George Alexander Sewell

Dr. George Alexander Sewell (October 12, 1910 – September 26, 1983) was a teacher, professor, university administrator, pastor, historian, and author who worked in Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi in the United States. He served as the dean of Turner Theological Seminary at Morris Brown College in Georgia, and as the dean of social sciences at Alcorn State University in Mississippi. In addition to his work as a teacher and college administrator, he was simultaneously a pastor, serving throughout his life as a minister and elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Dr. Sewell wrote newspaper columns for the Atlanta Daily World, and published two collections of sermons. In 1977, after retiring from Alcorn, he completed writing and published the still-in-print and highly regarded biographical dictionary Mississippi Black History Makers. He also wrote the major history of Morris Brown College, which was published shortly after his death in 1983.

Biography Sewell was born 1910 in Newnan, Georgia. He went to Booker T. Washington High School, graduating in 1930, He earned a Ph.D. from Boston University in 1957. He later worked as college minister at Morris Brown, LeMoyne College in Memphis, and Arkansas State College at Pine Bluff. Over his career he held the pastorate at St. Andrew's Methodist in Worcester, Massachusetts; Trinity A.M.E. in Atlanta; Gaines Chapel A.M.E. in Waycross, Georgia, and Steward Chapel A.M.E. in Macon.

In 1961 Dr. Sewell was appointed dean of social sciences and became a professor at Alcorn State University, a historically black college or university (HBCU) in Mississippi. He taught there for 13 years. the Vicksburg Community Council, the Human Relations Council, the Advisory Board of the Vicksburg Housing Authority, and was a member of the Warren County Ministerial Association.

While resident in Mississippi, Sewell started researching notable Black people of Mississippi in libraries at Tougaloo College and Louisiana State University, as well as by making visits to sources in Holly Springs, Greenville, Yazoo City, et al. Sewell conducted interviews throughout the state, and then edited and rewrote the resulting accounts with support from a "federal research training grant." According to Margaret Dwight, who wrote the preface to the revised second edition of Mississippi Black History Makers, "Dr. Sewell began the project in the early 1970s when he was a distinguished professor of sociology at Alcorn State University." Longtime Memphis Commercial-Appeal history columnist Paul R. Coppock wrote that "Each public school and each library in Memphis and Mississippi ought to have a copy" of Mississippi Black History Makers. Sewell also wrote magazine articles, published collected sermons, and spent his last years researching and writing a history of Morris Brown. The funeral was held at Flipper Temple AME Church in Atlanta. Rev. ed. (1984) sponsored by Alcorn State, revised edition co-edited with Margaret L. Dwight, published by the University of Mississippi Morris Brown College: The First 100 Years A Motif for Living (1963) Where Are You Going? (1983)