Dr. Gordon Blaine Hancock (1884-1970)

Gordon B. Hancock, born to formerly enslaved parents, was a leader in the struggle for racial equality in the decades before the Civil Rights Movement. A Harvard-educated sociologist, he taught at Virginia Union University for more than 30 years. In frequent speeches and in a weekly column published in more than 100 Black newspapers, he promoted Black economic solidarity and self-help. In 1942 he helped organize and was director of a conference of Southern Black leaders that issued the Durham Manifesto, a call for interracial cooperation to achieve social reforms and end racial injustice. Hancock was pastor of Moore Street Baptist Church in Richmond from 1925 to 1963.