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Sister Emma Francis, First
Deaconess of Color in America
Deaconesses also participated in the Women’s
Missionary Societies’ conventions. In this group at a convention of the
United Lutheran Church Women’s Missionary Society in the 1920’s, at far
left, is sister Emma Francis, the first black deaconess in America. She
was born in the Virgin Islands, trained in Germany and worked at an
orphanage in St. Croix, as well as among West Indians in Harlem, in
conjunction with Transfiguration Lutheran Church. When the Virgin
Islands became part of the United States in 1917, she became part of the
motherhouse in Philadelphia.
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