For Black History Month 2026, Newsline is offering a feature for each week in February to celebrate our Black forebears in the Church of the Brethren. In this issue, we celebrate the life and groundbreaking ministry of Martha (Mattie) Cunningham Dolby.
In a detailed history about her and her brother Joe A. Cunningham, posted on a North Manchester, Ind., history site, she is described as “humiliated by the church which nurtured her, yet forgiving, wise, encouraging others, compassionate, a constant student. A forerunner without fanfare” (read the article by Elizabeth L. Hendrix with research from A. Ferne Baldwin at www.nmanchesterhistory.org/schools-cunningham.html).
Here we share a post from Brethren Press about its choice of Mattie Dolby for a new edition of the classic Church of the Brethren card game Forerunners, paired with the first stanza of a poem by Irv Heishman that was first shared by Newsline in 2021:
Forerunner
Mattie Dolby was born into a Brethren family, and she and her brother Joe were the first Black students enrolled in Manchester College. Mattie studied Bible there, and then in 1903 was sent by the denomination, along with James and Susan May, to establish a church among Blacks in Palestine, Arkansas, where she started a Sunday school for children. Later, she worked among Black congregations in southern Ohio, where she and her husband, Newton, were installed as deacons in the Frankfort congregation in 1907. Four years later, the congregation called Mattie to become a minister. Because of racial prejudice, Mattie and her family left the Church of the Brethren to minister in other denominations until her death.
Words of wisdom: “It has long been proven that we can be somebody if we only have an opportunity.”
Learn more: Mildred Hess Grimley, “No Sound of Trumpet,” Messenger, January 1976, pp. 16-20; The Brethren Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 395.
(Find out more about the Forerunners card game at www.brethren.org/bp/forerunners.)
‘Blessed be, O God, the fearless innovation of Mattie Cunningham Dolby’
By Irvin Heishman
Blessed be, O God,
the fearless innovation of Mattie Cunningham Dolby
head covered with Brethren prayer fashion
conformed to traditional Brethren style
first Black female Manchester College graduate
first Black Brethren woman preacher
Greek scholar
gentle courage against racism
“go worship with your own kind”
she served elsewhere, boldly prayer covered
the Ohio Springfield Church of the Brethren is dead.
(Read the full poem as published in Newsline on Feb. 26, 2021, at www.brethren.org/news/2021/poetic-blessing-for-the-innovative-prayer-covering.)
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