In a pathbreaking decision, the Rev. Gina Stewart has been elected as the first woman president of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Society, marking the first time a female has been chosen for the highest post of a Black Baptist organization.
Stewart, the senior pastor of Christ Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, has previously served in vice presidential roles of the missions organization for six years, three as second vice president and three as first vice president.
She was elected Aug. 12 to a three-year term as president, succeeding the Rev. Gregory Jackson to lead the society, which dates to 1897. The organization is named after the Rev. Lott Carey, a formerly enslaved African American man who purchased his freedom and established the first Baptist mission work in Liberia in 1822.
Source: Gina Stewart becomes first woman elected to lead US Black Baptist organization