Buford Franklin Gordon

Buford F. Gordon was born in 1893 in Pulaski, Tennessee to Aaron and Matilda Gordon. He attended Fisk University, where he studied chemistry and was mentored by Yale alumnus George Edmund Haynes. After graduating from Fisk in 1917, he attended Yale Divinity School for a year before entering the Army and serving in World War I.

Upon his return from the war, he continued his divinity studies at the University of Chicago and also opened a cosmetics business, Chemical Manufacturing Company. He completed a master’s of divinity in 1920. Around this time, he married his wife, Thelma Pierce.

The couple moved to South Bend, Indiana, where Gordon worked to establish an African Methodist Episcopal Church. He also studied Black life in South Bend, publishing The Negro of South Bend in 1922. Once the church was established, he left to become minister at another AME church in Akron, Ohio. While pastor there, he wrote Pastor and People (1930). In 1931, he ended his pastorship in Akron and took a position as Editor of Church School Literature for the AME Church. During this time, he also wrote Teaching for Abundant Living (1936). He served as a bishop for the AME Church, with appointments starting in 1936 and in 1944. He served on the executive committee of the NAACP.

Gordon died in 1952.

Reflections in Prose and Poetry. Nashville, TN: A.M.E. Sunday School Union, 1917.

"A Comparative Study of the Doctrines of the Efficacy of Baptism." PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1921.

The Quest of Restless Souls. South Bend, IN: Self-published, 1922.

The Negro in South Bend: A Social Study. South Bend, IN: Self-Published, 1922.

Pastor and People: Dealing with The Problems of Church Administration. Akron, OH: Superior Printing & Litho. Co., 1930.

Teaching for Abundant Living; Teaching Through Sharing and Guiding Experiences. Boston, MA: The Christopher Publishing House, 1936.