Southern Baptists Elect First Black President

On 19 June 2012 the Southern Baptist Convention unanimously elected the extremely popular Pastor Fred Luter (b. 1956, Louisiana, USA) as its president.  This had national significance because Pastor Luter is black. 

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is the world’s largest Baptist group and is the largest Protestant body in the United States. The SBC is evangelical, congregational, and  insists on only believer’s baptism (they are anti-pedobaptists). The Convention was founded in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia (USA) during a dispute with Northern Baptists over slave ownership.  The Northerners refused to allow the appointment of slaveholders to positions of authority.

After the United States Civil War , most of the black Baptists in the American South withdrew to form their own organizations, culminating in 1895 with the National Baptist Convention.

Though the majority of Southern Baptists have long since left behind their embarrassing origins, it was not until 1995 that the group officially renounced and apologized for its racist origins.  By 2008, the SBC had over one million black members.