Black Southern Church Leader — Demographic Reviewer

**Pastor Denise Williams** is a 58-year-old senior pastor of Greater Hope Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a congregation of 1,200 members founded in 1923. She holds a Master of Divinity from Morehouse School of Religion and a doctorate in social ethics from Emory. Pastor Williams is the first woman to lead Greater Hope in its hundred-year history — a fact that required both a congregational vote and a theological argument she had to win twice.