Introduction

Dr. Owen Austin Troy, Sr. was an influential minister and scholar in the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church, noted for connecting evangelism with social service programs and incorporating new media. As an early pioneer in African Americans accessing to higher education, Troy also had a unique approach to pastorship during the first half of the twentieth century which gained him distinction within the SDA community, notably by incorporating evangelism with social service programs and influencing the development of African American Adventism through his modern approaches. He was a remarkable SDA minister whose health, music, and education classes touched local communities. Dr. Troy was a prominent minister and educator, an advocate for church integration and a forging figure in African American Adventism.^[1]

Dr. Troy was the first known member of the SDA church to receive a doctorate in Theology and the second African American to receive a master’s in religious education from the University of Chicago in 1938. He served as the first secretary of the Colored Department , through which he addressed segregation in SDA schools, and became the first African American business manager for Oakwood Junior College in Huntsville, Alabama in 1932. He was appointed secretary (director) of the Regional Department of the Pacific Union Conference. In 1948, Troy headed a committee against discrimination to the SDA General Conference, focusing on discrimination in the workplace and inter-racial marriage.^[2]

Dr. Troy was able to incorporate his own ideas and experiences in healthy living classes, music, and education. At Market Street in California, he operated the San Bernadino Bible and Heath Chautauqua and at Shiloh Tabernacle Church in Chicago, his “Airdome Meeting Series” of gospel and health lectures were held outside in a large airdome tent. He preached on subjects from “Another King Soon to Rule the World According to Bible Prediction” to “Did God Place A Curse Upon The Darker Races?,” and “Midnight Love.” One newspaper reported 1,100 attendants at Troy’s opening lecture in July 1935, a figure that reached 1,500 in the following five weeks. During this pastorship in California, Troy began to experiment in radio broadcasting; this new media was being taken up by a swarm of churches as the latest evangelical practice. His first venture involved the Sweet Chariot Hour radio broadcasting show in 1942 during which he broadcasted live from the auditorium of the Pasadena church one evening per week. By 1958, Troy addressed his largest regular congregation, of six hundred members, at Dupont Park Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington D.C.^[3]