Author: Jean McDaniel

Rev. Brooks Andrews recently retired as pastor of Japanese Baptist Church in Seattle, the same church his father, Emery Andrews (born in 1894), was serving when WWII began. Brooks was only a small child then, but remembers that the members of the congregation were forced into internment camps along with 100,000 other Japanese Americans. Emery Andrews and his family followed his congregation to Minidoka, the camp in Idaho, where he continued to minister to them.   Rev. Andrews worked for justice for the Japanese Americans who were stripped of their property and dignity.

Following the war, Emery Andrews became involved in the ‘House for Hiroshima’ project that built homes, day care centers and other structures in Hiroshima. He made trips to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1949 and 1951. During that time he kept a dairy, made a scrapbook and took many photographs.

This week, Brooks Andrews brought these remembrances of his father’s activities during the post war period to ABHS. He has donated them to the ABHS archives so that they can be made available to researchers.

by Shabria Caldwell

The American Baptist Churches USA has a rich history concerning its diversity, ranging from gender leadership to minority leadership. Ruth McKinney (1900-1966) is a proud representation of both as she is perhaps one of the most prominent names in ABC history. An influential speaker and leader, McKinney is the first Black woman to hold a top office in the American Baptist Convention.

McKinney’s roots were an early indication of her Baptist leadership. The daughter of a reverend, Annie Ruth Berry was born in Birmingham, Alabama to Reverend Samuel and Ada Virginia Berry. She was educated at both Spelman College and Columbia University. Ruth was working as a college teacher when she married her husband, Wade, in 1924.

Wade Hampton McKinney was born in Cleveland, Georgia, in 1892. He attended Atlanta Baptist College Academy, Morehouse College, and Colgate Rochester Theological Seminary. Furthermore, he served in the U.S. Army during World War I. Ruth and Wade McKinney can be reverenced as one of the many Black power couples of their time.

With the migration of African Americans to northern cities in the 1920s and 1930s in search of industrial work, many flooded into the Cedar-Central neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. This added to the congregational numbers of neighborhood churches. Most recognizable was Antioch Baptist Church because of its leadership role in the community. Antioch provided financial support for other neighborhood churches, and supported the NAACP.

Reverend Wade McKinney was called upon to lead Antioch Baptist Church in 1928. He is revered as one of the most important and influential leaders in Antioch’s history, serving the Church for 28 years. During that period, Ruth worked as a teacher at the Church School and also served as the youth choir director for 33 years.

Ruth and Wade were pivotal figures not only in the Christian Church community, but also within the African American community as civic leaders. In 1947, Reverend Wade worked to establish a credit union to aid returning African American veterans as well as local residents in securing loans. In addition, he served as a spokesman for the community, leading many voter registration campaigns and serving on the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury.

As the wife of an esteemed minister, and as an achieved and educated woman, Ruth became active in the affairs of religious organizations across the nation. She was in great demand as a speaker. Beginning in 1952, she began broadcasting 1-minute radio “Thot-O-Grams” which included brief, inspirational messages under the supports of the United Church Women of Cleveland.

In addition, McKinney was also a member of the vice presidents board in the National Council of American Baptist Women in the Division of Christian Service during the mid-50s. Her responsibilities included enlisting women in active service within the ministry.

Independently, McKinney saw the importance of the woman’s presence in the church. In the November, 1956 The American Baptist Woman newsletter McKinney wrote, “Many [women] merely have their names on the church roll; others, attend the Sunday worship service, but their service through any organization of the church is not given. Think of this great loss in women power!”

Photo credit:  McKinney, Ann Ruth Berry:  1953, by Herman Seid.  From the Cleveland Press Notable Blacks of Cleveland collection, Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library, Special Collections.  Courtesy of the Cleveland Memory Project

The American Baptists’ first overseas mission was to Burma, in 1813.

It is due to our long history in Burma that the ABHS is now home to a range of photo collections from American Baptists who lived in Burma.  On the Judson200 web site, we display a selection of these early images from three missionaries.

Sydney V. Hollingworth  was born and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He worked for the Superior Printing Company in Akron, Ohio before being sent to Burma, accompanied by his wife and their three children, by the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in 1921. He worked at the Mission Press in Rangoon (Yangon) and lived in the country until 1936.

Arthur E. and Laura H. Carson highlight the Chin people of the Haka Hills, where the Carsons established and operated a mission from 1899 until Arthur’s death in 1908.   After her husband’s death, Laura continued serving at the mission until 1924, when her own failing health compelled her to return to the United States

Elva Jenkins Hendershot  served from 1924 to 1927 as an American Baptist missionary nurse in Kengtung, a town in the Shan state of Burma.  She was given an  album of drawings by an artist from the nearby village of Yan Hlwa to thank her for caring for his sick wife.  Only a few examples of Shan albums still exist today, and of these, the 26-page album dated 1925 in the ABHS holdings is one of the most complete.  These albums comprise “illustrations of multiple ethnic groups, each represented by paired male and female figures in distinctive costumes, often holding an emblematic artifact which evokes a characteristic cultural practice.”

Click here for more information about the missionaries and to see the images preserved in the ABHS archives.