(RNS) — Bishop George Edward Battle Jr., an advocate for education and health and the feeble senior bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, died on Sunday (March 9) in Charlotte, North Carolina, after an undisclosed illness. He used to be 77.
“Having served as an filled with life bishop for 29 years, Bishop George Edward Battle Jr. will take dangle of his place in historical previous as one amongst our longest-serving filled with life bishops,” the AME Zion Church’s board of bishops stated in a press open. “He used to be no longer most efficient an evangelist, pastor, bishop and Christian servant, he used to be a immense philanthropist, a group leader, a champion for education and a social justice advocate.”
Battle retired in 2021. In one amongst his closing acts as AME Zion Church’s senior bishop, he oversaw a mortgage-burning ceremony to celebrate the traditionally Black denomination paying off its debts. The denomination dates support to 1796 and is headquartered in Charlotte.
The church had refinanced a $3.9 million mortgage to be paid off in quarterly funds from 2015 thru 2022, but its chief monetary officer launched at a 2021 hybrid assembly in Atlanta it performed the funds early.
Battle stated all the device thru that quadrennial denominational assembly: “We loved our church and we principal to invent certain when we came to Overall Conference, we would maybe come up with the money for saved by making these transactions, so when we came right here the bills would be paid.”
RELATED: African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church celebrates paid-off debts at fundamental assembly
Battle, a native of Edgecombe County, North Carolina, served church buildings in North and South Carolina starting within the 1960s. After he used to be elected bishop in 1992, he oversaw church buildings within the Carolinas, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northeast.
He used to be especially remembered for his work as a mentor to students and clergy.
The Rev. Monte Witherspoon-Brown, an at-immense member of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Training, cited Battle’s 17 years on the college board, alongside with four as board chair, at its assembly on Tuesday.
“His years of provider had been each necessary and transformative for our district,” Witherspoon-Brown stated in his tribute. “As a religion leader and advocate for education, Bishop Battle based the Elevated Enrichment Program in 1975, which has supplied quality after-college enrichment for thousands of students and continues to feature in more than one locations.”
Witherspoon-Brown stated Battle used to be his longtime mentor and helped prevent him from falling by the wayside of faculty as a ninth grader, ensured he obtained monetary purple meat as much as wait on Livingstone College, an AME-Zion affiliated college in Salisbury, North Carolina, and appointed him to three of the four church buildings where he served as pastor. Battle additionally endorsed Witherspoon when he made up our minds to lumber for the college board place.
“‘It’s good to invent certain all young of us internet a accurate education,’” Witherspoon-Brown recalled Battle telling him. “And he paused for a 2nd after which emphasised ‘all young of us.’”
Battle obtained dozens of awards, alongside with The Command of the Lengthy Leaf Pine award, which is considered the wonderful honor within the remark of North Carolina and is presented by the governor.
Bishop George Edward Battle Jr. (Courtesy photo)
A constructing and a scholarship fund additionally bear been named in his honor. The George E. Battle Jr. College of Change, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology is named for him at Livingstone College. Battle used to be a feeble chairman of the college’s board of directors and an alumnus.
Moreover, Atrium Health Foundation, a charity linked to the Atrium Health machine in Charlotte, created the Bishop George E. Battle Jr. Scholarship Fund, which is “devoted to rising certain academic alternatives and careers in health care which would maybe presumably be accessible for all.” Battle used to be an emeritus member of the inspiration and the Atrium Health Board of Commissioners.
The Rev. George McKain Jr., a well informed and feeble public affairs director for the denomination, credited Battle’s connections with the health care machine for saving his existence.
“I was on existence purple meat up,” McKain stated, recalling a 2016 health crisis that began with an bronchial asthma attack. “They principal to decrease the machine off on the third day.”
Battle, citing his religion in McKain’s restoration, informed doctors no longer to clutch that step, and McKain stated better than eight years later, “I’m shapely, alive and neatly.”
“(Battle) accurate stepped in, as he’s performed for so many other of us, and accurate fought for you to be taken care of,” McKain stated.
Honored alongside with his likeness being placed in The National Gigantic Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore in 2014, Battle marveled at the trajectory of his existence.
“Basically the most efficient thing I principal to device after I was young used to be to graduate from excessive college, but God had one other notion for my existence,” Battle stated, The Salisbury Put up reported at the time. “I as soon as earned 30 cents an hour deciding on cotton, and now I lead the most effective likely church this facet of heaven. That’s what God had in store for me.”
RELATED:After fires, killings, shadowy church buildings debate the most convenient strategies to guard themselves
by 
