Marshall L. Shepard

[1] Robert Shepard was born a slave and later became a Baptist minister and the superintendent of the Colored Orphanage Asylum of North Carolina.

[2] Pattie Shepard was also involved in charitable work and served as the head of the Women's Baptist Home Convention of North Carolina.

[6] In 1926, Shepard accepted the position of pastor at Mount Olivet Tabernacle Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

His Sunday morning sermons were especially celebrated, and his preaching style drew praise from many contemporaries, including Gardner C. Taylor, who called him "the best extemporaneous preacher the Black race has produced.

"[9] In 1960, he endorsed Senator John F. Kennedy for president and decried those Protestants who would oppose him based on their opposition to his Roman Catholic faith.

The sight of a black minister on the podium led Ellison D. Smith, a segregationist Senator representing South Carolina, to storm out of the convention.

[13] The following year, he was appointed to a commission charged with drafting a new city charter for Philadelphia, but the resulting document was rejected by the voters at the polls that November.

[14] After that term ended, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Shepard recorder of deeds in Washington, D.C., a position he held until 1951.

[16] He was victorious in the election, winning as a part of a Democratic wave that swept the Republican Party from power for the first time in 67 years.

Shepard initially opposed the change, but later voted in favor after party leaders promised him more black Democrats would get political appointments.