Hall, Anna E., 1870-1964

Anna E. Hall was born near Bainbridge, Georgia on March 1st, 1870. She lived a religiously oriented childhood with her mother, a seamstress, and expressed the desire to serve as a missionary while a student at Clark University (now Clark Atlanta University) in Atlanta, Georgia, where she completed the normal course on May 12, 1892. Her religious training was delayed due to family responsibilities and lack of financial resources: instead she taught school for one year in Ormund, Florida. She then returned to Jesup, Georgia where she served as the Principal of Jesup School for four years.

With the generosity of influential people who were made aware of her desire to be a missionary, she entered the New England Deaconess Training School in Boston, Massachusetts in 1899 and graduated May 22, 1901 as the first African American to attend the school. She was then appointed as a Deaconess to work with the Lloyd Street Methodist Church (now the Central United Methodist Church) in Atlanta, Georgia. This work lasted five years, 1901-1906.

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