Reverend George F. Martin Papers

George F. Martin was born in Jackson County, Missouri in 1884. He was educated in Missouri and was one of the earliest graduates of Lincoln High School in 1901. He married Myrtle L. Martin in 1911. He was elected to be a ministerial delegate from the Puget Sound area to the 26th General Conference of the A.M.E. Church in St. Louis, Missouri. That next year he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Montana Wesleyan College in Helena, Montana. In 1924, he was accepted into the Scottish Rite of Free Masonry. In 1926, he became the president of Flipper Key Davis College in Tullahassee, Oklahoma. Flipper Key Davis College was the only private higher level education institution for African Americans in Oklahoma. The school closed in 1935. He also served as dean of the former Bishop William School of Religion in Kansas City, Kansas. Rev. George F. Martin pastored three A.M.E. Churches in Kansas: Trinity A.M.E. Church, Ebenezer A.M.E. Church and Cain-Grant A.M.E. Church. Rev. George F. Martin, D.D. died in 1974.

This collection was donated by Chestine Allen, foster daughter to Reverend and Mrs. George F. Martin. Ms. Allen was highly active in the Ebenezer AME Church and after she lost her mother in 1947 developed a close relationship with Pastor Martin. She lived in the parsonage and helped them while they paid for her education. She later became a teacher in the Chicago Public School system and a member of the Patricia Liddell Researchers, an African American genealogy organization.