BALTIMORE (RNS) — The Rev. Jerry Young, the two-term president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, preached his final annual address as leader of the historically Black denomination as members attending the NBCUSA annual session prepared to vote in what promises to be a fraught election.
On Thursday (Sept. 5), the last day of the annual session at the Baltimore Convention Center, the Baptists were offered just a single candidate for president after it was determined that four others did not meet the qualifications to be considered.
“I know that it’s an unusual election,” Young said in his address to thousands of Baptists. “Whoever heard of having just one candidate on the ballot?”
But he defended the “unusual situation,” saying it did not mean church leadership was at fault. Baptist polity, he explained, calls for a “yes” or “no” vote even when one person is running for a first-term presidency.
“Because it’s unusual and because it’s strange does not mean that somebody did something wrong,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that the board did something wrong.”
Nonetheless, the four men who failed to be qualified have mounted a joint campaign urging a “no” vote for the remaining candidate, the Rev. Boise Kimber, a New Haven, Connecticut, pastor who was found to have received the necessary 100 endorsements from member churches and other NBCUSA entities to qualify to run for president.
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Over the course of the three days of the annual session, as dignitaries — most prominently, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — spoke from the main stage, discussions in private settings turned to the pending election.
In an interview Wednesday, the Rev. Breonus Mitchell Sr., NBCUSA board chair, said he empathizes with the four who are not on the ballot.
“I think their concerns are legit,” he said in an interview with RNS. “This is not against Boise. I think it’s the process that people are upset about and whatever happens, at the end of the day, the process has got to be fixed.”
As part of the annual session of the National Baptist Convention, USA, an evangelism outreach activity was hosted Sept. 4, 2024, in West Baltimore, handing out a variety of items on a street closed to traffic for the afternoon. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks
While Mitchell couldn’t predict the outcome of the vote, he suggested that if the result, expected late Thursday, leaves the denomination without a president, Young could become an interim president. The role may also fall to Vice President-at-Large Fred Campbell or Mitchell himself, he said.
Mitchell said the bylaws are in need of revision because they contain “so much ambiguity.”
Pastor Thomas Morris Sr., chairman of the NBCUSA’s Election Supervisory Commission, said in an earlier interview that many of the other candidates’ endorsements were voided because they came from churches that have been unable to afford their required annual registration with the denomination due to lack of funds, consolidation or closure.
Helen Young, wife of the Rev. Jerry Young, stands next to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on stage during the final day of the National Baptist Convention, USA, annual session on Sept. 5, 2024, in Baltimore. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks
Former NBCUSA President William J. Shaw, who succeeded the Rev. Henry J. Lyons in 1999 after Lyons was imprisoned for misappropriation of funds, chose not to compare that controversy to the current wrangling over the election. “I wouldn’t want to compare them, but it is a critical time,” he said in an interview. “And this convention represents, I think, what is a strong potential of influence in the religious and political climate.”
Jackson, who appeared to be singing along with the hymn playing as she took the stage (with the lyrics “I love to praise him. I love to praise his name”), answered questions from NBCUSA social justice committee chair Bruce Datcher.
Discussing her memoir “Lovely One,” Jackson explained her dissent in the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision that granted former presidents broad immunity from prosecution, saying, “I didn’t think that there should be a separate immunity for presidents.”
Jackson also described how faith, instilled by her late grandmother, had undergirded her personal and professional life. “One of my fondest memories as a kid was the point in the service in her church where people could get up and say whatever they wanted,” said Jackson.
Her grandmother, she recalled, “would stand up when it was her turn and she would say ‘When I think of the goodness of Jesus and all he’s done for me, my soul cries out Hallelujah. I thank God for saving me.’”
Her recollection of her grandmother’s testimony prompted cheers and applause.
The 144th annual session of the National Baptist Convention, USA, wrapped up for the year on Sept. 5, 2024, in Baltimore. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks
Young was credited with aiding the denomination through COVID-19 as well as launching a Youth and Young Adult Auxiliary and fostering external partnerships, such as one with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
On Thursday, USDA Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small cited her department’s work with Young and NBCUSA, including a $1 million grant awarded in 2023 to support projects that provide tree cover in urban areas.
Some attendees representing NBCUSA organizations could be seen Wednesday afternoon engaging in evangelism on a closed block of West Baltimore. Those participating in the street preaching and giveaways — of mattresses, fans, video games, bras, toiletries and food — said it was important for them to be outside the convention hall, away from the discussions of the pending election, and instead helping people as they spread the gospel.
“I think that many times people can lose sight of what is the real vision of church,” said the Rev. Henry P. Davis III, a member of the NBCUSA’s evangelism board and the senior pastor of a church in Maryland’s Washington suburbs. “And the vision of church is really the fact that Jesus did more outside of the temple than inside of the temple. It’s the work outside the temple that’s going to bless inside of the temple.”
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