James Leonard Farmer, Sr.

Farmer's career ran through the Black Methodist colleges of the South. Born in Kingstree, South Carolina, to parents who had been enslaved, he taught at Wiley College in 1919-20 and again from 1933 to 1938, the Handbook of Texas says. His other posts were Rust College from 1920 to 1925, Samuel Huston College in Austin from 1925 to 1930 and 1946 to 1956, Gammon Theological Seminary from 1930 to 1933 and Howard University from 1938 to 1946. He was dean of the Gulfside summer school of ministry in Mississippi from 1932 to 1956.

What the plaque says

James Leonard Farmer, Sr. (June 12, 1886 - May 14, 1961) James Leonard Farmer, Sr., was the son of Carolina and Lorena Wilson Farmer. James Farmer studied at Cookman Institute in Florida before attending Boston University, where he received a bachelors degree in 1913, a Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree in 1916, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1918. He also attended graduate school at Harvard University in 1917. An elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church, Farmer served as pastor of churches in Marshall, Texarkana, and Galveston. He also taught Philosophy and Religion here at Wiley College, at Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, at Samuel Huston (now Huston-Tillotson) College in Austin, at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia, at Gulfside Ministerial Training School in Waveland, Mississippi, and at Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, D.C. A popular speaker, Farmer also was the author of several books, as well as Biblical commentary and articles for secular magazines. Farmer married Pearl Houston; they were the parents of three children. Their son, James Leonard Farmer, Jr., became a prominent civil rights leader in the 1960s and founder of the Congress of Racial Equality. Farmer, Sr., retired in 1956, died in 1961, and was buried in Washington, D.C. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 0.5 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Harrison County Historical Museum — 0.8 mi
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 1.2 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 15 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.

More markers nearby

• Wiley College — steps away
• Melvin B. Tolson — steps away
• Matthew W. Dogan, Sr. — steps away
• H. B. Pemberton — steps away