John W.E. Bowen, Sr.

John Wesley Edward Bowen (December 3, 1855 – July 20, 1933) was born into American slavery and became a Methodist clergyman, denominational official, college and university educator and one of the first African Americans to earn a Ph.D. degree in the United States. He is credited as the first African American to receive the Ph.D. degree from Boston University, which was granted in 1887.

Bowen was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 3, 1855, the son of Edward Bowen and Rose Simon Bowen. Edward Bowen, a carpenter, was originally from Maryland and later lived in Washington, D.C., but moved to New Orleans, where he was enslaved and held in bondage until he purchased his own freedom. In 1858, he purchased freedom for his wife and son, then three years old. Edward Bowen later served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Rose Simon Bowen was the granddaughter of an African princess of the Jolloffer tribe on the west coast of Africa. (This information comes from a one-page anonymous biographical sketch of Bowen while he was still living).

After the Civil War, J.W.E. Bowen studied at the Union Normal School in New Orleans, and New Orleans University, a university established by the Methodist Episcopal Church for the education of freedmen. (New Orleans University merged with Straight College in 1934 to form Dillard University) Bowen received a Bachelor of Arts degree with the university’s first graduating class in 1878. From 1878 to 1882, he taught mathematics, Latin and Greek at Central Tennessee College (later known as Walden University (Tennessee)) in Nashville.

In 1882, Bowen began theological studies at Boston University. While a theological student, he was the pastor of Revere Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1884, he completed work on, and was awarded, a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree from New Orleans University. When he completed the requirements for the Bachelor of Sacred Theology (S.T.B.) degree from Boston University in 1885, his classmates selected him as one of two students to speak at commencement exercises.

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