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[Above: Lott Cary—public domain, colorized by Ann Snyder / CHI archive]

AFRICAN AMERICAN BAPTISTS of the nineteenth century longed to share the gospel in regions where it had never been heard. Out of their slender means, despite enslavement and racial barriers, they raised money and formed missions. One of their earliest missionaries was Lott Cary. Born into slavery, he had earned his own freedom and purchased liberty for his children.

Becoming a preacher and missionary, Cary sailed to Liberia in 1821, sponsored by the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society that he had helped establish. In Liberia he rose to become the acting agent (e.g.: acting governor) of the colony. After a gunpowder explosion cut his life short in 1828, he became a folk hero to Blacks on both sides of the Atlantic. His appeals inspired zeal for mission efforts.

O American Christians! Look this way! come this way! and help, if you cannot come! Send help for the Lord’s sake! help Africa’s sons out of the devil’s bush into the kingdom of God.

Meanwhile American Blacks had united most of their missionary efforts under the National Baptist Convention (NBC). However, not all was well with the NBC’s work. For every twenty-five cents spent in foreign fields seventy-five were spent on overhead at home. Coalitions proved short-lived. Disagreement raged over whether to cooperate with dominant White organizations. A group of reformers thought they had worked out an agreement to manage the work on America’s east coast but NBC leaders rescinded the arrangement.

The reformers declared their independence. Meeting on this day, 16 December 1897, at the Shiloh Baptist church of Washington, DC, they founded the Lott Carey [sic] Foreign Mission Convention. Although the breakoff was received with bitterness by the National Convention, the Lott Carey Convention under the presidency of Rev. C. S. Brown proved itself a reliable and ardent organization.

For years its primary work was in Liberia, but as opportunities and resources became available, it expanded into other countries: Russia, Haiti, South Africa, Zaire, India, Nigeria, and Guyana. In each of these nations, except Guyana, it had to overcome racial prejudice, hatred of Christianity, and/or other forms of hostility.

To stretch its slender resources, the Carey mission cooperated closely with other agencies. Sometimes one agency provided a missionary’s salary while another provided passage and housing. To expand its resources, the Carey mission established women’s auxiliaries and a laymen’s league for support. In order to join forces with the American Baptist Home Mission Society, the Carey work revised its constitution to allow work in the United States and renamed themselves the Lott Carey Baptist Home and Foreign Mission Convention. 

The Lott Carey Baptist Home and Foreign Mission Convention exists to this day.

—Dan Graves

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For more about the church in Africa, see Christian History #79 African Apostles

and Christian History #105 Christianity in Early Africa