Background
Edward Ramage was born October 2, 1908, in Weaverville, North Carolina, to Samuel Johnson Ramage (d 1917) and Elizabeth Jane Vandiver.
Edward Ramage was born October 2, 1908, in Weaverville, North Carolina, to Samuel Johnson Ramage (d 1917) and Elizabeth Jane Vandiver.
Edward Ramage is listed as a Doctor of Divinity. However, it is unclear whether Ramage ever obtained a degree. He bounced around colleges, first Davidson in North Carolina, next Emory near Atlanta, then back to Davidson, and returning again to Emory before he attended the conservative Columbia theological seminary in Decatur, Georgia.
According to officials at in Decatur, Georgia, Ramage completed his senior year of study, but the seminary had no record of an actual degree conferred.
He was one of three children. After months of struggling to make ends meet he received a job offer during September 1932 to pastor three churches, Main Street, Lindale, and Barkers, scattered over thirty miles of countryside in and around the northwest Georgia town of Rome. In response, Doctor King wrote "A letter from a Birmingham Jail." During the height of the civil rights tensions in Birmingham, Alabama, pressure from segregationists within his own congregation convinced Ramage to leave his longtime pastorate and pursue a ministry elsewhere.
