Hey everyone, we are happy to introduce a newly processed collection now available for your research! Robert Earl Penn was an American Baptist minister, later in life working for the Interdenominational Theological Center. This collection will be especially of interest to researchers interested in ministry work and civil rights in America.  Penn was born in 1916 in Keystone, West Virginia, a historically African American rural coal mining town in the southwest part of the state. Baptized as a teenager at the Saint James Baptist Church in Welch, West Virginia, he participated in youth work at the local church. In early life he was a construction worker and coal miner. You can see many pictures of Penn’s family and friends from this area in the collection photographs and is interesting to see how people dressed up to go to town back in the day!

Penn attended Kimball High School in McDowell County, West Virginia from 1931-1934. He received a football scholarship and attended Morristown Junior College in Tennessee from 1934-1936, earning an Associate of Arts in sociology. He then went on to earn an Bachelor of Arts in social science from Clark University in Atlanta, Georgia in 1936, a Bachelor of Divinity from Gammon Theological Seminary in 1941, and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Theology from Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kansas. He served as a chaplain in World War 2, and his concern of equal treatment of African Americans in the Army is evident in correspondence and speeches he delivered arguing against sub-standard conditions he and his colleagues were treated to.

In his other pastoral work, he served in Kansas City, Kansas, and Gary, Indiana. He was a prominent pastor in Gary, working with the Indiana Council of Churches, Fellowship of Gary Ministers, and was on the Board of Trustees with the Gary Public Schools in Gary, Indiana. Additionally, he was Vice President of the Indiana Pastors Conference in Greencastle, Indiana, was on the Board of Managers of the Indiana Baptists in Indianapolis, Indiana, and served as moderator of the Northwestern Association of the American Baptist Churches, USA.

He became active in missionary efforts in Africa and traveled to Nigeria in 1966. His pastoral specialties were teaching, counseling, administration, evangelism, social ministry, and public speaking. Beyond his work as a minister, Penn also volunteered as a camp counselor, and served as the Instruction Head at the Century Club Boy Scout Association. Penn returned to Atlanta to become Director of Field Education at the Interdenominational Theological Center in 1973.