Governor Martin O’Malley has appointed the Rev. Dr. Sheridan Todd Yeary, senior pastor at Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore, to fill a vacancy on the BCCC Board of Trustees. Dr. Yeary is formerly associate director of the Center for Black Studies at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois.
A third-generation preacher and pastor, Dr. Yeary is the fifth pastor in Douglas Memorial’s 88-year history. He is a sought-after speaker on a variety of public policy and leadership topics, having presented at the Faith Leaders Roundtable of the Congressional Black Caucus (2011, 2012); the Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture Series on Racial Reconciliation, Hamline University (2003-2004); the Brown v. Board of Education Summit, College of DuPage (2005); and the African American Family Summit, University of Nebraska at Lincoln (2002-2006). Dr. Yeary’s presentation on the role of religion in promoting diversity, at the spring 2006 Oxford Round Table of the University of Oxford, England, was later published in the Oxford Round Table’s Forum on Public Policy journal.
Dr. Yeary holds a Doctor of Philosophy Degree (Ph.D.) in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University and a Master of Divinity Degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, located on the Northwestern campus. He earned a graduate certificate in African Studies from Northwestern and a bachelor’s degree in management from National Louis University.
Dr. Yeary is an involved mentor of youth and young adults as well as community activist. He serves on the boards of the Center for School Mental Health (CSMH) of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Baltimore Mental Health Systems, Inc. He is also a member of the Advisory Board to the University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs.
Dr. Yeary is in the process of writing two books, “The Black Church and HIV/AIDS,” and “Protecting Blackness: Faith, Pilgrimage and the Resilience of the African American Self.” He is married to the Rev. Rhonda S. Boozer-Yeary and is the father of three children.