Benjamin William Arnett was an American educator, minister, bishop and member of the Ohio House of Representatives.
William J. Simmons was an ex-slave who became Simmons College of Kentucky's second president (1880–1890) and for whom the school eventually was named. Simmons greatly developed Howard University's teacher training programs when he took over the school. In addition, he was a writer, journalist, and educator. In 1886 he became president of the American National Baptist Convention, one of the organizations that would merge to form the National Baptist Convention, USA. He was elected president of the Colored Press Association for his work as editor of the American Baptist, a newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky.
Benjamin Bosworth Smith was an American Protestant Episcopal bishop, and the Presiding Bishop of his Church beginning in 1868.
Henry Adams was a Baptist pastor and leader in the black community in 19th-century Kentucky. He was born to free parents in Franklin County, Georgia, and became ordained at age 23. He preached throughout the Deep South before moving to Louisville, Kentucky, in 1829, where he became minister to black members of First Baptist Church.
Elisha Winfield Green was a former slave who became a Baptist leader in Kentucky, US. For five years he was moderator of the Consolidated Baptist Educational Association, and he promoted the establishment of what is now the Simmons College of Kentucky. Green suffered from racial intolerance all his life. In 1883, when he was an elderly and respected minister, he was assaulted and beaten for failing to comply with a demand to give up his seat on a train.
George Washington Dupee was a former slave who became a Baptist leader in Kentucky, United States.
William B. Derrick was an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) bishop and missionary. He worked as a seaman early in his life and served in the Union Navy during the US Civil War. After the war, he joined the AME church and became involved in church leadership and missionary activities. He became a bishop of the church in 1896. He was also involved in Republican politics and civil rights.
Benjamin Tucker Tanner was an American clergyman and editor. He served as a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1886, and founded The Christian Recorder, an important early African American newspaper.
Andrew Heath was a Baptist minister in Louisville, Kentucky.
Bartlett Taylor was an African Methodist Episcopal Church minister in Louisville, Kentucky. He purchased his freedom from slavery in 1840 and became missionary for the states of Kentucky and Tennessee after the American Civil War (1861-1865), in which position he founded many churches.
Marcus Dale was a leading African Methodist Episcopal preacher in New Orleans.
Matthew or Madison Campbell was a Baptist preacher in Richmond, Kentucky. He was a local religious and political leader and helped organize a number of churches.
John W. Stevenson was an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church minister. He was the financier and builder of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, which was the largest black church in the country at the time of its building. He was a talented fundraiser and built a number of other churches and was pastor of many churches in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and New England. He was an important figure in the church and eventually held the position of presiding Elder of the New York district.
Benjamin Franklin Lee was a religious leader and educator in the United States. He was the president of Wilberforce University from 1876 to 1884. He was editor of the Christian Recorder from 1884 to 1892. He was then elected a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, serving from 1892 until his resignation in 1921, becoming senior bishop in the church in 1915.
Marshall W. Taylor was a Methodist Episcopal minister and journalist in Kentucky. He is noted for his book, Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies published in 1882. He was also the first black editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate, a position he held from 1884 until his death in 1887.
R. C. O. Benjamin was a journalist, lawyer, and minister in the United States. He was an editor or contributor to numerous newspapers throughout the country, and may have been the first black editor of a white paper when he became editor of the Daily Sun In Los Angeles. He was also possibly the first black man admitted to the California bar, and may have been admitted to the bar in twelve states. In 1900 he was working as a prominent lawyer in Lexington Kentucky when he was beaten for helping register black voters by a white man who opposed his efforts. Later that day he was killed by the same man.
Charles Henry Parrish was a minister and educator in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky. He was the pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Louisville from 1886 until his death in 1931. He was a professor and officer at Simmons College, and then served as the president of the Eckstein Institute from 1890 to 1912 and then of Simmons College from 1918 to 1931. His wife, Mary Virginia Cook Parrish and son, Charles H. Parrish Jr., were also noted educators.
John Mifflin Brown was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. He was a leader in the underground railroad. He helped open a number of churches and schools, including the Payne Institute which became Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, and Paul Quinn College in Waco, Texas. He was also an early principal of Union Seminary which became Wilberforce University.
James Matthew Townsend was an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister and a state legislator from Indiana. He served in the legislature in the 1884 session. From 1889 to 1891 he was recorder at the General Land Office in Washington, DC, appointed by President Benjamin Harrison.
Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising (1887) is an anthology of 177 short biographies of African-American men written by Rev. William J. Simmons, a Baptist minister and college administrator. The book has been called the "single most authoritative work on nineteenth-century African Americans". Henry McNeal Turner, a noted African Methodist Episcopal minister and leader, wrote the introduction.
