"Jesse Edward Moorland"(September 10,1863-April 30,1940)

He was a minister community executive,and civic leader.Jesse came from Coldwater,Ohio,the only child of a farming family.When he was a baby,his mother died and his father left him to be raised by his maternal grandparents.Jesse attended Northwestern Normal University in Ada,Ohio.Upon graduation,he taught in the public school system of nearby by Urbana before moving to enroll in the Theological Department of Howard University.Jesse received his master's degree in 1891,was ordained a Congressional minister,and appointed secretary of the Washington,D.C.,branch of the YMCA all in the same year.Two years later he relocated to Nashville,Tennessee,for pastoral appointment at Howard Chapel,and in 1896,he became pastor of Cleveland's Mount Zion Congregational Church.As the 20th century approached,Jesse Moorland was involved in the movement to make Protestantism "relevant"to the current social conditions.In 1898,he accepted a post as an administrator and fund raiser in the Colored Men's Department of the YMCA.While in this position,Jesse developed many programs for cultural self-improvement,including lectures,debates,Bible classes,workshops,on job skills,literacy classes,and sports.In 1914,he became senior secretary,continuing to build and strengthen the YMCA into a national institution.Jesse retired from there in 1923.Jesse then devoted himself to African American social organizations such as the National Health Circle for Colored People,and he dehelped found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History with Carter Godwin Woodson in 1915.That same year he donated his personal library on African American history to Howard University.This collection formed the foundation of the Moorland Research Center.Jesse.