Anna Ellison Butler Alexander (1865-1947) was born to recently emancipated slaves on Butler Plantation in MacIntosh County, Georgia. She was the first (and only) African-American set aside as a deaconess in the Episcopal Church in 1907. She founded Good Shepherd Church in a rural Georgia community where she taught children to read in a one-room schoolhouse. The school was later expanded to two rooms with a loft where Anna lived. She ministered in Georgia for 53 years, leaving a legacy of love and devotion still felt in Glynn County. Deaconess Alexander served in difficult times, however. The diocese segregated her congregations in 1907 and African-American congregations were not invited to another diocesan convention until 1947. Similarly, it was only in the 1950s that a woman set aside as a deaconess was recognized as being in deacon’s orders. However, her witness— wearing the distinctive dress of a deaconess, traveling by foot from Brunswick through Darien to Pennick, showing care and love for all whom she met—represents the best in Christian witness.
You can read more about Deaconess Alexander at the Diocese of Georgia’s website.