Reverend Edgar L. Huff

Established in 1906, St. John African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church was “the first established, ongoing African American church in Niagara Falls,” New York. It’s possible that early church members escaped from slavery in the South. Several of its pastors were prominent leaders not only in their church, but also in the local Black community. Reverend Edgar L. Huff was one such leader.

A native of Columbus, Georgia, Huff attended AME-founded Morris Brown College in Atlanta. He was appointed pastor of St. John’s in 1951. He and his wife, Anna, and daughter, Doris, “saw the church experience epic growth” in those early years. After a successful fundraising campaign in 1962, Huff led his congregation in a procession from the old church on 13th Street to a newly built church on Garden Avenue. 

This location was very significant. The new church was in the Highland Avenue community, a historically Black neighborhood in Niagara Falls. Also, the house that used to stand there was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Freedom seekers would hide in a cave beneath the house, resting until they could safely continue their journey to freedom in Canada.

To support the civil rights movement, Huff organized several events at St. John’s. In the summer of 1963, the church was the site of an NAACP rally against housing discrimination in the city. Huff was a member of the Niagara Falls Housing Authority and president of the local chapter of the NAACP.

Later that summer, he organized a farewell program for a delegation of 32 locals who were attending the March on Washington the next day. The marchers and their loved ones, as well as other local Black pastors, gathered at St. John’s before a chartered bus departed for Washington, D.C. 

In 1965, St. John’s was headquarters for the collection of charitable donations to aid the victims of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. One week later, “Huff doggedly organized a local protest march that attracted over four hundred multiracial participants.” Once again, he led the marchers in a procession towards City Hall where they held a rally.

Rev. Huff served his church, and the Black community in Niagara Falls, from 1951 until his death in 1980. He was a community leader, activist, and local history maker. After Huff’s death, the fellowship hall at St. John’s was rededicated in his name as was a bridge in the Highland Avenue neighborhood.

Hope L. Russell, Ph.D.