Jay Augustine
M E E T J A Y A U G U S T I N E
T H E S T O R Y
J A Y ' S B I O
Before serving as St. Paul’s pastor, Rev. Augustine also served in Louisiana as pastor of St. James AMEC in Hammond and associate minister of Greater Turner Chapel AMEC in Greensburg. He previously served in the administration of Louisiana’s 55th governor, as executive counsel & director of legislative affairs for the Louisiana Workforce Commission, and in locally elected office as vice president of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, the governing body of Louisiana’s largest public school district.
Jay Augustine serves as senior pastor of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) in New Orleans and as an adjunct member of the faculty at Southern University. He is a bi-vocational minister, public theologian, and social justice advocate.
Rev. Augustine is the author of The Keys Are Being Passed: Race, Law, Religion & the Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement (ROM Publishing 2014), an interdisciplinary book celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the American Civil Rights Movement, that also focuses on current day social and civic responsibility in areas including voting rights, environmental justice, and education reform.
THE REV. JONATHAN C. AUGUSTINE, J.D., M.DIV.
An accomplished author, Rev. Augustine’s scholarly publications appear in numerous professional journals around the United States. He received the William & Carolyn Anderson Applied Theology Writing Award for his law & religion article published in the Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal. His written scholarship has also been cited by the Louisiana Supreme Court in published opinion. Rev. Augustine’s recognitions include the National Bar Association’s “Nation’s Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers under 40,” U.S. Junior Chamber’s “Ten Outstanding Young Americans,” and Ebony Magazine’s “30 Leaders of the Future.” He has also twice been named “Outstanding Alumni Brother of the Year” by the Southwest Region of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
Rev. Augustine is a silver life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a life member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He earned a B.A. in economics from Howard University, along with an active duty commission as an infantry officer in the United States Army. Following four years of decorated active duty service, Rev. Augustine earned his Juris Doctorate from Tulane University and served as a law clerk to Louisiana Supreme Court then-Associate Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson. He earned the Master of Divinity degree, as a Herbert & Mary L. Beane Fellow & National Rainbow-PUSH Coalition Foundation Scholar, from United Theological Seminary, where he was the seminary’s inaugural recipient of the McCabe Liturgical Preaching Award. He also received a fellowship for further study at Princeton Theological Seminary.