Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. Bar Association

The Rev. Canon J. Kenneth Major, known affectionately as Father Major, was born in  Overtown on January 4, 1936, to Joseph Wakefield Major and Alice Rebecca Taylor, he was baptized and confirmed at St. Agnes Episcopal Church in Overtown. Father Major attended Booker T. Washington Junior/Senior High School, were he served as student counsel president before receiving a full scholarship from Wometco Enterprises and went on to attend St. Augustine’s College and later Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University to prepare for priesthood. Father Major returned to Miami to serve as pastor of the Church of the Incarnation. Shortly after coming home to Miami, a racial disturbance broke out during the Republican National Convention, hosted at the Miami Beach Convention Hall. Father Major helped to restore order in the streets of  Liberty City where most of the violence occurred. Major's tenure as rector spanned 35 years, during which he elevated the church to a self-sustaining parish and engaged extensively in community work, serving as president of the Economic Opportunity Family Health Center and as a board member of the Jackson Memorial Hospital Public Health Trust.