Leontine T. C. Kelly Born March 5, 1920 in Washington, D.C.
First African American female Bishop in the United Methodist
Church A highly respected religious leader and pioneer, Leontine
Turpeau Current Kelly was the first African American woman to be
elected bishop by any major denomination in the world. Elected
in 1984 by the Western Jurisdictional Conference of the United
Methodist Church, she served as bishop of the California-Nevada
Annual Conference and as president of the Western Jurisdiction
College of Bishops. Bishop Kelly’s preaching missions included
the European Theater for the United States Chaplaincy in 1975;
Germany, Italy and Sicily in 1992, and Japan in 1993. She was
also speaker for the World Methodist Council, Nairobi, Kenya, in
1997. Leontine Kelly was born in the parsonage of Mount Zion
United Methodist Church in the Georgetown section of Washington,
D.C. on March 5, 1920. Her family settled in Cincinnati, Ohio
when Kelly was 10 years old. The daughter, sister, and widow of
Methodist minis