Horatius Holipheal Coleman (1892-1969)

  Portrait from Jet Magazine, April 14, 1966.

   Horatius Holipheal Coleman was for over sixty years a Baptist minister, thirty-six of which were spent in the pastorate of Detroit, Michigan's Greater Macedonian Baptist Church. A founding organizer of the Progressive National Baptist Convention and a close friend of the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. (1899-1984), Coleman had fleeting involvement in politics in 1950 when he sought the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan's 1st congressional district. 

   Born in Sandersville, Georgia on February 22, 1892, Coleman was first called to the ministry at age fourteen and would attend both the Georgia Baptist College and Morehouse College. By 1920 he had married to Mamie Jordan and, along with a daughter, Juanita (born 1914), is recorded in that year's census as a resident of Atlanta, where he was employed as a construction company plasterer. In 1924 Coleman and his family removed to Detroit, and in that year took the pastorate of the Greater Institutional Baptist Church. He served in that role for eight years and after leaving that pastorate, joined the New Bethel Baptist Church as its pastor for one year.

   In 1933 Horatius H. Coleman accepted the pastorate of the Greater Macedonian Baptist Church, where he would serve until his death thirty-six years later. His lengthy tenure with that church saw him garner the title "the Dean of Baptist Ministers" from his fellow clergymen and is remarked as having:

"Worked constantly for civic and social improvement; and his wisdom was relied upon widely among his people in political affairs for governmental progress."

  Three years following his joining the Greater Macedonia Baptist Church, Coleman traveled to Atlanta, Georgia as a guest evangelist to lead a revival at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Attending this revival were Coleman's friend and fellow Baptist pastor Martin Luther King Sr. (then president of the Atlanta Baptist Minister's Union) and the latter's seven-year-old son, Martin Luther King Jr. During Coleman's services at the revival, the future civil rights icon was baptized at Ebenezer Baptist Church on May 3, 1936. 
   Following his services in Atlanta, Coleman returned to his pastorship in Detroit and in 1938 welcomed the birth of a son, Horatius Holipheal Jr. The 1940s saw Coleman active in YMCA work and in 1950 made his first and only foray into the political field, becoming a Democratic candidate for U.S. Representative from Michigan. Hoping to represent that state's first congressional district, Coleman was one of seven candidates vying for the nomination in that year's Democratic primary, which also included incumbent representative George Sadowski (1903-1961). When the votes were tallied on September 12, 1950, Horatius Coleman placed third, polling 5,897 votes. While he may have lost that election, Coleman saw George Sadowski also go down to defeat, being bested by Thaddeus M. Machrowicz. Machrowicz would later go on to win the general election that November and served in Congress until his resignation in 1961.

From the Detroit Free Press, September 15, 1950.

  In the years following his brief flirtation with politics Horatius Coleman continued in his Detroit pastorate and was also called as a guest pastor on several occasions. In November 1959 he led an eight-day revival at Indianapolis' 25th Street Baptist Church, and in 1961 aided in the organization of the Progressive National Baptist Convention. Six years prior to his death Coleman realized a lifelong goal to visit the Holy Land and in 1966-67 participated in the Greater Macedonian Baptist Church's Ebony subscription drives that brought in several thousand dollars in donations. 

  Horatius Holipheal Coleman died in Detroit on December 13, 1969, at age 77, and public service continued in his family with his paternal great-grandson Kendrick B. Meek (born 1966), a four-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida and a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010.

From the Indianapolis Recorder, November 7, 1959.