Origin 1895 to 1915
The National Baptist Convention USA Incorporated is the largest historically Black Baptist body in the United States and one of the seven historic denominations C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya name as the core of the Black Church. It formed in September 1895 at Atlanta's Friendship Baptist Church, when the Foreign Mission Baptist Convention, the American National Baptist Convention and the Baptist National Education Convention merged under Elias Camp Morris. A 1915 dispute over control of the Nashville based National Baptist Publishing Board split the Convention: publisher Richard H. Boyd's faction left to form the National Baptist Convention of America, and the remaining body incorporated to hold clear legal title to its own assets, becoming the National Baptist Convention, USA, Incorporated.
Facts
Belief
Defining Doctrinal PositionSourced to the subject's own accountTrinitarian: one God in three persons 2 Doctrinal Position DetailSourced to the subject's own accountMaintains a Baptist confession of faith descended from the New Hampshire Confession (1833, expanded 1853), affirming justification by grace through faith, believers' baptism by immersion, and the separation of church and state. Congregational autonomy leaves final doctrinal authority with each local church rather than with the national Convention. 2 Position on SexualitySame-sex sexual relationships are held contrary to teaching; LGBT individuals are welcomed as members but not ordained, and same-sex unions are not blessed 3 The Convention's president stated in 2012 that marriage is a sacred biblical covenant between a man and a woman, and a January 2014 policy directs the Convention's endorsed military chaplains not to participate in any activity that implies or condones a same-sex marriage or union, an officiant-level bar. No source read states the Convention denies ordinary membership to a person in a same-sex relationship, and the Convention's own president affirmed in the same 2012 letter that it does not dictate positions to its autonomous constituent churches. Sexuality Position DetailIn June 2012, Convention President Julius Scruggs responded to President Obama's statement of support for same-sex marriage with a letter stating the Convention does not dictate to its constituent churches what position to take because it believes in the autonomy of the local church, while affirming that the National Baptist Convention, USA, Incorporated holds marriage to be a sacred biblical covenant between a man and a woman. A January 2014 statement directed the Convention's endorsed military chaplains that, although serving in a pluralistic environment, they are not to participate in any activity that implies or condones a same-sex marriage or union. No formal statement has been issued encouraging member churches to welcome LGBTQ congregants, though individual pastors and congregations have announced their own differing views. 3 Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Position Profile
Key TextSourced to the subject's own accountArticles of Faith descended from the New Hampshire Confession of Faith (1833, expanded 1853), the Baptist confession most American Baptist bodies of the era organized around; also cites Keach's Catechism and the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession as historic doctrinal touchstones. 2 Organisation
GovernanceSourced to the subject's own accountAutonomous local bodies under a national umbrella association 2 OrdinationSourced to the subject's own accountVaries between provinces or member bodies 2 Ordination Practice DetailSourced to the subject's own accountThe Convention holds no binding official position on women's ordination; congregational autonomy leaves the decision to each local church. Trudy Trimm became the first ordained woman pastor recorded in the Convention in 1965, and women serve as pastors, deacons and deaconesses in many member congregations, while other churches decline to ordain women. 2 Practice
Liturgical Language Trajectory
Membership Over TimeSourced to the subject's own accountThe Association of Religion Data Archives, an independent academic count of American congregations, found only 1,567,741 members across 2,530 churches in 2020, roughly a fifth of the convention's own contemporaneous self-reported figure. 2 Membership Over TimeSourced to the subject's own accountThe National Baptist Convention, USA, Incorporated self-reported 21,145 churches and 8,415,100 members in 2023, its own count and the largest of any historically Black Protestant denomination in the United States. 2 Membership Figure As OfSourced to the subject's own account Membership Figure As OfSourced to the subject's own account Basis of the Membership FigureSourced to the subject's own account Basis of the Membership FigureSourced to the subject's own accountScholarly or Demographic Estimate 2 Attributions
Church Family Origins
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account Place of OriginSourced to the subject's own accountFriendship Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, at the September 1895 merger of three existing Black Baptist conventions; the incorporated body that took the name National Baptist Convention, USA, Incorporated, emerged from the 1915 split centered in Nashville, Tennessee. 2 FounderSourced to the subject's own accountNo single founder. Formed by the 1895 merger of three existing conventions under Elias Camp Morris, who served as its first president from 1895 until his death in 1922. 2 History
Separation or DivergenceSourced to the subject's own accountSplit in 1915 over control of the National Baptist Publishing Board: publisher Richard H. Boyd argued the Nashville based board should operate independently of Convention oversight and financial reporting, and president Elias Camp Morris and other Convention leaders disagreed. Boyd's faction left to form the National Baptist Convention of America (the unincorporated convention); the remaining body under Morris incorporated as the National Baptist Convention, USA, Incorporated, to hold clear legal title to its own assets, including the disputed Publishing Board. 2 Finances
Financial Disclosure RegimeNational Baptist Convention USA Inc, one of the largest historically Black Baptist denominations in the United States, is designated as a church by the Internal Revenue Service and is therefore not required to and does not file the annual Form 990 information return that most other tax exempt organizations must submit. ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer records no Form 990 filings of any kind for the organization and states plainly that it is not required to submit tax filings because of its church designation. No consolidated public financial statement for the denomination as a whole is otherwise published. 4 Learn More
A Publishing House Dispute and the Name It Left Behind
The National Baptist Convention USA Incorporated did not begin as an incorporated body, and its own name records the legal fight that made it one. In September 1895, delegates gathered at Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta to merge three existing Black Baptist organizations, the Foreign Mission Baptist Convention, the American National Baptist Convention and the Baptist National Education Convention, into a single National Baptist Convention under president Elias Camp Morris. For two decades it functioned as one body, and under Morris's leadership it built the National Baptist Publishing House in Nashville into the largest Black owned publishing enterprise in the country.
That publishing success became the Convention's breaking point. Richard H. Boyd, who ran the Publishing Board, argued it should operate as an independent entity outside the Convention's financial oversight; Morris and the Convention's other leaders insisted the Board belonged to the whole body. Neither side backed down, and in 1915 Boyd's faction withdrew to form the National Baptist Convention of America, taking the unincorporated name with it. The body that remained under Morris incorporated under state law specifically so that its claim to the disputed publishing assets, and to everything else the Convention held, would rest on clear legal title rather than convention custom. The new legal identity gave the body its present name: the National Baptist Convention, USA, Incorporated. Court battles over the Publishing House itself continued until both Morris and Boyd died in 1921 within months of each other.
The Largest of the Seven Historic Black Baptist Bodies
Elias Camp Morris did not live to see the National Baptist Convention USA Incorporated become what it is today, but the shape he gave it in 1895 still holds: a national convention of Baptist churches that govern themselves. No bishop and no confession binds a member congregation to the national body's decisions, and that congregational independence is why the Convention itself has never taken a binding position on whether women may be ordained. Individual churches decide for themselves. Trudy Trimm became the first woman recorded as an ordained pastor within the Convention in 1965, and women serve today as pastors, deacons and deaconesses in many of its churches, while other member congregations continue to ordain only men.
The Convention's reach in Black American religious and civic life is hard to overstate. C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya's landmark study names it among the seven historic denominations at the core of the Black Church, and by their count and later ones it is the largest of the seven, the single biggest historically Black Baptist body in the country. Joseph H. Jackson led it for twenty nine years, from 1953 to 1982, spanning the entire civil rights era, and T. J. Jemison completed its Baptist World Center headquarters in Nashville in the 1990s. The Convention that resulted from an argument over who controlled a publishing house is, a century later, one of the largest Christian bodies in America built and governed entirely by its own members.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Americas directly: "The National Baptist Convention USA Incorporated is the largest historically Black Baptist body in the United States and one of the seven historic denominations C."
This source names National Baptist Convention of America directly: "Boyd's faction left to form the National Baptist Convention of America, and the remaining body incorporated to hold clear legal title to its own assets, becoming the National Baptist Convention..."
This source names National Baptist Convention USA Incorporated directly: "or same-sex unions, in contrast to the National Baptist Convention USA Incorporated and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which forbid clergy from officiating at ceremonies for same-sex couples."
Belongs to Tradition
Branch Of
Contained In
Classified as historically Black Protestant tradition per Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study; one of Lincoln and Mamiya's seven historic denominations of the Black Church, the tradition's single largest body.
Objects and Practices of This Tradition
The convention's own Articles of Faith, published on its official site, follow the New Hampshire Confession's eighteen article structure, including the two articles John Newton Brown added in 1853, and much of its original wording closely enough that the convention's statement is properly read as an edited version of this confession rather than an independent composition.
Sources
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