An African-American Man is a Guest Speaker to a White Women’s Business Club…in 1939.

I want you to read the article for a moment, then sit back and reflect on the fact this article and photo was published in a northern paper in May, 1939. There had been a lynching of a black man in Ruston just a few months before. For a black man at that time to be invited to speak to a room full of white women is unheard of in the south. What an absolutely brave man.

Dr. Gray was a professor at Southern University, President of what is now Florida A.&M. University and later became a pastor of one of the largest churches in Philadelphia, Bright Hope Baptist Church, when his father, the former pastor passed away. Here is another tidbit for you: Rev. Gray was a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King also spoke many times at Rev. Gray’s church! Rev. Gray passed away in January, 1972.

I LOVE finding these little jaw dropping tidbits!