Joan Brown Campbell

Life and career Campbell was born in 1931 in Youngstown, Ohio. She attended the University of Michigan, where she first earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Speech. Campbell then completed a Master of Arts in education in 1953, and obtained a teacher's license. She married Paul Campbell Sr., a lawyer.

After raising her children, Campbell worked as the pastor at Cleveland's Euclid Baptist Church. In the 1960s, she invited King to speak at her congregation, a controversial invitation at the time. In the 1970s, she became the first woman to work as the assistant director of the Greater Cleveland Interchurch Council.

Campbell was ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the American Baptist denominations in 1980. Several years later, she became the executive director of the World Council of Churches' US office; she was the first woman to hold this post.

Campbell donated a collection of her papers to the Archives of Women in Theological Scholarship collection at the Burke Library, in New York.

Awards Campbell was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame, In 2010, Campbell was awarded the Walter Cronkite Faith and Freedom Award by the Interfaith Alliance.