Bishop Robert A. Culp, TCC founder, awarded Ohio Governor’s Humanitarian Award
By David Murray, TCC Web Editor
MONDAY, JAN. 16, 2023–Bishop Robert A. Culp, founder of the Toledo Community Coalition, past president of the Toledo chapter of the NAACP, and long-time pastor of First Church of God in Toledo, was awarded this year’s Governor’s Humanitarian Award by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission for his “impressive leadership in carrying on Dr. King’s legacy,” a press release from the governor’s office stated.
“The Governor’s Humanitarian Award seeks to honor those quiet soldiers who promote the welfare of humanity and the elimination of pain and suffering through their own selfless service, often without recognition. Nominees posses a personal activism that has inspired unheralded long-term service to the community and stands as a model for others to emulate,” the statement continued.
Bishop Culp served as senior pastor of the First Church of God for 61 years, retiring from his pastoral role in September, 2022. He is now helping to transform a closed satellite campus of the University of Toledo into a hub for community service programming.
“He is known for his compassion and willingness to roll up his sleeves and get to work. His passion for the Toledo community is diverse and far reaching as he was profoundly impacted by Dr. King,” one of his nominators for the award said. They credited Bishop Culp with bringing sustainable change to Toledo when in 1967 he and other African-American leaders convinced Toledo City Council to pass one of the nation’s first anti-discrimination housing laws. In recent years Bishop Culp convinced The Blade, Toledo’s daily newspaper, to partner with the Toledo Community Coalition to sponsored a series of anti-racism public forums that drew thousands of people to listen to and discuss the impact racism has had on poverty, health care, white privilege, education, and public safety. Out of those forums Bishop Culp help bring Dialogue To Change to Toledo to continue community-wide anti-racism efforts.
Bishop Culp, in a 2021 interview, talked about his introduction to Toledo in 1961 when as a 26-year-old preacher he accepted the post as pastor of First Church of God, a small black congregation. Over the next six decades he headed the same church, growing it into one of the largest and most influential African-American congregations in the city. He remembers the 1960s as a tumultuous time in terms of Civil Rights, but said Blacks in Toledo were not very interested in the movement initially. “Back then the Black community felt like they needed certain people” and leaders on their side and were concerned with alienating the powers that be.
Bishop Culp described the Black community in Toledo when he arrived as being averse to change. “These Black folk here were different from any group that I had ever been identified with, the community, not just my church. They were insightful, they knew what was going on, but they were not interested in changing much. They felt ‘We’re making progress so don’t mess things up where things go backwards.’ “
He said an illustration of that was a vote by the Toledo NAACP chapter in 1966 after he was elected chapter president. “We were putting pressure on and started doing some things in the community, and my board, which at that time was totally Black, called a special board meeting to vote on whether I should continue as president. They voted and I won 11 to 7. They all agreed I was going a little too fast for them, provoking some situations that didn’t need to be disturbed at that time, but they thought I had such good potential and possibilities that 11 of them opposed the other 7. …The NAACP, to me, spent more time fighting among themselves than fighting racism.”
Always a straight-shooter unafraid to upset his people or community leaders, Bishop Culp was always at the forefront of change, especially the “fight for equality,” according to the press release from Governor DeWine’s office.
David Murray can be contacted at davidmmurray1954@gmail.com.
