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Don L. Aalborg served as a pastor-evangelist and in conference administration as a youth director, educational superintendent, executive secretary and president, during 37 years of ministry, 23 of them in the Georgia-Cumberland Conference.
William E. Abernathy served the church for 36 years primarily in the roles of institutional management and financial administration.
The first and only issue of the "Advent Mirror," published January 1845 in Boston, Massachusetts, proved to be a milestone in the development of Seventh-day Adventist teachings concerning the pre-advent judgment and final ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary.
The Allegheny Conference was one of the seven conferences organized in response to the April 10, 1944 recommendation of the General Conference Committee that union conferences in the United States where the “colored constituency” was deemed “sufficiently large” organize “colored conferences…administered by colored officers and committees.” According to George E. Peters, head of the North American Colored Department, these conferences were established “to meet present-day conditions” of racial segregation and inequality and thus “help in the speedy finishing of God’s work on earth.”
W. H. Anderson was a leading pioneer of Adventist mission to the indigenous peoples of southern Africa. His achievements and his ability to communicate passion for mission did much to generate interest among American Adventists in the church’s nascent work on the African continent.
North American Division Biography Groundbreakers Missionaries
The Atlantic Conference, though short-lived (1889-1901), fostered the early development of Seventh-day Adventist work in the large cities on the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. It was parent to the Chesapeake, Greater New York, and New Jersey Conferences.
Joseph Bates was a mariner, social reformer, pamphleteer, and evangelist who co-founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
During his lengthy career as an editor and author, Calvin P. Bollman was connected with all three of the major Seventh-day Adventist publishing associations then operating in North America and helped edit several leading periodicals, including Signs of the Times, Review and Herald, and Liberty. He also contributed in multiple ways to the early development of denominational institutions in the American South.
Luther Boutelle, known for his zeal and eloquence in advocating social and religious reform, embraced the Second Advent message in 1840 and preached it for more than 50 years, eventually affiliating with the Advent Christian Association.
Charles E. Bradford stood at the forefront of Seventh-day Adventist leadership in North America during the second half of the 20th century. He served as a pastor, evangelist, local conference and General Conference administrator, and as president of the North American Division, the first to hold that title. As an author, speaker, and denominational executive, Bradford set forth an inclusive vision for the church and sought to implement it by empowering full and equal participation across lines of race and gender.
John A. Brunson was a prominent Southern Baptist minister who accepted Seventh-day Adventism in 1894, rapidly garnered wide acclaim in Adventist circles as a gospel revivalist and Bible teacher, but then returned to the Baptist ministry in 1904. Sophia Brunson preceded her husband in making a public commitment to Adventism. She became a physician who gained recognition throughout the American South for her speaking and writing on health and temperance.
Elmer Lee Cardey served as a pastor and conference president but was best known for his achievements as a public evangelist both in the United States and South Africa.
E.E. Cleveland was preeminent in Adventist public evangelism during the second half of the twentieth century. As an exceptionally gifted preacher who trained thousands of pastors, Bible instructors, and ministerial students in evangelistic methods, his ministry had a global reach that transcended race. At the same time his leadership was of singular significance for the American church’s struggle to overcome its accommodation to racism during an era of rapid social change.
Spencer N. Curtiss served for nearly four decades in managerial positions at both the Review and Herald and Pacific Press publishing associations.
William C. Davis was a Presbyterian minister in the southern United States whose expositions on biblical prophecy and early opposition to slavery made him a precursor to both the abolitionist and Second Advent movements that arose in America during the 1830s. In a work published in 1811, Davis became the first American author to contend that the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel 8:14 would be fulfilled in the 1840s.
Charles Fitch was a prominent New England clergyman who became a leading figure in the Millerite movement and thereby linked the Second Great Awakening’s currents of revival and social reform with Adventism.
Elmer E. Franke was a gifted but controversial evangelist whose work contributed much to the early development of Adventism in New York City and elsewhere in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Subsequently he broke with the Seventh-day Adventist church and founded the independent People’s Christian Church in 1916.
Elon Galusha was a prominent Baptist minister and antislavery activist based in western New York state who became an influential advocate of the Second Advent message beginning in 1843.
William Gifford was a manufacturer in the New England shipping industry whose life was remarkable both for its longevity and for prioritizing radical causes such as abolitionism and Adventism over business success.
Herbert D. Greene, pastor-evangelist, made a memorable contribution to the early development of the Black Adventist work in the United States before death at a young age ended his promising career.