John Burgess (bishop)

The Right Reverend John Melville Burgess
Bishop of Massachusetts

Church	Episcopal Church (United States)
See	Massachusetts
In office	1970—1975
Predecessor	Anson Phelps Stokes Jr.
Successor	John Bowen Coburn
Orders
Ordination	1935
Consecration	1970
Personal details
Born	March 11, 1909 Grand Rapids, MI
Died	August 24, 2003 Vineyard Haven, MA
Previous post	Suffragan Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
Alma mater	University of Michigan

John Melville Burgess (March 11, 1909 – August 24, 2003) was the twelfth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in Boston, Massachusetts from 1970 to 1975 and the first African American to head an Episcopal diocese.

Burgess was the son of Theodore Thomas (a dining car waiter on the Pere Marquette Railway) and Ethel Inez Beverly (a kindergarten teacher) Burgess. He attended Central High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He received a B.A. in 1930 and an M.A. in 1931 from the University of Michigan. Burgess then earned a Master of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1934, of which he was one of the first black graduates.

After beginning his ministry in his home parish of St. Philip's Episcopal; a Colored Episcopal Mission in Grand Rapids and then Cincinnati, Ohio, Burgess became the Episcopal chaplain at Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1946. In 1951, he became the first African American to serve as canon at Washington National Cathedral. In 1956, Burgess moved to the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts as an archdeacon of Boston's parishes and missions and superintendent of what became named the Episcopal City Mission. He was the first black archdeacon in New England.