Rev. Dr. Robert Jeffrey served nine years as Senior Pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Roanoke, VA before relocating to Seattle in 1986 to become the Senior Pastor of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, where he still serves as of 2019. Throughout his career, Jeffrey has advocated for those locked out of economic opportunity. In 1988, Jeffrey founded the Black Dollar Days Task Force (BDDTF), a non-profit organization committed to facilitating economic self-sufficiency for African Americans. In early 1994, Jeffrey launched "Campaign 5000," a grassroots drive to establish a revolving loan fund to benefit new and expanding inner-city businesses. As of 2019, Jeffrey also serves on the boards of the Boys and Girls Club of Seattle, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, and Washington State SANE/Freeze. He has received numerous awards including the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Service Award and the W.E.B. Dubois Talented Tenth Award.
In this photo, Rev. Robert Jeffrey speaks into a microphone at the funeral service for Erdman "Eddie" Bascomb, who was shot and killed by a Seattle Police officer on February 17 during a drug raid on Bascomb's Rainier Valley apartment. Officer Robert Lisoski believed Bascomb was holding a weapon, but moments later realized the black object in Bascomb's hand was a television remote control. The raid found no drugs in the apartment.
Caption information source: New Hope Missionary Baptist Church website at https://nhmbcseattle.org/about/dr-jeffrey Caption information source: "Seattle Police Cleared In Raid That Killed Man," by Thomas W. Haines. Seattle Times, November 16, 1995, retrieved at http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19951116&slug=2152932 Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.
