Gardner C. Taylor

{{Short description|American preacher}}
{{POV|date=July 2020}}
'''Gardner Calvin Taylor''' (June 18, 1918 – April 5, 2015) was an American [[Baptist]] preacher. He became known as "the dean of American preaching".<ref name="ap">{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |title=Gardner Taylor, dean of American preachers, confronts the challenges of aging |url=https://tdn.com/lifestyles/gardner-taylor-dean-of-american-preachers-confronts-the-challenges-of-aging/article_96ce1277-46d8-5194-97d0-8748fa5f0b12.html |access-date=6 May 2021 |work=Longview Daily News |date=1 December 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506124010/https://tdn.com/lifestyles/gardner-taylor-dean-of-american-preachers-confronts-the-challenges-of-aging/article_96ce1277-46d8-5194-97d0-8748fa5f0b12.html |archive-date=6 May 2021 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=NYTobit/>

==Biography==
Taylor, who was of [[African Americans|African American]] heritage, was born in 1918 in [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]], to Rev. Washington M. and Selina Taylor, and was the grandson of emancipated slaves. He grew up in the segregated South of the early 20th century. He graduated from the [[Oberlin College]] School of Theology in 1940,<ref name="oberlin">
{{cite journal |last=Fowler |first=Yvonne Gay |date=Spring 2004 |title=The Dean of Black Preachers |journal=Oberlin Alumni Magazine |volume=99 |issue=4 |url= http://www.oberlin.edu/alummag/spring2004/notes.html |access-date= 2007-12-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200217172115/https://www2.oberlin.edu/alummag/spring2004/notes.html|archive-date=17 February 2020}}</ref>

==Ministry==
Taylor was mentored by BG Crawley, a judge and founder of The Little Zion Baptist Church of [[Brooklyn]], New York.

As a student, Taylor became the pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Elyria, Ohio, a role he held from 1938 to 1941. He then became pastor of the Beulah Baptist Church in New Orleans until 1943, and of his father's former congregation, Mount Zion Baptist Church, in Baton Rouge, until 1947. He then became head of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ, the second largest Baptist congregation in the United States with 8,000 members, located in [[Bedford-Stuyvesant]], a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Under his leadership, the congregation grew to as large as 10,000.<ref name=NYTobit/>

Taylor was a close friend and mentor to [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] and played a prominent role in the religious leadership of the [[Civil Rights Movement]] of the 1960s. In 1958, [[Robert F. Wagner Jr.]], mayor of New York City, named Taylor to the New York City Board of Education, the second black member in its history. In a three-year tenure, he attacked segregation in city schools and argued that federal aid should be denied to private schools while public schools were desperate for funds.<ref name=NYTobit/> In 1961, he helped found the [[Progressive National Baptist Convention]] with a group of pastors led by [[L. Venchael Booth]] of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, providing an important base of support for King's civil rights work,<ref name="ap"/> and served as its president from 1967 to 1969.<ref name=NYTobit/> At the request of Mayor Wagner in 1962, he served on a three-man committee that replaced [[Joseph T. Sharkey]] as chairman of the [[Kings County Democratic County Committee]] for ten months, until a replacement was selected.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Egan|first1=Leo|title=3 of Mayor's Men Succeed Sharkey — Brooklyn Leadership Panel Is Ordered by Wagner|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/01/19/89488188.html?pageNumber=1|access-date=3 December 2016|newspaper=New York Times|date=January 19, 1962|page=1}}</ref>

Taylor was pastor of Concord for 42 years before retiring in 1990. More than 2,000 of his sermons are archived, and recordings of many of them are available in collections such as ''The Words of Gardner Taylor: 50 Years of Timeless Treasures'' and at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.<ref name=NYTobit/>

Taylor received 15 honorary degrees during his lifetime. He gave lectures and sermons at universities and churches all over the United States, as well as in South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Denmark, England, Scotland, Australia, China, and Japan. He preached the pre-inauguration sermon in January 1993 for President-elect [[Bill Clinton]] at Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington D.C. He received the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] on August 9, 2000, awarded by President Clinton.<ref name=NYTobit/>

Taylor died on April 5, 2015, after attending Easter services at Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, where he had lived in retirement.<ref name=NYTobit>{{cite news |last1=McFadden |first1=Robert D. |title=Rev. Gardner C. Taylor, Powerful Voice for Civil Rights, Dies at 96 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/us/rev-gardner-c-taylor-powerful-voice-for-civil-rights-dies-at-96.html |access-date=6 May 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=6 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224012233/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/us/rev-gardner-c-taylor-powerful-voice-for-civil-rights-dies-at-96.html |archive-date=24 February 2021 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Zoll |first1=Rachel |title=Gardner Taylor, preacher and civil rights figure, dies at 96 |url=https://apnews.com/article/59362ead62b245ec91c8028232be39cd |access-date=6 May 2021 |work=AP NEWS |date=6 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506124751/https://apnews.com/article/59362ead62b245ec91c8028232be39cd |archive-date=6 May 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Literature==
* {{cite book |last1=Alcántara |first1=Jared E |title=Crossover preaching: intercultural-improvisational homiletics in conversation with Gardner C. Taylor |date=2015 |publisher=InterVarsity Press |location=Downers Grove, Illinois |isbn=978-0-8308-3908-7 |pages=254 |oclc=968245133 |url=http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/968245133 |language=English}}
* {{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=Gardner C |last2=George |first2=Timothy |last3=Massey |first3=James Earl |last4=Smith |first4=Robert |title=Our sufficiency is of God: essays on preaching in honor of Gardner C. Taylor |date=2010 |publisher=Mercer University Press |location=Macon, Georgia |isbn=978-0-88146-206-7 |pages=342 |oclc=879171380 |url=http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/879171380 |language=English}}

==External links==
{{archival records|title=Gardner C. Taylor collection}}
* [https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week951/profile.html# PBS Religion and Ethics] profile. 
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2991765683519690268&q=gardner+taylor&hl=en Charlie Rose Show] - 1999 Christmas Panel discussion of [[Jesus]].
*[http://www.visionaryproject.org/taylorgardner Gardner Taylor's oral history video excerpts] at The National Visionary Leadership Project
* Emily Langer, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rev-gardner-c-taylor-preacher-and-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-96/2015/04/06/f1373b1a-dc69-11e4-acfe-cd057abefa9a_story.html "Rev. Gardner C. Taylor, preacher and civil rights leader, dies at 96"], ''The Washington Post'', April 6, 2015.
* Chris Nelson, [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/dr-gardner-c-taylor-dean-preachers-dies-96-n336826 "Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, 'Dean of Preachers,' Dies at 96"], NBC News.

{{Black church}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Gardner}}
[[Category:1918 births]]
[[Category:2015 deaths]]
[[Category:Oberlin College alumni]]
[[Category:American civil rights activists]]
[[Category:People from Baton Rouge, Louisiana]]
[[Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients]]