Hopkinsville man named associate pastor at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta

A Hopkinsville man has been named an associate pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. preached.

The Rev. Donavan Pinner, who recently graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary with the Master of Divinity, will serve as the associate pastor for children and youth at Ebenezer. Pinner studied philosophy and religion at Morehouse College in Atlanta before enrolling at Princeton.

Pinner was an associate minister at Virginia Street Baptist Church from 2013 to 2022. After earning his degree at Morehouse College, he was a special education teacher for one year in Christian County Public Schools.

Ebenezer Baptist was founded in 1886. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became a co-pastor of Ebenezer with his father in 1960. He remained with the church until his assassination on April 4, 1968, outside a Memphis motel. King’s funeral was at Ebenezer.

The Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, a U.S. senator who became Ebenezer’s senior pastor in 2005, announced Pinner’s selection to serve at the Atlanta church in June. He shared with the church a brief video of Pinner in Hopkinsville.

Ebenezer Baptist today has 6,000 congregants, according to its website.