The students of the Radical University: J. J. Durham

Photo of J. J. Durham
From History of the American Negro: South Carolina Edition 

Jacob Javan Durham (b. April 13, 1847; d. December 11, 1920)
South Carolina.  Born enslaved. Mulatto.
Occupation: minister, physician.
Father's occupation: farmer.

J. J. Durham was born into slavery in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, near Woodruffs. His mother Dorcas Durham was enslaved by his father James W. Durham.  His father owned a 300 acre plantation which housed 29 enslaved people in 1860.  The planation was valued at $2,400 (roughly the equivalent of $75,000 in 2020) in the 1850 U. S. Census.

When Durham was about 10 years old (around 1857), the family moved to Cashville.  He worked there worked as a farm laborer until he was about 15.  He then worked as a blacksmith for roughly the next 8 years (until 1870).

Durham found his calling in religion around the age of age 19 (in 1867).   He converted and joined the Pilgrim Baptist Church in Greenville County.  Later that year he was licensed and entered into the ministry.  A year later he was called to pastorate at Foster Chapel Baptist Church in Spartanburg and was ordained.

While in Spartanburg, he began to realize that his ability to preach the gospel was limited by his lack of formal education, so he resigned from the church and focused on his studies.  He attended school in Greenville County and hired a private tutor to help him learn Latin and algebra.

Durham registered at the University of South Carolina on October 5, 1874.  He entered in the college preparatory (or sub freshman) class, but he advanced to the college class and is listed as a freshman following the modern studies track in the 1876 university catalogue.  The university closed before he completed his degree.

Durham continued his studies at Atlanta University in Georgia.  At AU, he was joined by a number of other former U of SC students: John L. Dart, Fletcher H. Henderson, Julius J. Holland, Samuel H. McCoy, R. L. Smith, Edward Johnson Stewart, T. F. P. Roberts, and Kenneth M. Young.

Durham entered AU in 1877 as a junior following the college course.  He stayed at the university for 2 years (until the end of the 1878-9 academic year), but he did not complete a degree.  During this period, one account says that Durham worked as a teacher in Cobb County, Georgia for 2 terms.

After leaving Atlanta, Durham moved to Tennessee and enrolled at Fisk University.  He received an A.B. degree from Fisk in summer 1880.

After completing his degree, Durham returned to Columbia, South Carolina and ran the Nazareth Baptist Church.  While ministering in Columbia, he became concerned about the quality of the medical care available to African Americans.  As a way of addressing this concern, he went back to Tennessee to enroll at Meharry Medical College.

Durham attended Meharry from 1880 to 1882.  He was joined by fellow former U of SC students James E. Asbury and Nathaniel Middleton.  Durham graduated with an M.D. and then returned to Columbia.

While in Columbia, Durham was called to the pastorate of the Bethesda Baptist Church, a large African American church in Society Hill, South Carolina.  He also began running a medical practice.

In the 1880s, Durham began to play in increasingly large role in the Baptist church.  In 1883, he resigned from his church duties in Society Hill to become the state Sunday-school missionary under the American Baptist Publication Society and to accept an appointment as secretary and financial agent of the state Baptist Educational and Missionary Convention of South Carolina. (The convention is formed by the African American Baptist churches in the state.)

Durham held the appointment in the Baptist convention until 1891 when he moved to Savannah, Georgia to serve as pastor at the Second African Baptist Church.  In Spring 1901, he was selected to deliver a welcome address to U.S. President McKinley. The address was well-received: McKinley said, "That was one of the most beautiful and eloquent addresses I have ever heard."

Durham left his position at Second African Baptist Church in 1902.  He returned to South Carolina and became Education Secretary of the state Baptist Convention.  As Education Secretary, he strongly advocated for the creation of a Baptist-affiliated college owned and operated by African Americans. At the time, the convention supported Benedict College, an HBCU in Columbia, but Benedict was founded by white missionaries and whites played a considerable role in the operation of the college.  Over the course of the early 1900s, African Americans in South Carolina became increasingly frustrated with their lack of influence over the college.

In May 1906, the state Baptist Convention passed a resolution withdrawing its support for Benedict College.  In addition to withdrawing support, the Convention also created a committee, chaired by Durham, that was charged with opening a new college   In a speech to the Convention, Durham called on Convention members to nurture the new college:

The conception has taken place. The idea has developed. The time
of delivery is at hand. The woman is in travail. The birth pains are
already severe. The doctor has been sent for. The midwife has done all
that she could do. The baby must be born, nourished, and nurtured.
The time is now.

Two months later (in July) Durham recommended, on behalf of the committee, that the Convention establish a college in Sumter.  The recommendation was accepted, leading to the founding of Morris College.  The college elected its first president in 1908 and graduated its first class in 1911.

In 1909, Durham moved to Aiken, South Carolina to accept as pastor at Friendship Baptist Church.  He remained there until 1916.  He was also elected President of the state Baptist Convention in 1909, a position he held until 1915.

By 1918, Durham had returned to Columbia and was pastor at Second Calvary Baptist Church.  During this time, he was active in politics.  In May 1918, he joined black community leaders in a protest against the screening of the film "Birth of a Nation."  The next year (in 1919) he delivered a speech in front of the 371 Infantry Regiment, a regiment of African American soldiers, in which argued that their contributions to World War I had entitled African Americans to play a greater role in U.S. society.

Durham died of heart disease (mitral insufficiency) in Columbia in December 11, 1920.  He is buried in Randolph Cemetery.

J. J. Durham
From Our Baptist Ministers and Schools

Grave of J. J. Durham
Photo courtesy of author

Sources

1). Pegues, A. W. Our Baptist Ministers and Schools.  Willey & Co. Springfield, Mass.  1892.

2). Richardson, Clement.  The National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race: Volume One.  National Publishing Company, Montgomery, Alabama.  1919.

3). Simmons, William J.  Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising.  Geo. M. Rewell & Co. Cleveland, Ohio.  1887.

4). Caldwell, A. B.  History of the American Negro: South Carolina Edition.  A. B. Caldwell Publishing Co., Atlanta, Ga.  1919.

5). Hemmingway, Theodore. "Prelude to Change: Black Carolinians in the War Years, 1914-1920." The Journal of Negro History 65, no. 3 (1980): 212-27.

6). 1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1860. M653, 1,438 rolls.

7). Census Year: 1850; Census Place: Spartanburg, South Carolina; Archive Collection Number: AD260; Roll: 2; Page: 521; Line: 22; Schedule Type: Agriculture

8). 1870; Census Place: Reidville, Spartanburg, South Carolina; Roll: M593_1508; Page: 555A; Family History Library Film: 553007

9). 1900; Census Place: Savannah, Chatham, Georgia; Page: 14; Enumeration District: 0066; FHL microfilm: 1240186

10). 1920; Census Place: Columbia Ward 4, Richland, South Carolina; Roll: T625_1707; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 89

11). Vereen-Gordon, Mary; Clayton, Janet S.  Morris College: a Noble Journey. Hallmark Publishing, Virginia Beach, VA.  1999.

Notes: Double check if Peter Oliver was a student.