​

Reverend Jacqueline Thompson remembers the very first time she heard pastor James Alfred Smith Sr. give a sermon at Allen Temple Baptist Church. 

She was 12 years old and he was preaching from the Book of Matthew, chapter 28, verses 18 to 20, speaking about the meaning of discipleship and how Christians ought to live. 

“It was about faith in action,” Thompson, who is now the church’s senior pastor, told The Oaklandside. “It wasn’t just about belief, it wasn’t just about church attendance, but that to be a Christian meant you ought to be doing something to make the world better.” 

Just as Allen Temple is celebrating its 106th anniversary, it’s also grieving the loss of Smith, who died Sept. 19 at 94. Smith led Allen Temple for nearly 40 years, from 1971 until his retirement in 2009. During his tenure, he grew the church’s congregation, welcomed world leaders such as Desmond Tutu, wrote more than a dozen books, testified in front of the United Nations, held public office, and went on mission trips around the world. He also mentored generations of church leaders. 

He served as president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the denomination that was home to Martin Luther King Jr., and of American Baptist Churches of the West. He advocated for justice, whether it was supporting women’s leadership within the church, marching against violence in East Oakland, or calling for an end to apartheid in South Africa.  

“His phrase that he would say all the time was, ‘We were not called to sit in the rocking chair of lazy religion,’” Thompson said. 

In 2022, the Berkeley School of Theology created the J. Alfred Smith Sr. Endowed Chair of Theology in the Public Square in his honor, and in 2019 the city of Oakland renamed A Street between 85th and 86th avenues as J. Alfred Smith Sr. Way to commemorate his contributions to Oakland. 

On a church Facebook post announcing his death, hundreds of commenters wrote about his impact on their lives, extolling the ways in which he embodied the idea of faith through works.

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee told The Oaklandside that she has called Allen Temple her church home since the 1980s. “He was a warrior for peace and justice,” she said of Smith. 

Located at 8501 International Blvd., Allen Temple is the oldest Black church in East Oakland, according to church history. When Smith took the helm in 1971, the Black Panther Party was on the rise in Oakland, and he didn’t shy away from getting involved. He supported the Panthers’ free breakfast program and invited Bobby Seale to give a searing eulogy at an event the church hosted, a mock funeral for failed urban renewal projects in East Oakland. 

The city council “endeavored to go the second mile to alleviate the concerns of the hill people,” Smith was quoted as saying in a 1973 article about the event. “We in the flatland believe that the council has not even gone the first mile in being sensitive to our concerns.”

In the 1980s, the church acquired the Panthers’ former headquarters at 85th Avenue and International, where Allen Temple’s Family Life Center stands today. More than 2,000 people attended the funeral service for Huey Newton, the Panthers cofounder, held at the church in 1989, where Smith encouraged mourners to “get down in the trenches, roll up our sleeves and make this world a better place.” 

When Robert Shetterly, then the CEO of Clorox, was searching for a location for a youth development center in East Oakland, Smith helped him find one: a corner, not far from Allen Temple, where a gas station stood at 82nd Avenue and International. While the East Oakland Youth Development Center was under construction, Allen Temple hosted programming for the neighborhood kids. 

“People told me for years East Oakland was referred to as the killing fields — a killing corridor,” said Regina Jackson, who served as the youth center’s CEO for decades, from 1994 until 2021. “Senior pastor didn’t see it that way. He saw it as a hopeful and fertile ground if one were to create structures and foundations you could build on.” 

Smith understood the importance of ownership, especially in the neighborhood around the church, which was predominantly Black in those days, Jackson said. In 1979, his church broke ground for Allen Temple Arms, a senior housing community in East Oakland, one of multiple senior housing complexes the church built during Smith’s tenure. The church also went on to build housing for people living with HIV. Today, more than 200 people are housed in Allen Temple properties, according to Reginald Lyles, the church deacon and a member of the church since 1970.

“I had a home in the East Oakland Hills, and I would come down to Allen Temple to hear this one preacher who was, at that time, cutting edge, preaching liberation theology,” Lyles told The Oaklandside. “He was preaching that we had a right to equal access not just to accommodations, but to the pursuit of happiness, that we had a right to quality education, healthcare, food, and good housing.”

In August 1986, thousands of people lined up to watch the opulent funeral procession for an Oakland drug kingpin, Felix Mitchell, which sparked appalled headlines. Smith responded by organizing a “March for Righteousness,” where a far larger number — an estimated 12,000 people — walked from Allen Temple in East Oakland to City Hall downtown, protesting drugs and violence in the community. 

“There were Muslims, Latinos, Asians, we had people marching from West Oakland and North Oakland,” Lyles said. “We had a turnout that doubled their turnout from all over Oakland. It was an effort to say our community has honorable values.”

In the 1980s, Smith also got involved in the anti-apartheid movement. When South African bishop Desmond Tutu visited the Bay Area in 1985, while the United States was still engaged in a policy of “constructive engagement” with the apartheid regime, he made an appearance at Allen Temple. Mayor Barbara Lee was then a staffer for Rep. Ron Dellums, a leading opponent of apartheid in Congress.

“The committee had not even thought about bringing him to Oakland,” Lee recalled to The Oaklandside. “I said, ‘No, Bishop Tutu has to come to Oakland.’ I called Pastor Smith and he said, ‘Yeah, bring him to Allen Temple.’”

Thousands of people gathered in the sanctuary to hear Tutu speak. Four years later, in 1989, Smith testified in front of the United Nations against apartheid. 

“My mind is consumed with memories of Pastor Smith,” Mayor Lee told The Oaklandside. She  called him “a great theologian.”

“He knew what scripture to evoke with me personally and with everyone to help us understand whatever is taking place in the world or our community or in our lives,” she said. “I miss him a lot.”

Smith’s celebration of life will take place this Thursday and Friday. His body will lie in repose on Thursday Oct. 9 from 2 to 5 p.m. at Allen Temple. At 6 p.m., a service honoring Smith’s life will begin, which will be live-streamed on the church’s Facebook and YouTube pages. The funeral will take place Friday, Oct. 10 at 11 a.m. at Allen Temple. 

In lieu of flowers, the church asks that mourners donate to the Center for Truth, Racial Healing, and Restorative Justice at the Berkeley School of Theology in Smith’s honor.