South Central Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists
HIGHLIGHTS IN SOUTH CENTRAL CONFERENCE HISTORY
Pre- South Central Conference Period
1863
Seventh-day Adventist Church is organized.
1865
Civil War ends and Education Movement begins. Ellen White meets with church leaders in
April and encourages them to begin work for Blacks in the South.
1872
Elbert B. Lane preaches in Edgefield Junction, Tennessee and organizes a church. Harry Lowe, a African-American Baptist minister is among those baptized.
1883
In November, the first Black Seventh-day Adventist Church is established with 9 members at Edgefield Junction. Harry Lowe, serves as first pastor.
1889
Charles M. Kinney is first Black minister to be ordained in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Because he and his congregation were embarrassed by the way they were segregated at his ordination and denied admission to SDA institutions, he proposes separate conferences for Blacks.
1890
February 16, 1890 Alonzo Barry organizes the Louisville, KY church.
1891
March 21, 1891 Ellen White writes “Our Duty to the Colored People”.
On June 13, 1891 the Bowling Green, Kentucky Church is organized with 10 members by Charles M. Kinney.
1894
September 15-16, 1894 the Nashville SDA Church #2 is organized by C. L. Boyd and Charles M. Kinney serves as pastor.
Edson White begins work in Memphis, Tennessee during the Fall of 1894.
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A church of 18 members is organized at Lexington, Kentucky in December. Elder Alonzo Barry is pastor. Dr. Mary E. Britton and Attorney J. Alexander Chiles are among the charter members.
1895
Edson White opens school and church for Blacks in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Franklin Warnick, A. C. Chatman, Thomas Murphy were some of the Blacks who taught at this school. Edson eventually operates approximately 30 schools for Blacks un the Southern Missionary Society..
1896
June 19 the Birmingham Church is organized by Elder Hottel with 15 members as a result of the work of M. C, Sturdevant.
1896
Oakwood Industrial School opens its doors with 16 students on November 16. Oakwood became a Junior College in 1917 and a senior college in 1943. James L. Moran became first black president in 1932. Delbert Baker is the current president.
1897
Lintonia Chapel is organized by Edson White in Lintonia, Mississippi which is later known as Yazoo City. Elder Joseph Hermanus Laurence becomes first Black pastor in 1904/5.
1898
The Southern Missionary Society is incorporated by Edson White. It promotes educational and evangelistic work among Black people in the Southern states until1906 when it is incorporated with the Southern Union Conference.
1898
The Gospel Herald is first published by Edson White at Yazoo City, Mississippi. It serves as a news magazine and later an evangelistic journal from 1898-1923. Message, its successor begins in 1934.
1899
On October 16 the Charity Mission School is opened in Montgomery, Alabama by W. G. Buckner, a caucasian, with Taswell Buckner, a Black man, serving as first teacher. Taswell Buckner helped begin the work in Selma.
1901
On March 16-23 Ellen White visits the Southern Missionary Society. She dedicates the colored church in Vicksburg, Mississippi on March 17. She speaks at the church in Memphis on March 18. For the next two days she meets with other Adventist leaders in Nashville where she visits the new Gospel Herald Office and Nashville Colored Sanitarium. One month later the Southern Union Conference is organized with Robert Kilgore as its first president.
Anna Knight of Soso, Mississippi is appointed as a missionary to India where she serves for six years. She is first woman to serve as missionary to India.
1903
Franklin H. Bryant publishes, Black Smiles, a book of eight poems. Bryant, a black member of Edson White's Morning Star staff, served as Edson's secretary and teacher of a school at Hickory, North Carolina.
1904
Ellen White visits Oakwood Manual Training School.
1908
Dr. Lottie Blake opens the Rock City Sanitarium on Stewart Street in Nashville after practicing at the Nashville Colored Sanitarium.
1927
Riverside Hospital is opened by Nellie Druillard for Blacks in 1927. The staff of Riverside Hospital served the Nashville community and Adventists across the nation for more than 50 years. Dr. Carl Dent served as Medical Director for many years. It was sold in 1983.
1934
First Black Youth Congress in held in Huntsville, Alabama on campus of Oakwood Junior College. It is coordinated by Anna Knight, Associate MV director for Southern Union.
South Central Conference Period
1945
South Central Conference is organized at meeting in Birmingham, Alabama with a territory covering Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee and the portion of Florida west of the Apalachicola River. The Conference was organized with 42 churches. Elder Herman R. Murphy, former State man and Conference Evangelist for the Alabama-Mississippi Conference, serves as first president from 1946-1954. The first South Central owned office was located on the corner of Charlotte and 19th Street.
1946
The South Central Conference begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee in the Hawkins Street home of Elder and Mrs. Louis B. Reynolds. During that year the conference purchased their first office on 1900 Charlotte Street.
1954
Elder Walter W. Fordham is elected second president of the South Central Conference.
E. Earl Cleveland baptizes 500 in Montgomery, Alabama, the largest baptism in Conference history.
1958
Second Conference office is erected at 715 Youngs Lane by Elder Walter W. Fordham.
1960
Elder Frank L. Bland is elected third president of the South Central Conference.
1962
Elder Charles E. Dudley is elected fourth president of the South Central Conference.
1967
Charles Joseph and Earl Moore raise money for the purchase first Seventh-day Adventist Community Service Van. This van was used to minister to people during the riots in Detroit and in the Poor People's March on Washington. Thirty physicians offered free Medical Care to thousands of Resurrection City residents.
1970
South Central's first housing complex, Haynes Garden, is erected in Nashville. Others complexes for low-income and elderly residents are later erected in Cleveland, Mississippi; Clarksville, Tennessee; Huntsville, Alabama; Paducah and Bowling Green, KY.
1976
Oakwood University Church is built under the leadership of Pastor Eric C. Ward.
1988
Women’s Ministries begins as Women’s Commission. Laura Smith is selected to serve as first Commissioner. It becomes Women’s Ministries Department in 1990.
1990
Current Conference office is erected for 2.5 million dollars under the leadership of Elder Charles E. Dudley and is paid for in five years.
1990
The Archives of the South Central Conference is established with R. Steven Norman, III
as its first director. It preserves the history of the South Central Conference and sponsors
SDA History tours.
1993
Joseph W. McCoy is elected fifth president of the South Central Conference.
1998
Camp South Central is purchased and paid for within 8 months.
1999
South Central votes to establish own retirement plan. Other regional Conferences follow suit and form the Regional Conference Retirement Fund.
2000
Six additional housing complexes are purchased in Mississippi making South Central the owner of 13 complexes valued at nearly 17 million dollars.
2003
Latino Ministries Departments is established with Edgardo Herrera as Coordinator. First Annual Latino Convention is held on Thanksgiving Day 2003. Companies of Latino believers are organized at Russellville and Kilpatrick, Alabama. Shown here are some of the Latino Workers.
2005
Elder Benjamin P. Browne is elected sixth president of the South Central Conference.
South Central Conference currently has 147 congregations. Year end reports for 2005 reported a membership of 31,784 and tithe of more than 14 million dollars.
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