Dr. A. Knighton Stanley A. Knighton Stanley has served as Senior Minister of Peoples Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC since 1968. He is a graduate of Talladega College and holds a Master's Degree from Yale University and a Doctorate from Howard University. Before coming to Washington, he served as Associate Pastor of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Detroit, Michigan.

Upon graduation from Yale University in 1962, he became Director of the Southern Christian Fellowship Foundation at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University, and in 1964 he joined the faculty and administration of Bennett College. In both of these positions he was active in the 1963 phase of the Greensboro, North Carolina Civil Rights Movement. He served as advisor to the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality and was appointed to the Human Rights Commission of the City of Greensboro.

Dr. Stanley has distinguished himself in many capacities in the District of Columbia. During the Bicentennial era, he served as Executive Director of the Office of Bicentennial Programs of the Nation's Capital and Special Assistant to Walter E. Washington, then Mayor of the District of Columbia. He served as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of the District of Columbia. He is presently a member of the Advisory Board of Industrial Bank of Washington, and serves on the Judiciary Nominating Committee for the Superior Court and the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. He is the founder and General Secretary of the Petworth Assembly and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Interfaith Alliance. He is Founding President of the Faith Based Community Action Partnership, an organization that, in conjunction with the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, addresses the needs of youth.

He has served his Denomination in numerous capacities: He was a member of the Committee on Theological Education; a member of the Council for Christian Social Action; President of Ministers for Racial and Social Justice; a member of the Board of the Office of Communications. Most recently he served as a member of the New Century Hymnal Committee; a member of the Nominating Committee of the General Synod; a member of the Large Gifts Committee of the Denomination's Capital Funds Campaign; and presently serves as a consultant for the revision of the Book of Worship for the United Church of Christ. He served on the Church in Ministry Committee of the Potomac Association and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Atlantic Conference of the United Church of Christ.

Dr. Stanley was Chair of the Board of Ministers' Life Insurance Company, which is now a part of Minnesota Life. He was founding President of the Collaboration of African American Men and Boys, a program of the Kellogg Foundation. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Yale University Divinity School.Dr. Stanley is the writer of many articles, former publisher of "The New American Missionary," and the author of The Children is Crying.

He has traveled extensively in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East. He is the father of three children: Nathaniel Taylor Stanley, a graduate of Morehouse College, who lives and works in the District of Columbia; Kathryn Velma Stanley, a graduate of Spelman College and the University of Virginia School of Law, and an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia; and Taylor Marie Stanley a successful and enthusiastic tenth grade student at Holton-Arms School for Girls in Bethesda, Maryland. He is married to Andrea I. Young, an attorney who is a Vice President of the National Black Child Development Institute and author of the book, Life Lessons My Mother Taught Me, Putnam & Sons, 2000.