Pastor Keith Caldwell, a Nashville native, is a longtime grassroots community organizer who, through years of working at the intersection of Race and Poverty across the Southern Region, organically emerged through the ranks to become a civil rights leader who served as the president of the Nashville Branch–NAACP during the organization’s 100-year commemoration in 2018.

Caldwell was appointed to serve as Senior Pastor to Centenary UMC (United Methodist Church) in Memphis, Tennessee by Bishop William McAlilly of the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church. It is a legacy church that was the site of nonviolence workshops and mass meetings under the pastorate of Rev. James Lawson during the Civil Rights Movement.

As an undergraduate, Caldwell attended The American Baptist College and earned his Master of Divinity degree from Vanderbilt University Divinity School.

Pastor Keith Caldwell will continue to work on justice issues statewide through his work on the passage of Medicaid Expansion with the Tennessee Justice Center. He also works across the state through the Tennessee African-American Clergy Collaborative.