educator pharmacist civil servant
He was born on November 3, 1875 in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, the eldest of the twelve children of Augustus Shepard and Harriet E. (Whitted) Shepard. His father was pastor of the White Rock Baptist Church in Raleigh, an active community leader, and lifelong Republican, loyalties that his son would retain throughout his life.
Shepard graduated from Shaw University in 1894 as a registered pharmacist.
He worked for a year in a pharmacy in Damill, Virginia, before returning to Durham.
In 1898 he founded, with John Merrick, Dr. A. M. Moore, and W. G. Pearson, an insurance company later called the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. Some years later, he also founded and became a trustee of the Mechanics and Farmers Bank of Durham. During 1899-1900 Shepard served as a clerk in the recorder's office in Washington, and then moved to Raleigh, where he was deputy collector of the Internal Revenue Service until 1905.
His real vocation began to emerge between 1905 and 1910 while serving as field superintendent of the International Sunday School Association. In the course of his work with Negro ministers throughout the South in organizing Sunday schools, Shepard realized that the ministers did not fully comprehend their potential for leadership, because of their lack of education. In 1910 he founded the National Religious Training School and Chatauqua to give six-week courses to ministers and teachers.
By 1915, however, the school had run so deeply into debt that it was sold at auction but was purchased by Mrs. Russell Sage and was reorganized as the National Training School for teachers, still under Shepard's leadership. In 1923 Shepard won state support, and the school again changed its name, to Durham State Normal School. In 1925 it became the first state-supported liberal arts college for Negroes and was renamed North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University).
Shepard served as president until his death in 1947. During his tenure, he increased the physical plant to an estimated value of $2 million and annual appropriations of an equivalent amount.
His campus office was a focal point for Negro education in North Carolina and was visited by the foremost educational and political leaders. Active in numerous community, state, and national organizations, he was for many years Grand Master of the Negro Masons in North Carolina, Grand Patron of the Eastern Star, secretary of Finances for the Knights of Pythias, a trustee of the Lincoln Hospital, and a trustee of the Lincoln School for Nurses in Durham.
He belonged to the North Carolina Medical Association and, from 1909 to 1914, was president of the Interdenominational Sunday School Association. He traveled in Europe, Africa, and Asia in his capacity as educator and Sunday school leader.
Shepard died of a stroke in Durham, North Carolina, four weeks before his seventy-second birthday.
James Edward Shepard was a leader who functioned well in both black and white communities, in state and nation, acting as liaison between the races. He founded the National Religious Training School and Chatauqua "for the colored race", served as the school's first president for nearly 40 years. He won approval from the legislature for a graduate program, and added the School of Law and the School of Library Science. Shepard was nationally recognized for his contributions to education and was honored by degrees of D. D. , Muskingum College (1910); M. A. , Selma University (1912); and Litt. D. , Howard University (1925). A middle school in Durham is named for him.
Although a proponent of self-help, he did not believe that Negroes should concentrate only on achieving agricultural and industrial skills; like DuBois, he was a champion of liberal and higher education for the "talented tenth, " a phrase he himself would never use. He was neither an integrationist nor a crusader for civil rights, and if he belonged to the NAACP, he did not publicize the fact.
Although distinguished in appearance and of serious mien, Shepard was a master of human relations. "
On November 7, 1895, he married Annie Day Robinson, the daughter of a Seattle, Washington, cabinetmaker; they had two daughters, Marjorie Augusta and Annie Day.
