A Resilient Faith

Jitsuo Morikawa was born in Hammond, British Columbia. At the time of Executive Order 9066 he was serving as youth pastor at Japanese Baptist Church on Terminal Island. From there, he was sent to Poston Internment Camp in Arizona. He served as a pastor at Poston for 18 months before going to Chicago to become Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church before becoming senior pastor a few years later. In 1956, he left Chicago to become the Director of Evangelism for the American Baptist Home Mission Societies (then known as National Ministries). There, Morikawa espoused a holistic view of evangelism that included social and ecological justice. He is often remembered as one of the pioneers of Baptist environmentalism. He later served as interim pastor of Riverside Baptist Church in Manhattan as well churches in New Jersey and Michigan. He died of stomach cancer in 1987.