Rev. B. L. Brantley was two-years into a decade-long pastorate at Portsmouth's Pleasant Green Baptist Church that would run until 1945. Throughout those years, Rev. Brantley would serve his congregation and the larger community, championing the construction of the Fourteenth Street Community Center and other civic projects for Portsmouth's North End, the city's historically black neighborhood. An active member of the local branch of the NAACP, Rev. Brantley helped organize and lead the protest against the Westland Theater's segregated screenings of Joe Louis's film, "Spirit of Youth."