John W. Bowen

Who is John W. Bowen?

John Wesley Edward Bowen III was a Republican politician who, in 1966 became the first African-American elected to the Ohio Senate from Franklin County.

Early Life and Education

John W.E. Bowen III was born in 1926 in Jackson, Mississippi, to the Reverend John W.E. Bowen, Jr. and Margaret Davis Bowen. He is the paternal grandson of John W.E. Bowen, Sr., former President of Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia and Ariel Serena Hedges Bowen, former Professor of Music at Clark College in Atlanta.

He attended elementary schools in Cincinnati, Ohio and New Orleans, Louisiana, and graduated from Gilbert Academy High School, of New Orleans, Louisiana in 1943. He attended Lincoln University, in Oxford, Pennsylvania, for two years, where he was initiated into Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

His college studies were interrupted in June, 1945, when he was drafted into The United States Army, where He qualified as a sharpshooter, and was trained as a combat engineer, a surveyor, and subsequently served as an information and education specialist.

He received an honorable discharge in 1946 and resumed his academic studies for two years at the University of Southern California.