News and Information
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322

Release date: February 24, 1999
Contact: Elaine Justice, Assistant Director

McDONALD SURPRISED BY CANDLER AWARD, GIVES SURPRISE IN RETURN

When the Rev. Timothy McDonald III, pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, came to the annual Heritage Banquet at Emory University's Candler School of Theology Feb. 12, he expected to help preside. When he picked up a program to learn what he would be doing, he saw his own picture above the word "honoree."

The Heritage Award from Candler was a surprise for McDonald, but he responded with his own surprise, revealing his vision of a millennium march of at least 100,000 people for racial acceptance.

McDonald was honored by the award from the Candler Black Student Caucus, a group he helped found on the Emory campus in 1976. Current caucus President Telley L. Gadson, a third-year United Methodist student from South Carolina, presented the award. She said McDonald had taken risks as a student, supported students after his 1978 graduation, and given diligent service to many others in Atlanta and beyond.

In accepting the award, McDonald said he was making his first public statement about his vision for a march on Saturday, Jan. 1, 2000. He said W.E.B. DuBois had predicted 100 years ago that "The problem of the 20th century will be the problem of the color line." McDonald called for an interracial, interfaith march to pledge that the 21st century will not be troubled likewise. The vision of a metrowide, possibly statewide march, is just beginning to turn into a plan, he said.

While a Candler student, McDonald also was pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Dalton, Ga. In 1978 he became full-time assistant pastor at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. In 1984 he founded First Iconium church. He has been executive director of Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta, a special assistant to former Mayor Maynard Jackson, and a program director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.