Trailblazing Detroit female pastor, the Rev. Dr. Dee Dee Coleman, to retire: It's beautiful to 'have added history'

The Rev. Dr. Dee Dee Coleman is starting a new life on Monday.

The first woman to lead as senior pastor of Russell Street Missionary Baptist Church will give her last sermon on Sunday before officially retiring from 24 years of service.

As one of the first women to lead a Baptist church and the first female president of the Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity, Coleman’s ministry broke new ground for Detroit’s Baptist community.

“It’s a beautiful thing to know that you have added history,” Coleman said, reflecting on the church from a front pew amid a stained-glass glow. “And it’s a beautiful thing to know that the work you did helped somebody.”

Originally hailing from New Orleans, Coleman studied at the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, and Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit. She felt called to the ministry early on at the age of 14, when she first read a poem before her home church congregation.

Her then-pastor insisted that she, as a woman, would never enter the pulpit again.

Discouraged but undeterred, Coleman never left her faith and continued seeking a way forward, she said. Even now, she dreams at night of being behind the pulpit, she said, adding that she’s certain the dreams will prevail long into her upcoming retirement.

Coleman later re-encountered her calling at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church under the late Rev. Charles Gilchrist Adams, who would mentor her while she became the pastor she is today, she said.

Coleman served as an associate pastor at Hartford for nine years before moving on to lead Russell Street Missionary Baptist in 1999, where she would remain for more than two decades.

News of her new role came with sharp criticism from some in the Baptist community.

Other pastors and committees around the city called her leaders in, questioning their decision to select a woman candidate, she said. The Wolverine State Missionary Baptist Convention rejected Coleman from their organization.

Despite murmurs, she introduced herself openly and honestly to her new congregation in her first sermon, she said. Some people in the congregation were convention members themselves, she said.

People were clapping by the end of the service, she said.

Her supporters defended her as a guiding force for the church. Since then, she’s committed herself to living authentically as the pastor they saw her as, she said.

“I’m a woman,” Coleman said. “I can’t hide it. So I go about things from a different way.”

Sunday by Sunday, she changed the church she worked with, both physically and in the hearts and minds of her new community. Her first order of business was to change the seats and carpeting in the church from deep red to a softer blue.

It was the first of many steps she took in building up her church to be a peaceful, accepting space for every person who would attend, she said.

Upon hearing that a church member was behind on utility payments, Coleman took up a collection during one service that raised more than $700 to meet their needs. It was frequent, necessary work like this that defined her relationship with the congregation and helped bring people closer together, she said.

Beyond the pulpit, Coleman served the Metro Detroit community with a full heart, she said.

She worked with Detroit Youth, Wings of Faith, and reentry programs for incarcerated people – all tangible paths to fulfilling the same gospel that she preached each week, she said.

She also worked extensively with the local Coalition for Black and Jewish Unity, an organized effort between Metro Detroit Christians and Jews to confront racism and anti-Semitism.

The experience brought her closer to other Metro Detroiters and inspired her to visit Israel with groups from the organization nearly 20 times throughout her ministry, she said.

Her work with people in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and with Jewish Detroiters connected her in new ways to understanding her faith, she said.

Other pastors, like the Rev. Kenneth Flowers, said her deep connectedness with others shone through in her everyday life.

“She’s been a major figure for this community,” said Flowers, of Detroit’s New Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church. “She’s always been there to find a way to make a way.”

He remembers singing songs together while traveling to Israel, he said. Later, while Coleman was recovering from open heart surgery, he sang again to her in her hospital room, he said.

“More than a colleague or a friend, she’s like a sister,” he said.

Her powerful voice, alongside a concise characteristic style in her preaching, makes her someone that people want to listen to, he said.

“I think that the strength and the message offers us something to carry away with,” the Rev. Robyn Moore, senior pastor at First Baptist Institutional Church, said of Coleman’s preaching.

“It demands your attention, for it to resonate with you, that you will be able to carry forth that message throughout the days to come until you hear her again.”

Moore, one of Detroit’s few female pastors alongside Coleman, said she first met her at Hartford Memorial Baptist as her own journey to the ministry unfolded.

“She is definitely a trailblazer in her own right,” Moore said, reflecting on Coleman’s mentorship and support to her throughout the years.

Her fondest memories of Coleman are at the kitchen table, talking over food and living their lives together in a way that inspired them both to continue preaching.

Moments like these are where Coleman put together the pieces for her weekly sermons.

“Your sermon may come from a crack in the road,” Coleman said. “You know, the cracks of life. And you go around, and you don’t want to step on it.”

But Coleman confronted it all for herself on paper each week as she wrote her sermons. Now, sitting in the light of the church’s stained glass, on one of the soft blue pews she had once called for, she felt  challenged as ever to finish writing her last sermon, she said.

She knew the words would come.