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. Jordan Rice
Lead Pastor | Renaissance Church |
We took the opportunity to interview Rev. Jordan Rice, Lead Pastor of Renaissance Church and a former Church Planting Fellow with Redeemer City-to-City, for Black History Month. Read his responses to our questions below and get to know Rev. Rice.
Tell us about Renaissance Church.
Renaissance Church was planted in September 2014 by me, my wife Jessica, and a group of committed neighbors living in Harlem, NYC. Since then, Renaissance Church has grown to become a vibrant, diverse community of Jesus followers who hope to see themselves and Harlem renewed by the gospel.
What do you see on the horizon for Renaissance Church?
Since its launch, Renaissance Church has held Sunday worship gatherings in a neighborhood public school. This fruitful partnership has allowed our church to grow and provide direct access to show the tangible love of God to the staff and students of a local, under-resourced school. At the same time, the lack of 24/7 space significantly limits the ministry and community outreach that we want to do.
In the fall of 2024, Renaissance Church launched a campaign called In Harlem as it is in Heaven. The congregation is raising money to support our two main initiatives: forming a Community Development Corporation and securing 24/7 space (whether by purchase or long-term lease). We want to dig deeper roots for the purpose of creating greater Kingdom impact, both in Harlem and New York City. We want to partner with God in the renewal of our great city.
How can we pray for you, your work, and your congregation?
It’s a tremendous challenge to locate an appropriate space for our church. There are a few large spaces that are being held by denominations and congregations that no longer even use these spaces, but haven’t been willing to discuss transferring the property. We’re praying for open doors and for the right space.
Please share your history with the Black church in America.
My great grandparents were from Averett, Virginia, and lived there during the Jim Crow era. Although most families were forced into sharecropping, a man named George Wharton — who was Black but passing for white — owned a lot of land in the area. He gifted dozens of Black families acres of land, and my family, the Jamiesons, were recipients.
Consequently, the families that were financially self-sufficient came together to build a church which would later be known as the Wharton Memorial Baptist Church. That church is still standing today, and is a beacon in Averett, Virginia.
I was raised in a Black church — Shiloh Baptist Church — outside of Yonkers, New York. My parents served as a Deacon and Deaconess there. I was saved in the Black church, baptized in the Black church, and later ordained in the Black church (Redeeming Love Christian Church in Durham, North Carolina). I am a product of the rich tradition of Biblical fidelity and justice of the Black church.
Who are some of the Presbyterian church leaders who have made an impact on you?
Tim Keller was a major influence in my life. I was selected as a Church Planting Fellow with Redeemer City-to-City, and I sat under his teaching during that time. He really revolutionized my understanding of the gospel.
What are some of your favorite Black Christian authors that we should be reading?
Thabiti Anyabwile
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. Rev. McGowan was called as Senior Pastor of Redeemer Church in Jackson in 2015.
Rev. Charles McKnight III is the Coordinator of the PCA Mission to North America African American Ministries and the Center for African American Church Planting Executive Director. He serves on the advisory boards of Covenant Seminary, the PCA Unity Fund, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Ministries LINK, and as an assessor for the MNA Church Planting Assessment Center. Rev. McKnight co-founded West Charlotte Church (WCC) in the historic African American community — the first and only African-American-led PCA church planted by another African-American-led church (Christ Central Church). Rev. McKnight served as our guest preacher in November 2023.
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. Rev. Plummer 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. Rev. Whitfield 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 he pastored in the inner-city Sandtown community. Dr. Williams 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.