Answer:
William Henry Sheppard should be remembered because he was the first African American missionary for the Presbyterian Church.
William Henry Sheppard was born as the son of hairdresser William Henry Sheppard the Elder and Fannie Frances Sheppard, who were released from slavery a month before the end of the Civil War. At the age of twelve, William Junior was stabled for two years with a white family. He then worked as a waiter and, in the evening, went through the recently founded Hampton Institute, where Booker T. Washington was one of his teachers. After graduating there, he studied at the Tuscaloosa Theological Institute (now Stillman College) in Alabama. He was ordained a priest in 1888 and became a pastor of a church in Atlanta, Georgia.
Sheppard came to Congo in about 1890. He spent 20 years in Africa, especially in the Congo Free State, and he is best known for publishing material on the Belgian genocide during the Leopold II regime against the Congolese.
In 1891, Sheppard began to work with Presbyterian missionary William McCutchan Morrison. They reported crimes they saw and later founded the Congo Reform Association together with Roger Casement, one of the first humanitarian organizations in the world. After becoming acquainted with language and culture, Sheppard brought with him a group of men across the border to the Kuba Kingdom in 1892, where he was arrested by Prince N'toinzide for illegal presence. However, King Kot aMweeky took him under his protection and Sheppard was able to collect artifacts and eventually be allowed to later establish a Presbyterian mission.
In January 1908, Sheppard published a report of colonial abuse in the American Presbyterian Congo Mission magazine. Sheppard's activities contributed to the contemporary debate on European colonialism and imperialism in Africa.
