History

Under Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., The Abyssinian Baptist Church offered full-time weekday activities for members and the Harlem community (including a Protestant education release time program and welfare service through the Church’s Board of Service), fulfilled its commitment to world-wide missions by supporting the Suen Industrial School in West Africa, provided consistent spiritual nourishment for all seeking Jesus, and also engaged in boycotts and picketing for the elimination of racial discrimination and the establishment of better health care and broader opportunities for African American people.  Ill and a veteran of the struggle, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. retired in 1971.  He died in 1972.

Dr. Calvin Butts and Dr. Samuel Proctor.

“Running The Race That Is Set Before Us…”
The Proctor Years, 1972-1989

It was altogether fitting that members of The Abyssinian Baptist Church called as their next pastor, a clergyman-educator who had been president of North Carolina A&T where students staged the first sit-ins of the modern day Black Revolution.  Samuel DeWitt Proctor, Th.D., Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.’s successor, came to the Church in 1972 after a distinguished career as an educational administrator, teacher and public servant, having served as President of Virginia Union and North Carolina A&T Universities, an Executive of the Peace Corps, Martin Luther King Memorial Professor at Rutgers, and a member of governing boards of such organizations as the United Negro College Fund and the Council on Religious and International Affairs.

As Abyssinian’s senior minister, Dr. Proctor built on the legacy of both Powells, not only preaching the word of God “in season and out,” but assuring that Abyssinian would be an uncompromised force and voice for justice and the promotion of Christian values in community, city, state, national and international affairs.  To that end, Dr. Proctor was a forthright spokesperson in his condemnation of racism, militarism and injustice, and often a delegate to national and international conferences focusing on human rights and peace.  Under Dr. Proctor, the Church became aligned denominationally with the American Baptist Churches, USA, the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., and the Progressive National Baptist Convention.  Working with these three conventions, Abyssinian provides a consistent and wider witness among Baptists worldwide.  Through these denominational affiliations, the Church is linked with the work of the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches in efforts to address concerns of the oppressed at home and abroad.