S. Howard Woodson
| S. Howard Woodson | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Trenton City Council | |
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In office 1962–1963 |
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| New Jersey General Assembly | |
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In office 1963–1976 |
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| Speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly | |
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In office 1974–1976 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
Samuel Howard Woodson, Jr. May 8, 1916 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Died | July 28, 1999 (aged 83) Trenton, New Jersey |
| Political party | Democratic Party |
| Residence | Trenton, New Jersey |
| Religion | Baptist |
Samuel Howard Woodson, Jr. (May 8, 1916 – July 28, 1999) was an American pastor, civil rights leader, and Democratic Party politician from New Jersey. He was the first African American to serve as Speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly.
Born in Philadelphia, Woodson attended public schools there and received a B.S. degree in education from Cheyney Training School for Teachers (now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania). In 1940 he became the first graduate student to matriculate into the School of Divinity at Morehouse College in Atlanta. While there he served as an assistant to the pastor of the Wheat Street Baptist Church. He received a B.D. degree from Morehouse, the first graduate degree ever offered at the school. He continued postgraduate work in sociology at Atlanta University.
Woodson was ordained as a minister in 1941 and was called as pastor of the Grace Temple Baptist Church in Lawnside, New Jersey in 1944. He moved to Trenton, New Jersey in 1946, serving as pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church, where he would remain for 53 years.
In Trenton Woodson was active in the civil rights movement as President of the local branch of the NAACP. In 1960 he was elected President of the State Conference of the NAACP. He persuaded Gov. Richard J. Hughes to convene a summit to address the need for minority home ownership, leading to progressive housing legislation prohibiting the practice of blockbusting by banks seeking to deny mortgages to minority applicants.
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