Two Disciples of note that you may not be aware of are Sarah Lue Bostick (1868-1948) and Preston Taylor (1849-1931). Dr. Rick Lowery, President of the Disciples Historical Society announced in their January newsletter that DCHS has commissioned biographies of the great late-18th, early-19th Century church leaders Preston Taylor and Sarah Lue Bostick. The Bostick biography by Rev. Yvonne Gilmore, Interim Associate General Minister and Administrative Secretary of the National Convocation, is forthcoming later this year. The Taylor biography by Dr. Edward Robinson of Texas College in Tyler Texas, who joins the DCHS Board this year from the a cappella Churches of Christ “stream” of our movement, is currently scheduled for publication in 2023. Rev. Gilmore and Dr. Robinson will deliver papers on these two great African American Disciples leaders at the 2022 Kirkpatrick Conference, Visions of Wholeness: Systemic Racism, Antiracism, and “Reconciliation” in Our Shared History and Tradition, March 18-19, 2022, at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa Oklahoma.
Sarah Lue Bostick was among the first African American women ordained to the Christian ministry in the late 19th century. She labored as a field worker for the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions and the National Christian Missionary Society among African American congregations in Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. She carried on her successful work for over 40 years, until her retirement in 1938. Read more about Bostick HERE.