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.