James Myers

The Rev. James Luther Myers is a retired minister and educator. He is 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.

A native of South Carolina, Myers graduated from Allen University in Columbia, S.C. and the Gammon Theological Seminary (now part of the Interdenominational Theological Center) in Atlanta. He was ordained into the ministry of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He served churches in that state until he moved to Birmingham in the early 1960s, where he served as 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 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 Rev. Dr. Rodney Franklin succeeded him.

Myers is married to the former Sara 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.