The winners of the 2024 PBS Kids Writers Contest at WVPB have been announced!
Nominate an exceptional West Virginia teacher today!
On Demand
On Demand
Watch locally produced documentaries & more.
On Demand
On Demand
West Virginia Morning
Inside Appalachia
West Virginia Week
Mountain Stage
Us & Them
The Legislature Today
Send us your comments and questions.
Stream our board meetings.
Come and meet us!
Check out the latest WVPB news.
Meet the WVPB staff.
WV Educational Broadcasting Authority, the WVPB Foundation, and the Friends of WVPB.
Come work with us!
Sign up for our newsletter and get weekly updates.
Sponsor impactful and engaging media and entertainment.
Use your IRA to make a gift to WVPB.
Become a member with your gift of $1,000 or more.
Bishop Matthew Wesley Clair Sr. died in Covington, Kentucky, on June 28, 1943, at age 77. He was born in Monroe County to former slaves just months after the Civil War ended.
His family moved to Charleston, where Clair joined Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church. He graduated from college in 1889 and began a four-stint leading the Methodist Episcopal Church in Harpers Ferry.
After earning a doctorate, Clair served as pastor of Asbury Church in Washington, D.C., from 1902 to 1919. While there, he edited the conference’s newspaper and spearheaded a campaign to build an 1,800-seat sanctuary.
In 1920, Clair became one of the first two African-American bishops in the predominantly white Methodist Episcopal Church. For the next eight years, Bishop Clair was assigned to the church’s flourishing mission in Monrovia, Liberia, where he became involved in education initiatives.
In 1928, he was reassigned to Covington, Kentucky, and served black Methodist conferences in the Midwest until retiring in 1936. Matthew Wesley Clair Sr. and his son, Matthew Wesley Clair Jr., are the only father-son bishops in the history of the Methodist church.
