It was uncommon for a Black woman to become a leader in the Presbyterian Church in the 20th century. But, Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon changed the script by becoming the first black woman in the United States to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church.
She was born into a Presbyterian family in 1950 in North Carolina. She was a gifted teacher from the early beginnings of her life. It is a unique attribute many of her close friends do not shy away from touting when the name of Rev. Dr. Cannon comes up, according to ABC 8 news.
She is best known for devoting her life to making the lives of others better. Her argument has been, if there is any contributions she can make into a person’s life, it has to be the best so they can come out better.
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Rev. Cannon was ordained a Presbyterian minister after she finished her PhD. She became a professor of Christian ethics at UPSem. She was instrumental in opening a new branch of faith called Womanist Theology.
Union Presbyterian Seminary President, Dr. Brian Blount, said her intervention in the faith community has gone a long way to change the perspective people hold about black women in religion.
Dr. Blount added that one significant ability about Rev. Cannon is not the feat she has chalked for herself, but her ability and passion to draw people along with her in the faith business.
Director of the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership, Melanie C. Jones, said Rev. Cannon has pioneered a new path about how black women can contribute to Christian ethics and theology.
When renowned author Alice Walker coined the word “womanist”, it was only a term in philosophy but Rev. Cannon walked it in Christian faith.
“‘Do the work your soul must have’ is what is what she would say. But she firmly believed that everybody has a purpose for being here, and what she saw herself doing as wholly personal work was to help you identify it and power that,” her colleague and friend Dr. Paula Parker said.
The seeds Rev. Cannon planted is enabling the God-given talents of many black women in leadership roles and Christendom.
Rev. Cannon established the Center for Womanist Leadership just before she passed away in 2018. The center has recognised her by naming the edifice after her. Her principles of sisterhood, liberation, and justice which she espoused while alive keeps guiding the center in its duties to humanity.
It is the center’s hope it will carry her legacy of making the lives of those associated with it better.
Rev. Cannon, who died of acute leukemia, never got married and is survived by her mother and siblings Sara, Jerry, Doris, John Wesley, and Sylvia. She also left behind 21 nieces and nephews, including Nick Cannon and musicians Joshua Cannon Fleming and Cedric T. Love.
She was ordained on April 24, 1974, in Shelby, North Carolina, by the Catawba Presbytery, in the Synod of Catawba.
