James Solomon Russell: Former Slave, Pioneering Educator and Episcopal Evangelist by Worth E. Norman, Jr. was released in August. This comprehensive biography explores Russell’s life within the broader context of colonial and Virginia history and chronicles his struggles against the social, political and religious structures of his day to secure a better future for all people.
Born into slavery on a Virginia plantation in 1857, James Solomon Russell rose to become one of the most prominent African American pastors in the post-Civil War South. As a minister, educator, and found of Saint Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, he played a major role in the development of educational access for former slaves in the South and within the Episcopal Church.
A native of Norfolk, Worth E. Norman, Jr., has published work on Russell in The Historiographer, The Living Church and the Brunswick Times-Gazette. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
