Bishop Payne Divinity School

Bishop Payne Divinity School. Petersburg, Virginia. , Founded in 1878 as the first seminary for the theological education of African Americans, this school was associated with St. Stephen's Normal and Industrial School in Petersburg, which was overseen by the Rev. Thomas Spencer. In 1884, the seminary was named for the Rt. Rev. John Payne, who served as the first Episcopal missionary bishop to Liberia. The school lived up to his name and its mission by educating more than 250 students , 95% of them African American men , before closing the May 1949. More than a quarter of the students, which included both males and females, earned a Bachelor of Divinity at the school. Most other students went on to serve the ministry in one area or another, including as military chaplains, seminary professors, and deacons in local churches. At closure, the records of those attending Bishop Payne Divinity School (BPDS) were merged with the founding organization, now known as Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS). Maintaining the record and legacy of BPDS is now the responsibility of the library located on the VTS campus in Alexandria, VA. (That campus happens to be named for the same Episcopal missionary, Bishop Payne.), James Solomon Russell of Mecklenburg County was the first and only student in the new seminary when it was founded in 1878. In 1882, James S. Russell became the second graduate of the seminary and was ordained as a deacon. Rev. Russell would establish the St. Paul's Normal School in Lawrenceville in 1888; this institution became St. Paul's College, a traditionally African American college for more than a century, until its closure in 2013., BPDS started in St. Stephen's Episcopal Church on Perry Street. This building was sold to the British American Tobacco Co. in 1912, and the new church was built on Halifax Street. The seminary operated in the Halifax Street building until 1889, when land was purchased on South West Street to build Whittle Hall (1889), Russell Hall (1902), and finally, in 1917, Emmanuel Chapel. This chapel, located in front of you, housed the divinity school until its closure until 1949., [Captions:] , Located inside the chapel today, this plaque honors the Rev. Thomas Spencer, dedicated teacher at St. Stephen's Normal and Industrial School and the first teacher at Bishop Payne Divinity School., Emmanuel Chapel, ca. the 1920s. After the seminary closed in 1949, the building continued to serve different denominations and congregations. Oral history records tell of a fire in the 1950s that destroyed the original steeple design; it was reconstructed as you see it today.