Louisville civil rights leader dies in Georgia

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Rev. John Rowan Claypool IV, a Louisville civil-rights advocate whose congregation was among the first to integrate in the city, died Saturday of complications from cancer in Decatur, Ga. He was 74.

Claypool was known for his preaching skill and willingness to take a stand on controversial topics. “It’s an extraordinary thing for a son to have someone tell you that your father changed their lives, and I heard it many times,” said his son, Rowan Claypool.

The elder Claypool was pastor of Crescent Hill Baptist Church from 1960 to 1971. During that time, Crescent Hill became one of the first congregations in Louisville to integrate.

He gained a wider audience by appearing weekly as a panelist on WHAS radio’s “The Moral Side of the News” from 1965 until he left to become pastor of a church in Fort Worth, Texas.

But it was a photograph on the front page of The Courier-Journal that brought Claypool to the forefront of the issue that marked his time in Louisville.

“My father was a personal friend of Martin Luther King Jr.” Rowan Claypool said. “A photo of my father having coffee with King ran on the cover of The Courier-Journal. At the time it was very controversial. It pushed him to the front of the issue. It was controversial and unpopular at the church. He took it as an opportunity to take his professional position in civil rights.”

Claypool spoke on the steps of the Jefferson County Courthouse in favor of an open-housing ordinance to end discriminatory practices against blacks, which the Louisville Board of Aldermen adopted in 1967. Also while in Louisville, he spoke on other controversial topics, such as the Vietnam War, poverty and the changing role of pastors.

He was president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention and the first president of the Louisville Baptist Pastors Conference.

In 1986 he was ordained as an Episcopal priest, and he taught at the McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University in Atlanta until his death.

In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife, Ann Wilkinson Scheyd Claypool, two stepchildren and a grandson.

The funeral will be held at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Friday in Birmingham, Ala.

(Associated Press)