Rev. T.H. Peoples Jr., Civil Rights Activist and Longtime Pastor of Historic Kentucky Church, Dies at 79

Rev. T. H. Peoples talked to the children of Pleasant Green Baptist Church during Sunday worship in March 2000. He spoke against violence by youngsters. DAVID PERRY LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER

The Rev. Thomas Howard Peoples Jr., who championed civil rights and spent 41 years as pastor of one of the oldest African-American churches in this part of the country, died June 7 at 79 years old.

Peoples, who went by the initials T.H., was pastor of Historic Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church, which has occupied its current property at 540 West Maxwell St. in Lexington since 1820.

He would have celebrated his 80th birthday June 17.

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Peoples was married for 56 years to Delma L. Peoples. They have five children, several of whom followed in their father’s footsteps and became pastors.

Over the years, “he baptized thousands of people,” said Rev. Herbert T. Owens Jr., Peoples’ longtime friend and his assistant at Pleasant Green.

Owens said Peoples was “the consummate pastor and friend,” a giving man who was still “pastoring” others despite his own health problems in the weeks before his death.

“It takes a very unique person who walks closely with God to be able to care for the souls of his parishioners,” Owens said. “He really knew how to care for peoples’ souls.”

And, Owens said, he was a scholar who had a gift for taking complex theological ideas and making them understandable and practical to his parishioners’ daily lives.

He said Peoples taught weekly classes for ministers, staying until the last question was answered.

Peoples also became known and respected for taking a stand on issues important to the community.

He offered comfort after the crash of Flight 5191, protested racial inequities in the Fayette County Public Schools and brought in the Congress of National Black Churches to help Lexington’s faith community address disparities in health care between blacks and whites.

After the shooting of Tony Sullivan, a black teenager, by Lexington police Sgt. Phil Vogel in 1994, Peoples co-chaired a group called Citizens of Lexington for Equality and Responsibility, or CLEAR, arguing that the government needed to be transparent about the case.

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Source: Lexington Herald-Leader