Rev. Elias Camp Morris

Born into slavery in Georgia in 1855, Elias Camp Morris rose from bondage to become the architect of the largest Black religious organization in American history. This meticulously researched biography traces Morris's remarkable journey from enslaved child to the first president of the National Baptist Convention—a position he would hold for twenty-seven transformative years.

Drawing on decades of archival research and four generations of Black Baptist ministerial experience, Bishop Andy C. Lewter presents a comprehensive portrait of a leader who unified Black Baptists for the first time, built enduring institutions during the brutal Jim Crow era, and demonstrated that effective Black leadership could sustain complex organizations across generations. This is neither hagiography nor critique, but an honest assessment of a capable, complex man who navigated the treacherous balance between prophetic witness and institutional preservation.

Morris's story illuminates the broader narrative of how formerly enslaved people and their descendants created the institutions that would sustain Black communities through systematic oppression—building churches, establishing conventions, supporting missions, and demonstrating organizational capacity that white supremacy insisted they could never possess.