Continuing an occasional
series celebrating the lives of long-time friends, today I lift up Tony
Shipley, my seminary classmate. Tomorrow I’ll tell of how we got back in touch
with each other after many years. The following is an “official” biography and
its formatting doesn’t mesh entirely with my program, so please forgive any
short lines and such:
When Tony Shipley
graduated from Garrett Theological
Seminary on June 5, 1964,
he had no idea of the role that
President Dewight Loder
would play in his life.
Tony returned to his
birthplace New York where he was appointed to serve the Metropolitan DWayne
(UMC) located in Greenwich Village. He
was the first African American to be assigned to a predominantly Caucasian congregation
in the New York Annual Conference.
Tony soon became a member
of a group of pastors in
Greenwich Village who were
advocating for the rights of
women. They discovered
that there were many women in
New York who needed to
terminate their pregnancies
for a variety of
psychological, emotional and physical reasons.
After serving in Greenwich Village Bishop
Wicke invited Tony to become the pastor of the Union United Methodist church in
Bedford Stuyvesant. Tony became the first African American pastor of this
predominantly Caucasian congregation which had been brilliantly led by Dr. Arthur
Calliandro. After two years of service to the Bedford Stuyvesant community
Bishop Wicke invited Tony to become the first African American to serve on the
Conference Staff in the New York
Conference.
Tony became responsible
for the Conference Camping, Scholarship, and
Urban Ministry Programs. After two years of service the Conference
Camping Program under Tony’s leadership was expanded from New York city to
Albany, NY and included youngsters
from almost every social/ethnic
group. The Camping Program became a
haven for young people who wanted to expand their horizons beyond the
limitations of their ethnic community.
Then Dwight Loder the
former president of Garrett Theological Seminary who had now become the Bishop
of the Michigan Area flew to New York to convince Tony to become the first
African American Conference Council Director in the country (a position he held
for 11 years).
After his first year in Michigan, John Dawson,
President of
Adrian College invited
Tony to accept an Honorary Doctor’s
degree from Adrian. After receiving the degree John Dawson
then invited Shipley to
become a member of the Board of
Trustees at Adrian. To
this day Shipley is the longest serving
Trustees with the
exception of one other trustee who is over 90
years old!
When Edsel Ammons became
Bishop of the Detroit Annual
Conference, he invited
Tony to become Superintendent of the
Detroit West
District. After his term ended as
Superintendent
Tony was appointed to the
largest African American Methodist
church in the Conference
at that time, the Scott Memorial
church. Where he created the ASPIRES Program.
The Adrian College, Scott
Church Program, to inspire readiness
for educational success.
This program was related
to McKenzie High School, a
predominantly African
American school where the quality
of education provided to
the students did not qualify any of
them to go on to get a
degree in higher education.
The ASPIRES program
changed all of that when Adrian College
agreed to dispatch three
of its professors to re-train teachers in
English, Math and Science
at McKenzie. The following year 35
students from McKenzie
High School enrolled in Adrian College;
four years later 29 of
them graduated from Adrian College.
Dr. Shipley served Scott
Memorial church for five years until he
was invited to become the
Deputy General Secretary of the
National Division of the
Board of Global Ministries.
At the Board he was
responsible for church development in
Alaska, the Caribbean and
the United States.
Being back in New York reminded Tony of his early
beginnings and the enormous impact the United Methodist Church had had on him as
a
youngster growing up in
East Harlem. Tony decided that he wanted to spend his final days of ministry in
a community that was like the one he had grown up in and so he asked Bishop
Donald Ott to appoint him to the eastside of Detroit.
The Bishop pleaded with
Tony and tried to discourage him from reducing his salary and limiting his
future career. Finally,
the Bishop decided to
appoint Tony to the east side of Detroit
for one year and then they
could re-consider. So in 1960 Tony
became the pastor of the
Christ United Methodist Church
located in a community
where more than 50% of the
inhabitants were unable to
read.
Given Tony’s strong
belief, that a pastor is appointed to a
community and not just to
a church, and the lack of an access
to a college preparatory
education for the children of this
community, Tony
established the first Charter School sponsored
by a United Methodist
church in America. Chandler Park
Academy was created in the
Christ church with 100 sixth graders.
The next year Chandler
Park Academy opened another building
on Jefferson Avenue with
sixth graders and now the school
consists of 100 6th graders and 100 7th graders. The
next year
Chandler Park opened a
third school but this time on the
Westside of Detroit at Peoples
UMC increasing enrollment to 300 students. The next year a church building
became available in Oak Park for first graders. The next year Chandler Park
Academy was able to purchase land from a Lutheran church that was located on
the Campus of the Roman Catholic Men’s High School and the Roman Catholic
Women’s High School.The following year Chandler Park purchased those
properties. Today Chandler Park Academy has consolidated all of its students on
one campus on Kelly Road in Harper Woods, Michigan 90% of its students are in
the lunch program, which is only available to students who live in poverty.
Chandler Park Academy has
an enrollment of 2,475 students and a Pre-School with 45 students. Chandler
Park has an enrollment contract with Wayne County Community College so that
when a student from high school at Chandler Park they also have the opportunity
to receive a two year degree from Community College giving them a head start as
they move into a four year university. Chandler Park now has an enrollment of 697 at the High School and 598 graduates who are attending
colleges all over the
United States.
Now the entire Chandler
Park Academy student body is located at the sight on 8 Mile and Kelly Road in
Harper Woods, Michigan all previous locations have been closed.
CHANDLER PARK ACADEMY
SCHOOL LOCATIONS
First Location: Christ
Church – Havenhill
Second Location: Jefferson
Avenue UMC
Third Location: Peoples
UMC
Fourth Location: Oak
Park Catholic Church
Combined campus on 8 Mile and Kelly Road in Harper
Woods, Michigan. All other campuses
closed.
Shipley Appointments:
1964 New York:
Metropolitan –Duane
1966 New York:
Brooklyn-Union
1968 New York: Conference Staff,
Associate Program Director
1971 Detroit: Conference Staff, Program Director
1982 Detroit: Detroit West District Superintendent
1987 Detroit: Scott Memorial
1992 New York: Deputy General Secretary, National
Division, Gen. Bd. Of Global Ministries
1994 Detroit: Christ UMC
2007 RETIRED
JRMcF
johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com
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