Cherry, Stark Outlaw, Jr. (1882–1947)

Stark O. Cherry, M.D., was prominent in the development of Adventism among African Americans during the first half of the 20^th century.

Pittsburgh Physician

Stark Outlaw Cherry Jr. was born on August 24, 1882, in Waynesboro, Georgia, to affluent parents Stark O. Cherry Sr. (1860-1912) and Fannie (Walker) Cherry (1858-1923). His parents, who married in 1875, raised eight children, with two eventually becoming physicians and one a dentist.¹ The Cherry family was notable for their accomplishments during a challenging era for African Americans in the United States.

As a youth, Stark Jr. attended Haines Normal School in Augusta, Georgia. The Cherry family later relocated to Pennsylvania, where Stark Jr. pursued higher education at Lincoln University, earning his bachelor of arts degree in 1905. He continued his academic journey at Temple University in Philadelphia, graduating with a doctor of medicine degree in 1909.²

On October 7, 1914, he married Francis Trower in Philadelphia. Dr. Cherry established a successful medical practice in Pittsburgh, where his reputation grew as a skilled and dedicated physician. His practice expanded, and eventually, in 1935, another pioneering Adventist physician, Dr. Lottie Blake, partnered with him to help meet the demands of house calls and urgent hospital care.³

Contribution to Adventism

Dr. Cherry initially belonged to the African Methodist Episcopal church, but his religious affiliation changed when he attended an evangelistic series conducted by Caribbean evangelist Adam Nicholas Durrant. The West Pennsylvania Conference had invited Durrant to Pittsburgh in 1912 to strengthen the small Black Adventist community of approximately half a dozen members. Dr. Cherry, his wife, and his mother were baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1917.⁴ Their conversion contributed much to the upbuilding of the Pittsburgh congregation. In 1924, during the pastorate of F. C. Phipps, the church constructed an attractive new house of worship and took the name Ethnan Temple.⁵

Dr. Cherry served for a number of years as elder of Ethnan Temple and as a member of the West Pennsylvania Conference executive committee.⁶ His commitment to Adventist education was evident in his efforts to establish a church school in Pittsburgh. As the father of four children—Fanny Matilda, Mary Louise, Gladys, and Stark O. Cherry III (known as David)—he was passionate about providing Christian education for his children and other Adventist youth in the community.

When the church facilities proved inadequate for a school, Dr. Cherry joined a committee to secure a suitable location. He identified a former Jewish hospital with spacious grounds that had been purchased by a city organization but remained undeveloped, and negotiated the free use of one of the smaller buildings for a church school. Working alongside Pastor Thomas M. Rowe, he appealed to the General Conference for assistance with renovations and the eventual purchase of the building. The Ethnan Temple Adventist School opened in 1934 with 30 students in grades three through eight, fulfilling his vision for Adventist education in Pittsburgh.⁷

Dr. Cherry's professional contributions extended beyond his private practice. In the late 1930s he served on the medical staff at Riverside Sanitarium in Nashville, Tennessee, an Adventist institution dedicated to serving the African American population. Subsequently, for six years he devoted a portion of his time each year to filling the role of college physician at Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) in Huntsville, Alabama.⁸

Advocacy for Equal Rights

The Cherry family was committed to advocating for civil rights, a particularly noteworthy stance given that many family members could pass as white due to their light complexion. In 1900, when Stark O. Cherry Sr. spoke out against the disenfranchisement of Black voters in Georgia, the New York Tribune reported that he was one-quarter Native American and could “pass anywhere for a white man.”⁹ One notable incident involved Stark Jr.’s sister, Gertie, who was detained by police in Savannah in 1896 for riding with a Black man. Despite authorities assuming she was white, she firmly asserted her Black identity. After considerable discussion, the police chief ordered her to leave the city by six o'clock the following day, still unconvinced of her racial identity.¹⁰

Although Dr. Cherry appeared to have darker skin than other family members, his wife and children could pass as white. Nevertheless, he instilled in his children a strong sense of Black identity and purposefully enrolled them in historically Black educational institutions, including Oakwood College. The family consistently championed causes that advanced equality and justice for African Americans.

Dr. Cherry played a pivotal role in addressing the Lucy Byard incident, which became a catalyst for the establishment of Black Adventist conferences. In September 1943, Lucy Byard and her husband traveled to Washington Sanitarium for her medical treatment. Upon discovering the Byards were Black, the sanitarium refused to treat her and transferred her to Freedmen’s Hospital, where she subsequently died. News of this discriminatory treatment spread rapidly among Black Adventists.

In response, Dr. Cherry wrote a letter expressing his profound disappointment to J. L. McElhany, president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. McElhany used this correspondence to inform white union presidents about the Black lay perspective on racial conditions within the church. Dr. Cherry personally met with the president to discuss these concerns and was selected to represent the Columbia Union at a critical meeting in Chicago with other Black delegates. This gathering marked the beginning of administrative restructuring for church governance among Black Adventists.¹¹

Legacy

Dr. Cherry's significance in Black Adventist history was recognized when his image was included on the cover of We Have Tomorrow: The Story of American Seventh-day Adventists With an African Heritage by Louis B. Reynolds, published in 1983. The Adventist Review also included Dr. Cherry on the cover of its October 18, 1984, issue devoted to the same topic.

Dr. Stark Outlaw Cherry Jr. passed away on January 29, 1947, at the age of 64, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Courier lauded him as “one of Pittsburgh’s pioneer churchmen.” His wife, Frances Trower Cherry, lived for nearly three decades after his death, passing away on February 10, 1976.¹²

Sources

“Cherry, S. O.” In Who's Who of the Colored Race, vol. 1, edited by Frank Lincoln Mather, 64. Chicago: Memento Edition Half-Century Anniversary of Negro Freedom in U.S., 1915.

“Death of Dr. S. O. Cherry.” North American Informant, March-April 1947.

“Dr. S. O. Cherry, Churchman, Dies.” Pittsburgh Courier, February 8, 1947.

“Drs. Cherry Move to Book Building.” Pittsburgh Courier, March 31, 1928.

Durrant, A. N. “Work Among Colored People In Ohio.” Columbia Union Visitor, February 18, 1932.

“Evils of Georgia Elections.” New York Tribune, June 21, 1900.

Fisher, John. “Seventh Day Adventists Open New Temple, Largest Of its Kind in the State.” Pittsburgh Courier, January 10, 1925.

Morgan, Douglas. Change Agents: The Lay Movement That Challenged the System and Turned Adventism Toward Racial Justice. Westlake Village, CA: Oak and Acorn, 2020.

“Outrageous Treatment.” Savannah Tribune, May 23, 1896.

Phipps, F. C. and D. A. Parsons. “Fannie Cherry obituary.” Columbia Union Visitor, November 22, 1923.

Reynolds, Louis B. We Have Tomorrow: The Story of American Seventh-day Adventists With an African Heritage. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1983.

Williams, Eloise. “West Pennsylvania—Our Church Schools.” Columbia Union Visitor, February 13, 1936.

Williams, Eloise. “West Pennsylvania—The Starting of Our Church Schools.” Columbia Union Visitor, October 4, 1934.

Notes

1. F. C. Phipps and D. A. Parsons, “Fannie Cherry obituary,” Columbia Union Visitor, November 22, 1923, 6; “Stark Outlaw Cherry 1,” Burgess Family Tree, Ancestry.com; “Drs. Cherry Move to Book Building,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 31, 1928, 6.↩

2. “Cherry, S.O.,” in Who’s Who in the Colored Race, vol. 1, ed. Frank Lincoln Mather, 64 (Chicago: Memento Edition Half-Century Anniversary of Negro Freedom in U.S., 1915).↩

3. Louis B. Reynolds, We Have Tomorrow: The Story of American Seventh-day Adventists With an African Heritage (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1983), 140.↩

4. Reynolds, We Have Tomorrow, 273; A.N. Durrant, “Work Among Colored People In Ohio,” Columbia Union Visitor, February 18, 1932, 6.↩

5. John Fisher, “Seventh Day Adventists Open New Temple, Largest Of its Kind in the State,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 10, 1925, 1; W.B. Mohr, “Pittsburgh Colored Church,” Columbia Union Visitor, September 11, 1924, 3.↩

6. “Death of Dr. S.O. Cherry,” North American Informant, March-April 1948, 2.↩

7. Eloise Williams, “West Pennsylvania—The Starting of Our Church Schools,” Columbia Union Visitor, October 4, 1934, 3-4; Eloise Williams, “West Pennsylvania—Our Church Schools,” Columbia Union Visitor, February 13, 1936, 5.↩

8. “Death of Dr. S.O. Cherry.”↩

9. “Evils of Georgia Elections,” New York Tribune, June 21, 1900, 17.↩

10. “Outrageous Treatment,” Savannah Tribune, May 23, 1896, 3.↩

11. Douglas Morgan, Change Agents: The Lay Movement That Challenged the System and Turned Adventism Toward Racial Justice (Westlake Village, CA: Oak and Acorn, 2020), 10, 122-124, 205-209.↩

12. “Dr. S.O. Cherry, Churchman, Dies,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 8, 1947, 12; Certificate of Death, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Bureau of Vital Statistics, No. 9643; Frances Trower Life Sketch in Burgess Family Tree, Ancestry.com.↩