Roland T. Heacock
Graduate of Yale Divinity School, 1924
Biography
Roland T. Heacock was born in New Milford, Connecticut in 1893. He graduated from Howard University in Washington, DC in 1921 and went on to receive a bachelor's of theology from the Yale Divinity School in 1924 and a master’s from Boston University in 1926. From 1931 to 1942 he was pastor of the Lincoln Congregational Church in Springfield, Massachusetts. He then served briefly as an Army chaplain for three years during WWII. He subsequently moved to Stafford, Connecticut, where he became interim minister of the Stafford Springs Congregational Church before making national news in 1950 when he was appointed minister of the all-white Staffordville Congregational Church. Heacock was adamant that the remarkability of his appointment represented the racism and classism prevalent in Christianity. Heacock’s anti-racist stance was notable enough that in 1950 he received the Chicago Defender Award, and in 1965 he wrote and published a book, Understanding the Negro Protest. He was married to Lucille LaCour, with whom he had three children. He retired in 1958 and died in 1972 in Stafford, Connecticut.
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Decade(s) at Yale
Publications
"What The People Say: 'Consistency, Thou Art A Jewel'," The Chicago Defender, April 16, 1927.
"Swarming," Gleanings in Bee Culture 75, no. 5 (1947).
"The South Is My Home," The Pittsburgh Courrier, January 28, 1950.
"Negro Minister Hopeful About Schools In South," The Hartford Courant, October 3, 1954.
"Jim Crow Lives On Despite Court Orders," The Hartford Courant, April 8, 1959.
Understanding the Negro Protest. New York, NY: Pageant Press, 1965.