Gayraud Wilmore, famed scholar of black church history, dies at 98
Gayraud Wilmore, a pastor, renowned scholar of African American church history, and key figure in the civil rights movement, died April 18 at the age of 98.
Wilmore received his call to the ministry in 1943 while dodging bullets in a foxhole. He had been drafted into the army and, as a member of the famed Buffalo Soldiers, served with the all-black 92nd Infantry Division in Italy during World War II.
After the war, Wilmore pastored Second Presbyterian Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania, for three years before becoming the associate executive of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.’s Department of Social Education and Action. Ten years later, he was appointed the first executive director of the denomination’s newly created Commission on Race and Religion.
