WALLACE D. FARAD

Wallace D. Farad was the founder of the Nation of Islam (sometimes called the Black Muslim) movement in the United States. Farad immigrated to the United States sometime before 1930. In that year, he established in Detroit the Temple of Islam as well as the University of Islam, which was the temple's school, and the Fruit of Islam, a corps of male guards. Farad preached that Blacks (who were not to be called Negroes) must prepare for an inevitable race war and that Christianity was the religion of slaveowners. Accordingly, he gave his followers Arabic names to replace those that had originated in slavery. Farad offered Blacks a credo of moral and cultural superiority to their white oppressors. In 1934 he disappeared without a trace. Members of the NOI movement believe Farad to be the incarnation of Allah, and his birthday, February 26, is observed as Saviour's Day.

BISHOP DANIEL A. PAYNE

Bishop Daniel A. Payne was a historian, educator and AME minister. He, more than any other individual, is responsible for the A.M.E. church's interest in trained ministry. Bishop Payne was ordained an elder in the Lutheran Church in 1837. Overall, Payne was the sixth Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He built and nurtured churches in Washington D.C., New York and Baltimore. He was elected the Historiographer of the AME Church in 1848. Payne was elected a Bishop at the General Conference in New York City on May 7, 1852, where he presided over the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 7th Districts. He was a serious author, his books, History of the A.M.E. Church and Recollections of Seventy Years were his greatest writings and were an authoritative source of history of the first 75 years of the church. He was married to Eliza Clark Payne, the father of one child and the stepfather of four; Julia, John, Laura, Augusta and Peter. Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne died on November 2,1893.

HENRIETTE DELILLE

Henriette Delille was an African-American abolitionist and religious leader. In 1836, along with several other women, Delille established the Sisters of the Presentation, which later became the "Sisters of the Holy Family" the second oldest Catholic religious order for women of color. She had purchased land on Barracks Street with the assistance of the free people of color in New Orleans. The Sisters worked among the poor, the sick, the elderly and also among slaves. The order founded a school for girls in 1850 and in 1860 opened a hospital for needy Black Orleanians. Today, the parish continues to contribute to the education of African American youths and to the care of the sick and elderly through their work in New Orleans and elsewhere. Henriette Delille died in 1862.