William Talbot Handy

William Talbot Handy, Sr. (May 20, 1894 – February 1, 1983) was an American Methodist minister and civil rights activist. He served as the district superintendent of the New Orleans District and as the superintendent of the Gulfside Assembly of the United Methodist Church. He was one of the organizers of the New Orleans Urban League and served as the first president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. He was a member of the 1939 Uniting Conference, when the Methodist Protestant Church, Southern Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church united to form the Methodist Church.

Early life and family Handy was born on May 20, 1894, in Copiah County, Mississippi as the eighth child of Emanuel Handy and Florence Geneva Handy. He was a great-grandson of the Mississippi Supreme Court justice and slaveowner Ephraim G. Peyton and of the American Civil War veteran and Mississippi state legislator Emanuel Handy. He grew up at Handy Heights, a farm in Hazlehurst, Mississippi that was given to his mother by her grandfather, Ephraim G. Peyton. They had four children: William Talbot Handy, Frances Geneva Handy, Ephriam Adair Handy, and Dorothy Antoinette Handy.

Handy died on February 1, 1983. His funeral was held on February 4, 1983, at Mount Zion United Methodist Church in New Orleans. The eulogy was delivered by Bishop J. Kenneth Shamblin.