Lewis Baldwin

April 8, 1992

Peace, Protest and Community

Will Campbell

Freedom and Human Rights

Durring his public education in Wilcox County, he participated in student demonstrations and other civil rights activities in the 1960s. He received a B.A. degree in History from Talladega Collegein 1971. He then studied at Colgate Rochester Divinity School/Bexley Hall/Crozer Theological Seminaries in Rochester, New York, where he was awarded the M.A. degree in Black Church Studies in 1973 and the M.Div. degree in Theology in 1975. In 1980, he received the Ph.D. degree in American Christianity from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Baldwin has established himself as a professor and scholar with a growing reputation and is now an Associate Professor in Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Dr. Baldwin is one of America's most authoritative voices on Martin Luther King Jr. Author of the most recent book entitled There Is A Balm In Gilead: the Cultural Roots of Martin Luther King, Jr. A major contributor to the Aftrican American Religious Scholarship. The associate professor of religious studies at Vanderbilt University.

In his early career he was a Baptist minister in Louisiana from 1952-1954. He became the Ole Miss Religion-in-life Director from1954-1956, and race religious consultant and member of the National Council of Churches from 1956-1963. He then moved to Tennessee where he was the only white member on the Committee of Southern Churchmen and a preacher at large from 1963-1972.

Will D. Campbell is not only an accomplished writer, but also one of the most successful Mississippi writers that is nationally recognized today. His most recent book is about Duncan Gray, an Episcopal priest who fought for simple justice for all people as he provided leadership during a period when black students were first being admitted to schools and universities in Mississippi.