Born to a reverend father Floyd M. Long Jr. and a homemaker mother Hattie Long in Huntersville, North Carolina, Eddie Long followed in his father’s footsteps and became a priest. Although, the priesthood was not his first choice of vocation, as he had opted to work for the Ford Motor Corporation after obtaining a B.A. in Business Administration from the North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.
However, he soon got dismissed from there and shifted base to Atlanta. It was here that he began to take an interest in theology and became a pastor in a small church in Jonesboro, Georgia before becoming a senior priest at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a position he held from 1987-2017.
