Alexander Preston Shaw (original) (raw)

Alexander Preston Shaw (April 8, 1879 – March 7, 1996) was notable as an African-American pastor, editor, and bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Church. He was elected and consecrated to the episcopacy in 1936. Shaw held the distinction of being the first African-American bishop of the Methodist Church (at the age of 71) to preside full-time over a predominantly white Annual Conference: the Southern California-Arizona Conference (in 1950, coincidentally the 100th annual meeting of this body), which met that year at the University of Redlands.