On February 4, Dr. Kimberly D. Hill joined PHS Executive Director Nancy Taylor for a conversation about her new book, A Higher Mission: The Careers of Alonzo and Althea Brown Edmiston in Central Africa. 

The Edmistons joined the American Presbyterian Congo Mission in the early twentieth century and served into the 1930s. They were part of the Black Missionary Movement at the turn of the century that grew out of newly established Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the U.S. South. PHS was pleased to welcome Evelyn Edmiston Easton, grand-daughter of Alonzo and Althea Brown Edmiston, during the PHS LIVE session. 

Click below to hear about the work and lives of Alonzo and Althea Brown Edmiston. 

Dr. Kimberly D. Hill is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Dallas. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where her dissertation examined American women missionaries and race relations from 1870 to 1920. In addition to her newly published book, Dr. Hill’s article, “The Belebele Blood of Christ: African Parishioners’ Influence on Worship Practices at the American Presbyterian Congo Mission, 1916-1936,” will be published in the Fall/Winter 2021 special issue of The Journal of Presbyterian History on the “Dynamics of Indigenization.”