A Brief Overview of the Life of Wilbur Kenneth Howard

NOTE:

For a more extensive article on Wilbur Howard's life please see my article "Wilbur Howard: A Ministry of Eloquent Silence" as published in the Touchstone Journal (edited by Rev. Dr. Peter Wyatt) -  the article can be found by clicking on the following link - http://touchstonejournal.ca/Jan_2011_flipbook/index.html
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I am just so thankful for the existence of the United Church Observer who has spent considerable resources in the past in retaining the key to unlocking a bigger story about Black History in the United Church of Canada – namely, the ministry of the church’s first Black Moderator, the Reverend Doctor Wilbur Kenneth Howard.

Wilbur Howard was born Thursday, February 29, 1912 in Toronto, Ontario as, what the Observer calls, “a third or fourth generation Canadian.”  Howard received education in his childhood and adolescence at Brock Public School and then Bloor Collegiate in the Davenport Riding of Toronto, and subsequently completed a bachelor of arts degree, and finally ended up at Emmanuel College, a theological college affiliated with the United Church of Canada.

Sandra Martin of the Globe and Mail wrote that “Dr. Howard’s brother and father were railway porters” and Rev. Douglas Lapp added that “that was what was open for blacks in the 1930s.”  And so, by the grace of God, Howard was led into a different vocation than his family members; one that required great support from both friends he made in the United Church of Canada and his family.  In one article Howard describes being invited to church by a white family, and eventually being taken to church with them every Sunday, and the result was his calling into the ministry of a segregated church, at a segregated time, even in polite Canada.

In 1941 Howard was ordained by Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada, and the provinciality of people across this country prevented him from being placed in a local congregation – a system known as “settlement” – in which the Transfer Committee decides which of the United Church of Canada’s 13 Conferences across the country to send a newly ordained minister.  In fact, the situation was so atrocious that the General Council Office – the national office of the church – had to create a position for Howard so that he could be ordained.

From 1941 to 1949 Howard worked for the Boys Work Board of Toronto and from 1949 to 1953 he worked for the Boys Work Board of Manitoba.  Then in 1954 he became the editor for Sunday School Publications in Toronto.

From 1965 to 1970 Rev. Howard was part of the ministry team at Dominion Chalmers United Church, and a Globe and Mail article offers these words:

“He didn’t find a congregation until he was hired to join the pastoral team at Dominion Chalmers United Church in Ottawa in 1963, more than 20 years after he was ordained.”

The “parochialness of Ontario” prevented Dr. Howard from having his own church ministry, Mr. Lapp said.  “Ottawa was supposed to be an international city, but it was really a small town.”[1]

Finally, in 1971, Howard received a call to Emmanuel United Church in Ottawa as the sole pastor and he would remain there until his retirement in 1980.  In an article dated October 1974, the United Church Observer describes Howard’s routine during those years:

Dr. Howard lives simply.  He gets up at six, takes a three – or four-mile walk, then comes home for orange juice, whole wheat toast and coffee.  He doesn’t have to cook many evening meals for himself, for he is often invited to dinner in the homes of his flock.  When he does have a free evening, he likes to write, listen to music, read or see a play or movie.

During his ministry at Emmanuel United Church, Howard wound up heading to the United Church of Canada’s 1974 General Council meeting as a candidate for Moderator – the spiritual leader of the United Church – and, to the world’s surprise, was elected.  Leslie Scrivener describes the occasion in her 2001 article on Howard for the Toronto Star:

When his victory was announced at the General Council of the United Church, the members who elected him, not only clapped, they cheered.

And Howard’s response to such raucous church behaviour was to say, “This is a high moment of acceptance.”  Anne Squire, who was moderator from 1986 to 1988, said of the experience:

“Everyone knew he meant acceptance not just as a moderator, but as a black moderator.”

Howard would later tell the Montreal Gazette about his election as moderator:

“It gives you a great deal of confidence in the church.  You feel the support of people.  You fell that, well, people are able to look for someone who may have a contribution, and they match the job with the man they want.”

He also told the Montreal Gazette, with regard to the United Church of Canada that,

                                    “It’s a great church.  I think a lot of exciting things are happening.”

And further, he said,

Sometimes we haven’t been too good at telling our story and one of the things I hope to do is to tell the story of the church.  I have some gifts in the spoken and written words.”

And, finally, as moderator, some of the stories of Howard’s past in the church began to leak out.  The story from the Gazette was:

He told of an incident early in his ministry when, on a visit to a Canadian city, he was refused service in a restaurant and an official of the United Church group he was visiting wrote United Church headquarters to say he was not acceptable.  “Now,” he said, “I have been accepted.”

After the election of Howard as moderator members of the General Council sat in their table groups and talked about what they had done.  After a few minutes Howard, “in one of the simple, forceful prayers that had meant so much in their deliberating sent them back to their congregations” with these words:

                                    “God help us to grab this moment.

                                    God help us if we don’t.

                                    God help us if we do.

                                    Let’s go.”

That would be a great place to end the story, however, Howard’s legacy is extremely vast.  Howard had to deal with not only racial prejudice and parochialism everywhere he went, but also he had a job to do as spiritual leader of the United Church.

When asked about the problem of declining church membership – it was 2 million during his tenure from 1974 to 1977 – he replied, “Membership is down statistically, but up spiritually.”

In 1975 it appears that the Right Reverend Wilbur Howard was heading to South Africa to represent the United Church of Canada there and the Observer recounts it this way:

A funny thing happened to United Church Moderator Wilbur Howard.  He went to a worship service in Africa, and everyone expected him to be white.

And they further recall that, “in white South Africa, his color created problems” and Howard remembers,

“I think the immigration authorities in Johannesburg read every word on my papers...But I had a little document from their embassy in Ottawa facilitating my entry, so that made it easier.”

He apparently stayed in “a new Holiday Inn” while he was in South Africa.

One thing to also consider is that Howard continued to serve his local congregation two Sundays of every month while serving as moderator, which includes extensive travel across the country and around the world.

The Very Reverend Dr. Wilbur Kenneth Howard retired from the pastorate in 1980 and,

In the early 1990s, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and moved to Chester Village, a retirement home, where he became unofficial chaplain.

1991 would see Howard accept the Order of Ontario, the most prestigious honour for a citizen of Ontario to receive.

Howard died on Tuesday, April 17, 2001 at Grace Hospital on Church St. in Toronto of Parkinson’s Disease at age 89.  He left behind him an untouchable legacy that even the white supremacy that existed en masse in the United Church of Canada could not break down.  Howard was often described as private, and so he is a difficult man to understand, especially in contrast to the preachers and civilians south of the border publically demanding civil rights for non-white people – of course we think of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X and the many others who stood in the face of white supremacy.  But here in Canada we had our own prophet for our own unique context – his name was Wilbur Howard, a man who knows my heart and soul as a Black man.  Thank you Dr. Howard.  Thank you for being an inspiration.

After Dr. Howard’s death, then-Acting City Clerk of Toronto, Jeffrey A. Abrams, wrote to then-General Secretary of the United Church of Canada, Virginia Coleman:

Council rose and observed a moment of silence in memory of the late Rt. Rev. Wilbur Howard.

Our beloved prophet had paved a way for non-white peoples to be themselves unapologetically as he blazed a trail as the first black person to graduate from Emmanuel College and the first black person to be ordained in the United Church of Canada, and the first black person to be elected moderator.  He definitely deserves one of those massive portraits that they only give Emmanuel College Principals.

This is written in honour of the late Wilbur Howard, B.A., B.D., D.D., L.L.D.

Sources contributing to this brief narrative

The Globe and Mail

The Toronto Star

The United Church Observer

Letter from the City Clerk of Toronto to the General Secretary of the United Church of Canada

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[1] Globe and Mail.  Saturday 21 April, 2001