Description:Seated black and white portrait of a man. He is wearing formal attire with a black coat, white shirt, and black bow tie. He has white hair and white beard.
Notes:Although born a slave in Jackson, Tennessee on March 2, 1834, Isaac Lane was permitted to learn how to read and write. In 1854 Lane was converted, joined Salem Methodist Church in Jackson, and received his "call to preach." Denied a license to preach on racial grounds, he was offered an exhorter's license and began public speaking. Lane was named a deacon in 1866 after the Civil War. In 1870 Lane helped form the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, now called the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (C.M.E.). He was named a bishop of the church in 1873. In 1882 Lane purchased land in Jackson on which he established one of the state's few secondary schools for African Americans. In 1896, with the expansion of its college department, the school became known as Lane College. Bishop Lane died December 6, 1937 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Jackson.
