John H. Race was born in Paupack, Pennsylvania in 1862. After pursuing an undergraduate and graduate education at Princeton University, he was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1890. However, his career in academia continued as he taught Greek and rhetoric in Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, Pennsylvania until 1894, when he accepted a position as pastor of the Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church at Binghamton. In 1897, Race moved to Chattanooga at the invitation of the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and assumed the role of president of Grant University. During his tenure, he oversaw the construction of the Medical College building, the administrative restructuring that led to the formation of University of Chattanooga, and a fundraising campaign that brought the university back from the brink of insolvency. Race left the University of Chattanooga in 1913 to accept the office of Book Agent of the Methodist Episcopal Church.