Meet Our Founders
   
 
The John Williams James Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church is the direct outgrowth of the J.W. James Memorial Bible Class, organized and incorporated in the State of Illinois by its founder Rev. Dr. Esther Bernice James Mitchell in September 1963. Rev. Mitchell is a native of Chicago and a graduate of Wheaton College. She is married to Mr. James E. Mitchell and a mother of three children. It was in 1964 when Rev. Lucille L. Jackson met Rev. Mitchell.
Rev. Dr. Esther J. Mitchell
 
 
 
Rev. Dr. Lucille L. Jackson, also is a native of Chicago and a graduate of Concordia University. Rev. Jackson has one daughter. It was not long before, Rev. Mitchell and Rev. Jackson realized they both wanted a deeper relationship with Christ. Rev. Jackson joined the Bible Class in late 1965. Together they led the Bible Class in a diversity of ministries. The primary focus was to develop the membership of the class to love and appreciate the riches of God's Word. During a time of prayer and fasting in 1971, they were directed by God to bring into living a New and Bold pastoral concept in ministry that of the Co-Pastorate. The Church held its first service on December 26, 1971 in the basement of the home of Bro. and Pastor Mitchell, 1401 S. 12th Ave., Maywood, Illinois.
Rev. Dr. Lucille L. Jackson