McKenzie, Vashti Murphy

Allen, Richard

1760-1831

Founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent Black religious denomination in the United States; became its first bishop

Harris, Barbara Clementine

1930-2020

Became the first woman consecrated a bishop in the 500-year history of the worldwide Anglican Communion when she was ordained suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in 1989, breaking a barrier that had stood across the Communion's more than 165 member countries

Payne, Daniel Alexander

1811-1893

First African American president of a college in the United States; transformed the AME Church's ministry into a formally educated clergy and helped found Wilberforce University

Hall, Prathia LauraAnn

1940-2002

Credited as the originator of the phrase “I have a dream,” spoken during a 1962 prayer vigil that Martin Luther King Jr. attended and later asked her permission to echo in his own preaching, while serving as one of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's first female field secretaries and later becoming a pioneering Baptist minister and womanist theologian