Rosa J. Young, “the mother of Black Lutheranism in central Alabama,” died on 30 June 1971. Born 14 May 1890 in rural Rosebud, Wilcox County, the daughter of an African Methodist Episcopal minister, she graduated from Payne University and opened a private school in her home Rosebud community. Advised by Booker T. Washington, she approached the Mission Board of the Lutheran Synodical Conference in 1915 for support. After surveying the situation, the board sent veteran missionary Nils J. Bakke to oversee the development of the school, at which Young continued to serve as teacher and adviser. She later served as a professor at the Alabama Lutheran Academy (today Concordia College) in Selma. In 1961 she was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree from Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois. For more information, see the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
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