee Institutes” by acquainting benevolent audiences to the school and his philosophy. The original quartet consisted of students Hiram H. Thweatt, John F. McLeMore, […]
learn moreThis date in 1884 marks the founding of the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church in Princess Anne, Maryland.
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