Marshall L. Shepard

Marshall Lorenzo Shepard, Sr. (July 10, 1899 – February 21, 1967) was an American Christian clergyman and politician. Affiliated with the Democratic Party, his political career was focused in the city of Philadelphia.

Born to an African American family in North Carolina, he came to Philadelphia to serve as pastor of Mount Olivet Tabernacle Baptist Church, a black Baptist congregation. He worked as pastor there for forty years and gained a national reputation as a preacher, rising to prominence within the denomination. Shepard also became involved in Democratic politics in Philadelphia. He was elected to three terms in the Pennsylvania General Assembly and three terms on the Philadelphia City Council, where he served until his death in 1967.

Shepard was born July 10, 1899, in Oxford, North Carolina, the son of Robert Shepard and Pattie Gilliam Shepard. Robert Shepard was born a slave and later became a Baptist minister and the superintendent of the Colored Orphanage Asylum of North Carolina. Pattie Shepard was also involved in charitable work and served as the head of the Women's Baptist Home Convention of North Carolina. Marshall Shepard followed his parents in joining the First Baptist Church of Oxford. He attended Slater State Normal School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, then received his Doctor of Divinity in 1921 from Virginia Union University, a historically black university in Richmond, Virginia.

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