About Rev. Doug Cunningham

A Journey of Awakening and Action

Doug Cunningham’s paternal ancestors left County Antrim, Ireland, for the United States, settling in Antrim, Ohio, in the early 1830s. The U.S. Congress had just passed the Indian Removal Act, driving the Shawnee, Lenape, and other tribes out of southeastern Ohio, making land available for cheap to the arriving settlers. 

Ancestors on his mother’s side migrated from Ireland to the Carolinas and then into Mississippi around the same time. U.S. forces were driving the Choctaw out of Mississippi and offering land to European settlers for $1.75 per acre. His ancestor established a plantation and enslaved people of African descent to work the land. Irish and Black people were in solidarity in the early 1600s when they both worked as indentured servants. But the John Punch Decision (1640) and others like it began to define slavery based on race. His Irish ancestors chose white supremacy over solidarity. 

His teachers were silent about the history that privileged his ancestors and oppressed Black and indigenous people. In the predominantly white suburb where he grew up, even the pictures of Jesus on the wall at his church were white. But in seminary, a Black classmate, Don Matthews, challenged and mentored him in confronting the mythology and systems of white supremacy. Jesus was not white, and liberation for all who are oppressed was a central theme in his gospel. The seminary and later the churches where he ministered, however, were plagued by the same racism found in the wider society. 

Appointed as the pastor of a Black congregation in Brooklyn, New York, he witnessed the daily burden racism puts on the shoulders of Black people and saw how vital the church can be as a sanctuary of healing and empowerment. Ministering at a multiracial church provided mentors and opportunities to cross racial boundaries. This was crucial preparation for starting an anti-racist church in the Bronx (2008-2019). Over the next decade, he partnered with Latinx, Black, Asian, and white young adults to develop a liberating approach to community work, preaching, and teaching.

Rev. Sheila M. Beckford, a partner in founding the Bronx church, became his mentor in disrupting racism within the broader United Methodist Church. He joined her and other colleagues in a Black Methodists for Church Renewal-led campaign for racial equity culminating in the establishment of the James Lawson Anti-Racism Commission in the New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Rev. Cunningham is currently a member of this Commission and a retired, ordained United Methodist elder.