James Myers

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James Myers

James Luther Myers (born August 16, 1928 in Georgetown, South Carolina; died April 12, 2016) was a minister and educator. He was noted for his tenure as president of the now-defunct Daniel Payne College and, later, for his 15-year pastorate at First Congregational Christian Church.

Myers graduated from Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, and the Gammon Theological Seminary (now part of the Interdenominational Theological Center) in Atlanta, Georgia. Later, he studied at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg and at Howard University in Washington, D.C., both historically African-American institutions.

He was ordained into the ministry of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He served churches in his native state until he moved to Birmingham in 1960 and became pastor of Nichols Temple AME Church in Ensley. While pastoring there, he taught religion and theology at Daniel Payne College, eventually being chosen as its president in 1976. The troubled school would survive for three more years, until closing in 1979.

In 1978, Myers began serving First Congregational Christian, providing pulpit supply. The next year, the congregation elected him as its full-time pastor. Upon his assumption of the duties with that congregation, he changed his denominational affiliation to the United Church of Christ, First Church's denomination. At First Congregational Christian, he oversaw a revitalization of the congregation's fellowship and mission activities. He served until retiring in 1994; the church honored him thereafter with the title of pastor emeritus. The Reverend Doctor [Rodney Franklin]] succeeded him.

Locally, Myers has been active with the Downtown Action Committee for Civic Action and the Community Affairs Committee of Operation New Birmingham. He served as state chaplain for the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, to which he has belonged for over 50 years. In the United Church of Christ, he has served as moderator of the Southeast Conference (of which First Church is a member) and, nationally, on the denomination's foreign mission board.

Myers is married to the former Sara Alice Shropshire; they have four children and four grandchildren. One son, the Rev. Gary Myers, serves as pastor of Trinity Congregational Church in Athens (Limestone County), also a UCC congregation.

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