 African-American Missionaries Who Served Outside the U.S. |
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by Charles Cole |
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Ulysses Gray studied two years at Wiley College in Texas and then earned degrees from Clark College and Gammon Theological Seminary, both in Atlanta. He also spent a semester at Cornell University, in New York, which had a highly respected agricultural school. He and Vivienne met at Gammon, and they were sent as missionaries to Gbarnga, Liberia, in 1948. She worked with Liberian women in the church, and he taught agricultural methods, introducing new breeds of poultry, new methods of growing rice, and new varieties of fruits and vegetables. He also organized boys’ clubs, and several of the young men under his tutelage went to Booker T. Washington Institute in Liberia. He led Liberians in economic development, including showing them ways to grow rubber, coffee, and cocoa trees. In addition to his work in agriculture, Ulysses was a pastor and district superintendent to forty-nine stations. “A well-fed nation is a happy nation,” he said. “A happy nation is easy to teach. My primary purpose is to teach Christ and his way.” Perhaps even more noteworthy, however, was the assignment of Thomas and Jennie Harris, also African Americans, to Sarawak, Malaysia, in 1948. They demonstrated that African Americans could serve in places other than Africa. The Harrises went to a mission and agricultural training center in Borneo, where they operated a school, a community center, an agricultural experiment station, and a training center for the Sea Dyaks, also called Ibans. He taught agricultural methods, and she taught boys using a phonetic system she developed, based on the Laubach method. These and other stories of African Americans in mission may be found in Linda Gesling, Mirror and Beacon: The History of Mission of The Methodist Church, 1939–1968.
Date posted: Feb 09, 2006 |
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