Born: October 29, 1899, Atlanta, GA

Education: Morehouse College, B.A., 1918; Northern Baptist Seminary, B.D., 1922; University of Chicago, M.A., 1922, Ph.D., 1948

Died: December 15, 1970, Richmond, VA

Son of a former slave, Fisher studied religion at Morehouse College and taught it at Virginia Union and Shaw universities, three institutions founded by the northern-based American Baptist Home Mission Society. Teaching the theory of evolution, he rejected creationism and Biblical fundamentalism. He used slave spirituals to show links between Africans and Afro-Americans’ religious and secular worlds. Fundamentalists in the black Virginia Baptist General Association once demanded his resignation from Virginia Union. But he stayed and was influential.

He made rich contributions as a scholar and minister. Negro Slave Songs in the United States (1953), his pathbreaking book, traced the roots of Afro-Christianity in African slavery, conversion, and freedom struggle. He preached a social gospel at White Rock Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina (1933–65), creating an outreach ministry and enlisting members (such as North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company officers) to help. He established the church's community center, which sponsored a summer softball league, boxing team, table tennis, Boy and Girl Scouts, and guest lecturers. It supported a nursery school, health clinic, and rooms for civic gatherings. Fisher was an outspoken leader in the Durham NAACP, Committee on Negro Affairs, and protests against Jim Crow.