Rev. Teresa L. Fry Brown, PhD, is the Bandy Professor of Preaching (2015-present) at

Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Additionally, she served

as the fourteenth Historiographer, the editor of the A.M.E. Review, Executive Director of

Research and Scholarship (2012-2024), and President of the General Officers’ Council of the

African Methodist Episcopal Church (2021-2024). Dr. Fry Brown was Associate Dean of

Academic Affairs (2022-2026) and Director of Black Church Studies at Candler (2007-2015).

Dr. Fry Brown obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in Religious and Theological Studies from the

Iliff School of Theology and the University of Denver, with an emphasis in Religion and Social

Transformation (1996). She earned a Juris Master's from Emory University School of Law

(2025), a Master of Divinity from Iliff School of Theology (1988), a Master of Science degree

(1975), and a Bachelor of Science degree (1973) in Speech Pathology and Audiology from the

University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri.

Dr. Fry Brown has extensive teaching and preaching experience in national, international

academic, and ecumenical settings. A prolific author, Dr. Fry Brown’s books include

Delivering the Sermon: Voice, Body and Animation in Proclamation, Fortress Press (2008);

Can A Sister Get a Little Help: Advice and Encouragement for Black Women in Ministry,

Pilgrim Press (2008); God Don’t Like Ugly: African American Women Handing on Spiritual

Values Abingdon Press (2000); Weary Throats and New Song: Black Women Proclaiming

God’s Word Abingdon Press (2003) and the African American History Devotional, Abingdon

Press (2006). Additionally, she has published sixty other reviews, chapters, and commentaries.

Dr. Fry Brown is a member of the American Academy of Religion (Steering Committee of

Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Group 2018-2026), Society for the Study of

Black Religion, and the Academy of Homiletics First Vice President (2021-2022; President,

December 2022-2023). She has been honored for her academic achievements, preaching and

activism at the Seminary of the Southwest McDonald Teaching Award (2026), RISE

Mentorship Trailblazer Award (2026), the Eighteenth Annual Black Religious Scholar Group

Consultation at the American Academy of Religion (2015), Emory-Williams Distinguished

Teaching Award (2017), Martin Luther King, Jr Collegium of Scholars (2018), Samuel Dewitt

Proctor Beautiful Are the Feet Award (2020), and Turner Theological Seminary Lifetime

Achievement Award (2021). She was honored as the first womanist scholar to receive a portrait

in the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. International Chale Halll of Fame in 2026.

An ordained Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church she is the Scholar in

Residence at New Bethel A.M.E. Church, Lithonia, Georgia.

A native of Independence, Missouri, Dr. Fry Brown is the second oldest of seven children of

(late) William M. Fry Sr. and (late) Naomi Parks Fry. She is the mother of Veronica Perry,

PhD, and proud “Fab G” to Jonathan David Perry. She is a member of the Delta Sigma Theta

Sorority, Inc.

Dr. Fry Brown’s life is governed by the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “Those whose hope is in

the Lord gain new strength,” and Zora Neale Hurston, “There are years that ask questions and

years that answer.”