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Josephus Roosevelt Coan, Ph.D.
1902 - 2004
Reverend Dr. Josephus R. Coan passed over
into eternal life on February 6, 2004 at the age of one hundred
and one (101). An icon in Christian Education, he was a
faithful servant of God, family, community and to all whom he
taught and influenced.
With Simpson Coan deemed the paternal Primogenitor and Ralph and
Louise Foster, the maternal Primogenitors, Josephus R. Coan was
the fifth offspring of Andrew and Mary Ann Foster Coan born on a
farm in Orangeburg County.
Dr. Coan had a rich academic and professional background. He
received his early education in the rural schools of Orangeburg
County, South Carolina, and at the preparatory
academies first at Claflin University followed by South Carolina
State College where he as the class valedictorian on May 21,
1925 delivered an address entitled, "We have Crossed the
Bay; the Ocean Lies Before Us." Entering South Carolina
State as a college freshman the following year, where he was
elected class president, he transferred to Howard University in
1926 and received his B.A. in the Spring of 1930.
Entering Yale Divinity School in the
Fall of 1930, he received his B. D. degree in 1933.
At the time of his death, Dr. Coan was the oldest living alumnus
of Yale Divinity School and a focus of a research project by
that school. Through a scholarship by the philanthropist
Ms. Caroline Hazard, upon the unanimous recommendation of
his dean and two others of his favorite professors, he was
offered a scholarship to continue his studies at Yale.
Enrolled at Yale University graduate school from 1933-1934, and
with Dean Weigle as his chief advisor, Dr. Coan chose as
his thesis, "Daniel Allen Payne: Christian
Educator."
Ms. Hazard, after reading his thesis,
assisted in its publication. By now an avid researcher,
and after receiving an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from
Morris Brown College in recognition of his pioneering work in
laying the foundation of the present department of Christian
Education of the A.M.E. Church, Dr. Coan spent Summer 1949
at the Union Theological Seminary researching the planting of
the A. M. E. Church in South Africa. The result of that
research project, "The Influence of the African Methodist Church
upon the Culture/Religion of the South African Bantu
Tribes" (1950) is included in the Atlanta University
Summaries of Research Projects, 1947-1952 (1953).
During the year 1954-55, Dr. Coan registered in the
Hartford Seminary Foundation completing his residence
requirements for the doctoral program. Awarded the Ph.D.
degree in 1961, the title of his dissertation was
"The Expansion of Missions of the African Methodist
Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908."
Inextricably intertwined with Dr. Coan's scholarly journey was a
life of manual labor to support his rich scholarly endeavors and
a life of Christian labor to fulfill his Christian calling.
Ordained a Deacon in 1932 and an Elder in 1934, Dr. Coan
pastored churches in the states of Rhode Island and Georgia.
He served on the faculty at Morris Brown College where he was
College Minister and Chairperson of the Department of Philosophy
and Religion for twenty years. Following that service were
nineteen years at the Interdenominational Theological Center
where, in 1959, Dr. Coan became one of the original faculty
members, a position he would hold until his retirement in
1974.
For more than nine years, Dr. Coan resided and served in
Southern and Central Africa as an overseas Missionary of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church. In the 1960s,
developing an idea of Bishop Wright's, he founded the R. R.
Wright School of Religion in what was during apartheid called
"The Trans Vaal " section, fifty miles away from
Johannesburg in Everton, the home of Steve Biko.
Dr. Coan was President and
Superintendent of the Wilberforce Institute, a school
providing elementary and secondary teacher training. While
he also served as Acting Bishop, his primary vocation was
teaching. An excerpt of an invitation from Bishop Adam
Richardson, presiding bishop of the same area of Dr. Coan's work
in South Africa, sheds light on the importance given to the
ten years of dedicated work by Josephus Coan. Bishop
Richardson's letter is to Ras Kofi Kwayana, teacher at Frederick
Douglass High School, Atlanta, and the son of Dr. Coan's niece,
Tchaiko Kwayana, to attend the dedication of a building at
the newly re-opened Wilberforce Community College:
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Wilberforce Community College of
Eaverton, South Africa will observe and celebrate the
Dedication of the Josephus Roosevelt Coan Distance
Learning Center and Faculty Housing Development.
As a great nephew of Dr. Coan, the Board of Trustees is
pleased to extend to you an invitation to attend this
signal event. The ceremony will take place on
Wednesday, September 24, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. on the
Wilberforce Campus. We are delighted that you will
be able to represent your family on this historic
occasion.
Dr. Coan spent nearly ten years in
South Africa during the early development of the
Wilberforce Institute and the R. R. Wright Seminary.
After a 40 year hiatus, following the infamous Bantu
Education Act of the former apartheid regime,
Wilberforce Institute has risen from the ashes as
Wilberforce Community College. A renaissance has
taken place with an infusion of nearly $6.1 million in
construction through the United States Agency for
International Development and its office of American
Schools and Hospitals Abroad.
It is only right and fitting that
this new phase of development be named in honor of this
scholar and servant, Dr. Josephus R. Coan. I am
sure that your family is as proud of his service as we
are grateful. He is highly regarded by the people
who love and support this educational enterprise of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church. We are pleased
that his name will be attached to this new development
in perpetuity.
We are also sure that this experience will assist you in
your pursuit of greater understanding of and
appreciation for Africa and her people. We are
certain that what you discover will find its way into
your classroom to the long-term benefit and delight of
the students you teach. |
At both the groundbreaking ceremony
symbolically on January 15, 2002 which Tchaiko Kwayana attended
and the opening of the Facility on September 24, 2003, the
effusive testimonies of male and female alumni of
Wilberforce Institute of the love and care their
"daddy," Dr. Coan, gave to them were profound.
Not only were these proud sons and daughters of Africa full of
praise for the quality of the academic instruction they received
but, with amusing anecdotes to back up their claims, they
were most impressed with how this man who lived in the
humble dorms with them, speaking their languages, taught them by
sometimes what they considered "extreme" examples how
important it was to fulfill responsibilities as mundane as
keeping the grounds clean and washing the dishes (called wares),
an important lesson for both genders.
Just as Dr. Coan's educational journey took this son of
sharecroppers in and out of the segregated South to the most
prestigious academic institutions in the nation, so also
did his wider scholarly and religious affiliations include an
impressive array of national and
international learned and professional societies.
With a research and publishing record no less stellar
including The Church's Educational Ministry: A Curriculum
Plan currently used by twenty-three constituent denominations
and theological seminaries throughout the United States, a
portion of his papers were officially opened to the public
at Emory University's Candler School of Theology's special
100th Birthday Party November 2002. They are housed
in The Special Collection Archives, a Division of Emory
University's Robert W. Woodruff Library.
Continuing the honors, The Interdenominational Theological
Seminary in the Fall of 2003 awarded Coan an Honorary Doctorate
degree. Perhaps one of the most far-reaching projects
spawned by Dr. Coan's life and work is The Yale Divinity
School's Students of Color Black History Project. Two Yale
Divinity School's professors who had found
him to be the oldest Yale Divinity School alumnus interviewed
him. They lead the researching of his tenure at that
institution and that of other students of African descent
over the decades. It is being studied with all its
racial and academic ramifications.
Dr. Coan was married to Sammye Coan who died in the 1970s;
Eloise Coan, his second wife, also preceded him in death.
Josephus R. Coan is survived by one brother-in-law, Mr. Emanuel
Poston of Columbia, SC; nieces Gwendolyn Gibbs and Dorothy Cook
McGrady (Uriah) of Atlanta; Mary Wilcher (Blucher) of Spring
Valley, NY; Vermelle Matthews (Eugene) of Beauford SC;
Tchaiko Kwayana (Eusi) of San Diego and Guyana; Gina Reeves
(Tim) of Tom's River, NJ; Eleanor Jackson (Wife of Bobby.)
The next generation of this family line begun by Simpson
Coan and Ralph and Louise Foster are these young adults, the
great nieces and nephews of Josephus Coan: Troy Matthews,
Shirley Wilcher Scott, Lisa Matthews Wigfall, Samuel Wilcher,
Olubayo Jackson, Kofi , Alaf Kwame, and IyaboEffua
Dorthula Kwayana, and Simone and Taylor Reeves. The
most recent generation are Bryce Wigfall, Afriye, Tegest, Yaa,
and Ina Kwayana, and Myria Scott. Josephus Coan leaves a
host of cousins throughout the USA from both the Foster and the
Coan Families and many friends.
Because the mission inspired by Dr. Josephus R. Coan must
go on, and as he has received many flowers while he lived, the
family asks that instead of flowers, donations be sent to the
Josephus R. Coan Foundation to be established to support
projects at home and at Wilberforce Community College, Eaverton,
South Africa. Dr. Coan served as Pastor and later Assistant
Pastor of St Mark A.M.E. Church, Atlanta, GA where homegoing
services will be conducted on Saturday, February 14th at 1p.m.
* * * * *
Josephus Roosevelt Coan Papers (Emory)
Coan (b. 1902) is an AME minister, educator, and missionary to
South Africa (1938-1947). Diaries, notebooks, correspondence
with South African religious leaders, print material from the
AME Church in South Africa and Georgia, photographs, and a
number of rare books, including some from the library of the
late AME Bishop William A. Fountain. http://web.library.emory.edu/libraries/speccolls/announcements-aa.html
Daniel Alexander Payne: Christian Educator. Philadelphia: AME
Book Concern, 1935* * * *
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update 28 July 2008
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