T. J. Jemison
American clergyman and civil rights activist (1918–2013)
Theodore Judson Jemison (August 1, 1918 – November 15, 2013), better known as T. J. Jemison, was minister of Mount Zion First Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in June 1953 when he led a bus boycott to protest the city's segregated public transit. It was the first boycott of its kind in the modern civil rights movement. He quickly organized a free-ride system to offer car transportation to the city's black residents while the boycott was in effect. This system was studied by Martin Luther King Jr. and served as a model two years later during the Montgomery bus boycott.
In 1957, Jemison was one of the founding members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From 1982 to 1994, he served as president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, which was the nation's largest African-American religious organization.
Background
Theodore Judson Jemison was born in August 1918 in Selma, Alabama. He was the youngest of six children of Henrietta and David V. Hemison. Theodore came from a family of prominent ministers and strong churchgoing women.
“T. J. Jemison” enters the record as american clergyman and civil rights activist (1918–2013). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jemison, American and clergyman can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“T. J. Jemison” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Jemison, American and clergyman provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7668353. VIAF identifies the subject as 77728957. The Library of Congress control number is n84217671. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 2013, 1953 and 1957.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “T. J. Jemison”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow T. J. Jemison primary sources, T. J. Jemison archive and Jemison research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “T. J. Jemison”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “T. J. Jemison” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.