MONTGOMERY REV. ANZO (13 July 1918-8 Aug. 1991) worked in Cleveland to help gain civil rights for AFRICAN AMERICANS, while serving first as pastor of the Lane Metropolitan Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (1965-78) and then as general secretary of evangelism for the denomination (1978-82). He helped register voters in Cleveland with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Before coming to Cleveland Montgomery had been among the group of Topeka, KS, clergy whose challenges of segregation eventually resulted in the landmark U. S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The oldest of 10 children, Montgomery was born in Jackson, TN, to Roy and Lucille Ross Montgomery. He was ordained in 1938, having graduated from Henderson Business College, Memphis, TN, and Washburn University, Topeka, KS. Following a series of pastorates in Memphis, Montgomery ministered to churches in Topeka (1946-51) and Wichita, KS (1951-65). He participated in the URBAN LEAGUE OF CLEVELAND, was an officer of the Cleveland Council of Churches (see INTERCHURCH COUNCIL OF GREATER CLEVELAND), and presided over both the ecumenical Ministerial Alliance and the local chapter of the Opportunities Industrialization Center. He left Cleveland in 1982 for a church in Winston-Salem, NC, but returned to Ohio in 1986, where he served churches in Columbus and Springfield before retiring in 1990.
Montgomery married Saphronia Gooden (d. 1980). The couple had no children. On 24 Nov. 1982, he married Daisy Horne, who had two sons (Preston and Gilbert) by a previous marriage. While in Cleveland, Montgomery lived in first SHAKER HEIGHTS, then BEDFORD HEIGHTS. Montgomery died in Columbus, OH.