NEW ORLEANS PARTNERSHIP : Board Members
Bishop C. Garnett Henning - Minister,
Visionary and Activist
Since the late 70s, the Rt. Rev. C.
Garnett Henning’s
vision, ministry and leadership have been respected on the
North American and African continents.
Highly regarded among clergy persons, elected officials and
activists, as a young minister his passionate and effective
Christian advocacy in Los Angeles and St. Louis were instrumental
in winning battles against discrimination in both cities. His
advocacy for economic, social and political justice for Blacks
and other minorities has been the hallmark of his ministry
wherever he has served. He has been a forceful fighter in areas
of police brutality, housing, quality education and employment.
From the mid to late 70s in Los
Angeles, while Senior Shepherd of Ward AME, he served as
Executive Vice President. President and Chairman of the Board
of SCLC-West. He also served as a member of the city's Housing
Authority and
In St. Louis. where he was Senior
Minister of St. Paul AME, the Mother Church west of the Mississippi
River, his distinctive leadership style and activism were
beneficial for the poor and locked out. While living in St.
Louis, he founded the Committee for Equal Justice, an organization
that exposed corruption in the Bail Bond system and established
an ‘Own Recognizance” program.
The ‘COn Recognizance” program provided leadership
for the eventual establishment of the Pre-Trial Release Program
which allowed qualified apolicants to be released prior to
trial without posting a financial bond.
Bishop Henning also founded the Black Clergy Coalition which
gave valuable leadership to Black ecumenical cooperation, economic
development and political empowerment. He served for several
years as Chairperson of the Political Action Committee. Bishop
Henning also founded the Superintendent Advisory Committee,
a committee that interacted with the Superintendent of education
on matters related to quality education for the people of St.
Louis and particularly the African American community.
Bishop Henning served as Executive Director
of Block Partnership a program that brought together the Inner
City and Suburban Churches and other organizations in programs
of partnership for empowerment. His coalition also participates
in a summer exchange program with city rind county churches
called Parish Partners.
His abilities and contributions
gained even wider recognition with his 1992 election as the
112th Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and
his assignment as Presiding Prelate of the 14th Episcopal
District. The Fourteenth Episcopal District is in West Africa,
and comprises Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Cote
l’voire.
While bishop serving in the Fourteenth
District, despite the civil war which was being fought in
Liberia, Bishop Henning established AIME University, an institution
which now has a student enrollment in excess of fifteen hundred
students. He also established C. G. Henning, Jr. Memorial
Institute, in Danane’ Cote l’voire, a refugee
area. The school continues until today.
In 1996 Bishop Henning took the helm
of the denomination’s
~ 9~ Episcopal District, South Africa. Since then, he has been
a forceful leader among bishops and lay leaders in support
of indigenous leadership in Africa. While in South Africa,
he completely modernized the H. B. Senatle Headquarters Building’s
office operations and built and paid for the C. 0. Henning,
Snr. Wing, which was dedicated in 1998.
From 1996-2000 Bishop Henning served
as Chairman of the church’s
Commission on Women and Ministry which provided a platform
for his long time advocacy for the election of a woman to the
Episcopacy. In 2000, while he was Chairperson of the Commission
on Women in Ministry, Bishop Vashti McKenzie was elected and
consecrated the first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal
Church.
Bishop Henning speaks forcefully
and freely of his vision for full empowerment of women in
the life ofthe denomination. FTc beiicvcs the cr~atoit calls
onc can ~h’~ i~.’the ç~.fl
to empo’ver others, particularly in self development.
in 1998 he funded an eight-member delegation of Women in Ministry
to the United States, from South Africa. and provided them
with opportunities for travel and preaching throughout the
country. He ordained, assigned and promoted more women than
any other bishop in the history of the 19th Episcopal District.
With his installation as President
of the AME Council of Bishops in a June 22, 1999, Los Angeles
service, his Afro-centric voice and presence have been increasingly
seen as an even more hnportant bridge to influence and power
for members of Black America’s
oldest denomination (founded in Philadelphia in 1787).
Bishop Henning dedicated more than 20 parsonages and churches
that were built or renovated under his administration and started
more than 50 A.M.E. congregations in South Africa between 1996
and 2000, during his
Bishop Henning is a native of Memphis, Tennessee, a graduate
of Booker T. Washington High School, Memphis, Tennessee, received
his B. S. degree from Wilberforce University and the Mi Di~.
degree from Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio.
He also comnleted the course work for the D. Mm degree at Eden
Theological Seminary, Webster Groves, MO
He has received numerous awards, honors and recognitions for
civic, social, religious and political contributions to the
communities where he served.
He is presently the presiding bishop of the Eighth Episcopal
District of the African Methodist Episcopal District which
includes the states of Mississippi and Louisiana Since being
assigned to the 8th District, bishop Henning has been very
vocal about his views regarding the confederate flag that flies
over Mississippi.
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