Leader in Mission, Integration
Growing up in a Methodist parsonage laid the groundwork for Nettie Alice Green’s keen interest in mission. She was a charter member of the Woman’s Society of Christian Service in the Scott Methodist Church of Detroit, held offices in the Lexington Conference, and was Secretary of Student Work (1960-1964) and of Campus Ministry (1964-68) of the Central Jurisdiction.
She was active in the Lincoln Leadership School, an interracial School of Missions, co-sponsored by the Kentucky, Louisville and Lexington Conferences, and a project of the Woman’s Division. This school broke down barriers and paved the way for a smooth transition when a merger of Black and white jurisdictions was implemented beginning in 1968.
Elected president of the Southeastern Jurisdiction Women’s Society of Christian Service in 1972, Nettie Alice was the first Black jurisdiction president after the 1968 merger of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. During her term, all separate Black and white conferences in the jurisdiction were merged, and a new era of interracial leadership began. A member of the Women’s Division during this time, she visited mission work in India, Nepal and the Philippines.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
