Born in Brookport, Illinois, Reverend Lenus Turley was deeply interested in many facets of life, loved building, favored a positive approach to problems, encouraged people, and inspired others through honesty, integrity, energy, determination, and greatness. He attended grade school and high school in Brookport, studied at Simmon's Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, graduated from the Illinois Theological Seminary in Chicago with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1942, and received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the Union Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Houston, Texas, in 1969. In Illinois he pastored Unity Baptist Church at Brookport, Cloverleaf Baptist Church in Joppa, First Baptist Church in Metropolis, and Rock Hill Baptist Church in Carbondale. He served as secretary of the Mount Olive district and, from 1954, as its moderator; from 1950 he was first vice-president of the Illinois National Baptist Missionary and Education Convention and a member of the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention of America. He was president of the Carbondale Ministerial Alliance from 1959 until 1960 and was active in civic and community organizations as first president of the Human Relations Commission of Carbondale, a member of the Carbondale Citizens Advisory Commission and Senior Citizens Committee, chairman of the Carbondale Police Community Relations Board, chairman of the Jackson County Housing Project, and a member of the Jackson County Mental Health board. He was the first Black chaplain of the Illinois State Senate, a member of the State Family and Child Welfare Bureau, and district chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His awards included the National Champion of Open Occupancy Award in 1965, a citation from the Negro Emancipation Centennial Commission, golden keys to the City of Mount Vernon in 1963 at the Mount Olive District Association, an award from the City of Carbondale for meritorious service in 1969, an award for being a member of the official board of inquiry, a certificate of achievement from the Chicago Baptist Institute, and an award from the Illinois Sesquicentennial Commission in Springfield, Illinois. In civil rights work he was a coordinator in the March on Washington, D.C., in 1963 and a participant in the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, remembered as a Black warrior and a drum major for right and justice.