T. J. Jemison

Who is T. J. Jemison?

Theodore Judson Jemison, better known as T. J. Jemison, is the former president of the National Baptist Convention, having served from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African-American religious organization. He oversaw the construction of the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the headquarters for the Convention.

In 1953, while minister of a large church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jemison helped lead the first civil rights boycott of bus service. The organization of free rides, coordinated by churches, was a model used later by the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama, which started in 1955. Jemison was one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. In 2003 the 50th anniversary of the Baton Rouge bus boycott was honored with three days of events, organized by a young resident born two decades after the action.