About
Rev. Dr. Robert R. A. Turner
Preaching repair. Building it. Walking it.
Rev. Dr. Robert R. A. Turner is a pastor, author, and reparations leader who turns the call for repair into money raised, history protected, and laws pursued.
$1M raised in three months · $3M grant overseen · 3 reparations commissions · nearly 50 walks · 7 documentaries
Where it started. At the University of Alabama, he served as the first Black Executive Chief of Staff of the Student Government Association, chaired the student leadership of the Blackburn Institute, and was named the university’s 2004 Most Outstanding Male Student. He also pressed the university to face its past and its present. He spoke out in The New Republic for integrating the university’s segregated Greek system and challenged “the Machine,” its secret society. He organized a memorial for Jack Rudolph and William “Boysey” Brown, two enslaved men buried on campus, and called on the faculty to apologize, making the case on CNN’s NewsNight with Aaron Brown. That spring, the Faculty Senate apologized for the university’s role in slavery, believed to be among the first such apologies by an American university.
From Greenwood. At Historic Vernon AME in Tulsa, the last Black-owned structure standing in Greenwood after the 1921 Race Massacre, he raised $1 million in three months to restore the church that once sheltered people fleeing the violence. He renovated the building, restored its stained glass, and established a Prayer Wall for Racial Healing, bringing the church to national prominence. He led weekly reparations protests at City Hall and served on the Public Oversight Committee for the 1921 Graves Investigation.
Rev. Dr. Robert Richard Allen Turner
To the White House. He founded 40 Miles for 40 Acres, a campaign that began with 40 walks from Baltimore to the White House, many with stops at the Smithsonian to defend Black history. He has joined Rep. Kweisi Mfume, Rep. Jonathan Jackson, Bishop William J. Barber II, and other members of Congress to stop that history from being erased. The walks have since carried him to state capitols in nine states, nearly 50 walks in all, on the way to all fifty.
To the nation’s table. He serves on the National African American Reparations Commission, the Baltimore Reinvestment and Reparations Commission, and, by appointment of Governor Wes Moore, the Maryland Reparations Commission. He testified at a congressional shadow hearing on U.S.-Cuba policy. His book, Creating a Culture of Repair (Westminster John Knox, 2024), was a Foreword INDIES finalist.
Building institutions. With the Black Belt Community Foundation in Selma, Alabama, he oversaw a $3 million W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant for Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation. He also served as Chief Academic Officer of Jackson Theological Seminary and has worked with the Kettering Foundation, the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the Community Foundation of South Alabama, and the Alabama Education Association. In Baltimore, he led a prayer walk to all 150 city public schools in 15 days.
Around the world. His missionary service has taken him to Kenya and Egypt, and he served in Hurricane Katrina relief in New Orleans. In the Dominican Republic, he served with Compassion International, which he has also advised as a consultant. He has also traveled to Cuba on a humanitarian fact-finding mission.
In the media. He has appeared as himself in seven documentaries released for the massacre’s centennial:
Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre (History Channel)
Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street (CNN Films/HBO Max)
Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer (National Geographic/Hulu)
Tulsa 1921: An American Tragedy (CBS News)
Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten (PBS)
Greenwood: Here and Now
Betrayal of a Nation
On television, he has been interviewed by Andrea Mitchell, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Tiffany Cross on MSNBC, twice by T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach on ABC’s GMA3, by Roland Martin on #RolandMartinUnfiltered, by Dr. Benjamin Chavis on PBS’s The Chavis Chronicles, and by 60 Minutes, CNN, and the BBC.
In print, he has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Reuters, the Associated Press, and The New Republic, and has written for Newsweek. Regionally, he has been profiled by the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore Banner, the AFRO, the Washington Informer, and the Tulsa World, and appeared on every major Tulsa television station.
On radio and podcasts, he has joined Tavis Smiley on KBLA Talk 1580, Black with No Chaser, and hundreds of other shows nationwide.
In Baltimore. He is the Pastor of Empowerment Temple AME Church and President and Founder of Creating a Culture of Repair.
Book him to speak · Hire him to consult · Invite him to serve
Credentials. D.Min., United Theological Seminary · M.Div. with honors, ITC Turner Seminary · B.A. in Political Science, cum laude, University of Alabama Honors Program · Baltimore Sun, 25 Black Marylanders to Watch (2024) · Leadership Baltimore, Class of 2023 · Blackburn Institute Fellow of the Year (2021) · Tulsan of the Year (2019) · Board service: Associated Black Charities, Baltimore Children and Youth Fund, Baltimore Workforce Development · Lifetime member, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.
