William H. Sheppard was a Presbyterian minister and missionary to the Congo
for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. Executive Committee of Foreign
Missions, 1890-1910. Sheppard was one of the earliest African-American
foreign missionaries for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. He and his wife,
Lucy Gantt Sheppard, were stationed at Luebo and later at Ibanche. Collection
consists primarily of photograph albums and photographs. Photographs document
mission stations and churches at Luebo and Ibanche; the Sheppard family;
other Presbyterian Church in the U.S. missionaries; and native people of the
Bateke, Baluba, Bakuba, Zappo Zap, and other tribes. The collection includes
a small number of papers, including correspondence; Sheppard's reminiscences
of his time at the Stillman Institute in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; a pamphlet
entitled "How Sheppard Made His Way into Lukenga's Kingdom"; printed
materials about the Congo and King Leopold; hymnbooks in Tshiluba and an
unidentified language; and glass and nitrate negatives. View the
collection
guide to learn more. The entire physical collection has been
digitized.
Featured
image: Sheppard with his mother.