Reverend Doctor Yvette (pronounced “why”-vette) R. Blair-Lavallais (lah-vuh-lay) is a licensed pastor and ordained elder in The Methodist Church. She has served in pastoral ministry for almost 15 years in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, including the honor of having served as the first woman in the role of senior pastor at First Christian Methodist Church in the Red Bird area of Dallas.
She completed the two-year Women in Ministry cohort at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey and holds a certificate in Executive Leadership. Currently, she serves on the ministerial team at Greater Garth Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dallas. Dr. Blair-Lavallais is an adjunct professor at Memphis Theological Seminary where she teaches courses in the Land, Food and Faith doctoral program.
She also serves as the Cohort Mentor.
A womanist public theologian and food justice strategist, she earned a Doctor of Ministry from Memphis Theological Seminary, in May 2022. Her work focuses on the intersection of food insecurity, famines, displacement, and gentrification of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous peoples. Her doctoral research project is “Reframing the Narrative of Food Insecurity: Creating a Faith-Based Policy that Addresses Food Apartheid in the Red Bird Community of Dallas.”
She is the recipient of the 2023 Dr. Henry Logan Starks Outstanding African American Alumna Award at Memphis Theological Seminary for her faithful ministry and distinguished service. The award is named for Starks, who was a professor at MTS, and a community and civil rights leader. Recipients are recognized for contributing to their communities in ways that are consistent with the Starks legacy.
Dr. Yvette also received the 2022 Juanita Craft Humanitarian Award for her visionary leadership in bringing national attention to food insecurity in Texas. The award is presented by The State Fair of Texas in conjunction with the Juanita Craft Museum. Craft was a civil rights leader, and field organizer with the NAACP, and in 1944 she became the first Black woman in Dallas County to vote in the Democratic Party primary. The award honors recipients who embody Craft's spirit of service and commitment to bettering the community.
Rev. Blair-Lavallais is a 2022 inaugural cohort fellow of the Texas Folklife Program's Community Folklife Fellowship where her focus is on cultural traditions in our foodways.
Dr. Blair-Lavallais' latest book, a 2022 summer release, Scrimpin' and Scrapin': The Hardships and Hustle of Women and Food Insecurity in Texas Through a Womanist Lens, is an expansion of that work. The book invites readers into the conversation about the root causes of food insecurity through a faith lens. It debuted as the #1 new release on Amazon and as the #4 bestseller.
An international speaker on food justice issues through a theological framework, Rev. Blair-Lavallais has been a featured panelist for Bread For The World’s Global Advocacy Summit, Conversation with the White House and she has presented her work on the systemic injustices of food insecurity at conferences including the Political Theology Network conference at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Rural Women’s Studies Kitchen Table Talk to Global Forum at the University of Guelph in Canada, and the Leadership Academy at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Her work has also been included in the UN Food Summit and Pan African Women of Faith Ecumenical Empowerment Network.
An award-winning writer, Rev. Blair-Lavallais is a Public Voices Fellow of The Op Ed Project, a 2021 Engle Institute of Preaching fellow and a 2017 Black Theology and Leadership Institute fellow of Princeton Theological Seminary. She is also a 2018-2020 fellow of Vanderbilt Divinity School’s Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative cohort. She earned a Master of Theological Studies and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2013 from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. She also holds a BA in Journalism from the University of North Texas in Denton.
In 2018, she was named Person of the Year by Texas Metro News for shattering the silence on clergywomen abuse. She is featured in the award-winning film, Shattering the Silence - Documentary, produced by WOW Films.
Rev. Dr. Yvette R. Blair-Lavallais is a native of Dallas, Texas. She and her husband, the Rev. Carl M. Lavallais, live in Dallas.
Let's connect: Yvette@yvetteblair.com