Black Adventists Who've Changed the World

And a few who've changed mine

Black delegates to the General Conference Session of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1946. Taken from https://www.blacksdahistory.org/

(An eight-minute read.)

I was recently reading an article that highlighted 100 famous Black Seventh-day Adventists. The writer noted current Seventh-day Adventists like Judge Greg Mathis, Dr. Ben Carson, singers Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas (of TLC fame) and Kevin Olusola (of Pentatonix fame).

They also talked about some very notable Black people who were raised in the denomination but who didn’t stick with it (as a little-known Christian denomination, we like to claim anyone we can).

In this category are people like rapper Busta Rhymes, basketball legend Magic Johnson, rock singers Little Richard and Prince, and civil rights activist Malcom X (who described Adventists in his autobiography as the “friendliest white people” he ever met).

Then there are a few others the article mentions who were “almost” Adventists due to family connections or close encounters with people from the denomination (again, we like to claim anyone we can).

No less than President Barack Obama is in this category, who’s Kenyan grandfather, Onyango, was one of the first Kenyan converts to Adventism—leaving over half of President Obama’s family in Kenya members of the Adventist church today.

Then there’s abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who lived very close to co-founders James and Ellen White in Rochester, New York, and who spoke positively of Adventists, and whose oldest daughter (and personal assistant), Rosetta Douglass-Sprague, was a long-time member of First Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington, D.C.

Similarly, abolitionist Sojourner Truth had very close connections to Adventists, and may have even been baptized by Adventist pioneer Uriah Smith. She’s also buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek, Michigan, not too far from where James and Ellen White (and many other significant Adventist figures) are buried.

This is all awesome and cool, presenting an impressive list of a “Who’s Who” on the world stage—representing perhaps an outsized influence (relatively speaking).

Truly, there are many, many Black Adventists who’ve made incredible contributions to the world.

It all got me to thinking about the Black Adventists who’ve either personally influenced my life for the better, or whose life and ministry I’ve appreciated from afar.

So here’s a list of five Black Adventists worth knowing about—if you don’t already know about them.

1. Pastor Charles M. Kinny

Kinny, after becoming a Seventh-day Adventist in 1878 in Reno, Nevada, became the first Black person to be ordained to the ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This happened in 1889. Known as the “Father of Black Adventism,” he worked tirelessly to evangelize Black communities and raise up new churches.

This was often a lonely and thankless job, as there were very few Black people in the ministry in the earliest part of his ministry—and Adventism, despite its early social consciousness, went the way of segregation in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

According to Adventist historian Trevor O’Reggio, Kinny sometimes went months without getting paid for his labors. But he persevered—and lived to see significant gains for Black people in the denomination.

2. Dr. Barry Black

Since 2003, Barry Black has served as the chaplain of the United States Senate, after serving in the same capacity for the US Navy for 27 years. When he was installed as chaplain of the Senate, he became both the first Black and the first Seventh-day Adventist chaplain of the illustrious body.

Simply put, Dr. Black is awesome!

Not only does he consistently deliver timely, convicting, and courageous prayers in the US Senate, he’s also a man of great humility and integrity.

I say this from personal experience.

Let me share a little story to this end.

Back in 2001, I spent a year doing mission work in Scotland at a small Seventh-day Adventist congregation in Dundee. Sometime during the year (I don’t remember exactly when), Dr. Black had been invited to present at a very important conference in Edinburgh—since he was, already at that time, a very well-known and sought-after speaker.

Having caught wind of his speaking appointment, the pastor of our congregation in Dundee somehow got ahold of him and invited him to speak on the Saturday morning of the conference. To my amazement, Dr. Black accepted the invitation—which I thought was quite remarkable, considering the congregation was very small and it was nearly a 90-minute drive from where he’d be in Edinburgh.

What was even more amazing, however, is that his flight from the US got delayed, and he didn’t arrive in Edinburgh until early Saturday morning.

But do you know what he did?

Instead of canceling on us (which many people would have understandably done in his position), he kept his commitment and drove to Dundee, preaching to about 40 of us in the small and unassuming building.

That simple act made me a fan for life—and I continue to cheer him on from a distance whenever I read headlines about his ministry in the Senate.

3. Pastor Debleaire Snell

Let me tell you a little secret: I’m sure there’s lots of preachers who don’t necessarily love to hear other preachers preach. And I’m one of those preachers.

I admit this is a great fault of mine—but for many reasons (which I won’t expound upon here), I have a hard time sitting in a pew, listening to other people speak.

Not when Deblaire Snell speaks.

He’s the current speaker/director for “Breath of Life” ministries, and the Senior Pastor for the Oakwood University Church, which serves Adventism’s Historically Black University in Alabama.

And he’s one of the few preachers I’d travel a distance to hear.

Simply put, this brother is an inspired man of God.

I had the chance to hear him preach in person for the first time a couple springs ago, and then heard him speak again a few months later—and both were powerful, powerful experiences.

Not only does he have amazing homiletical skills, speaking with great conviction and feeling, but—from where I sit—he seems to truly understand the gospel and he seems to truly understand how to contextualize the gospel in the twenty-first century.

In a long line of very accomplished and powerful Black preachers, Pastor Snell is the best for my money.

4. Dr. Lael Caesar

Dr. Caesar is my second “Dad,” as he is for basically everyone who knows him. When I went to Andrews University my freshman year back in 1999, Dr. Caesar became my academic advisor. I spent many hours in his office, talking about my fledgling (and at times almost-failing) academic career, and crying about many relational challenges I was experiencing (many of them self-inflicted).

After spending many years teaching Old Testament at Andrews University (for which he was perennially nominated for “Teacher of the Year”), he became an Associate Editor for Adventist Review, which is the “flagship” journal for Seventh-day Adventists.

From that point on, he frequently recruited me to write articles for the publication, and had a part to play in setting me up to serve as a regular columnist for the magazine to this day.

One particular experience in this context stands out to me. I had pitched an idea to him—as well as the Editor and Executive Publisher, Bill Knott—for a special issue of the magazine, commemorating the 125^th anniversary of a significant event in Adventist history. I flew down to Washington, D.C. to plan the issue with him, and we drew up a list of potential topics and writers.

After about an hour of planning, and having come up with a number of writers we wanted to recruit, he suddenly stopped, and with a look of consternation, said, “But wait: every writer we’ve mentioned is a White man. What about women? What about people of color?”

At that point in my thinking, I thought such an idea was silly. We simply needed the best writers, I thought.

But I didn’t understand at that point the reality of implicit bias. And I had never thought of what he said next: “When we have diverse representation,” he explained, “it communicates that our theology and message are powerful enough to draw in people from all genders, races, and nationalities.”

That idea has always stuck in my mind (I recalled it in particular a few years ago when I visited a church in Bangor that’s a part of a different denomination, and I looked around and noticed there wasn’t a single person of color in attendance of the 200 or so people there. It left me thinking that there must be something about their theology and message that doesn’t appeal to non-White people).

Simply put, I love Dr. Caesar. He’s a man of incredible conviction, joy, and wisdom. And his laugh is infectious.

5. Dr. Judith Josiah-Martin

I’m sure she’ll be both mortified and flattered to read me mentioning her here, but I think it’s safe to say that my dear friend, parishioner, and church elder, Dr. Judith Josiah-Martin (Judi), has been more influential than anyone else in helping me recognize the blindspots in my thinking about racism and social justice.

Truly, until about eight years ago, I was of the mindset that racism in America had been solved decades ago. Judi patiently helped me see otherwise.

Of course, Judi’s influence on my life goes far beyond matters of race.

She’s been a powerful force both to me personally as well as my congregation, and her influence casts a wide shadow in our broader community and in the state of Maine.

She’s a lecturer in the University of Maine’s School of Social Work (where she received the “Presidential Outstanding Teaching Award” in 2021), serves on many Boards, was featured on Maine Public Radio last week, and recently delivered the keynote address at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast Celebration at the University of Maine, sponsored by the Greater Bangor Area Branch NAACP.

Her speech was awesome!

Of course, I’ll miss Judi greatly when I leave Bangor. And one of my greatest regrets is that I didn’t have her preach for my church a lot more over the last 13 years when I was actually around (she’d always speak for me when I was out of town and needed someone to speak. But it worked out for her to speak when I was actually in the building a few weeks ago—and it was, simply put, powerful).

I could mention many more. And there are many others outside of Adventism I could mention as well of course.

But I’m thankful for the five specific people I’ve mentioned above (four of whom are also alumni of my alma mater, by the way), and the way they’ve influenced me to be a better person.

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Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.