Charles William Kerr (2 April 1875 – 18 July 1951) was an American Presbyterian minister from Pennsylvania who served as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma from 1900 to 1941. Kerr was the first permanent Protestant Christian pastor to serve in Tulsa. He led the church through dramatic growth and change resulting from the discovery of oil in this area.
Life and work
Kerr was born April 2, 1875, to Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Kerr in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. The Kerrs were a Scots Presbyterian Lowland family who had immigrated to western Pennsylvania in the late 19th century.
Kerr graduated in 1893, with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Slippery Rock Normal Teachers College (now Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania). He taught for two years in a school at Parkers Landing, Pennsylvania. In 1895, he began studying for the Presbyterian ministry at Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (a forerunner of the present Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). He transferred to McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, where he graduated in 1898 and was ordained.
On 6 September 1898, Kerr married Anna Elizabeth Coe (born 6 April 1876). Her family had been abolitionists in Pennsylvania who participated in the antebellum underground railroad to aid slaves escaping to freedom.
On their wedding day the Kerrs departed from Pennsylvania for Edmond, Oklahoma Territory, to serve as Presbyterian missionaries to the Indians and freedmen (emancipated African Americans) living in what is now Oklahoma. They had two children, Hawley and Margaret.
Move to Tulsa
On February 10, 1900, Kerr said that he was "called" to be pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, a small village in Creek Nation, Indian Territory. The church, founded in 1885 by European Americans and served mostly by itinerant ministers, was located at the crossing of the Frisco and Midland Valley Railroad tracks. The church building was a Mullerhaus Legacy. Built in 1899, it was a clapboard, gothic-styled wooden church.
In 1907, a group of Tulsa businessmen found an opportunity to move Henry Kendall College, an institution for higher education owned by the national Presbyterian Church from its original home in Muskogee, Oklahoma to Tulsa. The move was successful, and ultimately resulted in transforming the college into the present-day University of Tulsa(TU) in 1920. Kerr was elected to the TU Board of Trustees, and remained active until his death. By then, he was the longest serving trustee in TU history.
Kerr was the first permanent Protestant Christian pastor in Tulsa. The Baptists called a resident minister in 1906. As a missionary, Kerr frequently went to Tulsa's "skid row" on First Street to pray, kneeling in the gutter with drunk cowboys on Friday and Saturday nights to lead them to Christ.
The 1901 discovery of crude oil transformed Tulsa into a boomtown — the "Oil Capital of the World". Thousands of workers came to the town, transforming it to a major city. The Kerrs found their original missionary vocation to the Creek and Freedmen of the town developed into serving an all-white church.
Tulsa rapidly grew from a population of 600 to 72,000 by 1921: 60,000 whites and 12,000 Blacks. Tulsa's Black district was named "Greenwood". Early on, Kerr befriended Black pastors in Greenwood. Tulsa was strongly influenced by the history of slavery in the territory, and Tulsa's other prominent white clergy tended to maintain.
Tulsa Race Riot of 1921
On the afternoon and evening of May 30, 1921, a large crowd of white people began assembling outside the Tulsa County Courthouse at 6th Street and Boulder Avenue. The crowd was estimated at two thousand people. Many of these demanded that the sheriff turn over Dick Rowland to them, clearly indicating that they intended to lynch the young man. The sheriff was determined to prevent a lynching and refused their demands. Instead, he and several armed deputies barricaded the building. In the early evening, the sheriff addressed the crowd and told them to go home.
Meanwhile, some of the black clergymen called Reverend Kerr on the telephone and asked for his assistance. After discussing the situation with his family, Kerr responded by going to the courthouse and pleading with the would-be lynch mob to go home.
- The Kerr family descendants have established a website called "The Grandfather Kerr Clan Webpage":
Retirement and death
Kerr retired as Senior Minister at First Presbyterian in April 1941 and became Pastor Emeritus. He served as Chaplain of Hillcrest Memorial Hospital in Tulsa. He died on July 18, 1951.