Hundreds gathered inside Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington, D.C. June 5 to celebrate and remember the life of Rev. Dr. Marie Elizabeth Murphy Phillips Braxton.
Rev. Dr. Braxton, or Rev. Doc, as she was affectionately called, was a beloved high school educator, writer, preacher, mentor, civic leader and a history-making African Methodist Episcopal clergywoman. She died peacefully in her Maryland home after a lengthy illness. She was 77.
At a time when women in A.M.E. churches were still fighting for their much-needed place in ministry beyond missionary work, Rev. Dr. Braxton broke stained-glass ceilings by becoming one of the first women to be ordained an itinerant elder in the Baltimore Annual Conference. She helped open many doors for women clergy to follow behind her, creating a difference that would impact generations of women in ministry and the A.M.E. church at large.
Rev. Dr. Braxton, who had served as an assistant pastor at Metropolitan for 11 years, was also an AFRO shareholder, a former board member and the granddaughter of longtime AFRO publisher, the late Dr. Carl Murphy, who turned the newspaper into one of the nation’s most influential Black-owned media companies…