The person elected the first black man in the No. 2 position of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination didn’t choose to become a Southern Baptist.

Update:
On the first business day of the conventioin, Fred Luter, Jr. was elected as First Vice President, receiving 1,558 votes, or 77 percent. Most observers were surprised when a Deacon at a local Arizona church (First Chinese Baptist of Phoenix) was nominated and received 441 votes, or 23 percent.

By Luter’s account, it just sort of happened.

In 1986, Mr. Luter was hired at the head pastor at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, a Southern Baptist Convention affiliate. Ever since, he has been breaking racial barriers in the predominantly white denomination.

In 1992, he was the first black elected to the executive board of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.. In 2001, he was the first black to preach the convention sermon at the SBC annual meeting.

When the Southern Baptist Convention elects new officers at its annual conference in Phoenix which began Tuesday, the 54-year-old Mr. Luter will be in the running for first vice president. Some prominent Southern Baptist leaders already have said they hope that position will lead to his election as president next year when the 2012 convention is held in his hometown.

Mr. Luter said he doesn’t want to speculate on that.

“I’m a street kid from the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans,” he said in an interview last week. “It’s very humbling. It’s really an honor just to be nominated.”

Technically, Mr. Luter hasn’t been nominated yet. But Danny Akin, president of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., already has announced that he will nominate Mr. Luter.

“To my knowledge, no one has announced to run against him,” Mr. Akin said, “and I would be very surprised if anyone does.”

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