Theressa Hoover, Fayetteville’s Most Famous Black Female Leader

IN-PERSON AND ONLINE EVENT
Thursday, October 26, 2023
7 p.m.
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, 118 W. Johnson Ave.
Springdale, AR 72764
Admission: free

Janet Allured, Ph.D., will present Theressa Hoover, Fayetteville’s Most Famous Black Female Leader at 7 p.m. Thursday, October 26, at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History as part of the museum’s Not Strictly History series. Hoover, a Fayetteville native, was CEO of the United Methodist Women from 1968 to 1990 and the highest-level female African American executive in any mainline denomination in the country. Hoover’s family were members of St. James Methodist Church in Fayetteville.

Her many accomplishments include being the only woman for whom a Methodist church has been named (Theressa Hoover United Methodist Church in Little Rock). In the early 2000s, she moved back to Fayetteville to be with family after spending years in New York City (the site of the church’s headquarters). When she died in 2013, leading Methodists from all over the world attended her funeral held at Mount Sequoyah United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, the last church where she was active.

 

Janet Allured, Ph.D.

Janet Allured, Ph.D., retired Professor of History and of Women’s Studies at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, is adjunct professor of Women’s History at the University of Arkansas. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles on Southern women and has co-edited several volumes, including one in the University of Georgia Press’s series on southern women, titled Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times (2009). A monograph, titled Remapping Second-Wave Feminism: The Long Women’s Rights Movement in Louisiana, 1950-1997, was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2016. She is writing several manuscripts about the work of progressive Methodist women in the South with a particular focus on anti-racism and settlement house work. An essay about Theressa Hoover, is forthcoming as part of an edited collection from the University Press of Mississippi. She has co-edited a collection of biographies of Methodist women that is under review by the University Press of Florida with M. Kathryn Armistead, editor of Methodist Review.

This in-person event is also available for viewing live online. Please note this free online event is limited to 100 participants. Registration is required. After you register, you will receive an email confirmation with a Zoom link to join the event.

The presentation is sponsored by KUAF 91.3 Public Radio.