Theologian, pastor and civic leader, the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Jr. is one of America’s most influential religious leaders. He is pastor emeritus at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, where he began serving in 1975. In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed him to a newly established 25-member White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He also serves on the board of trustees at Morehouse College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1956. He holds an M.Div. degree from the Morehouse School of Religion/Interdenominational Theological Center and a D.Min. from the United Theological Seminary. From 1954 to 1961, Moss served as pastor of the Mount Olive Baptist Church in LaGrange, Georgia, and from 1956 to 1961 was also pastor of Atlanta’s Providence Baptist Church. From 1961 to 1975, he pastored the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Lockland, Ohio, and in 1971 served as co-pastor with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Moss was a founding board member of the Greater Cleveland Roundtable, which later became part of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. He has lectured at hundreds of colleges and churches throughout the world, including Oxford University and Yale Divinity School. In 2012, he was inducted into the Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame.