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“Preserving Memories, Preserving Ourselves”

To encourage us to hold on to ancestral memory, the wise late Joan Maynard challenged us to ‘preserve the memories of self.’ Exploring the lives of women who were members of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ before 1920 reveals rich stories of women whose faithfulness created opportunities for future generations.

On November 12, 1989, I became the second woman ordained by Concord Church. That ordination was not Concord’s first because Rev. Salina Perry was ordained fifty-one years earlier in December 1938.

I was often referred to as the first woman ordained by our church because it was thought that the Rev. Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, our ninth pastor, was breaking with history when he ordained me.

However, recovering the story of Salina Perry expanded the dimensions of our self-understanding as a congregation. When her story was not preserved, we ‘forgot’ we were a people that, in the words of the current pastor the Rev. Dr. Gary V. Simpson, “expected those whom God called, regardless of who they were, to be faithful in their discipleship.”

As a member of Concord, Perry organized the Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in 1929 as a community mission. She canvassed the neighborhood looking for people and gathered those she found even before she had a place to meet with them. Her mission was popular, in part, because she valued and invested in young people.

Her first Sunday School treasurer was nine-year-old Clinton Reid. With the support of community parents, she rented her first meeting place for the church at 30 Humboldt Street.

The eighth pastor of Concord, the Rev. Dr. James B. Adams, supported Perry’s ministry and reached out to the local Baptist Minister’s Council to request they examine her for ordination. The Council refused.

It did not matter to them that Perry was already successful in a grounded mission for nine years. She was a woman. Further, the Council threatened Adams with removal from the local fellowship if he persisted.

Not to be deterred, Adams went outside of Brooklyn to enlist Baptist pastors from Manhattan and Long Island to form an ordination council. This council examined Perry, affirmed her call and fitness for ministry, and voted to recommend her ordination to the congregation.

Perry was ordained on December 22, 1938, in a service held at the Who So Ever Will Baptist Church in Manhattan. Dr. Adams preached the ordination sermon.

Back in Brooklyn, the Concord Boy Scouts’ Drum & Bugle Corps – with flair and as much pomp as they could create because of the circumstances – formed a parade and marched her into her church as the duly ordained pastor in early 1939.

This support for Perry did not happen in a vacuum. Dr. Adams was standing in Concord’s tradition set by predecessors who equipped people – women and men – for leadership. Adams was also pastoring among similar living stories of faithfulness right in the congregation.
One such example was Rebecca J. Carter.

She preached in local pulpits with the support of Concord’s 8th pastor the Rev. Dr. William M. Moss as early as 1916. In fact, when Dr. Moss invited Rev. Crockett, the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Morristown, NJ to preach at Concord in August 1918, he sent Rebecca J. Carter to preach for Crockett at Calvary.

She was educated under Concord’s sixth’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. William T. Dixon, who paid particular attention to the quality and rigors of the church’s Sunday School and the Literary Circle.

The members learned about more than scripture. They learned how to read, present papers, and debate issues impacting Black life. Dixon supported Carter’s further preparation through the American Baptist Home Missionary Society.

She was instrumental in starting the famous White Rose Center when she returned to Brooklyn.

As pastor, Adams continued the example of his predecessors, and he went further. Concord celebrated its first “Women’s Day” service in 1905 under the leadership of Alice Wiley Seay (we’ll get to her story soon!); but Carter’s preaching with Adam’s support was not limited to Women’s Day services.

She frequently preached revivals throughout New York. In 1926, she preached a sermon at Calvary Baptist Church in Ithaca, NY from Deuteronomy 1:38 entitled, “Encouragement: The Oasis of the Desert.”

Ordaining Salina Perry was possible in 1938 when the practice was rare in Baptist churches, in part, because the example of Rebecca J. Carter and the stories of women who came before her were alive and woven into the cultural fabric of the congregation.

Their memories were preserved. Upcoming, I will introduce a few of the previously unknown suffragist members whose lives are now being studied by scholars. Their work created change beyond Concord. With faith, they addressed lynching, Jim Crow, and racism – and left legacies we need to remember.

1-Woman Pastor Leads Progressive Church, The New York Age Newspaper, April 13, 1957
2 -The New York Age, August 17, 1918

(To Be Continued Next Week)

About Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson

The Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson is President of Auburn Theological Seminary.

With her appointment in 2021, she became the first Black woman and non-Presbyterian to lead the seminary in its 203-year history.

Under her leadership, Auburn is leaning forward in its mission to identify and strengthen leaders – from the pulpit to the public square – to build communities, bridge divides, pursue justice, and heal the world.

Advancing a long-term view of healing, she is preparing Auburn to seed a thriving future with a new intergenerational focus on the formation of the leaders for a multifaith and complex world.

Prior to her appointment at Auburn, Rev. Jordan-Simpson was the 26th Executive Director of Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR USA). Her tenure saw increased organizational and governance capacity to support grassroots chapters and affiliates and the launching of the Walter Wink and June Keener Wink Fellowship for emerging leaders.

In 1989, Rev. Jordan-Simpson became the second woman ordained by the Concord Baptist Church of Christ following the ordination of Rev. Salina Perry of Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church as the first woman in 1938.

As Executive Director of the Children’s Defense Fund – New York, she worked with advocates to name and address New York’s cradle to prison pipeline crisis; to prioritize youth justice within New York’s diverse faith communities; and, to close abusive youth prisons and redirect resources to invest in youth and their families.

She was the founding Executive Director of Girls Inc. of New York City; and prior to that served as Executive Vice President of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation.

Rev. Dr. Jordan-Simpson earned the Executive Level Certificate from the Columbia Business School Institute for Not-for-Profit Management; the Doctor of Ministry Degree (with distinction) from Drew Theological School; Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary; and BA from Fisk University.

She is the immediate past President of American Baptist Churches of Metropolitan New York and serves on the Boards of FPWA, Faith Matters Network, NYC Kids Rise, and Western States Center.

Dr. Simpson’s Message to Churches: Document, Save and Send Your Stories Forward
“Too often, we look to ordained or positional leaders to tell the story of courage and leadership in Black faith communities. Historically, our people did not wait for some official act of ordination or position to speak, act, and live justly.

As we uncover the historical stories of the activist women and suffragists who called Concord Church home, I hope the series will inspire congregations to encourage women, young people, and LGBTQ+ members to claim the fullness of their Baptismal call and to be disciples of change in their communities.

In the interest of sending better stories to the future, I hope churches will document the many ways their members are already at work in their everyday lives, creating change for tomorrow.” – EJS