Byron Gunner

Rev. Byron Gunner (1857–1922) was an American minister, educator, newspaper publisher, and civil rights activist. He was one of the seventeen African-American founders of the Niagara Movement, representing Rhode Island.

Early life and education Byron Gunner was born on July 4, 1857, in Marion, Alabama, to parents Caroline (née Jackson) and Joseph Gunner, a carpenter. Gunner was educated in American Missionary Association schools in Marion.

He graduated in 1880 in theology from Talladega College, a private historically black college. In , the St. Paul Congregational Church under the leadership of Gunner supported the founding of the Howe Institute, an African-American private Baptist primary and grammar school in New Iberia. He was outspoken about the effects of "race problems" while living in New Iberia; and according to Booker T. Washington, Gunner had heard that a white mob was coming for him so he abruptly left the city.

In 1890, Gunner moved to serve as pastor at the newly opened First Congregational Church in Lexington, Kentucky. In 1893, he married Cicely Savery, the daughter of William Savery, one of the three founders of Talladega College. Gunner proposed legislation and lectured across the state against the law. During this time in Rhode Island, Gunner became acquainted with W. E. B. Du Bois and with William Monroe Trotter; he remained in contact with both men until his death. At the time of his death, his wife was at her mother's funeral.