A cosmopolitan clergyman with more than twenty years in Christian ministry, the Reverend Don Darius Butler finds vocation in pastoral ministry, justice activism, and child advocacy. He holds a baccalaureate summa cum laude from American Baptist College; a divinity degree with honors from Vanderbilt University, where he was a Kelly Miller Smith Scholar and recipient of the Saint James Academy Award for preaching; and a doctorate from Duke University. He obtained Clinical Pastoral Education certification at Norton Healthcare in Louisville, Kentucky.
Reverend Butler led Tabernacle Community Baptist Church of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in vibrant ministries of social impact. The congregation hosted a gun buyback, which took more than 300 weapons off the streets; and opened its doors to the city to lament and address the epidemic of gun violence. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he elevated the community conversation to a national dialogue when he hosted a town hall forum with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton along with mothers whose children were murdered by gun violence. His pastorate at First Missionary Baptist Church of Huntsville, Alabama, continued a leadership tradition of philanthropy in local and global missions as well as in education. He prioritized the flourishing of children and youth in congregational life; led congregation in constructing theologies of child wellbeing; and worked for racial justice in north Alabama.
In his public leadership, Reverend Butler chairs the Board of Directors of the Children’s Defense Fund; serves as a board member of So Send I You, an African American global missions initiative; and has served as chairman of the Board of Trustees at his alma mater, American Baptist College. He serves as a Public Safety Chaplain for the Huntsville Police Department and was a chaplain for the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office. Inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers in 2016, Reverend Butler is also a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. College of Pastoral Leadership at Morehouse College. He is published in The African American Pulpit; The African American Lectionary; and Walk Together Children: Black and Womanist Theologies, Church, and Theological Education; and has led missions ministries in Haiti, Malawi, and South Africa.
Born in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Reverend Butler’s religious formation was influenced by Pentecostalism, African Methodism, and Anglicanism. He professed his hope in Christ and received baptism at the Mission Baptist Church of Nassau, where he tested his vocation and was licensed and ordained. A member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, the 100 Black Men of Greater Huntsville, and Huntsville’s Committee of 100, Reverend Butler is married to Attorney La Keisha Wright Butler, an alumna of Vanderbilt University Law School and New York University Law School. They are parents of a daughter, Dahlia Marie, and a son, Don Darius Jr.