Barbara Williams put all 10 of her children and several of her grandchildren through music school. They all learned to play piano, but none of them were truly passionate about it.
But one grandson, Le’Roy Davenport, turned out to be “the one” with both the talent and the passion for music, he said. So his grandmother taught him to play piano, starting at the age of 6, while he was growing up in Greenwood.
“Her father was a pastor, and I never met him, but I think she saw a lot of him in me,” said Davenport, now 31 and the pastor of Sixteenth Section Missionary Baptist Church, which has four choirs.
He was a full-time musician for a local church in Greenwood from the age of 12 until high school graduation, and he was minister of music at Sand Creek Chapel Missionary Baptist Church north of Starkville while working on his bachelor’s degree at Mississippi State University.
“I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so my mom and grandma ferried me everywhere I needed to go (before college),” Davenport said.
After completing a business degree at MSU in 2013, Davenport went to seminary school and then returned to Starkville in 2016. He spent about two years working on grant-funded racial equity initiatives at MSU, and in the process, he launched MSU Thrive, which helps students that grew up in the foster care system adjust to college and get the resources they need.
“Most students have a parent they can lean on in college, but these students are coming right from foster care or a group home, so we make sure they still have a way to navigate resources,” Davenport said.
At the same time, he became interim pastor at Sixteenth Section, northeast of Starkville, in 2017 and was senior pastor a year later.
He now works in MSU’s Holmes Cultural Diversity Center as the student resource coordinator, making sure students are aware of what the university has available for their academic, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. He described it as “a holistic approach” to students’ growth and development.
“We realize spiritual development is also important, so we’re leading interfaith initiatives where we are creating spaces that are safe for students to express their worldview,” Davenport said.
His advocacy efforts go beyond just MSU and Sixteenth Section. In June 2020, he organized a prayer rally at J.L. King Park the day before local activists held a march and rally for racial justice, the local response to the nationwide outcry after a white Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, a Black man.
Davenport said he appreciated the wide variety of denominations that were involved in the prayer rally.
“It showed that we can all be different and still come together for a common purpose, and that’s rooted in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” he said. “I believe we have to take the next step to be unified outside the church. I believe that it’s OK to be different as long as we know how to come together to do meaningful work in the community.”
His passion for understanding what contributes to people’s wellbeing, especially that of Black Americans in rural areas, led him to pursue a master’s degree in human development and family sciences at MSU, with an emphasis in how attitudes and social structures affect the wellbeing of African-American communities.
He plans to finish his master’s this August. He is also studying for a doctorate of ministry with the United Theological Seminary and will complete it in December 2022.
Additionally, Davenport is working with a group of local pastors and the J.L. King Center on establishing a presence in schools to create preventative programs for youth who are considered at-risk.
He also wants to coordinate an outdoor Good Friday service with several local churches. Plans are “not set in stone” because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, since he wants everyone to be safe, he said.
“One thing the pandemic has helped us to do is really come together to do ministry outside the four walls,” Davenport said. “The pandemic has helped us become free to advance freedom, because we leave the four walls of the church and we go out into the community for the common good. That’s what Christ did, he went outside the walls and met the needs of the people. … We’re helping each other grow into the citizens we know we can be.”
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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