James Solomon Russell: Educator, Archdeacon and Saint of Southern Virginia

The subject of this paper is James Solomon Russell, an ex-slave and founder of St. Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, Virginia. Russell also served as Archdeacon for Colored Work in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia from 1893 to 1929. This study covers the time from Russell’s birth in 1857 to his death in 1935. It takes into account the non-stop efforts of Russell toward reconciliation within the Episcopal Church among whites and African-Americans. It will be argued using established historical facts that James Solomon Russell was not only a leader, but possibly the pivotal player in the development of educational access for former slaves within the Episcopal Church in the period from post Reconstruction to the early 20th century. He was also, as alluded to above, the human linchpin holding in dialogue and debate rival positions concerning the full and equal participation of African-Americans in the governance of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Southern Virginia. When the Diocese of Southern Virginia was created out of the undivided Diocese of Virginia in 1892-93 Russell was appointed Archdeacon for Colored Work, a charge that lasted until 1929. It is the work as Archdeacon, as well as that of principal of St. Paul’s, that gave Russell a platform in working for full acceptance of African-Americans not only within the Diocese of Southern Virginia but in the Episcopal Church as a whole. Perhaps Russell’s most aggressive opposition came from the American Church Institute for Negroes (ACIN) and its first executive director, Samuel Bishop. The ACIN, formed in 1906, was the Episcopal Church’s successor organization to previous church agencies attempting to fund colored schools after the end of Reconstruction. But the ACIN and Samuel Bishop had problems with Russell and the manner in which he operated the St. Paul school. Bishop actually underwrote the cost of a trip to Europe for Russell to get him out of the country while he and the ACIN tried to take over the operation of the school. In 1999 the book ...