Bunton, Henry Clay, 1903-

Bunton began his ministry in 1924 and pastored in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Tennessee and Texas. Between 1962 and 1978 he served as presiding bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Bunton attended Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Florida A & M College in 1941. He received the Master of Theology degree from Iliff School of Theology, Denver University in Colorado in 1952, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Texas College in Tyler, Texas in 1955. From 1943-1949 he served as a chaplain with the United States Army, achieving the rank of major. He earned three battle stars during World War II and spent almost two years in Europe. Bunton's accomplishments include founding 24 congregations and expanding the dialog among several Methodist Episcopal churches. In addition, he served as a diplomatic envoy for the American Methodist Episcopal Church.

Henry C. Bunton was born in 1903 near Coker in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama to sharecropping parents. He was the sixth child of eleven children born to Isaac Washington and Sarah Lue Noland, both descendants of slaves. As was common among southern African-American tenant farmers, he experienced a life of dire impoverishment. His elementary education, typically in a single room of the local Colored, now Christian Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal Church (C.M.E.), was frequently interrupted by the exigencies of farming and the seasonal requirements of labor. He managed, however to complete five grades.

At the age of nineteen he married a Baptist woman, Estelle McKinney. Shortly thereafter he joined the C.M.E. Church and at age twenty he felt his calling to the ministry. He was licensed to preach at a Fourth Quarterly Conference and recommended to the Annual Conference from the same Quarterly Conference for admittance on trial. With much foresight, the Presiding Elder of Tuscaloosa County, the Reverend R. A. Kirk encouraged him to advance his education if he hoped to contribute to the ministry. At age twenty-two, he enrolled in the sixth grade in the Elementary School at Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama. By then, in addition to being a husband and student, he was also the father of two children, the financial obligations of which forced him to work in various menial jobs. At the age of twenty-nine, he graduated from high school and pursued two years of courses at Miles College. Family responsibilities and health reasons compelled him to discontinue.

For ten years Bunton served as pastor in various rural churches throughout Alabama. Included among them was Miles Chapel at Miles College. From Alabama, Bunton went to pastor in several urban churches in the East Florida Conference. In 1938 while ministering in St. James church in Tallahassee, he assumed his college instruction at Florida A&M College and earned his A.B. in 1941. From Saint James he was sent to Carter Tabernacle Church in Orlando for two years. While in Florida, he was also Dean of the Leadership Training School, Sunday School lesson writer, and Director of Leadership Education and Youth Work.

Bunton was again transferred to Arkansas, where he pastored at Bullock Temple Church in Little Rock. While residing there he was commissioned to the chaplaincy in the United States Army in 1943 and was assigned to Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi. From there, he went, in November 1943 to England and Wales and in June 1944 he crossed the English Channel to Normandy, France with U.S. Army units. He remained in Europe until November 1945. From 1948 to 1950 he again served as Chaplain for which he was rewarded the rank of Major and awarded the certificate for meritorious service and three battle stars. His connection with the military did not cease with the end of the war, but rather he became an official of the General Commission on Chaplains and the Armed Forces and was chosen sometime during the 1970s by the C.M.E. College of Bishops as the denomination's endorsing agent.

Upon his return to the United States Bunton resided in Dallas, Texas where he was assigned to pastor at Sparks Chapel Church. While there he also served as the Young Men's Christian Association's Boys Work Secretary part time for two years. After two years of study, he graduated from the Perkins School of Theology of Southern Methodist University. During the summer of 1950 he attended Garrett Biblical Seminary at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

From Dallas, Texas, Bunton went to Denver, Colorado where he pursued his theological studies at the Iliff School of Theology and earned a Master of Theology degree. He also pastored in Denver at Cleaves Memorial C.M.E. Church. From 1953 to 1954, he served with the Board of Christian Education as Director of Leadership Training, Adult Work and Writer for the Sunday School Literature.

In 1953 Bunton moved to Memphis, Tennessee to perform pastoral duties at Mount Olive Cathedral, one of the largest and most prestigious churches of the C.M.E. Church in Memphis. During his residence in Memphis from 1953 to 1962, he became active in civic work and civil rights activities. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed, Bunton served on both the Board of Directors and the Executive Board until 1962 and continued a working relationship with the organization during his bishopric. He was also a charter member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Among the other positions he served in during his tenure in Memphis were president of the Ministers and Citizens League and president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Memphis and Shelby County. He also ran for a position on the Board of Education. In 1955, Texas College, a C.M.E. Church affiliated college, named him honorary Doctor of Divinity.

From July 1957 to January 1958, Bunton traveled to Egypt, Lebanon, Greece, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and Italy and visited sites of Biblical significance. Bunton's wife of 33 years passed away in 1958. Later that year, he married Alfreda Gibbs Carpenter, a widow and businesswoman.

In May of 1962 at the C.M.E. General Conference, Bunton was elected the thirty-third Presiding Bishop of the C.M.E. Church and as Bishop of the Seventh Episcopal District with headquarters in Washington, D.C. He remained Bishop until 1978 and was assigned throughout that period to the Seventh Episcopal District. Unlike some of his predecessors, Bunton did not campaign for this position. He felt that this was not a secular office, that a campaign of a political nature was inappropriate, and that the person to fill the position should be chosen by the people.

During his bishopric Bunton accomplished several things. Aside from helping numerous persons attend college and founding twenty-four congregations, he was permitted by the College of Bishops to supervise the Annual Conferences of Ghana and Nigeria. The C.M.E. Church's activities in these two countries had traditionally been termed, “the African work” which was attached to the Episcopal District to which the presiding bishop was assigned. As Bishop of the Seventh Episcopal District, Bunton also oversaw these two conferences from 1966. In addition, Bunton continued the ongoing dialogue between the C.M.E., the African Methodist Episcopal, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches toward the goal of union between the three Methodist groups. Moreover, during the years 1976 to 1978, the C.M.E. Church worked closely with the Union American Methodist Episcopal, African Union Methodist Protestant, Reformed Zion Union Apostolic, and British Methodist Episcopal Churches. Before the 1978 General Conference, Bunton, with the help of several ministers, organized the C.M.E. Church in Haiti.

Other C.M.E. Church-related positions which Bunton held include trusteeships of Paine College in August, Georgia and of Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama, president of the Publishing Board, and chairman of the College of Bishops. In addition Bunton served on the Board of Directors of Joint Action for Community Service, Inc. and on the Advisory Board of the American Bible Society, 1962-1970. He was a member of the National Council of Churches of the U.S.A. and the Council of Churches of Greater Washington. Bunton also taught several times in the 1970s at Howard University. In 1972 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Miles College and a Doctorate of Divinity from Mississippi Industrial College, both of which are C.M.E. Church affiliates.

Bunton's involvement with the C.M.E. Church did not cease with his retirement in 1978. The same year, the C.M.E. Church legislated that in the case of the death of a bishop of a District, a retired Bishop may be recalled to serve. Due to the death of Bishop Joseph A. Johnson in 1979, Bunton was recalled to complete his term at the Fourth Episcopal District until 1982. Bunton is at present fully retired from the Church. His second wife passed away in 1990. He is currently living in Memphis, Tennessee and writing a book on the concept of the Methodist episcopacy.

Christian Methodist Episcopal Church

The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church was established in 1870 as a result of the exodus of the former slave congregations from the Southern branch of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1954, the year of Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court decision, the General Conference resolved to officially change the name of the church from Colored to Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

During Henry C. Bunton's bishopric there were nine Episcopal Districts. Each District is headed by a bishop who presides over the Districts Annual Conferences. The bishops together comprise the College of Bishops. This body acts as the chief executive of the Church. The chairman of the College of Bishops is elected annually.

Within each Conference are smaller districts which are headed by presiding elders. Every four years the Annual Conferences elect delegates to the C.M.E. Church General Conference, a quadrennial meeting. These delegates elect the bishops of the Episcopal Districts and the bishop of the whole Church. The churches and the Annual Conferences also hold conferences.

Also within the C.M.E. Church structure are bodies, divisions, boards, departments, committees, and commissions devoted to various areas of interest to the church. Many of these bodies extend in hierarchical fashion to the Conference and district levels.