Thompson, William Albert (1915–2002)

William A. Thompson, pastor, evangelist, and administrator, was the first president of Allegheny East Conference and the first African American to serve as an executive officer of a union conference in the North American Division.

Early Years

William Albert Thompson was born in Tampa, Florida, on July 28, 1915, to William Albert Thompson, Sr. and Labertia Julius Thompson. He was the first of two children born to this union. His sister, Marguerite, died at the age of eight.¹

The Thompsons moved to the southern part of New Jersey, where William finished grade school and, in 1933, graduated from Middle Township High School in Cape May Court House. There were no Black Adventist churches in the area, so the family were members of the sole Adventist congregation in Cape May Court House. When he learned to drive, William traveled 100 miles round trip each Sabbath to attend the Bridgeton, New Jersey, church. He was baptized there in 1935 by Elder W. W. Fordham.²

William was offered a college scholarship and planned to enter a pre-med course, but after reading an Oakwood Junior College bulletin, he decided that he needed to go to the Adventist school in Huntsville, Alabama, for just one semester to get some religious education. He was so impressed with Oakwood that he gave up his scholarship and continued his studies there, working his way through. He worked night and day in the laundry, as fireman of the boilers and as night watchman. He also served as editor of the Acorn, the college magazine and yearbook.³

Each summer Thompson worked as a literature evangelist selling books in the rural areas of Georgia and Alabama with his partner W.R. Robinson. They would preach and hold evangelistic meetings each weekend. As a result of their efforts, 16 people were baptized and a new church organized in Hilton, Georgia.⁴

Pastoral-Evangelistic Ministry

After graduation, Thompson assisted Harvey W. Kibble, Sr. in the northern part of the New Jersey Conference. In 1939 Thompson received an internship in the West Virginia Conference, pastoring the Charleston church and serving as the only Black Adventist evangelist in that mountainous area.⁵

On September 21, 1941, William married Mary Jenny Martin whom he had met at Oakwood. She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 26, 1918, to Robert Martin and Pearl Jones Groves Martin. Her parents were not Adventists but the family lived across the street from the Stevens Avenue Seventh-day Adventist Church. A request from the church’s pastor, G. J. Seltzer, for a Christmas tree that the Martins were ready to discard sparked a conversation in which Mrs. Martin mentioned her concern that her daughter, Mary, would need to cross busy city streets in order to attend kindergarten at the public school. Seltzer encouraged her to send Mary to the Adventist school right across the street instead. Mary ended up attending the church school from kindergarten through grade 10. When she was baptized at age 10 along with her mother, they became the only African American members of the Stevens Avenue church. At Oakwood, Mary took the teacher education course, graduating in 1938. She taught at Adventist schools in Kansas City, Missouri, and Cleveland, Ohio, prior to marriage.⁶

The couple lived in Charleston, West Virginia, which remained the base for Thompson’s pastoral-evangelistic work until March 1945. He was ordained to the gospel ministry in 1942. During the summer of 1944, Thompson pitched a tent in Huntington, West Virginia, preaching nightly without the aid of a microphone. When the series concluded, the new believers whom he baptized in the Ohio River formed the Huntington Church, organized on October 9, 1944.⁷

The Thompsons’ first daughter, Cheryl Marie, was born in West Virginia on February 3, 1945. A month later, the young pastor and his family moved to his home territory, southern New Jersey, where he pastored the Camden, Jericho, Atlantic City, Whitesboro and Bridgeton churches in the Allegheny Conference, the newly-formed Black conference in the Columbia Union.⁸

In late 1947 Thompson was called to the nation’s capital to serve as pastor of the Ephesus Church (later called DuPont Park Church). It was the first in a series of pastorates at three of the Allegheny Conference’s largest congregations. While in Washington, he continued his education at Howard University and at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, then located in Takoma Park.⁹

Thompson accepted a transfer to the Ebenezer Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1953. The Thompsons’ second daughter, Reneé Patrice, was born during the family’s sojourn in Philadelphia. While at Ebenezer, Elder Thompson conducted a tent effort on a vacant lot in North Philadelphia, leading to the baptism of more than 100 people, and organization of a new congregation—the North Philadelphia Church.¹⁰

In March 1956, Thompson moved to his next assignment as pastor of the Berea Temple church of Baltimore, Maryland, then the largest church in the conference. He conducted evangelistic tent efforts each year with each resulting in more than 100 being baptized and the organization of the Sharon Church in Baltimore and the Beacon Light Church of Annapolis, Maryland.¹¹

“Firsts” in Administration

The call to administration came in 1959, when Thompson was named secretary-treasurer and auditor of the Allegheny Conference.¹² When that field was divided into Allegheny East and West because of extensive growth, Thompson became the first president of the Allegheny East Conference beginning January 1, 1967. During his three years as president of Allegheny East, the membership grew from 6,785 in 44 churches to 8,761 in 49 churches.¹³

In 1970, Thompson was asked to serve as executive secretary for the Columbia Union Conference headquartered in Washington, D.C. He thus became the first Black executive officer to serve at the union conference level within the North American Division.¹⁴

While her husband pastored, Mary Thompson taught at the Camden, New Jersey, church school, Philadelphia Ebenezer church school, Baltimore Junior Academy, and at Pine Forge elementary school in Pennsylvania, where she served as principal as well as teacher for grades 5 through 8. After the family moved back to Washington, D.C., in 1970, she taught in the District of Columbia public schools until retiring in 1981.¹⁵

Final Years

Elder Thompson also retired in 1981 after 11 years as executive secretary of the Columbia Union Conference, and a total of 42 years in denominational work. This, however, did not mark an end to his ministry but rather enabled him to return to his first joy—pastoring. After official retirement from full-time service, Thompson pastored the Edmondson Heights, Bladensburg, and Prince Frederick churches, all located in Maryland.¹⁶

W. A. Thompson died September 17, 2002, at age 87.¹⁷ Mary Thompson died in 2019 at 101 years of age.¹⁸

Sources

“Celebrating the Life of Mary J. Thompson.” Funeral program, 2019, copy held by author.

“Celebrating the Life of William Albert Thompson.” Funeral program, 2002, copy held by author.

Pinkney, A. V. “Baltimore Pastor Elected Treasurer of Conference.” Columbia Union Visitor, November 19, 1959.

Pinkney, A. V. “Treasurer of Allegheny Conference.” North American Informant, November-December 1959.

“William A. Thompson Retires.” Columbia Union Visitor, April 30, 1981.

Notes

1. “Celebrating the Life of William Albert Thompson,” funeral program, 2002, copy held by author.↩

2. Ibid.↩

3. Ibid; “William A. Thompson Retires,” Columbia Union Visitor, April 30, 1981, 8C.↩

4. “Celebrating the Life of William Albert Thompson.”↩

5. Ibid.↩

6. “Celebrating the Life of Mary J. Thompson,” funeral program, 2019, copy held by author.↩

7. “William A. Thompson Retires“; “Celebrating the Life of William Albert Thompson.”↩

8. “Celebrating the Life of William Albert Thompson.”↩

9. Ibid.↩

10. Ibid; A.V. Pinkney, “Treasurer of Allegheny Conference,” North American Informant, November-December 1959, 3.↩

11. Cheatham, William L., “Allegheny News Notes,” Columbia Union Visitor, March 22, 1956, 2; Pinkney, “Treasurer of Allegheny Conference”; “Celebrating the Life of William Albert Thompson.”↩

12. A. V. Pinkney, “Baltimore Pastor Elected Treasurer of Conference,” Columbia Union Visitor, November 19, 1959, 1.↩

13. Harold D. Singleton, “Allegheny Divides To East and West,” North American Informant, January-February 1967, 1; “Celebrating the Life of William Albert Thompson.”↩

14. “William A. Thompson Retires.”↩

15. “Celebrating the Life of Mary J. Thompson.”↩

16. “William A. Thompson Retires.”↩

17. William A. Thompson, in “United States, Social Security Numerical Identification Files (NUMIDENT), 1936-2007,” FamilySearch, February 13, 2023, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6K3N-2KPY.↩

18. “Celebrating the Life of Mary J. Thompson.”↩