Stanley, J. Taylor
Biographical Statement
The Reverend Dr. J. Taylor Stanley was born in Centreville, Alabama, in 1898. He was a graduate of Lincoln Normal School in Marion, Alabama. A United States Army veteran, he attended Talladega College and graduated in 1925 from The Howard University Divinity School in Washington, D.C. He married Kathryn Turrentine in 1927, and from this union came five children: three sons -- Thomas W., A. Knighton, Joseph T., and two daughters -- Joye and Ollie.
The Rev. Dr. Stanley served the Howard Congregational Church in Nashville, Tennessee; the Gregory Congregational Church in Wilmington, North Carolina; and The First Congregational Church in Dudley, North Carolina. At the Dudley Parish, he developed a model rural parish as a staff member of the Board of Homeland Missions of The Congregational Christian Churches. In 1942, he became Superintendent of the Southeast Region of Congregational Christian Churches, a region which spanned from Virginia to Texas. In this capacity, he also served as editor of the Southeast Regional News of Congregational Christian Churches. He was founding Conference Minister of the Convention of the South, which was the Black jurisdiction of the United Church of Christ (U.C.C.). When the Congregational Christian Churches merged with the Evangelical and Reform Churches in 1957, Dr. Stanley supported the inclusion of churches in the Black jurisdiction in integrated conferences across the South.
After his retirement, he was interim Director of Dorchester Center in McIntosh, Georgia, and Franklinton Center at Bricks, North Carolina. He also became pastor of the Pilgrim United Church of Christ, which resulted from the merger of Washington Terrace and Pilgrim Churches. There he built a new church edifice. He served on many U.C.C. boards, councils, and commissions including the Council for Christian Social Action and the Board of Directors of the AD Magazine of the U.C.C.
Dr. Stanley authored many articles and was noted as a preacher and lecturer. He also authored the book History of the Convention of the South of Congregational Christian Churches. Dr. Stanley died in The Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina, on December 9, 1983.