MOULTRIE, Ga. — Williams Tabernacle Christian Methodist Episcopal Church will  celebrate its 14th Annual Sarah Everett Daniels Black History Program at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, March 15, with the Rev. Robert Lewis Sr., Co-Pastor Thessie Baker and Rev. Reginald Baker will give reflections on the struggles African Americans have faced through the years and continue to face. Marilyn Williams and Thessie Baker will render the music.

The year 2020 marks the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment and the culmination of the women’s suffrage movement. The year 2020 also marks the sesquicentennial of the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) and right of black men to vote after the Civil War. The theme,  “African Americans and the Vote,” speaks, therefore, to the ongoing struggle on the part of black men and women for the right to vote, according to a press release from the church. 

“This theme has a rich and long history, which begins at the turn of the nineteenth century, i.e., in the era of the Early Republic, with the states’ passage of laws that democratized the vote for white men while disfranchising free black men,” the church’s release said. 

Thus, even before the Civil War, black men petitioned their legislatures and the US Congress, seeking to be recognized as voters. Tensions between abolitionists and women’s suffragists first surfaced in the aftermath of the Civil War, while black disfranchisement laws in the late 19th and early 20th centuries undermined the guarantees in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments for the great majority of southern blacks until the Voting Right Act of 1965. 

“The important contribution of black suffragists occurred not only within the larger women’s movement, but within the largest black voting rights movement,” Williams Tabernacle said. “Through the voting-right campaigns and legal suits from the turn of the 20th century to the mid-1960s, African Americans made their voices heard as to the importance of the vote. Indeed the fight for black voting rights continues in the courts today. The theme of the vote should also include the rise of black elected and appointed officials at the local level and national levels, campaigns for equal rights legislation, as well as the role of blacks in traditional and alternative political parties.”

The Rev. Robert L. Lewis was born in Terrell County, Ga., to the late James L. Lewis Sr. and Carrie M. (Moon) Lewis. He attended and graduated from the segregated public schools of the county. He attended The Fort Valley State College (now University) in Fort Valley, Ga., and received a Bachelors of Arts in political science and history. He received his Juris Doctorate Degree from Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, N.J., and a Master’s of Divinity Degree from the Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta.

He served as an adjunct professor/part time faculty at Albany State University Albany, Georgia, and at South Georgia College, Douglas, Georgia (interim campus, Georgia South Western, Americus, Georgia). He has served in the ministry for 25 years within the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church denomination. Lewis pastored Bethel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Cordele, Georgia, and Centennial Zion Methodist Episcopal Church, Scotland, Georgia. Presently, he serves as pastor of Williams Tabernacle Christian Methodist Church in Moultrie. 

He received the W.C. Larkin Tenacious award, the Interdenominational Theological Center Dean List award and the Theological Center Honors awards in 2003. 

He’s married to Mrs. Mary E. Glover Lewis and they have three children and two grandchildren.

Co-Pastor Thessie Baker began singing at the age of 6 while attending church. She has appeared on several television stations such as TBN Atlanta, BET with the Bobby Jones show, Sunday’s Best Contestant, Maranatha Network of Moultrie, and Mediacom 96 of Tifton, Georgia. She has also appeared on several radio stations such as WJIZ 96.3 FM, Albany, Georgia; 97.5 FM, Valdosta, Georgia; 960 AM, Albany, Georgia; and WHGH 840 AM, WSTT 730 AM and WHJL 1400 AM, Moultrie.

Baker has appeared in several events with various recording artist such as John P. Kee, Bobby Jones, Yolanda Adams, the late Orlando Draper, Pastor Gary Oliver and the Blind Boys of Mississippi. She is known as a traditional/contemporary gospel recording artist. Furthermore, she is a psalmist, writer, poet, storyteller and teacher by trade. 

She released her first CD in 2006 titled “A Mighty God in Whom I Praise.” Her #1 song was “My Prayer-Strengthen  Me.” Her music has been played as far as Iraq and Uganda, Africa.

Pastor R. L. Baker was ordained 40 years ago while attending college in Albany, Georgia. Though born an orphan in Orlando, Florida, he was raised in Moultrie. He is a 1978 graduate of Moultrie Senior High School. He is a former peace officer, former chaplain for the Georgia Department of Corrections Training Academy, community leader, former sergeant in the United States Army, and currently a local business owner and clergyman.  

While attending Albany Junior College, Baker majored in business administration and graduated from Albany Technical College. He later enlisted in the United States Army as a medic at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas, Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and Fort Myers, Virginia, Radar Clinic. Other training entailed military leadership and management training. Afterwards, he received the United States’ Army Service Ribbon Award, Army Good Conduct Medal, and many other awards.

After his tour of duty, Baker attended and graduated from the School of the Bible in Washington, D.C. He was later ordained and licensed as a minister of the gospel. Baker became a certified instructor, facilitator and life coach with the Georgia Family Council, a nonprofit organization specializing in restoring family values and marriages. He was a recipient of the Citation  Award from former Georgia Gov. Joe Frank Harris. 

Baker has appeared on several television broadcasts such as TBN, WALB-10 The Pentecostal  Hour, Maranatha Network of Moultrie, Georgia, Mid-Day with Karla Heath Sands and his own broadcast out of Tifton, Georgia. 

He is married to Thessie Baker and they have three children and three grandchildren.