Living Word Cathedral - Humphrey to headline Black History program

Living Word Cathedral Church of God in Christ in Osceola will hold a Black History Program Feb. 16 at 2 p.m.

The guest speaker will be Marion A. Humphrey, Sr., the pastor of Allison Memorial Presbyterian Church in Little Rock. He is a retired circuit court judge for Pulaski and Perry counties. He, also, retired as a Little Rock Municipal Court judge.

Humphrey attended public schools in Pine Bluff, Ark., and is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton, University, Princeton, New Jersey; a master of divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and a juris doctor degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law, Fayetteville, Ark.

Humphrey was elected to the position of circuit judge in 1992, and served from Jan. 1, 1993, until Dec. 31, 2010. He was a Little Rock municipal judge from 1989 to 1992. Prior to serving as municipal judge, Humphrey was in private practice in Little Rock and Pine Bluff. He also served as a Little Rock Assistant City Attorney, an Arkansas Assistant Attorney General, the Arkansas State Director for Prison Fellowship, and an associate minister of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Roxbury (Boston), Massachusetts. He was a newspaper reporter and copy editor for the Pine Bluff Commercial. He served as a research assistant in the office of former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm of New York, U. S. House of Representatives, Washington, D. C., and as an intern in the office of former Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, U. S. Senate, Washington, D. C.

Humphrey is a member of the Arkansas Judicial Council, the Arkansas Bar Association, the Pulaski County Bar Association, the National Bar Association (life), and the W. Harold Flowers Law Society. Formerly, he served on boards at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the Vera Lloyd Presbyterian Home and Family Services in Monticello, Lyon College at Batesville and Interdenominational Theological Center and Johnson C. Smith Seminary, both in Atlanta. He is a member and former president of the Christian Ministerial Alliance and is a life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He formerly served as chaplain of the Judicial Council of the National Bar Association and as a member of the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Criminal Practice.

Humphrey is a recipient of the Paul Harris Fellow of International Rotary.

Humphrey is married to the former Vernita Gloria Thomas of Tollette, Ark. They have one son, Marion Andrew Humphrey, Jr. He and his son are law partners at Humphrey & Humphrey Law in Little Rock.