Biography
Early Life
Rev. Dr. Jacquelyn Grant created the Center for Black Women in Church and Society at the Interdenominational Theological Center.
Dr. Jacquelyn Grant is one of the founders of Womanist Theology.
She was born on December 19, 1948, in Georgetown, South Carolina, to parents Reverend Joseph J. Grant and Lillie Mae Grant.
Dr. Grant graduated from Howard High School in 1966. In 1970, she attended Bennett College where she received a bachelor’s degree in education.
Three years later, she completed her Master of Divinity program at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.
Religious Leadership
Minister Jacquelyn Grant was ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1974.
For the 1976 General Conference, Dr. Grant wrote a paper that called for the full participation of women at all levels of the church. The paper, “The Status of Women in the AME Church,” brought together women in ministry as organizers.
The movement became known as the Women in Ministry organization (AME/WIM). The organization led to the creation of the Commission on Women in Ministry as an official group in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Academic Achievement
Dr. Grant joined the Women’s Studies Program at Harvard’s Divinity School in 1977.
She worked with the research program until 1979 and spent her final year as a graduate fellow.
Dr. Jacquelyn Grant continued her education at Union Theological Seminary in 1980. There she became the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology in 1985.
Church Advocacy
In 1981, Dr. Grant founded the Center for Black Women in Church and Society for the Interdenominational Theological Center.
Currently, Dr. Grant serves as the Fuller E. Callaway Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Grant’s Black Women in Church and Society program was key for bringing women in ministry together for interdenominational, intergenerational, interdisciplinary, and international dialogues.
The center also had conferences, classes, and programs for mentoring and leadership development for Black women in ministry.
Dr. Jacquelyn Grant worked with the World Council of Churches (WCC), the National Council of Churches (NCC), and the Commission on Church Union.
She is also an esteemed member of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT).
Dr. Grant’s career as an educator spans over forty-six years with forty-two of the years employed by the ITC.
In her career, she lived by the lesson “We must say yes to the gospel, and that yes is manifested in life as lived daily, or we can say no even by our inactivity.”
She has been a fierce activist for black women’s equality.
