When I think of African American leaders who have benefited this State and Nation in an unparalleled way, my mind goes to the ministry. First and foremost, we think of the late and great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with his role in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Focusing on other African American ministers within the Protestant Episcopal denomination of my birth, our current presiding Bishop is Michael Curry, who made international news when he gave the homily at the most recent Royal wedding. The first African American ordained minister in the United States was Absalom Jones from Philadelphia, and then the first African American priest in South Carolina was Reverend Thaddeus Saltus, who was an assistant priest at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Charleston and ordained to the priesthood in 1881.

In more recent times, I think of my friend and pastor, Reverend Dr. Charles Jackson of Brookland Baptist Church, and Pastor Senator Darrell Jackson of the dynamic Bible Way Church of Atlas Road in East Columbia. There are also numerous other clergymen in our midst including Bishop David Tompkins of Living Word of Deliverance Temple Worship Center, the Reverend Blakely Scott of First Nazareth Baptist Church, the late Reverend Roscoe Wilson, Sr. (grandfather of Gamecock All-American and NBA star A’Ja Wison) who pastored Saint John Baptist Church for 50 years. We also want to highlight our own Workers’ Compensation Paralegal, Kimberly Cropper’s uncle, Pastor Dr. Kelvin Felder of River of Life in Winnsboro and of New Covenant Assembly in Rock Hill. These pastors form the bedrock of faith in our South Carolina communities.

There are leaders and then there are our leaders, and the African American clergy are our true leaders!

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!