He graduated from the Oberlin College School of Theology in 1940,[3] As a student, Taylor became the pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Elyria, Ohio, a role he held from 1938 to 1941.
[2] Taylor was a close friend and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. and played a prominent role in the religious leadership of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
More than 2,000 of his sermons are archived, and recordings of many of them are available in collections such as The Words of Gardner Taylor: 50 Years of Timeless Treasures and at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.
He gave lectures and sermons at universities and churches all over the United States, as well as in South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Denmark, England, Scotland, Australia, China, and Japan.
[2] Taylor died on April 5, 2015, after attending Easter services at Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, where he had lived in retirement.