I believe a preacher is called from his birth, - Reverend Louis Cole told photographer James Perry Walker. -He is born into this world to preach, or not to preach.-

For six years, from 1976 until the reverend's death in 1981, Walker photographed this circuit preacher, the black Baptist congregations he served, and the roads he traveled. The Reverend depicts the life and death of an African American minister who spread the Gospel and inspired his congregants in West Tennessee and North Mississippi. Walker fuses his own impressions and the reverend's stories and sermons with...