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Vincent L. Roberts, pastor and administrator, was the first African American executive officer of a union conference in the North American Division, serving as treasurer of the Southwestern Union. Prior to that he was the first secretary-treasurer of the Southwest Region Conference and subsequently the conference’s president for 13 years.
Thomas Milton Rowe pastored several large urban churches and, in 1947, became the first president of the Central States Mission (soon thereafter Central States Conference).
William Henry Sebastian, a pioneer of the black Adventist work, joined the work of the Southern Missionary Society led J. Edson White in 1900, and later ministered in the Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia conferences.
Harold Douglas Singleton, Sr., served as a Seventh-day Adventist minister, editor, church administrator, and regional conference pioneer.
Almira S. Steele, educator and philanthropist, was founder of the Steele Home for Needy Children, regarded as the South’s first orphanage for African Americans.
Ruth Janetta Temple, M.D., was the first Black graduate from what is today the Loma Linda University School of Medicine, the first Black female physician licensed to practice in the state of California, and a lifelong public health crusader.
North American Division Biography Groundbreakers Medical Workers Women
Lindsay Thomas, Jr., was a linguist and university professor noted for mobilizing innovative evangelistic and humanitarian projects in Africa.
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.
Eli S. Walker was the first and the fourth treasurer of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
Mabel Branch was the first African American public school teacher in the state of Colorado and she, along with her parents, Thomas and Henrietta Branch, became the first black missionaries sent to Africa by the Seventh-day Adventist church.
North American Division Biography Educators Groundbreakers Missionaries Couples