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Filling The Void: Young Ministers Seek To Replace Former Powerful. Clergymen
By Alvin Peabody
They're all gone now to the great beyond. Rev. Henry C. Gregory, III, Bishop Walter McCullough and the Rev. Smallwood E. Williams. Even Rev. David Eaton, once a member of the D.C. School Board has passed on.
All powerful men, wielding so much clout that it became very apparent that no politician could ascend to higher office in the District of Columbia without the important endorsement of these religious leaders.
"Oh, yes, it used to be that way. In order to get elected in this town, you had to have acquired the preachers' blessings," said Kurt Wilson a student of theology at Howard University. "At some point in time, though, it became somewhat a game of politics."
During that time, the names of Gregory, the prominent long-time pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church; Bishop McCullough of the United House of Prayer, Bibleway's Williams and Eaton, of All Souls, held an enormous amount of influence in nearly...