Pastor Willie Charles “W. C.” Hunter was born May 29, 1936. In 1964 he founded “The World’s Church of the Living God,” located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he served as pastor for more than 50 years. He was an influential leader in his community, spearheading numerous fundraising events and donating the proceeds to various organizations. He worked with many local charities, including the Chambliss Center for Children, to which he provided clothes, schools supplies, and monetary donations. He also purchased uniforms for the Howard High School Band and hosted many barbecue fundraisers for Orange Grove School. Sadly, W.C. Hunter passed away on December 11, 2016.
Mrs. Claudine “Peggy” Swift Hunter was born March 8, 1933. Although Mrs. Hunter preferred to remain anonymous, she made her mark throughout the surrounding community and worked tirelessly with her husband in all of his endeavors. She provided financial aid to parents with college-age children by donating monetary care packages, which she gave routinely until those children had completed college and joined the workforce. Mrs. Hunter passed away in July of 2016.
Although the city of Chattanooga has lost two of its greatest heroes, their legacy of service and kindness lives on through the Hunter Memorial, its projects, and its volunteers and donors.
Willie Charles Hunter and Peggy Hunter
W. C. Hunter was a trailblazer: in the early 2000s he purchased the Walden Hospital property, Chattanooga’s first and only African American teaching hospital. W.C. Hunter valued and understood the importance of African American heritage, and the purpose of this endeavor was to preserve the hospital’s legacy. Today, the former hospital has been converted into apartments.
W.C. Hunter was Chattanooga’s first African American to build a public amusement park, called Delaney Park. He also founded Hunter Mortgage, the first Black-owned mortgage company in the city. He also created his original barbecue recipe, “Lay-Row-Catch-A-Mellow”, and built a bottling company, Southern Recipe Foods, to manufacture the sauce.
W.C. Hunter supported global organizations like:
He adopted countless children in other countries and donated monies to help build homes for shelter and wells to allow villagers to have clean water.
Children holding up school supplies purchased by W. C. Hunter as part of “Haiti Feed the Children”
Throughout their ministry, both Willie Charles and Peggy Hunter emphasized one idea: being of service to others.
As a result of the astounding volume of their service, the city of Chattanooga and the County of Hamilton declared December 21 to be W.C. Hunter Day.
