Groundbreaking Lutheran educator Cheryl Stewart Pero dies at 69
Cheryl Stewart Pero, one of the first Black Lutheran women to be ordained in the United States, died on October 28 after a short illness and hospitalization. She was 69.
In 1980, Pero became the second Black woman ordained in the Lutheran Church in America, a predecessor body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She was also the first Black woman to receive a PhD in biblical studies, which she earned at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.