He was also a prominent pastor at numerous churches and an important figure in civil rights and religious affairs.

Edward MacKnight Brawley was born a freeman on March 18, 1851, in Charleston, South Carolina.

He began his education about the age of four when a private tutor taught him to read and prepared him for school.

In April 1865 he was baptized into the Baptist church and became involved in Sunday Schools and made plans for the ministry.

After three months he left Howard and in January 1871 he enrolled in the preparatory department of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, the schools first African-American student.

During this period and later he was frequently an invited and well-received speaker at the annual national convention of the American Baptist Publication Societies.

[1] During those eight years he helped found 550 Baptist churches in South Carolina with 350 preachers and nearly 100,000 members.

[5] In October 1883, he succeeded William H. McAlpine in the position of president of Alabama Baptist Normal and Theological School, whose name was changed to Selma University.

[6] After three years, his second wife's health began to fail and he resigned from Selma and returned to South Carolina.

Bramley was outspoken in calls for peace and in the innocence of the black people imprisoned in the event's aftermath.

[5] In 1908, with the help of Brawley, Morris College was founded in Sumter, South Carolina, and in April 1911, the school was incorporated.