Disciples Historical Society

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Date of birth: Unknown
Date of death: November 14, 1924
Education: Southern Christian Institute
Organization(s): Foreign Christian Missionary Society
Known for:
  • Katherine “Sister Katie” Blackburn was the only African American Disciples missionary commissioned by the Foreign Christian Missionary Society to serve in the Congo.

Katherine “Sister Katie” Blackburn was the only African American Disciples missionary commissioned by the Foreign Christian Missionary Society to serve in the Congo. She served as a kindergarten teacher and evangelized at the Bolenge Mission from 1907 to 1910.

Little is known about Blackburn’s family and early life. Disciples missionary publications state that she hailed from Boston and studied at the Southern Christian Institute, a historically Black Disciples school in Edwards, Mississippi. Sometime after graduating, Blackburn moved to Chicago, where she joined Jackson Boulevard Christian Church. She was the first African American Disciple to volunteer to serve in the Foreign Christian Missionary Society’s new Congo mission in Bolenge, and her home church’s Sunday school class donated more than $150 to support her work abroad. 

Blackburn taught kindergarten at the Bolenge Mission in 1907 and 1908 while learning the local language. She also played the organ and led singing at devotional meetings. In 1909, she began accompanying Bolenge’s Christian women to nearby villages to evangelize. She also cared for the girls at the Bolenge Mission and led women’s classes and meetings. 

After falling ill later in 1909, she had to step back from some mission responsibilities. By 1910, she had returned to teaching kindergarten. Additionally, she supervised a garden tended by Bolenge’s Christian women that provided food for nearby villagers and a source of income for the gardeners. That same year, she returned to the United States and offered greetings from the Bolenge workers at the 35th annual Foreign Christian Missionary Convention. 

Blackburn left Disciples missionary service in 1910 and became a deaconess in a Dutch Wesleyan Church in Cape Town, South Africa. She then took up work with the YWCA, ultimately becoming General Secretary of the Colored Branch of the YWCA in Cape Town. She died in South Africa on November 14, 1924.

Sources:
Katherine Blackburn Biographical Reference File. Disciples of Christ Historical Society.

“Miss Blackburn, Y.W.C.A Worker, Dies in Africa,” Chicago Defender January 3, 1925, 1.

Missionary Intelligencer, 1907-1910