Background
Stephen was born on July 18, 1897 in Boston, Massachussets, United States, the only child of Abraham Lincoln Spottswood, a porter, and Mary Elizabeth Gray.
Stephen was born on July 18, 1897 in Boston, Massachussets, United States, the only child of Abraham Lincoln Spottswood, a porter, and Mary Elizabeth Gray.
He attended public schools in Boston; in 1917, he received a B. A. degree from Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, and in 1919 a Th. D. degree from the Gordon School of Theology in Boston. During the 1923-1924 academic year he did graduate study at the Yale Divinity School.
In 1917 and 1918, Spottswood had served as an assistant professor of churches in Cambridge and Boston, Massachussets, respectively, and in 1919 was ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
Spottswood became active in civil rights causes early in his ministerial career, long before civil rights became a national issue. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1919, and soon thereafter participated in a Washington protest against opponents of federal antilynching legislation.
In 1922 he engaged in sit-ins to desegregate a motion picture theater in New Haven, Connecticut, and during the 1930's he took part in sit-ins and picketing against racial discrimination in Buffalo, New York. During his pastorate in Washington he became a founder of the Committee for Racial Democracy in the nation's capital, and in 1946 was elected president of the District of Columbia branch of the NAACP.
On May 17, 1952, Spottswood was elected fifty-eighth bishop of the A. M. E. Zion Church, giving him religious jurisdiction over several hundred churches and varied denominational programs in different regions of the United States and Guyana. As bishop he supervised a comprehensive restructuring of the budget operations of the A. M. E. Zion Church, sponsored the construction of new churches, and promoted housing and community development.
He served as president of the Ohio Council of Churches and represented his denomination on the Executive Committee of the World Methodist Council and the General Board of the National Council of Churches. He retired on May 10, 1972.
In 1954 Spottswood was elected a member of the NAACP Board of Directors and in 1961 became its chairman, succeeding Robert C. Weaver, the distinguished economist. As board chairman he worked closely with the NAACP's executive director, Roy Wilkins. They met with President John F. Kennedy in July 1961 to urge his support of stronger civil rights legislation. This was in the wake of recent violence and legal harassment directed against blacks and whites participating in sit-ins and "freedom rides" in the southern states.
In 1964, Spottswood called for federal government intervention to deal with the murder of civil rights workers in Mississippi, and in 1965, to protect voting rights demonstrators in Alabama.
At the 1970 meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, he startled the delegates, as well as the press and the general public, with the accusation that the administration of President Richard Nixon was "anti-Negro" and had a "calculated policy to work against the needs and aspirations of the largest minority of its citizens. " He cited the administration's retreat on school desegregation, the nomination of conservative southerners to the Supreme Court, and the apparent approval of a policy of benign neglect for black Americans proposed by presidential adviser Daniel P. Moynihan.
Hence became a vigorous and effective spokesman for the NAACP during the 1970's, when the organization's goals and strategies were increasingly challenged by the strident voices and tactics of black power activists.
Spottswood died on December 1, 1974 at his home in Washington, District of Columbia.
Stephen Gill Spottswood's pastorate was notable in Washington, where under his leadership the membership of John Wesley A. M. E. Zion church increased from 300 to more than 3, 000, and the church was designated the National Church of Zion Methodism. For more than half a century he had preached from the pulpit and public platform a gospel of freedom and equality. He gave valiant and effective leadership to the nation's largest civil rights organization during some of its greatest challenges.
During his pastorate in Washington he became a founder of the Committee for Racial Democracy in the nation's capital, and in 1946 was elected president of the District of Columbia branch of the NAACP.
He mixed activism with pragmatism in his struggles against race discrimination.
His views favoring racial integration were eventually approved by most black Americans.
Tall, erect, and robust, with graying hair, Spottswood was a distinguished-looking person. He was affable, restrained, and thoughtful, and did not lightly hurl accusations. Nevertheless, his deep, firm voice could fill with emotion to present a forceful message.
On June 10, 1919, Spottswood married Viola Estelle Booker, a milliner. They had five children; one son, Stephen Paul, became an A. M. E. Zion minister. Viola died on October 24, 1953, in a heroic effort to rescue a grandchild during a household fire. On December 15, 1969, Spottswood married Mattie Johnson Elliott, a former public school principal, in Washington, District of Columbia.
