CHAMPAIGN — An honorary street sign on Grove Street in Champaign — from Sixth to Wright — marks the legacy of Bishop King James Underwood, who dedicated his life to building spiritual and physical community.
Underwood retired as general bishop of the Western Division of the Free Will Baptist denomination, presiding over ministries across nine states. He is best known in Champaign for building the New Free Will Baptist Church. He said the most meaningful part of his work was the love.
“Loving everybody. The kids can come talk with me and I can play with the kids,” he said. “Just because I was a bishop doesn’t mean that I’m so high that nobody can reach me.”
Underwood said he tried to make sure people knew they could reach out to him.
“I could talk to anybody and when they left, they felt like they were somebody because I treated them like somebody,” he said.
Underwood was nominated for the Champaign Honorary Streets program by his daughter, Janet Ross, in 2022.
From farming in Mississippi to ministry in Champaign
Underwood was born in 1938 on the Panther Burn plantation between Vicksburg and Greenville in the Mississippi Delta. Growing up, he learned to farm, which he says helped him become a better leader.
“The things that I did as a farmer, it helped develop me in areas to know a lot of things about farming and how things developed,” Underwood said. “It was transferable skills that I could transfer into being a leader of people.”
According to Underwood, his family rented land and farmed it using their own equipment: “My family was very skillful. We could pick a bale of cotton a day. Cotton was king in Mississippi.”
He said he never knew hunger, even during the Great Depression.
“Because we had the land and my father would grow a truck patch with peas, beans and all that stuff,” Underwood said. “He grew all that stuff and at the end, they picked all those beans… and then we had anything you wanted to eat.”
After moving to Champaign at the age of 14, Underwood said he went on to serve in the Navy and study industrial arts. He later became a general contractor.
Those experiences carried into his ministry when he founded New Free Will Baptist Church.
“I wasn’t seeking to be a bishop, but it just happened,” he said. “All the wisdom and knowledge that I gained as a farmer, going to Urbana High School and going to the Navy, all of those are transferable skills that I transferred into the general conference and when I became general bishop.”
When it came time to build the church, Underwood said he took on much of the work himself while maintaining a full-time job.
“I’m working part-time building the church. And I’m working full-time at Alloy Engineering & Casting Company,” Underwood said. “At the end, I had people come in and pitch in and do a little work, but I didn’t have no work crew. When I got off Alloy in the evening, I came here and work ‘til I got done.”
Underwood said those same leadership and organizational skills later helped him grow the regional network of Free Will Baptist churches and expand access to its members.
Underwood said he credits the church’s foundation to his faith.
“I got on the cornerstone and Jesus Christ is the builder,” he said. “I was the one who erected the building… the church was built on Jesus Christ.”
A life of service
Underwood’s philosophy has carried over and defined decades of service in Champaign, according to those closest to him.
His wife of nearly 50 years, Dr. Evelyn Underwood, said his skills extended beyond the church into the community.
“When I married him, he had gone to school for industrial arts, he could do plumbing and all of that,” she said. “The elderly people who couldn’t repair things, he would help them.”
She said his service often focused on those who needed it most.
“He didn’t worry about getting paid for it,” she said. “Some of the people couldn’t afford it, but they needed the help… the elderly and single moms. That’s the kind of leader he is.”
Evelyn said that consistency continues to define him.
“He’s a servant leader,” she said. “What you see at the church and what you see at home is the same.”
The Underwoods’ impact has extended beyond the church.
Evelyn Underwood played a key role in local education reform in Urbana, as a member of the “Ellis Drive Six,” a group that pushed the Urbana School District to desegregate. She later became the first African American to serve on the Urbana School Board.
Together, the couple has worked with other local organizations, including the NAACP and Urban League, to continue advocating for the community.
After years of building both a church and a community, Bishop Underwood said he decided to step back from leadership, entrusting his ministry to his son, Elder Herbert D. Burnett Sr., who is now pastor of New Free Will church: “He’s carrying on the legacy.”
That legacy is now marked in Champaign with an honorary street sign.
“To me, it means that I must be doing something that people notice, that I’m doing something good for the community,” Underwood said. “I didn’t do it for the street sign, but I did it because I wanted to help people and wanted to make their conditions better.”
Even in retirement, Underwood said he remains a vessel for God in his community in the ways he knows best.
“I still have my voice and I still use my voice,” Bishop Underwood said. “I sing, I give counsel… I’m still useful.”