Deaconess Anna Ellison Butler Alexander (1865-1947) was born to recently emancipated slaves on St. Simons Island, Georgia. She became the only African American set aside in the order of deaconess in The Episcopal Church.

In 1998, Bishop Henry Louttit, Jr. named her a Saint of Georgia by the Diocese of Georgia with a feast day of September 24.

In 2011 and 2014, the Diocese of Georgia passed resolutions calling on the General Convention of The Episcopal Church to recognize her feast day through inclusion in its Holy Women, Holy Men. The General Convention moved the feast to study by the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music in 2012 and then approved her feast be added to A Great Cloud of Witnesses (the successor to Holy Women, Holy Men) at its 2015 meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music voted to recommend that the Episcopal Church add Deaconess Alexander to Lesser Feasts and Fasts (Major Feasts are those like Christmas and Easter). A vote on that larger recognition for this Saint of Georgia will come during the General Convention meeting in Austin, Texas, July 5-13, 2018.

Social Reformer, Religious Leader. Anna E.B. Alexander, a descendant of slaves from the Butler family plantations in Pennsylvania and St. Simons Island, Georgia., grew up in an area called Pennick, a rural location, just north of Brunswick, Georgia. She established an Episcopal church in 1894 and a local parochial school in 1902, for the children in that locale. She taught both the negro and white children in and around that area. She was the first black woman ordained as a Deaconess in the national Episcopal Church, in 1907, and considered a Saint in later years, by the Episcopal Church.

Birth-- 1865
Saint Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia, USA

Death-- September 24, 1947 (aged 81–82)
Pennick, Glynn County, Georgia, USA

Burial--  Good Shepherd's Church Grounds
Pennick, Glynn County, Georgia, USA 

Resources

Georgia Episcopal.org

Anglican News.org

Living Church.org

St. Anna's Episcopal Church