Biographical Resume of
Rev. Dr. Marshall Elijah Hatch, Sr.
PROFESSIONAL
Marshall Elijah Hatch, Sr. has been the Pastor of the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist
Church located in the heart of Chicago’s West Garfield community since 1993. Born March 11, 1958 in Chicago, Illinois, Marshall Hatch is a native of the west side. His spiritual development began in Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church under the pastorate of his father, the late Reverend Elijah Hatch. In 1985, he was ordained as a minister, and later in that same year was appointed as Pastor of the Commonwealth Missionary Baptist Church in North Lawndale. In 1998 he was appointed a Merrill Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This honor was shared with three other distinguished scholars in the practice of ministry in the spring of 1999. In August 2000, Marshall Hatch was appointed an Adjunct Professor on the faculty of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. In November of 2006, he was awarded the Weston Howland Jr. Grant and Award for Civic Leadership from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. In January 2007, he received the MLK Award and served as Bates College Martin Luther King Jr. Day guest speaker in Lewiston, Maine. In 2009, he was appointed and currently serves as Professor of Urban Ministry at Northern Seminary in Lisle, Illinois.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Throughout his ministry, Marshall Hatch has commenced numerous community outreach programs. Most notable among these are the Westside Isaiah Plan, Ezra Homes, and Pilgrim Village Homes-Washington Boulevard, new construction affordable housing development projects that built over 200 single family homes in Chicago. In 2009, Hatch established “Passports to The World”, a biennial overseas African mission trip for the church’s inner city youth. He has also launched a visitation and correspondence ministry for the incarcerated in the Illinois Department of Corrections and Cook County Jail, “The Call To Life” Substance Abuse Support Ministry, the Safe Haven CPS after school program, and the Pilgrim Development Corporation of Pilgrim Village in West Garfield Park. Currently, New Mount Pilgrim Church-Chicago and Pilgrim Development Corporation partners with Chicago Cred and several corporate donors to employ and enrich at-risk young adults (18-23 years old) in community development programs called The MAAFA Redemption Project and The Beautiful Seed Project for Young Women of Color. In 2023, the New Mount Pilgrim Church-Chicago, MAAFA Redemption Project and West Garfield Park Collaborative, secured the $10 million Pritzker-Traubert Foundation Chicago Prize grant to help fund the Sankofa Wellness Village Project. This project encompasses a $50 million federally qualified health and community center development and is designed to catalyze the renaissance of the West Madison Street commercial corridor.
PUBLIC SERVICE
Dr. Hatch has a history of civic involvement spanning over decades. He served as a member of the Chicago School Board Nominating Commission from 1989-1991. He served as the Moderator of the Friendship Baptist District Association, the National Director of Religious Affairs of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and on the Executive Board of the Christ The King Jesuit College Prep High School. He is a member of the American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago, the Progressive Baptist Convention, chairs the L.E.A.D.E.R.S Network, and is founding steering committee member of the National Public Housing Museum. He was appointed a Trustee of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois in 2013. In 2015, he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Chicago State University. He was elected Board chairman in 2016. Also in 2016, he was elected to serve as a Trustee of the Baptist Theological Union of the University of Chicago Divinity School. Dr. Hatch’s landmark book, “Project America: Memoirs of Faith and Hope to Win The Future”, was published in 2012. His powerfully insightful book of urban pastoral eulogies in Chicago’s political context, “Cornerstones: Eulogies of Black Lives that Mattered,” will be published by Third World Press.
EDUCATION
Rev. Dr. Hatch has earned both a doctorate and a master’s degree in ministry and theological studies from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. He also holds a master’s degree in government from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and a bachelor degree in political science and history from Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois.
FAMILY
Marshall Hatch is married to the former Priscilla Murchison and they are the parents of four children and five grandchildren.