Jarena Lee Jarena Lee felt imbued with a religious mission in life, and because of this, she bravely defied the conservative sex biases of the church to become, as she contended, the “first female preacher of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church”. As an evangelist, Mrs. Lee sometimes traveled on foot to spread her religious message and would walk as far as 16 miles to preach. When over forty years old, the unordained minister logged 2,325 miles …showed first 75 words of 940 total…

…showed last 75 words of 940 total…minister left a literary and spiritual pattern for other women who followed her. I could not find a record of her death, but there is a questionable listing of another work by a Jarena Lee in Daniel Murray’s Preliminary List of Books and Pamphlets by Negro Authors, for Paris Exposition and Library of Congress (1900). This entry indicated that Jarena Lee published a ninety-three-page work. The Color of Solomon (1895), in Philadelphia. At the age of 112?