The Rev. Paul McDaniel delivers a sermon at Second Missionary Baptist Church ion Feb. 9. McDaniel plans to retire June 30.AT A GLANCEA brief time line of the Rev. Paul McDaniel’s service in Chattanooga:1966: Started as pastor of Second Missionary Baptist Church.1969: Founded the Unity Group with other black leaders. The group helped to get John P. Franklin elected as the first black city commissioner in 1971. He later became vice mayor of the city.Early 1970s: Became the first black minister to serve as president of the Clergy Association of Greater Chattanooga.1977: Won a U.S. Supreme Court case enabling him to be a member of the 1977 Tennessee Constitutional Convention that established the county commission form of government. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that Tennessee could not prohibit members of the clergy from holding office.1978: Served as a commissioner from the Hamilton County Commission’s formation in 1978 to 1998, when he retired. He was chairman five times.2000: Worked with other churches and ministers to open the Church Koinonia Credit Union, a credit union made up of mostly black churches where black people were overseeing loans given in the community. The credit union merged in good standing with the Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union in 2013.2014: Expected to retire as pastor of Second Missionary Baptist Church.
At 11 a.m. the deacons walked into the sanctuary singing an old gospel hymn in perfect harmony. No music.
Then the piano player started on the keys. Older women wearing hats walked toward the front to take their seats in the large sanctuary that was barely filling. The smell of eggs and bacon wafted from the cafeteria.
Then right after the offering was being taken up, after the children sang, the reverend, in his long black robe striped with African colors, walked from a side of the room to the pulpit.
For 48 years the Rev. Paul A. McDaniel has spoken his mind and the word of the Lord from this wooden pulpit. At the mostly black Second Missionary Baptist Church in East Chattanooga’s Churchville community, he has plunged generations of new believers in baptism, prayed for the sick, called for benevolence and buried old friends and boys too young to die.