He was installed as the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1950, where he served for three years.Ī staunch advocate for civil rights and a leader in Presbyterian civil rights activism, Wilmore worked to desegregate the West Chester public schools and in 1951 his son was the first black student to attend an all-white elementary school. Following the war, Wilmore returned to school and received his bachelor’s degree in 1947 and his Bachelor of Divinity in 1950, both from Lincoln University. Wilmore received his call to the ministry in 1943 while dodging bullets in a foxhole. A member of the famed “ Buffalo Soldiers,” Wilmore served with the all-black 92nd Infantry Division in Italy during World War II. Wilmore’s studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the army. Following high school, he matriculated to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Wilmore graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia in 1937. Gayraud Wilmore, a pastor, renowned scholar of African American church history, the first executive director of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.’s (UPCUSA) Commission on Religion and Race (CORAR) and a key figure in the civil rights movement, died Saturday at 98.
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