Black History Month
We rejoice in the rich tapestry that makes up the Christian church. During the month of February, we observe National Black History Month by celebrating the histories, cultures, and contributions of people of African descent to the church body. Here we have highlighted the life and ministry of some key Black Christian leaders.
The following resources are a mere sample of many Black leaders, theologians, and histories. Our hope is to encourage you to learn the many ways Black Christian leaders are shaping our church today. To read more about these individuals and others, visit the African American Ministries website (an arm of our denomination - PCA) to learn about the history of African American Presbyterians.
 | Rev. Charles McKnight
Coordinator | African American Ministries |
After Rev. Charles McKnight served as our guest preacher in November 2023, we took the opportunity to interview him to learn his thoughts on the future of African American PCA churches. Read his responses to our questions below.
What are you most encouraged by in the PCA’s church planting work with African Americans?
In the last five years, the PCA has had six church plants launched by African American lead pastors. We currently have three PCA church plants by African American lead pastors that are in beginning stages.
I’ve been encouraged by the conversations that Mission to North America (MNA) is currently having about not only the need to plant more churches, but specifically the need to plant churches that target ethnic minority communities.
How can we pray for you, your work, the MNA, and PCA African American churches in the New York metro area?
Please pray that:
- The Lord will continue to give me a clear vision of how to lead AAM in this new season
- AAM would bring on board more prayer and financial partners
- The Lord would raise up African American church planters from your existing PCA congregations
Please share your history with the African American church in America.
My roots run deep in the African American church in America. I was baptized in the African American National Baptist Church, USA. I attended an African American Church of God in Christ church (COGIC) in college. I preached my first sermon in an African American Missionary Baptist Church church. My father is a pastor and my mother is a deaconess in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church (AMEZ).
Who are some of the people who have made an impact in the history of African American Presbyterianism (whether PCA or another Presbyterian denomination) in America who have influenced YOU?
Rev. Dr. Carl Ellis and Rev. Wy Plummer have been stalwart leaders in the PCA for decades and have tremendously influenced me. Historically, Rev. Francis Grimke (1850-1937) has greatly influenced me.
What are some of your favorite Christian books by African American authors that we should be reading?
The Beautiful Community by Irwyn Ince Jr
Reading While Black by Esau McCaulley
Urban Apologetics by Eric Mason (editor)
Disunity in Christ by Christena Cleveland
Invitations to Abundance by Alicia J. Akins
Why Black Lives Matter by Anthony B. Bradley (editor)
The Bible Explained by Cyril Chavis Jr
Free at Last? by Carl F. Ellis Jr
The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
Shoutin’ in the Fire by Danté Stewart
Never Cast Out by Jasmine L. Holmes
Who are some of your favorite African American Christian Contemporary music artists that we should be listening to?
Fred Hammond
Kirk Franklin
Claudia Isaki
Tasha Cobbs Leonard
Victory Boyd
Lecrae
Contemporary Black Christian Leaders
Dr. Carl Ellis, Jr is a theological anthropologist with decades of ministry experience as a pastor, a campus minister, a community instructor (with Prison Fellowship), and a faculty member with the Center for Urban Theological Studies, Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, and Redeemer Seminary in Dallas. He is also the Provost’s Professor of Theology and Culture, Assistant to the Chancellor, and Senior Fellow of the African American Leadership Initiative at Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson.
Rev. Edler Hawkins, a pastor from New York City, was the first Black moderator of the United Presbyterian Church in the US. In 1971, Hawkins accepted a position as professor at Princeton Seminary for practical theology and black studies.
Dr. Irwyn Ince firmly believes that the ministry of reconciliation demonstrated in the local church by the gathering of people from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities, is the natural outworking of a rich covenantal theological commitment. He was unanimously elected to the position of PCA General Assembly Moderator in 2018, the first African American to be elected. He currently leads our denomination’s Mission to North America.
Rev. Elbert McGowan, Jr moved to Kentucky, after graduating from Alabama A&M University, where his passion to share the gospel grew and resulted in a full-fledged prison ministry. Later he moved back to his hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, where he worked at Redeemer Church, founded a Reformed University Fellowship campus ministry at Jackson State University, graduated from RTS, and then transitioned into full-time campus ministry at JSU. Elbert was called as Senior Pastor of Redeemer Church in Jackson in 2015.
Rev. Wy Plummer is the African American Ministries Coordinator for Mission to North America (PCA). He is primarily responsible for recruiting African Americans into the Presbyterian Church in America. Wy was born in New York City, and he was an assistant pastor at Faith Christian Fellowship and before that a co-pastor at New Song Community Church prior to joining AAM.
Rev. Russ Whitfield serves as the founding pastor of Grace Mosaic, a cross-cultural church that he helped to plant in Northeast Washington, DC. After growing up in the church as a pastor’s son and walking away from the faith, Russ sensed a call to ministry while attending New York University. He is the Director of Cross-Cultural Advancement for Reformed University Fellowship and a Guest Lecturer at Reformed Theological Seminary’s Washington, DC, campus. Russ led a seminar at our Called to Joy event in February 2024.
Dr. Thurman Williams is the founding pastor of New City Fellowship West End Church in St. Louis, and the Director of Homiletics at Covenant Theological Seminary. He also preached at the PCA General Assembly in 2016. Prior to planting New City West End in 2019, he and his family lived in Baltimore where Thurman pastored in the inner-city Sandtown community. Thurman was the guest speaker for our Rooted in Scripture retreat in February 2023.
To read more about these individuals and others, visit the African American Ministries arm of the PCA.
Historic Black Christian Leaders
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune was an American educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, and civil rights activist. The first statue of a Black person in our nation’s Capital was that of this God-fearing Black woman. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935 and presided as president or leader for a myriad of African American women's organizations. She was appointed as a national advisor to president Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom she worked with to create the Federal Council on Colored Affairs, also known as the Black Cabinet.
Charles Octavius Boothe was an African American Baptist preacher and educator. He was strongly concerned with the "uplift" of African Americans, attempting to offer basic literacy and religious and moral education. This included providing the resources necessary to improve the status of African Americans in American society.
Samuel Eli Cornish was an American Presbyterian minister, abolitionist, publisher, and journalist. He was a leader in New York City's small free black community where he organized the first congregation of Black Presbyterians in New York. In 1827, he became one of two editors of the newly founded Freedom's Journal, the first black newspaper in the United States. In 1833 he was a founding member of the interracial American Anti-Slavery Society.
Frederick Douglass, a well known abolitionist, was also a great man of faith. His theology of suffering and opposition to oppression were ultimately bolstered to his unwavering hope in the gospel. He became the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century.
Rev. Francis James Grimke was ordained as a minister and served at Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, for all but four years of his 50 years in ministry. He also helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He devoted his life to teaching orthodox Christian truths and living them out in the racially hostile landscape of his day.
Fannie Lou Hamer was well known for her fight for civil rights in the 1960s. She would often sing gospel songs at rallies and protests, and it was evident her faith guided her through the intensity of that era.
Lemuel Haynes was a war veteran of the American Revolution and became the first Black ordained minister in the US. Rev. Haynes preached early on, often to a white congregation, that God's providential plan included the defeat of slavery and integration of the races as equals.
Katherine Johnson, a mathematician behind one of the greatest launches into space, and the first African American woman to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was also an active member of her Presbyterian church.
Martin Luther King, Jr was a minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. A Black church leader and a son of early civil rights activist and minister, King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination in the United States.
Lucy Craft Laney was a pioneer in Christian education who advocated for Black children to be educated. She started a school in the basement of her Presbyterian church in Augusta, GA in the 1880s.