Hall of Fame 6.7.26 - Flipbook - Page 13
Hall of Fame | Sunday, June 7, 2026 13
WILLIAM
CALHOUN SR.
The house was packed, the crowd full of nervous anticipation as the longest-tenured pastor in the history of Trinity Baptist Church stepped to the pulpit for the
last time.
The Rev. Dr. William Calhoun Sr. had served the landmark West Baltimore congregation for 51 years. He had counseled generations of people, young and old,
hosted a long-running television program, worked alongside civil rights legends to compel change in his adopted city and become a steadfast but loving father figure to thousands.
And he never lost the sense of humor that kept things in perspective.
“This is my last sermon — so it’s going to be a long
one,” he said as he spread his notes in front of him,
and the place roared with laughter.
The 76-year-old had a lot to talk about.
There was growing up in segregated Frankfort,
Kentucky, where he attended a one-room school for
African American children and saw whites and their
families riding buses, going to movie theaters and
dining in restaurants he and his family could not.
Church became the hub for his social life and an
incubator for his views on improving the world.
By the time he received what he saw as his call to
the ministry as a young adult, Calhoun was an acolyte of civil rights leaders including the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr., the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and the
theologian-activist Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, and like
them saw the teachings of the Gospel as inseparable
from the fight for equality.
“Jesus stood up and said that the Lord comes to
free those who are oppressed, and that [such a time
will be] the ‘acceptable year of the Lord,’” Calhoun
told The Baltimore Sun, citing the Book of Luke.
“‘Preach the acceptable year of the Lord’ — that’s a
perfect description of my understanding of ministry.”
He brought that mindset to Baltimore, where he
was called as the seventh pastor of Trinity in 1974.
Founded in Upton/Druid Hill in 1888, its leaders
had played a role in the Niagara Movement, an early
20th-century crusade that prefigured the NAACP
and the wider Civil Rights Movement.
“He really stepped into a line of legacy for the
church that extended back to [pioneering civil rights
activist] W.E.B. DuBois and beyond; he joined that
cadre of leaders,” said the Rev. Kevin Daniels, who
first met Calhoun at Trinity when he was 10. “He
continued to move the needle.”
Connecting with such civic leaders as Union Baptist Church pastor Vernon Dobson, Calhoun helped
create and run Baltimoreans United in Leadership
Development (BUILD), the community-organizing
William Carl Calhoun Sr.
Age: 76
Hometown: Frankfort, Kentucky
Current residence: Baltimore
Education: B.A., Judson University
in Elgin, Illinois; M. Div., School of Theology
at Virginia Union University in
Richmond, Virginia; D. Min., Eastern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Philadelphia
Career highlights: Senior pastor,
Trinity Baptist Church; two-time president,
Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance
of Metropolitan Baltimore; two-time
president, Progressive Baptist Churches
Convention of Maryland; member,
Ministers’ Conference of Baltimore and vicinity;
professor of practical theology, Ecumenical
Institute of Theology, St. Mary’s Seminary
and University; honorary Doctor
of Divinity degree, Archdiocese of Baltimore
Civic and charitable activities: Helped
spearhead construction of more than
800 homes in low-income neighborhoods
as a founding member of Baltimoreans
United in Leadership Development;
board member, Central Maryland Ecumenical
Council; producer-host of longtime WMAR
television show “Lift Every Voice” (1980-2002);
member, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity
Family: Married to Carol Surratt Calhoun;
four children and four grandchildren
group that brought together Black churches, labor
groups and neighborhood organizations to exert political and economic pressure on city leaders to bring
about reform in housing, employment, the justice
system and more.
BUILD helped pressure Baltimore, private developers and banks into investing in underserved areas
and expanding access to homeownership and employment, among other landmark achievements.
He did all that while carrying out a pastor’s duties
— visiting Trinity’s sick, blessing its babies, delivering its sermons, burying its dead — so faithfully for
more than half a century that most who have known
him say they feel as though he’s a family member.
He even spent decades cultivating younger pastors
as the two-time president of the Ministers’ Conference of Baltimore and Vicinity, an organization of
Black clergymembers from across the city, and theology students as a professor at St. Mary’s Seminary
and University in Roland Park.
“Even while serving as the pastor of a historic congregation, he has always been a community man,”
said Marco Merrick, the director of the Community
Concert Choir of Baltimore and a longtime friend
who first saw Calhoun on “Lift Every Voice,” the
Sunday TV program he hosted on WMAR-Channel
2 between 1980 and 2002.
The show — which introduced viewers to the music and community work of churches from across
Baltimore — was partly Calhoun’s way of showcasing the diversity of a Black church tradition that
“many people thought was all gospel, hand-clapping and foot stomping” but is “as varied as any worship culture.”
What some say they’ll remember most about Calhoun is the manner he brought to his calling: an aura
of undisputed command that also managed to be
warmly personal and funny — and whose impression
on his beloved hometown is now part of its history.
“An impact on Baltimore? I’ll say,” said Merrick,
who was in the crowded pews for his friend’s final
sermon and said he enjoyed every minute of it. “People know who he is. Those who don’t, once you encounter him, you don’t forget it. He doesn’t leave
the room the same way he found it.”
— Jonathan M. Pitts
