Beyond the Yard- Hilltop Highlights

By Kelvin Childs

Rev. Alexis Faith Brown (B.A. ’06), pastor of McKendree-Simms-Brookland United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., grew up in Baltimore surrounded by Bison Pride. Her mother, Rev. Kay Albury (B.A. ’72) is a Howard graduate and her late father, Anderson Smith Jr., nudged her in that direction.

“I was always told, Number One, I was going to college,” Brown said. “And my father was the one who said that I needed to go to a HBCU for undergrad and go to a predominantly white institution for graduate school,” Brown said.

Further, several of her teachers and counselors at Baltimore City College – a magnet high school with a focus on college preparation – had attended Howard and other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). “And they weren't just very, very proud of where they learned and what they were taught; there was an affirmation there,” Brown said.

“I think also culture influenced me. Of course, I came up in the era with ‘A Different World’ and just celebrating in an era where being brown, or Black, was okay and affirmed. And I think we started to see ourselves in the arts, more mainstream. Not that it wasn’t always there, but it was. It was just a time to affirm who we are and who we were. And HBCUs offered that.”

All around her, people exuded the prestige of Howard. “Whenever people said, ‘I went to Howard,’ it was just a confidence that people held, and they knew who they were. It wasn’t anything to prove. It was, ‘Yes, I went to this school,’ and they were very proud of it. And so, I just decided, let me apply.”

Brown majored in broadcast journalism in the School of Communications and minored in theater arts, but she learned so much more: how to be a self-starter and a problem-solver.

“And I will tell you, the professor who did it was, God rest his soul, Reggie Ray. At the time, I was a musical theater major. And he coordinated his class, like the art, and he wasn’t going to tell us how to do things; we had to figure it out.” One exercise was to “completely demolish the costume room,” Brown said. “And we would have to figure out how to get it in order. And we were just freshmen; we had no idea.

“He said, ‘You’re not going to be a robot. No one’s going to tell you; no one’s going to hold your hand. There are things that you’re going to have to navigate and learn on your own,’” Brown said.

Her call to ministry came around 2009, Brown said, although she initially planned for a career in broadcast journalism and prepared to produce and host her own talk show.

“I wanted to be in journalism. I was curious. I like to ask questions. And I knew that the Lord had called me a long time ago, but that wasn’t my plan for my life. That was not my plan. That was God’s plan,” she said. Brown earned her master’s of divinity degree at Wesley Theological Seminary in 2015.

In 2022, Brown became the first woman and Black woman senior pastor at McKendree-Simms-Brookland United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., which formed after the UMC itself was established in 1968. “The bishops had this great idea to merge churches to make them to make them look like what heaven will look like, you know; it’s going to be all different colors, races, creeds. And that was the beginning of that. And so, you have the McKendree, which is the historically white congregation, you have the Simms, the Brookland, and there’s another church that is not named. And they all came together. Of course, the history is many of the white folks left and the Black people stayed,” Brown said.

McKendree UMC today is a missional church that traditionally offered community services such as Wednesday breakfast and feeding programs. Brown said. But her challenges as its pastor include constant repairs on an aging sanctuary. Consequently, its kitchen is closed because of water damage, and it struggles to provide ministry in other ways. Still, McKendree offers Sunday services in person and online.

Before her appointment to McKendree UMC, Brown served as the United Methodist pastor at Howard University for six years, from 2016 to 2022. Regarding her return to Howard’s campus as an adult, “I think one of the things that was beneficial is that I could definitely relate to just the unique culture on college, you know, that Howard offers, and many of the things are still the same. And yet, things have changed. So, I was able to connect with students in a way that -- I just wanted to offer what I needed [when I was a student],” she said.

“That was just a place where I didn’t have to prove anything. I didn’t have to work toward a grade, I didn’t have to work toward a career; I could just be myself. And that was my niche, I guess, just a place of grace, a place of God’s abundant grace, that students could just be themselves.”