David Foote Rivers, July 18, 1859 - July 5, 1941
David Foote Rivers
from Woodson,
Carter Godwin.
The History of
the Negro Church.
Washington, D.C.
Associated
Publishers, 1921.
A Peabody Scholarship student at Roger Williams University at the time of his election, he represented Fayette County as a Republican in the 43rd Tennessee General Assembly, 1883-1884.
Rivers was re-elected to the 44th General Assembly but never took his seat, having been driven out of Fayette County by racial violence.
David Rivers was born in Montgomery, Alabama, to Edmonia Rivers, a free woman of color, and an unknown father. He was listed in the 1870 census as living in his grandfather's Somerville, TN, household, along with two younger brothers and an assortment of relatives and boarders. According to family tradition, Rivers did not learn to write until he was 19, when he first attended high school, probably in Fayette County. He was so successful in his studies that he earned a Peabody Scholarship and was admitted to Nashville's Roger Williams University. He was studying for a degree in theology there when he was elected to the Tennessee legislature. A challenge to his eligibility, based on his periodic absences from his home county to attend college, was unsuccessful.
Although elected to the General Assembly for a second term in 1885-1886, Rivers never took his seat, having been driven out of Fayette County by what his son Francis referred to as "a large body of racially prejudiced whites." However, having earned his degree in theology from Roger Williams University, he stayed on and taught there for two years, then preached at the Fifth Ward Baptist Church in Clarksville for some time. In 1893 he moved his family to Kansas City, Kansas, where he became pastor of the Metropolitan Baptist Church.
In 1898 David F. Rivers was invited to Washington, D.C., to accept a post as pastor of the Berean Baptist Church, which he served for 46 years, until his death in 1941. His son Francis, equally distinguished, was a member of the New York General Assembly, Assistant District Attorney in New York County, and Justice of the City Court of New York.