For this exhibition tour of Gordon Parks: Pastor E.F. Ledbetter and The Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, 1953, Gordon Parks Foundation Writing Fellow Melanee C. Harvey is joined by Reverend Ernest F. Ledbetter, Jr., and Reverend Ernest F. Ledbetter III, D.Min, son and grandson of Reverend E.F. Ledbetter, whom Parks photographed in 1953.
Melanee C. Harvey is associate professor of art history in the Department of Art in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. She earned a BA from Spelman College and received her MA and Ph.D., with a focus on American art and architectural history, from Boston University. She has been coordinator for art history studies at Howard and has served as programming chair for the James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora at the university since 2016. Harvey has published on architectural iconography in African American art, Black Arts Movement artists, religious art of Black liberation theology, and ecowomanist art practices. The Paul Mellon Guest Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in 2020–2021, she was awarded the Genevieve Young Fellowship in Writing by The Gordon Parks Foundation in 2023. She is currently writing her first book, Patterns of Permanence: African Methodist Episcopal Architecture and Visual Culture. Harvey is editor and contributing author of Gordon Parks: Pastor E. F. Ledbetter and the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, 1953, published by The Gordon Parks Foundation, Howard University, and Steidl.
Reverend Ernest F. Ledbetter, Jr., is the only son of the late Dr. Ernest F. Ledbetter, Sr., who was pastor of the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church on the West Side of Chicago. The younger Reverend Ledbetter began his ministry on December 17, 1978, after receiving his calling from the Lord. On March 2, 1979, he preached his first sermon. It was then that he was licensed, and in 1980 he was ordained to carry out all the demands of the Gospel. Reverend Ledbetter has served as pastor of Hebron City Christian Center for over 36 years. He and his wife of forty-three years, Lydia, have four children—Monyetta, Naomi, Ernesha, and Ernest III—and eleven grandchildren. Reverend Ledbetter is a prominent preacher, teacher, singer, evangelist, author, and more. He is well-known and blessed to have friends in the ministry across the country. Rev. Ledbetter, Jr. is contributing author to Gordon Parks: Pastor E. F. Ledbetter and the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, 1953, published by The Gordon Parks Foundation, Howard University, and Steidl.
Reverend Ernest F. Ledbetter III, D.Min., is a third-generation pastor. He accepted his call into the ministry at the tender age of seven and at twelve preached his first public sermon. He received his BA in English literary studies with a biblical studies minor from DePaul University in 2010. In March 2014, Reverend Ledbetter made history by becoming the youngest pastor of the historic Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church, located in the Bronzeville community on the South Side of Chicago. That same year he received his MA in Christian community development from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament context also from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. Rev. Ledbetter III is contributing author to Gordon Parks: Pastor E. F. Ledbetter and the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, 1953, published by The Gordon Parks Foundation, Howard University, and Steidl.
