Following graduation, Proctor accepted a call to become
pastor of the Pond Street Church in
Providence, Rhode Island. At the same time, he accepted the
John Price Crozer Fellowship to study
ethics at
Yale University. Proctor found splitting his time between Providence and
New Haven, Connecticut onerous, so after a year, he moved to
Boston, enrolling at the
Boston University School of Theology. He received a
Ph.D. in
Theology from Boston University in 1950. In 1950, Proctor was invited to give a lecture at Crozer Theological Seminary, his alma mater, and it was there that he first met and befriended
Martin Luther King Jr., who was a student at Crozer at the time. Proctor told King that the works of
Reinhold Niebuhr and
Harry Emerson Fosdick (especially Fosdick's
The Modern Use of the Bible (1924)) had been crucial in helping him reconcile his Christian faith with the brand of
liberal Christianity taught at Crozer. Proctor accepted a position at his other alma mater,
Virginia Union University, and there began a meteoric rise from
dean to vice-president, before being appointed as president of
Virginia Union University in 1955 at the unusually young age of 33. Shortly after his appointment as university president, in December 1955, King invited Proctor to
Montgomery, Alabama to speak; in the middle of
Montgomery bus boycott, Proctor delivered a "Spring Lecture Series". Proctor was one of several black leaders invited to the
White House by
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In the wake of
Brown v. Board of Education, Eisenhower asked these leaders to "ease off" on their demands for civil rights for African Americans. Proctor and the other black leaders politely refused Eisenhower's request. During his time as president of
Virginia Union University (1955–60), Proctor traveled extensively abroad for the first time in his life: he lectured in the
Soviet Union, toured the
Auschwitz concentration camp, attended conferences in
Africa and the
South Pacific, and visited
Africa for the first time. In 1960, Proctor left
Virginia Union University to become president of the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina (which is today
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University) in
Greensboro, North Carolina. Arriving in the middle of the
Greensboro sit-ins, Proctor did not publicly support the student protesters, believing that quiet diplomacy was more effective than confrontation in advancing the civil rights agenda. However, behind the scenes, he and other school administrators raised money for arrested students, and helped to find them lawyers. (
Jesse Jackson was the college's
student body president and
quarterback of the college's
football team at this time.) Proctor had strong ties to the
Kennedy administration and in 1963-64 he took a
leave of absence from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina to serve as associate director of the newly established
Peace Corps chapter in Africa. In this capacity, Proctor was living in
Washington, D.C. at the time of the
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He and his family moved to
Nigeria shortly thereafter, and while there, his children became the first black children at a previously all-white school. Upon his return to the United States, Proctor resumed his presidential duties as of September 1, 1963 but on March 1, 1964, he announced his resignation to become effective April 10, 1964, citing his desire to devote himself to public service in the wake of the
John F. Kennedy assassination. Proctor spent a year (1964–65) as president of the
National Council of Churches. He was a supporter of President
Lyndon B. Johnson's
War on Poverty, serving as a special adviser to the
Office of Economic Opportunity for the northeast region. He then became president of the Institute for Service to Education. In 1966, he published a book about the challenges facing young African Americans entitled
The Young Negro in America, 1960-1980. In 1968, he accompanied
Hubert Humphrey and
Thurgood Marshall to Africa, and, upon his return to the U.S., spoke out against the
political corruption that was rife in Africa. He was also asked to testify to the
U.S. Senate's committee on education, chaired by
Jacob K. Javits; there he testified in favor of
student loans,
Head Start,
Upward Bound, and
work-study programs. Proctor learned all that he knew and sat at the feet of his mentor The late great Reverend Dr. BG Crawley Pastor and founder of the Little Zion Baptist Church, who was a Prominent Baptist Minister and New York State Judge in Brooklyn New York. Rev Crawley was a mentor to some of the Greatest orators of our time including, Sandy Ray, Gardner C Taylor, William A. Jones, Wyatt T Walker and EK Baily just to name a few. In 1969, Proctor was invited by
Rutgers University to give a lecture on the one-year anniversary of the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Many of the college's administrators were there and were impressed by the address, and they soon offered Proctor the newly established position of Martin Luther King Distinguished Professor of Education. Proctor accepted their offer and held this position until his retirement in 1984. Upon the death of
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in 1972, Proctor also assumed the pastorate of the 18,000-member
Abyssinian Baptist Church in
Harlem. Under the
Carter administration, Proctor served as a special adviser on an ethics committee on
recombinant DNA research.
Calvin O. Butts served as Proctor's associate pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church for a number of years. Under Proctor's leadership, the congregation joined the
American Baptist Churches USA and the
National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. With Butts, the Abyssinian Baptist Church founded the Abyssinian Development Corporation and built 50 housing units for needy families. Proctor resigned his pastorate in 1989 and was replaced by Butts. Dr. Proctor later spent time as an adjunct faculty member and/or visiting professor at
Vanderbilt University,
United Theological Seminary,
Kean University, and
Duke University. Dr. Proctor was the recipient of over 50
honorary degrees in the course of his life. == Death ==