Herman Lee Turner (1891-1972) was born to Elijah Howard Turner (1865-1936) and Sabrina Allen Hornbuckle (1873-1966) in Lacey Springs, Alabama. He attended Alabama public schools, and later the University of Chicago. He married Ann Grace Hartung (1893-1993) in 1911 in Morgan County, Alabama. The Turners had four children: Margaret Elizabeth (1913-2008), Herman Lee Jr. (1916-1984), Donald Bernard (1918-1990), Paul Gray (1921-1975). Herman Lee Turner served as a secretary for the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and as a Sabbath School missionary before his ordination in 1919. Turner became minister at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Atlanta in 1930 and remained in that position until he retired in 1961.

In 1957, Reverend Turner led 80 white Atlanta Christian ministers in publishing what was referred to as the "Ministers' Manifesto," a statement calling for calm and reason amid violent reactions to the integration of public schools in the South. The following year, after white supremacists bombed The Temple on Peachtree Street, a second statement, signed by more than 300 Atlanta area clergy, was published.