The late Rev. Raymond Lee Burgess was the first black to be elected to Summit County Council and served from 1980 to 1984. He was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, received a bachelor’s degree from Wilberforce University, a bachelor of divinity degree from Payne Theological Seminary and a doctor of ministries degree from Lutheran Theological Seminary in Columbus.

Pastor Burgess was ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1966 and pastored his first church in Cleveland in 1970. He came to Akron in 1976 to serve as pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church, until the founding of his own congregation at St. James United Church of Christ.

Pastor Burgess worked tirelessly for the downtrodden of Akron and Summit County. He was a past president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, West Side Neighbors and co-chaired the 1984 presidential campaign of the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Pastor Raymond Lee Burgess succumbed to cancer on Sunday, December 31, 2000.

REV. RAYMOND LEE BURGESS
THE FIRST BLACK SUMMIT COUNTY COUNCILMAN