The iconic Arizona pastor who helped win a contentious battle for the state to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day is retiring after nearly 50 years of leading his Phoenix church.
Warren Stewart Sr., 73, announced his departure as senior pastor of First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix on Thursday. Officials with the church said Stewart shared the news with his congregants in late September, and there will be a month-long recognition of his retirement in June.
Stewart, a longtime civil rights advocate, was born in Kansas in 1951 and moved to Phoenix in 1977. He is the longest-serving senior pastor in the history of a church that says it is the oldest African American Baptist church in Phoenix…