A Biography of The Reverend Lillian Frier Webb

by Roy S. Kirton

Women in Ministry CM 640.N

Professor: Kimberly L. Robinson

February 21, 2005

 

     It was a blistery cold Sunday February night. Waiting in the parking lot of the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow , New York were 12 volunteers who were coming into the jail for service. We proceed to the reception area of the facility to have our licenses verified by the officer. As we go through the metal doors, we hear a clang as the gate closes. For most people entering into the dismal surrounding of the county jail would seem as an unconceivable place to spend a Sunday evening, but we are going to worship with the Church Inside.

          This congregation consists of the 80-100 women who are incarcerated. The pastor is The Reverend Lillian Frier Webb.  In her instructions to the new volunteers before the inmates assemble, Rev. Webb explains that this is a religious community similar to the community of which we were attending early in the day. She encourages us to be participates and not be observers.  We then all hold hands and pray for the service. Within five minutes, the members of the Church Inside begin to assemble in the chapel. They are all dressed in green jumps suits.  Within are free minutes of them being seated Pastor Webb hollers in a commanding voice “Yo”. There is instant silence. You could almost hear a pin drop. Pastor Webb proceeds to say to the congregates, “Give yourself a hand for your respond on the first  ‘Yo’.”  This is a special night for the Church Inside because during the prayer time Pastor Webb tells her flock that she will be in surgery in a few days to remove a tumor.

          Lillian has been diagnosed with carcinoma and has been given a prognosis of ten years if her surgery is successful at New York Sloan Kettering Hospital .  Immediately prayer is offered by volunteers and congregates alike all touching and agreeing. After the prayer Pastor Webb exhorts the congregation stating that “God is good whether the operation is successful or not.”  She then raises the song “I’ve Got A Feeling Everything’s Going To Be All Right” This song is sung jubilantly by all as we worship in this service.

     For 20 years Lillian Frier Webb who is an African Episcopal Methodist itinerant minister has been the pastor of the Church Inside.  According to Lillian Long Island Council of Churches recruited her for this position after they observed the care to which she and other members of the Bethel A.M.E. Church showed to residents of the Holly Patterson Nursing Home in Hempstead , New York .  I was there at the Church Inside where I first met Lillian and saw first had her compassion and concern for those were are considered the dregs of society.

       Lillian Frier, born on a 1922 Friday the July 13th,  in Harlem, New York to Lillian and Reverend Richard Frier Sr..  She was one of two siblings born to this union.  Her father who was 30 years older than her mother was born a slave in Edisto , South Carolina .  He was an A.M.E. pastor and was raised by a stepfather who was also an A.M.E. pastor.  Webb ’s father who was a strong influence in her life was the founder of Emmanuel Chapel which later became Mount Zion AME Church in Harlem .  During her formative years her home on West 135 Street was frequented by people of renown such as Cicely Tyson , Myles Davis , Sidney Pointier and  James Baldwin . These visitations were due to her brother Richard Jr. who dabbled with the trumpet was a jazz musician.

          Lillian expressed to me that her conversion to Christ was not a Pauline type but rather the similar to experience of Peter .  Skipped twice in elementary school, Frier-Webb got the one of those great New York City educations during the depression in which if you were smart enough you got to apply to more "private" like high schools.  She graduated from Hunter High School at the top of her class and then enrolled in Hunter College and received her undergraduate in Pre-Med, primarily in bio-chemistry. Lillian also attended New York University where she received a master’s degree in Religious Education. She also obtained a master’s degree in Social Work from Adelphi University and has a M.S.W.  She also holds a certificate in Pastoral Studies from Blanton Peale's doctorate program.

          In 1951 Lillian was joined in matrimony to the dashing and ernest Robert Webb.  From this union, two daughters were produced, Reverend Jo -an Owings who is also an A.M.E. pastor and Cay Fatima who is a photographer/ musician.  Lillian also has another daughter Leslie Frier Webb who she adopted. Leslie is the biological child of her brother the late Richard Frier Jr., a gifted artist and photographer who became part of the early SOHO artist "beatnick" jazz and poetry cultural movement in Greenwich Village, New York.  Lillian and Robert became Leslie's adopted parents at the death of her mother Nikki Frier, who did not survive an illegal abortion.  Leslie, a trained professional dancer and instructor, is also the hair stylist to stars such as LaToya Jackson and the late Barry White.  

     In order to understand Lillian’s journey through the ranks of the A.M.E. Church we must examine the origins of this denomination.  According to Mark A. Noll The Old Religion in a New World, John Wesley the founder of the Methodist Church emphasized in his approach to Christianity had a systematic involvement of Christian piety and self sacrificing social service. Because of this Methodists movement became the fastest growing Protestant Denomination in America during the 17th and 18th Centuries because its ministry focused on those who were disenfranchised. The results of this focus caused many slaves and Freed African Americans became a part of this church.  In his, article the Founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, The Rev. Earl R. Jefferson states that Richard Allen the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal  was worshiping at the St. George Methodist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania along with other African Americans and were asked to move to another section of the church.  The African Americans responded by leaving that church to start their own movement called the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This break from the Methodist church was first church schism for racial reasons.

    Despite the racism that Allen and others received this new church organization they perpetuated this thinking to women, restricting them from leadership roles in the church. In 1819 with great reluctance Bishop Allen allowed Jarena Lee to exhort in the A.M.E. Church. She had been denied eight years prior to this occasion. Jarena is considered first women to preach in the A.M.E. movement.  The progression for giving women the same rights and privileges as men has been a process that has span two centuries. In 1948 the AME conference afforded women the opportunity to be local elders and evangelists. In 1960 additional complementarian rights were given to women to be itinerant preachers. In addition, the Commission on Women a group that Lillian chaired from 1988 to 1996 was not recognized until 1980. It was not until 2000 when Rev. Vashti M. McKenzie was elected as a district Bishop and in 2004 when she was elected Preside Prelate did women achieve full egalitarian rights in this church.  In Beliefnet.com David Briggs quotes Lillian Webb   “said the election of McKenzie first hit home for some women standing in line for the restrooms, a place were male leaders would go in the past to negotiate political deals on their own.” In my interview, Lillian express that thrust to bring full egalitarian rights to women was spearhead by the younger clergy who were attempt to unseat the old boys club.                                                       

         Lillian answered the call to ministry in 1960 and was license an itinerant minister. Lillian has distinguished her self as the first women to be ordained as a itinerant minister in her district. She felt that motivation came from her father who would allow her be apart of theological discussions in her home even as a child. Her father was mentor for many young ministers and she would be apart of there dialogue when the visited.  As a teen, she would write sermons. According to Lillian her mother was training her to be a pastor’s wife. When asked why she did not become a local elder or evangelist she stated that she did not fit that mold.  After her ordination, she served as the Director of Christian Education on the district level.  She had adequate experience in this area after serving as the Christian Education Director at her father church and Bridgestreet AME Church in Brooklyn . Prior to this position she was employed by National Council of Churches in its Department of Stewardship.  She served as the Associate Pastor of Bethel AME Church in Freeport , New York .  In 1985 she was appointed Pastor of the Mt. Olive AME Church in Port Washington , New York .  In 1975 Lillian started her private practice called Therapy Et. Al .  A certified sex therapist, Webb wrote a sexual health column for Essence Magazine for 10 years.  Lillian retired from the pastorate as mandated by her denomination two years ago but is still active in ministry. Along with her responsibilities as Chaplin , she organized aftercare foundation for women coming out of incarceration called Women at the Well. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of Safe Harbor Mentoring Program. This program assists men and women who are coming out of prison helping them to find employment.  She has started a Bible Institute at the Bethel AME Church in Freeport , New York .

      Lillian journey has been long and challenging. This past Sunday I spoke to her a few days after her lung surgery and she sounded stronger than ever. I asked was she bionic. She felt her strength was due the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  During the ten years I have known Lillian she has had a bout with her heart the cause her to have pacemaker and a cornea transplant.  According to her daughter Cay, her mother’s marriage to her father was dissolved in 1967. She stated that her father wanted her mother to be a more traditional wife and stay at home at first, like most men of that era.  Cay stated that her mother and father met while singing the choir as young adults. “Although my father, managed to support his family with only an 8th grade education at the time, he worked for the New York Port Authority as a sky cap and because of his faith, he was able to work long hours to provide for a wife, three children, a mother-in-law and brother-in-law,” remembers Ms. Fatima.   Robert , who re-married, is now retired and manages his numerous real estate holdings.

          Lillian also faces many challenges in ministry. In relating to me about one of the inmates she was counseling, Lillian realized that during the session this woman had murdered a good friend her who was a Presbyterian minister.  She met much time shorting through her feelings and trying to counsel this young woman.   Rev. Webb expressed that initially she felt too close to the situation, but she finally worked through her feelings and helped the woman. This young woman is now preaching the gospel.  As I mentioned earlier Lillian served as the President of the Women In Ministry Commission from 1985 to 1996.  During her tenure in office, Lillian used her office to advocate for the women of the AME church.  Rev. Joan Owings , Lillian ’s daughter who pastors Bright ’s Temple , an historical AME Church in the Bronx, says that her mother was like Al Sharpton as far as getting the AME Church to understand that they can not ignore the sexist issues any more. 

        According to Lillian she felt she accomplished four things in her office tenure: Counseling women dealing with sexism issue; forcing the hand of the “Old Boys” to elect female bishops before 2004; the elevation of three women to the bishopric; and sexual misconduct in the church experience by women .  Rev. Owings who is the fourth generation of pastors in the Webb family states that, “Although her mother never encouraged me to become a pastor, she was always a strong presence in my life.”   When Rev. Owings finally recognized that she was called to the ministry, she said her mother began to advocate for her.  Lillian said that she received support for many mentors such as Dr. Jacqueline Grant of Union Theological Seminary, Dr. Georgia Harkness of United Methodist Seminary and foremost her cousin the late Rev. Lee Freeman an AME pastor and presiding elder. 

          According to Dr. Vashti McKenzie, Bishop and Presiding Prelate of the African Methodist Episcopal Church when accepting position she stated, “I stand here tonight on the shoulders of the un-ordained, women who serve without affirmation or appointment. I don’t stand here alone, but there is a cloud of those who witnessed, who sacrificed, died and gave their best.”

          I am sure that one of shoulders who lifted up Vashti was Rev. Lillian Frier Webb.  In 2000, Lillian received the Sojourner Truth Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. LFW, not only is in Who's Who In Religion was also published in The Volume 3 book on Those Preaching Women, edit by Ella Pearson Mitchell .

          From a personal perceptive I can say that although Lillian is old enough to be my mom she has always treated me as an equal. One of the things she that has helped me with is my perception of ministry that can be sumed up in this story. There was a caterpillar on a vine. As nature would have it, all this caterpillar did was eat and become fat and fuzzy. The caterpillar thought there must be more to life than eating and becoming fat and fuzzy.  On day he saw another caterpillar building a cocoon. After he observe him a while, he ask him what he was doing. The other caterpillar responded that he was building a cocoon. He was told that a cocoon is where butterflies are made. The other caterpillar asks if he could be a butterfly. The response came back that in every caterpillar there is a butterfly. You must die as a caterpillar, but live as a butterfly. That caterpillar began to build his cocoon. The rains came; he hung there. The winds came; he hung in there. At the appointed time, he broke forth and flew. For you see as Lillian says, “In every caterpillar there is butterfly.”

Photo captions: Portrait from Newsday article

Works Cited

Beliefnet.com Briggs , David 2004

Founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church

Jefferson , Rev. Earl R.1969

The Old Religion in a New World

Noll, Mark A. 2002