Thomas Kilgore: Second Baptist Church Leader for 21 Years : Pastor’s Career Centered on Involvement

When Second Baptist Church of Los Angeles observed its 90th anniversary 10 years ago, Pastor Thomas Kilgore said he wanted to make the most of the celebration because he figured that he would be well into retirement by the 100th anniversary.

But as Kilgore turned 72 this week and was preparing for the congregation’s centennial dinner held Friday night at the Century Plaza, he talked about his plans to finally retire as pastor this year and yet remain available to the broader community as a self-described “agent of change.”

In terms of stepping aside for a new pastor, Kilgore was rather convincing this time--he has already started removing from his office walls mementos from his days as student, civil rights activist, national church official and community leader.

He postponed his departure from the pastorate in the late 1970s and early in this decade because of his involvement in community concerns and Second Baptist’s reputation as a gathering place.

Form The Gathering

On Feb. 8, 1979, 131 preachers assembled at the South-Central Los Angeles church and formed The Gathering, an ecumenical group, to work toward reducing what they saw as increasing cases of police brutality against black people. Kilgore took the leadership about the time of the controversial Eulia Love case, the subject of a wrongful-death suit.

“We feel (The Gathering) brought about change,” Kilgore said. “Statistics show there has been a decrease in the last four to five years in the number of people killed by police in carrying out their duties.”

In 1981, Kilgore was instrumental in forming a new coalition group called the Black Agenda, which hopes to encourage stronger business activity within the black community. One of its projects is an advertising campaign recently launched to promote black businesses that subscribe to a 10-point code of ethics promising competitive prices, quality goods and courteous service.

Although he will yield the pulpit he has held for more than 21 years to a yet-unnamed minister this spring or summer, Kilgore is staying on as president of the Black Agenda and plans to keep active in Los Angeles religious, community and educational affairs.

Adviser to USC Head

He has served for 12 years as adviser to the president of USC to help the campus build bridges to its surrounding minority community. Kilgore will reduce his duties after this semester to those of consultant to the school and senior adviser to its new Office of Civic and Community Affairs.

A campus publication this week quoted Kilgore as saying that he is aware of top-level university efforts to make USC a racially “inclusive” university. But he frankly added, “I don’t see a single vice president in the university that’s a minority (person), or a single dean of a professional school. I think we have a problem at that point.”

Kilgore also is co-chairman, with Rabbi Alfred Wolf of Wilshire Boulevard Temple, a task force for black-Jewish cooperation that got under way recently. “He’s reached out to the Jewish community as a friend who is close enough to share both agreement and honest differences,” Wolf said.

Wolf called Kilgore a respected colleague who has had “a tremendous impact far beyond the black church.”

Kilgore may be the only person to have served as national president of two denominations--the mostly white American Baptist Churches, 1969-70, and the predominantly black Progressive National Baptist Convention, 1976-78. Second Baptist Church, like a number of major black Baptist congregations, is affiliated with more than one church body.

Praise From Brookins

Bishop H. Hartford Brookins, a Los Angeles resident now in charge of the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s Oklahoma-Arkansas District, said Kilgore is “the best example I know of someone unifying sacred and secular values in what he does.”

Brookins said Kilgore has been a catalyst even though “he comes across at first as being a bit timid. But he is persistent and determined, and he has impeccable character and integrity.”

Kilgore’s reputation for integrity is aided by his attention to accurate figures.

“When I came here to Second Baptist they said there was 2,000 seats,” he said. “The second week I was here I counted them.” There were 1,650 seats available. On any given Sunday, Kilgore said, “I can still count to within 25 people how many people are out there. It’s crazy, but I just do it.”

The Progressive National Baptists had listed the number of their churches at 1,500 and their membership at 1 million people before Kilgore was elected their national president. He soon had an accurate count of 915 churches (now at 1,050) and 443,000 members. “We never had a million,” he said.

Realism in Membership

When Kilgore came to Second Baptist Church in 1963, the congregation had 2,300 names on its membership list. While subsequent memberships surveys have lowered the figure to an average of 1,500 total members, Kilgore said, “The quality of members has constantly grown.”

Kilgore began his duties at Second Baptist after 16 years at a Baptist church in Harlem and earlier pastorates in North Carolina. Besides ministerial duties, he was also involved in North Carolina voter registration, the unionization of tobacco workers, and, while based in New York City, the raising of more than $1 million for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. asked Kilgore to establish a West Coast office of the SCLC in Los Angeles after the pastor accepted the “call” from Second Baptist Church. Kilgore was with King and others when a 1964 protest march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery was blocked by state troopers. When a later march (which was successful after national news media attention and federal scrutiny were attracted) was rescheduled, “we sent two planeloads of people from here,” Kilgore said.

Asked what gave him the most pride during his pastorate of Second Baptist, Kilgore said: “The turnaround of a fine church of middle-class people who enjoyed worship and programs but did not understand the servanthood of the church for the people of the community.”

A Community Forum

Even before Kilgore arrived, Second Baptist Church, which has been at 2412 Griffith Ave. for 59 years, had a reputation for being open as a community forum for unpopular points of view. Singer Paul Robeson, a controversial public figure in the 1940s and ‘50s because of his leftist sympathies, appeared at Second Baptist before Kilgore became pastor. In 1967, the trustees approved use of the church by a group of 800 black militants from Western states after they could find no other meeting place.

The subject is pertinent because Second Baptist Church will be the scene Tuesday afternoon for a rally featuring Donald Sills of Washington, D.C., executive director of the fundamentalist-led National Coalition for Religious Freedom. Kilgore is also one of the speakers. Rally sponsors claim a growing encroachment on religious liberty by government. The coalition’s executive board includes such leaders of the Religious Right as Tim LaHaye and James Robison but also the Rev. James Lowery, head of the SCLC.

Although steeped in the fundamentalism of the Southern church, Kilgore refined his theology while earning a Master of Divinity degree (1957) at New York’s Union Theological Seminary. Theologian Paul Tillich and ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr were teaching there at the time.

‘Theology of Realism’

Kilgore said he was particularly influenced by Niebuhr’s “theology of realism.” Kilgore said he learned how in his ministry, in approximating Niebuhr’s words, to “accept the things I cannot change, have the courage to change those I can and have the wisdom to know the difference.”

His own task, he said, “is to be an enabler to the people who are farthest down and getting the bitter end of life.”

Churches “must not revel in great celebrations,” he declared. “I see too many churches, black churches, caught up in celebration of worship but not caught up with knowing what’s happening to people. It’s a great temptation (for Baptist preachers) to become ‘king;’ rather, I must be the chief servant of all.”