Emma Hamilton Dancing

Alexander Wayman Ward was born in Garnett, Kansas in 1889, the son of an AME minister. He received his BA from the University of Denver in 1911, was ordained in the AME Church in Cheyenne, Wyoming the following year, and earned his BD from Wilberforce University in 1914, where he lettered in football. Ward was the first Black graduate of Denver. In 1915, Ward received his bachelor's degree in sacred theology from Yale.

From 1916 to 1927, Ward pastored in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver, Colorado. He was secretary of the Colorado Conference of the AME Church from 1916 to 1926, and an organizer and president of the Colorado Springs NAACP from 1918 to 1922. In 1926, he earned his doctorate of divinity degree from Wilberforce.

From 1928 to 1950, Ward served as pastor of the Bethel AME Church, one of the largest and most prominent churches on Chicago's South Side. Under his leadership, the church rebuilt after a fire and was noted for having over 1,000 parishioners. Throughout his life, Ward served in leadership positions in the AME Church, the YMCA, and the Boy Scouts.

Ward was a member of the Shriners, the Masons, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. He was the author of the Alpha Phi Alpha prayer. A trustee of Western University in Kansas City, Kansas and of Wilberforce University, he received honorary degrees from Monrovia College in Liberia and from Morris Brown College and other institutions.

Ward helped organize the National Council of Churches in the USA and served as a vice president and director of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago. In 1951, he was a delegate to the World Methodist Conference meeting in Oxford, England, and in 1961 to the meeting in Oslo, Norway. In 1961, he attended the World Council of Churches in New Delhi, India, where he was an official observer.

At the time of his death in 1965, Ward was a presiding elder of the North District, Chicago conference of the AME Church.