On January 2 Rev. Marvin McMickle officially took up the presidential reins at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.
Rev. McMickle comes to Rochester from Cleveland where he spent the last two dozen years as pastor of Antioch Baptist Church,
… one of the city’s largest and most prestigious black churches. Three times, Martin Luther King Jr. preached there. Presidents and would-be presidents have campaigned there.
McMickle, who has spent his ministry in the vanguard of social-justice movements, said he’s looking forward to life in Rochester, home of two notable 19th century civil rights activists — suffragist Susan B. Anthony and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
Rev. McMickle was chosen to be the new CRCDS President in May of last year and, since July,
… has been going back and forth from Cleveland to Rochester.
He has been spending one week each month at the seminary, meeting with school administrators, faculty and trustees. He’s also been meeting with the heads of the Rochester area’s various denominations.
Given the site of his upcoming inauguration, one of these meetings appears to have been with Bishop Matthew Clark:
Though he starts his job in January, his official inauguration to the post won’t be until next fall, the start of the new school year.
The event will be held at Sacred Heart Cathedral, the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester.
“We’re trying to make an ecumenical gesture,” McMickle said.
No problem! Here in DOR we may not have yet figured out how to be Catholic, but we certainly know how to be ecumenical.
