United American Free Will Baptist Church - the oldest national body of predominantly black Free Will Baptists, also called the United American Free Will Baptist Denomination.

The Free Will Baptist Church in America grew up on two separate fronts - north & south. In the south, the denomination began in 1727 when Paul Palmer started a church in Chowan, North Carolina. The work in the north began with a congregation organized by Benjamin Randall in 1780 at New Durham, New Hampshire. Though they arose independently and there was no organizational connection between them, both taught the doctrines of free grace, free salvation and free will.

Free blacks and black slaves were members of predominantly white Free Will Baptist congregations of the south. African-Americans organized their first separate congregation, Shady Grove Free Will Baptist Church, at Snow Hill, Greene County, North Carolina in 1867. The first annual conference was organized in 1870, and the first association

In 1968, a division brought about a second group of black Free Will Baptists, the United American Free Will Baptist Conference.

Sources

• Encyclopedia of African-American Religions, Larry G. Murphy, et. al., editors
• Encyclopedia of American Religions, J. Gordon Melton, editor
• Baptists Around the World, by Albert W. Wardin, Jr.
• Dictionary of Baptists in America, Bill J. Leonard, editor