Rev. Dr. Gerald Durley

Global Ambassador

As a dedicated educator, psychologist, and a nationally and internationally sought after inspirational and motivational speaker, Rev. Dr. Gerald L. Durley was born in Wichita, Kansas, grew up in California, and graduated from high school in Denver, Colorado. He was recruited to play basketball for Tennessee State University where he became a student leader in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. Upon earning a degree in psychology, Rev. Dr. Durley became one of the first U.S. Peace Corp volunteers to serve in Nigeria. Upon leaving Nigeria he relocated to Switzerland and played basketball for a National Swiss team while completing post graduate studies before returning to the United States. 

Rev. Dr. Durley has completed a Master of Science degree in Community Mental Health/Psychology at Northern Illinois University, a doctorate degree in Urban Education and Psychology at University of Massachusetts, and a Master of Divinity at Howard University School of Divinity. Rev. Dr. Durley developed his expertise as a program manager for the U.S. Department of Education where he created interdisciplinary study programs for Historically Black Colleges and Universities with the Institute for Services to Education, Inc. and served as Dean for Clark College and a program administrator at Morehouse School of Medicine where he directed major health, social, and civic programs across the state of Georgia. He has also served as a pulpit associate at Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. and at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. 

After 25 years of service, he retired as the pastor of Providence Missionary Baptist Church and is currently the Pastor Emeritus. While serving as Pastor, he became intensely involved in the climate change, global warming, and environmental justice movement. Rev. Dr. Durley now combines the disciplines of faith and science with the lessons learned as a civil/human rights advocate. He believes that God created a perfect ecologically balanced world for humans to care for, but we are destroying it at an alarming rate. He asserts that for the environment to be saved, the educational, scientific, business, political, and faith communities must seek common solutions.

Rev. Dr. Durley has served as past president of the Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta; co-chair of the Regional Council of Churches of Metropolitan Atlanta; and Head Start Executive Director. He serves on the boards of the March of Dimes, Civil and Human Rights Global Advisory, Communities in Schools of Atlanta, Georgia Power Diversity Council, Georgia Interfaith Corrections, Interfaith Power & Light, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) of Atlanta. 

He has been married for almost 50 years to his wife, Muriel. They have two children an four grandchildren. His autobiography, I Am Amazed, is available at Amazon.


“If we are to acquire a clean, livable, and toxic-free environment for all of God’s creation, we must collectively SHOUT with one unified collaborative voice that “this is our time, this is our moment.” WE have NO choice but to save the one planet in which we have been entrusted.”