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JERRY WINDSOR
Special to Florida Baptist Witness
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Louise Cecilia “Lulu” Fleming, M. D. (1862-1899) was the first Baptist female missionary from Florida. She was appointed in May, 1886, to serve in the Congo. She was one of the most remarkable women to ever represent Baptists and the state of Florida.
Louise Fleming was born January 28, 1862 in Hibernia, Clay County, Florida. Her mother was a slave and was owned by a white family in the farming business near Green Cove Springs. They attended the nearest Baptist Church for them at that time which was the Bethel Baptist Church of Jacksonville. This church was begun in 1848 with a membership of eleven whites and 148 slaves. In 1859 the church was composed of 40 whites and 250 slaves in the membership. After the Civil War the church divided and Bethel became the Bethel Baptist Institutional Church. Louise grew up as a part of this church and became educated enough to become a teacher herself. She taught in Florida and by 1880 was teaching in North Carolina.
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Louise became familiar with Shaw University which was begun in 1865 and was located in Raleigh, N.C. The school was begun by the American Baptist Home Mission Society for the education of free men and women in the South. She attended Shaw and graduated in 1885. Louise was active in a local Baptist church and volunteered for foreign mission service in the Congo. She was appointed by the Women’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Service and was their first woman African-American missionary appointed and their first missionary to the Congo (later Zaire).
There was a great need for medical assistance in the Congo and Louise studied medicine at the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She graduated with a medical degree in 1895 and returned to the Congo mission field. While serving in this second term of foreign mission service Louise became ill with African Sleeping Sickness and returned to the United States for recuperation but tragically died on June 20, 1899, at Philadelphia.
Dr. Louise (Lulu) Cecilia Fleming is considered a heroine among American Baptists. She was supported financially primarily by the women and children of the American Baptist Convention. At a time when the South was destitute the American Baptist Home Mission Society began 26 institutions in the South to train freed slaves and their children. Shaw University is the oldest historically black college of the South and is today a private, coeducational program affiliated with the Baptist Church. They had an educational program called the “talented tenth” program. They sought to train one out of ten who needed an education and only asked that as the “tenth” they would teach and train others.
Louise Fleming gave her life for Christ in service to others. She overcame tremendous obstacles in society, training, culture and religion to become the first Baptist female foreign missionary from Florida.
Jerry Windsor is executive secretary of the Florida Baptist Historical Society and retired professor of preaching at The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville.