ABPRL CAUCUS WEEKEND: Rev. Herbert Daniel Daughtry Receives the Lifetime Achievement Award

The Reverend Dr. Herbert Daughtry hails from a family that has produced five generations of Black church leaders.  Born in Savannah, Georgia and raised on the streets of Brooklyn and jersey City, Reverend Daughtry has risen to positions of national and international prominence. He is currently the national Presiding minister of The House of the Lord Churches, previously served as Chairman of the National Black United Front as well as Founder and President of the African People’s Christian Organization. Over 50 years of involvement in church and community service has earned him the title of “The People’s Pastor.”

Reverend Daughtry’s distinguished career of activism began with the civil rights struggles in the 1950s, working in collaboration with the Brooklyn CORE and Operation Breadbasket and continued with his participation in the fight for community control of schools in the late 1960s.

In 1976, as a result of the killing of 15-year-old Randolph Evans by a New York City police officer, Reverend Daughtry became a major force in organizing the Coalition of Concerned Leaders and Citizens to Save Our Youth. The group used economic boycotts to win jobs and services for the Black community from merchants in downtown Brooklyn. The effort resulted in the establishment of the Randolph Evans Memorial Scholarship Fund, the Randolph Evans Memorial Crisis Fund, and numerous other initiatives. The Coalition of Concerned Leaders and Citizens to Save Our Youth evolved into the New York Metropolitan Black United Front in 1978.

The success of the New York Black United Front inspired the call for a national organization, with the founding convention of the National Black united Front (NBUF) in Brooklyn in Brooklyn in June of 1980, convening the widest representation of religious persuasion and political ideology. Reverend Daughtry was elected NBUF’s first National Chairman and remained in that position until his departure in 1986.

Concerned with institution building, Daughtry founded and played leadership roles in a number of organizations. In 1982, he initiated the African People’s Christian Organization (APCO) with the purpose of building an African Christian Movement and emphasizing Afro-centricity and Biblical Christianity in the context of advancing human rights and self-determination. Among the first to warn of the danger of AIDS, Reverend Daughtry is a founding member of the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS. Additionally, he is the founder of Alonzo Daughtry Memorial Family Life services, inc., which serves the needs of the community through innovative programming such as Project Enlightenment, an AIDS education program, Families of Victims Against Violence (FOVAV), The Alonzo Daughtry  Memorial Day Care Center, Inc. which provides early childhood education and is the founding Chair of the national Religious Leaders of African Ancestry Concerned About Darfur (NRLAA).