Lemuel Dawson
Lemuel Orah Dawson (born 1865 in Chambers County; died 1938) was pastor of First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa from 1892 to 1924 and of Edgewood Baptist Church (now Dawson Family of Faith) from 1925 until his death.
Dawson attended Howard College in Marion and the Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and also studied at the University of Berlin in Germany. He accepted the call to Tuscaloosa Baptist Church at the age of 27 in 1892 and became its longest-tenured pastor. He led the church through a period of growth, from 290 to over 500 members by 1900 when it became First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa. He also founded missions which became Southside Baptist Church, Holt Baptist Church, and Calvary Baptist Church, among others. In 1902 he declined an offer of the presidency of Howard College. He did serve on Tuscaloosa's hospital board and as president of the Rotary Club of Tuscaloosa. In 1921 he was elected president of the Alabama Baptist Convention. He co-founded the Baptist Young People's Union and was acknowledged as assistant pastor of the First African Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa.
Under Dawson's leadership the church continued to grow, to more than 1,500 in 1924. Shortly after the completion of a three-story education building, he announced that he had accepted a professorship at Howard College, which had moved to Birmingham. He had indicated an interest in continuing to lead a small congregation and soon took over the pulpit of the newly-reorganized Edgewood Baptist Church in Homewood.
After his death in 1938, the congregation at Edgewood voted unanimously to rename the church in his memory. Dawson Memorial Baptist Church grew to become one of the state's largest. A memorial to Dawson was also erected on Queen City Avenue in Tuscaloosa.
References
- Guffin, R. L. (February 2008) "Legacy of Love" First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa
- Atchison, Ray M. & Doris Teague Atchison (1999) Light in the Valley: History of Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham: Dawson Memorial Baptist Church