Reverend Dr. Kenneth Kemp of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church

“The Living Legacy of Dr. King: Civil Discourse through Civil Disobedience”

Trinity University will honor the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by holding a public lecture and participating in the San Antonio march commemorating the civil rights leader. This year’s keynote speaker is the Rev. Dr. Kenneth R. Kemp, who grew up in rural Tucker, Arkansas, and enrolled in the early admissions program at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, graduating with a 4.0 GPA (1984), then attended the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. After completing his residency at BAMC, he was selected as the Chief of Medical Residents. He has served as Program Director of the Transitional Year Program, Medical Director of the Pulmonary Functions Laboratory, and Chairman of the Institutional Bioethics Committee. He was promoted to the rank of Colonel in the Army Medical Corps and is certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Medicine, and Critical Care Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians. Kemp retired in September 2009.

He accepted his call into the gospel ministry in 1991 at Antioch Baptist Church under the late Pastor J.J. Rector, Sr. He served as interim Pastor of True Vision Baptist Church in San Antonio and Assistant to the Pastor for Pastoral Care at the Lewis Chapel Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Upon his return to San Antonio, he resumed duties as a member of the preaching ministry at Antioch under the pastorate of the Rev. Dr. E. Thurman Walker. Under Pastor Walker, Kemp was selected as Assistant Pastor in 2004, Co-Pastor in 2009, and then with Dr. Walker’s passing, Kemp assumed his current role as Pastor. 

Kemp is married to Velma L. Willoughby Kemp and is father to two daughters: Rev. Jessica Kemp, Minister of Children, Youth & Young Adults and Virtual Ministry Lead at Antioch, and Dr. Joelle Kemp Clay, Pharmacist, currently living in Humble, TX, with her husband Jacoby and their twin daughters.