Monday, June 18, 2012

BBC News - Southern Baptists set to elect first black president

BBC News - Southern Baptists set to elect first black president: The Southern Baptist Convention is set to elect its first-ever African-American president.

"My election is bringing down walls," says the Reverend Fred Luter, who is running unopposed at the Baptist convention in New Orleans later this week.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the biggest Protestant church in the US.

For many years it supported slavery. It is still predominantly white, but is has taken steps to distance itself from its past.

Rev Luter shows the BBC his community, and how he built one of the largest Southern Baptist congregations in New Orleans - almost 5,000 members - out of a struggling inner-city church.