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ANDREW BRYAN was a slave in Savannah, Georgia, who became a Christian while listening to another slave, George Liele, preach on the text “You must be born again.” After Liele left Savannah, Bryan began to preach himself. 

Afraid that slaves who listened to black preachers would rise up in rebellion, Georgia’s plantation owners soon whipped and imprisoned Andrew Bryan. Afterward, he held up his hand and declared that “he would freely suffer death for the cause of Christ.” The slaves under his teaching prayed for their persecutors. 

Bryan’s master was upset at what had been done to Bryan. He gave him the use of one of his barns as a church after Bryan went to court and obtained permission to hold church services. 

In 1788, Bryan bought his freedom. Abraham Marshall, a white minister, and Jesse Peter, a black minister, ordained him on this day 20 January 1788. Bryan founded Bryan Street African Baptist Church. Many whites admired his spunk and attended his sermons, although he had little learning beyond a sound understanding of the Gospel. Few of his members could read or write. 

The resolute soul-winner soon bought the land for a sanctuary and by 1800 his congregation had grown to over seven hundred members. The Bryan Street church became the First Baptist Church of Savannah. It provided Savannah’s first Sunday school for African-Americans, operated by a black man named Henry Francis, whom Bryan had ordained. 

When Bryan died in 1812, he left a legacy of African-American Christianity which is still remembered and admired. He also left his wife a free woman with a home and property to support her.

—Dan Graves

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For more experiences of the Black movement for equality, watch March to Freedom